Sixteen-year old Ebenezar Suarez got jumped last year by a gang member who mistakenly thought the color of his uniform meant he belonged to a rival gang. In East Oakland, that can be enough to get you beaten up, as Suarez was, or maybe worse.
For the last eight months, Suarez has been learning how to box at the East Oakland Boxing Association at the corner of Permain and 98th Street – an industrial part of town flowing with trucks and runoff traffic from the freeway. His father is pleased with the decision; in fact, it was his idea.
Ebenezar’s father, Efrain Suarez, wanted his son to have a safe place to go after school. There had been some anxiety that Ebenezar was being courted by neighborhood gangs.
Mr. Suarez’ concern is shared by many Oakland parents who worry about their kids hanging out in the parks and streets after school.
Working out with coach Rahul Lagura, “keeps me from doing something bad with my friends,” Suarez said. The young boxer knows guys who rob houses and cars, and has seen little kids selling drugs on the corner. He is slightly surprised at how young they are.
There have been 142 homicides this year and that has heightened the fear of being hit by a stray bullet, or having a bad encounter with one of the local gangs, “Border Brothers” or the “Norteños.”
The East Oakland Boxing Association -- founded 18 years ago by former Golden Gloves champion, Stanley Garcia -- is one of the projects funded by that Measure. Garcia, 66, with salt and pepper hair, a doughy nose, and a gruff voice, understands the allure of street crime, having grown up in one of East Oakland’s rougher neighborhoods. “I remember looking up to the kids who just got outta jail,” he said. “They had girls and were getting all kinds of attention.”
Babe’s Gym of Oakland pulled him away from that scene and turned his life around, he said. Boxing required discipline; there was no time to get into trouble. After he retired, Garcia wanted to offer something similar to a new generation of kids facing the old risks of violence and jail.
“They don’t want trouble; they just want attention,” he said.
Sometimes, however, they have no choice. Garcia recalled one young boy who was forced to fight in the street. His mother was a junkie who, for cash, performed oral sex on a classmate. The classmate came to school the next day bragging. “He had to fight him,” Garcia said, “because his mother turned a trick for money.”
“I’m a coach, but more a mentor,” said Rahul Lagura, 37, one of the gym’s two coaches and a former drug counselor and literacy tutor. “The boxing is a lure,” he said. It attracts the kids but there’s a lot of academic work that takes place here, along with lessons in communication and anger management.
Lagura’s time is stretched as young men and boys vie for his attention. He showed Jonathan Mendoza, 13, how to punch “through” the heavy bag.
Later, Lagura held the bag steady for one of the more senior fighters, Darryl Hughes, 18. Hughes, fast on his feet, short dreadlocks misting sweat into the air, circled the bag. The pop-pop of his double right jab resounded over and over again. It is a punch he will ground into instinct through repetition.
On the other side of the gym, contenders suited up in padded helmets for two one-minute rounds marked by tired punches and evasive maneuvers. Few of the fighters here have developed the endurance and focus for a real bout -- that will come with time.
About 20 kids a day come through the gym -- an old warehouse filled with soft light, laughter, and the screech of the above-ground BART train. In the open layout, there are four heavy bags, two speed bags, a sparring cushion, jump ropes, and the ring.
“They can learn the art of boxing to expand their expression,” said Lagura, speaking over the rattle of rafters that echo fists on the heavy bag. He estimates that the gym has directly or indirectly helped thousands of kids over the years by providing adult role models, teaching basic self-defense skills, and simply giving young people a physical refuge from the dangers of urban life.
One of the most important measures of success in this gym is not knockouts, but simply the presence of young kids. If they are here, Lagura said, then they are not out on the street where the pull of violence is close at hand. This is particularly important after school.
Sandy Taylor is the manager of the Oakland Fund for Children and Youth that sprang from Measure M, and helps to fund the East Oakland Boxing Association. The Fund uses a rating system based on effectiveness and client satisfaction to determine which programs receive money.
Those numeric evaluations are useful for making some assessments, she said, but in certain cases, like that of the boxing gym, a more important measure may be the mark it leaves on individual lives.
There are very few, if any, other youth programs serving the area around 98th Street, Taylor said. “The real world for young people in Oakland right now is risky… You don’t get them all year; sometimes they’re in and out, so you try and touch them while you’ve got them.”
The ultimate proof of success, Taylor said “are the stories you hear, about what made a difference in their lives.”
Every once in a while, someone comes in to say hello to his or her old coach. One former participant, now 25 years old and working in a good position with a bank told Garcia, “If it wasn’t for you Stanley… who knows.”
Garcia told the story of another young man who returned to say ‘thanks’. Garcia said he asked him what the thanks was for, and the young man explained “‘When I was in the joint, the only thing that made me happy was thinking about this place.’”