Mateen Boxing Club: Offering Youths a Chance in Life Through Boxing

Exclusive interview by Marc Anthony

“Boxing instills core values.” – James Marzano

“Mateen Boxing Club really makes a difference in the community.”- Mel Walker, Owner of GRIMZ GYM, INC

Boxing has many wonderful people helping in some form or another in the community. We at RSR have featured on many occasions those wonderful people who use boxing to inspire, help or motivate others. Today, we take a moment to discuss Mateen Boxing Club which has a long history of creating champions and helping the youth. Located in Northern California and helping kids develop life skills, they are putting on their 2nd Fight night in the west show this July 30th at 3:00 PM.

James Marzano of the Mateen Boxing Club chats with RSR and the future of helping kids and developing future champions.

MA: Can you give us a brief history of the Mateen Boxing Club?

Mateen was originally the former coach of the Police athletic league and he has been doing this for about 28 years. From there, he started up his own gym years ago.

MA: What got you involved in helping youth?

Growing up I didn’t have a mother or father, I was raised by a very elderly lady. I know now what I needed then, at 35 years old you make a lot of choices. I got involved with Mateen because he is an amazing leader who can reach these kids when nobody else can. That pulled me to him ecause of how successful he is and how he only breeds, so to speak, champions. He has pulled kids away from some pretty hard lifestyles. I feel it’s my calling to help these kids in any way that I can. If it’s from giving them water, to hitting mitts with them or just sitting with them on the bleachers and listening to them. I feel I am giving back to them.

MA: Can you give us a few stories of kids who have been helped through boxing?

Oh yeah defiantly, there are quite a few kids that are from our area and they are from bad neighborhoods. We pull them away from the drugs, the gangs, the violence and we give them an outlet. We have given them outlets to have somebody to talk to. Have somebody to show them the positive things in life. We lead by example. There are a couple of individual kids that have come in as hard gang bangers, so to speak and they have found that there are better ways to live life. We show them that it’s better to be a contributing citizen to society. Some of the kids used to smoke weed and drink every day. Here they are in the program for years and they don’t do that anymore.

MA: What are some of your most memorable moments in working with kids?

There isn’t a specific moment, but it would be how they can train their butts off and hop in the ring, win or lose. If they do get a loss they hold their heads up high and they go back to the gym – go back to the drawing board. They become aware of where they need to adapt or what they need to work harder on. Whether its jabs or listing to their corner. Whatever the case may be, every kid I hear from their own mouths is “That’s okay we will get them next time.”

I am so amazed to hear that from these kids nine on up. It gives me motivation! If they can do it so can adult athletes.

MA: This is your second fight night that is scheduled for July 30th at 3pm?

Yes!

MA: What is the process to start the first fight night?

It was fairly difficult because in a down economy, we all know it takes money to put on these shows. And since it’s a down economy… recession whatever you want to call it. It takes sponsors to put on these shows. Whether it’s a little mom and pop Taqueria or something as big as Title or Ringside. It takes sponsors and it takes giving to put the smiles on these kids’ faces which these events do. Because of the economy there are times where we feel that oh my God are we going to be able to do this and put this event on for these families and for these kids? Or are we going to have to walk away? But our sponsors have stepped forward and said no this is very important for us. This is very important for our youth the future leaders of tomorrow. They say let’s stand together and make this happen.

MA: In what way has boxing helped these kids?

My family comes from a boxing background my grandfather has been a champion. I boxed in the military. Boxing instills core values. Core values are kind of a case by case basis per coach and program. The Core Values that are instilled are Sportsmanship, Integrity, Honesty, Respect, and Commitment.

MA: What do you want to address that I might have missed?

Well, I want to address that boxing in general is an outlet for our youth and it teaches them these core values. The reality today, you see it on the news is our youth is struggling because they are being influenced by drugs, negative people, and negative things like gangs who are killing each other. It takes programs like this to reach out to our kids and keep them away from that and it’s important for people to get involved in programs like these that are not for profit that keep our youth thinking positive.

I also want to mention that we have partnered up with another organization VCSN (Veteran Community Support Network) they are also a nonprofit organization that we have partnered up with and raising money for both our boxing programs and the VCSN.

You would be surprised how many veterans that come back from Iraq from the war or even non war veterans. They need these outlets also. Not only our youth, but our veterans, so we have partnered up to support them, whether it is resources or counseling or helping them maneuver through the VSCN system. I am a disabled combat VET myself. I am affiliated with VSCN and I figured it would be perfect since a few of our fighters are Iraq VETS. All the gyms in Sacramento I have talked to all have veterans in there.

MA: Blended in nicely then.

It did. So we have to help our youth and help our VETS.

MA: Any final words that you want RSR readers to know?

I wanted RSR readers to know that they we have kids from Mateen Boxing doing the Olympic finals try outs,

MA: Wow, that’s pretty cool

Yeah, I wanted everyone to know that this is normal from Mateen Boxing Club. Adam Fiel, a fabulous fighter who has fought internationally with the Philippine team and actually won recently in Cincinnati, Ohio. They were out there for the Olympic try outs and he has made it to the semifinals from a recent win.

MA: Exciting times. What weight class is he fighting at?

Adam is 132. The kid is really good. He has been able to train out there in Vegas with Nonito Donaire. He boxed before with the Philippine team. This is just the success that Mateen Boxing Club makes champions. Whether we pull them away from the streets and show them the right path or we pull them from wherever the hell they are pulled from and champions are made.