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Lonnie Adams is a former gang member and a Southern California Golden Gloves Champion. Photos: Jason Ruiz<\/em><\/p>\n Lonnie Adams is an imposing figure, regardless what neighborhood you come from. His six-foot-six-inch body frames nearly 200 pounds of lean muscle. His well-defined jaw suggests that it is most likely made of iron or granite, not glass. Tattoos sprawl across his chest onto his right arm which is connected to a right hand that has ended all 17 fights he\u2019s won inside a boxing ring, culminating in him being crowned Southern California\u2019s Golden Gloves Champion earlier this year.<\/p>\n But it was the fight outside the ring that nearly KO\u2019d Adams long before he laced up a pair of gloves. He grew up as a ward of the state, bobbing and weaving his way through foster homes before spending five years in a facility in Pasadena while most kids were preparing to enter high school. There, Adams said, was a world of medications, confinement and violence between children who knew nothing but disconnect.<\/p>\n \u201cIt probably simmered down by now, but when I was there it was crazy,\u201d Adams said. \u201cThere were kids killing themselves and all types of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n By his early teens he was finally released to family members in Long Beach. Although he was out of protective services, Adams\u2019 new home was rife with gang activity. He explained that many of his family members are well-known Crips, one of the most violent street gangs in Long Beach, and because of that, it was easy for him to fall back into trouble.<\/p>\n Normally young men of his stature who grow up within earshot of MLK and Pacific Coast Highway are funneled into Poly High and put on a fast track to a Division I athletic scholarship. But between sacking quarterbacks on the field, this former defensive end toed the line between \u201cenforcing\u201d for his local set and being a student athlete.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t until Adams discovered the sport of boxing, or more particularly, the people at Jackrabbit Boxing and Fitness<\/a>, that he felt he was a crossroads of his life. He had grown tired of winning street fights and seeing friends in their \u201clast suits\u201d.<\/p>\n He said the decision to step away from the gang life and into the ring is not only one that transformed him, but one that will ensure he sees his 25th birthday.<\/p>\n \u201cI just sat back and said \u2018man, what do I want to do?\u2019\u201d Adams said. \u201cDo I really want to take this seriously or do I want to mess around? I got tired of giving people HBO shows on the street and not getting paid for it. People do this all day everyday, sacrifice their life for it. So once I started boxing, it was serious.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s kids like Lonnie that Ivan Sylve hopes to intercept before they hit that fork in the road that could land them in jail, or worse, if they make the wrong turn. The former Jordan High defensive back, who admittedly took his own talents for granted, said his story is very much the same as many of the kids he\u2019s trying to help stay off the streets by keeping them in the gym.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I didn\u2019t have my dad there, I took a lot of stuff for granted,\u201d Sylve said. \u201cI took my talent for granted and I just thought my talent was always going to be there. I knew I was good but I didn\u2019t know what it took to actually sustain and surpass what I had.\u201d<\/p>\n When he first started training his son, Ashton, at the gym that would eventually become the Jackrabbit, he began to notice a large number of youths in the neighborhood who had nothing to do. As he held the mits for his son, they would hang out and watch.<\/p>\n He began to land amateur boxing fights for Ashton and Sylve said others began to take notice. Soon, the gym started its metamorphosis from a hangout spot to something more serious.<\/p>\n However, for some kids, including the ones thad had become Ashton\u2019s audience, the cost of membership was a huge barrier, one that Sylve refused to allow to block them out.<\/p>\n \u201cI told them have your parents fill out that form and I\u2019ll pay for it,\u201d Sylve said. \u201cIt kept them out of trouble. They were known as bad kids; they\u2019ve been in here for about two and a half years now and their boxing potential is out the roof.\u201d<\/p>\n About a year ago, Sylve made the transition from patron to owner and vowed to make the gym a community hub where families could escape the violence that has historically gripped this part of the city. He also made a commitment to use the values learned in the ring to help shape the young men in the community. So, he initiated the Jackrabbit Boxing Academy for youth. <\/p>\n He envisioned the academy as the de-facto high school boxing team, since no schools in the area have boxing as a sport. He wanted to simultaneously draw better athletes away from more traditional sports like basketball, football and baseball and bring them to center of the boxing ring. But although it isn\u2019t affiliated with any school, Sylve wanted to incorporate accountability in the classroom and the community as a prerequisite to training at the Jackrabbit Academy. He wanted his fighters working just as hard in the classroom as they did in the gym.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone knows boxing as a dummy sport, a poverty sport so I want to change that,\u201d Sylve said. \u201cWith the boxing academy you have to keep a certain grade point average to stay in boxing. I wanted to bring education back into boxing and not have that stigma that all boxers are dumb.\u201d<\/p>\n The Army veteran said the gym has always been a fixture in the community he has called home his entire life. Back then, it was known as William\u2019s Gym, and he was forbidden by his mother from going to it because of that stigma attached to the sport. Back then, nobody knew it was there, where it still sits, tucked behind the shopping center on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.<\/p>\n The secretive entrance to the roll-up style doors off Lewis Street provides a safe haven for not only the fighters, but their families to escape.<\/p>\n Sylve has embraced the idea of the gym being that family hub, taking it to the point where he\u2019s even employed one of his youngest boxer\u2019s father to work the front desk. Prior to that, Sylve said the father was non-existent in young Gionvanni\u2019s life, but because of boxing, they have a common ground that has helped bring the family back together.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing over here, being in this sanctuary, we really don\u2019t see what goes on out there,\u201d Sylve said. \u201cPeople don\u2019t really bother us back here. I hear stories, or I read the newspaper or Giovanni comes in in the morning and say \u201cso and so was found dead in the ally.\u201d Right here, this area is totally different than out there.\u201d<\/p>\n Head boxing coach Joe Zanders agreed that in this case, boxing serves a greater purpose than fitness and competition. Zanders has coached Olympic boxers in the past so he knows what it takes to make a great fighter, but living in this community for a lifetime has also taught him what makes a great man.<\/p>\n Sitting beneath a framed picture of Muhammad Ali, Zanders gazes into the empty ring at Jackrabbit and describes his whole-person approach to coaching. He peppers in life lessons into footwork exercises and shadowboxing sessions. He asks for updates about schoolwork and how they\u2019re getting along with their teachers.<\/p>\n Boxing, he said, is a means to an end. It provides a focus and an opportunity to grow into a good citizen through hard work and dedication, which for most people, is all that will remain at the end of their stints in the sport.<\/p>\n Like most everyone else at the gym, Zanders volunteers his time because it\u2019s important for him to take a part in changing what\u2019s going on in his community. He said he\u2019d been on the opposite side of intervention far too many times while he worked as a peace officer for the California Department of Juvenile Justice. He\u2019d seen so much failure that he started to believe it was a way of life.<\/p>\n He doesn\u2019t have a son at the gym but he understands that in some cases he serves as a father figure because there isn\u2019t one at home. Zanders said because everyone is a product of their environment, whether he was a father or not, as an adult he had to take responsibility for his surroundings because of what it could mean for the future.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing in an environment like this, it gives them a chance to focus on their goals, and because they want to pursue this they\u2019re willing to do what it takes to change their life,\u201d Zanders. \u201cAt the end of the day, if you can get their attention enough and get them to believe that they can change their life through this process, in spite of all the failures they see around, then it\u2019s a great thing.\u201d<\/p>\n But at the end of the day, providing that sanctuary costs money. There are travel expenses for busing fighters to tournaments, registration fees and the gear needed to train and compete. There is also the expense of the tutors that are so integral to keeping up Sylve\u2019s mandate that his fighters be students in and out of the ring.<\/p>\n Sylve estimates that he\u2019s poured about $75,000 of his own money into these expenses. To put it bluntly, \u201cit\u2019s getting real tough,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n With his dedication to the kids that call his gym home beginning to affect his family finances at home, Sylve has started a crowd sourcing effort<\/a> to help offset the expenses. He hopes to raise roughly $200,000 dollars. This money would go toward monthly membership fees for the fighters he allows to train for free and toward tutoring and replacing aging gear.<\/p>\n \u201cFailure is not an option for me,\u201d Sylve said. \u201cIf we don\u2019t reach the goal, there will be hard choices that will have to be made, but we won\u2019t fail. But a lot of these kids, it\u2019s hard to say, but they couldn\u2019t be here. We can\u2019t take all the kids we want to, and some of the kids with all this talent but no support at home, they\u2019ll be right back on the street.\u201d<\/p>\n ![\"IvanCorner1\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/IvanCorner1.JPG\")
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