Her intense training keeps her focused, and winning comes naturally by keeping her edge and focus. “Boxing is hard, and you must be dedicated to it,” she told The Leader. “ And she intends to keep working hard in pursuit of that goal. “I want to try and make the team,” she said in a previous article in The Leader. Lexus told The Leader last year that she watched her cousins' box as an eight-year-old and decided she wanted to do that.Īnd she’s been doing it well ever since, and she can taste the Olympic glory. Her uncle and coach, Perez, himself a former boxer, coaches her niece, and judging by the results, he seems to know what he’s doing. I’m thankful for all their sacrifices to see me succeed, especially my uncle and dad.” “I’m very happy for me and my family and my coaches. “I felt I had accomplished something in my life for me and my coaches,” said Lexus when contacted by The Leader. You have to have faith.”Īnd then he goes back to punching the speed bag.Lexus show here in her best fighting stance.Īvenal’s Jose Ramirez from Avenal, a top-notch professional fighter now, was the latest local athlete to attend the Olympic Games. And Jordan says he wants to become a professional one day. But Jordan and Jaylene are getting to know quite a few. How many people you know who play football? Who doesn’t want to play football? How many cheerleaders do you know? How many softball players do you know? But how many boxers do you know?”įor most of us, not many. “Coz I mean how many people do you know who play basketball? Tons. “That’s what makes it so great,” he says. “These two people go at it and test their will and they’re going at it toe to toe and sweating and they’re tired and they keep going and then some, you know sometimes you’re on the other side of the hill but when you make it up top and you actually get that, you know, that kick, I mean I think that’s what drives them,” Trejo says. Kids who qualify compete in Olympic style boxing where the rounds are short. The boxing club participates in tournaments all over the state including a recent one in Compton. And we finally convinced his mother to let him out and he was blown away and now he’s in the Army.” “I’ve gone to just local towns 30 miles away, and I had a kid that had never even been out of Avenal, not even to go out to eat. You know, some of these kids get to go to places that, some of these kids have never even been out of Avenal,” he says. “It’s a good place for these kids to come and do something positive and see things they wouldn’t see if they didn’t have this gym. He says the boxing club opens doors in surprising ways. Michael Trejo is the other volunteer coach who shows up every day to work with sometimes dozens of kids including two of his own. “It’s not like a devil kind of anger, it’s just like an anger that most people have,” she says. And hitting a punching bag calms her down. She says boxing has improved many things in her life. “When I first came in I thought it was just gonna be like bags and that’s it but then I saw the ring, and I just thought ‘wow that’s big.’” Jaylene says the boxing club was not what she expected. “My strong hand is just going into like the punch and it just feels like amazing to me,” she says. “I do a jab, and then I move my feet, and then I do a hook into the stomach,” she says, practicing on a punching bag.īefore Jaylene started boxing, she says she was really nervous about it. Jordan’s sparring partner is another 9 year old, Jaylene Granados. Coach Ray spots him on the bench pressĪlice Daniel Coach Ray helps Jordan do bench presses “So I just practiced and practiced, and I got the rhythm I was liking,” he says. “The first time I did it, I didn’t really know and I would hit it once and the second time I would hit it, I would miss,” he says.īut Coach Ray Knight, one of two volunteer coaches at the boxing club, showed him what to do. Jordan rotates through different exercises including punching the speed bag. “So what I do my whole day is basically go to school, get picked up, chill out at my house till I come over here and when I come over here, whole different story, work hard,” he says. Olympic and professional boxer Jose Ramirez grew up boxing in this gym. It’s a place for kids to train and to stay busy after school. The boxing club is funded by the Police Activities League and run by volunteers. Alice Daniel Jordon Zavala wants to be a professional boxer.
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