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News, 1 of 6: Englewood Boxing Club Teaches Life Lessons

By Bill Healy on Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Sally Hazelgrove was walking up the stairs at Copernicus Elementary School in West Englewood last spring when a young boy, who looked to be in second or third grade, shouted for her: “Ms. Sally!” Though she has no official title at the school, she is a familiar sight to many of the teachers and students there.

The boy was near tears and Hazelgrove asked him what was wrong. He explained that he’d gotten into a fight with another boy in his class and it had left him feeling upset. She called the other student over and within minutes had them apologizing to each other.

 

“I consider myself a behavioral coach,” Hazelgrove tells me later. A few years ago, after asking kids what sport they most wanted access to, Hazelgrove taught herself to box and launched Restoring the Path a boxing club for boys in the West Englewood neighborhood.

The Local Initiatives Support Corporation provided a $20,000 seed grant to support the program.

The boys in her club range in age from 9 to 24 years old. Hazelgrove asks the older boys to act as mentors to the younger ones. And though she has three young kids at home, Hazelgrove thinks of all the kids in the program as part of her extended family.

Hazelgrove goes out of her way to take on the toughest cases. “I understand them well,” she says. She was the black sheep of her family growing up. At 15 she dropped out of high school and ran away from home. Now she preaches to her boys about the importance of listening. “The number one criteria for boxing is obedience,” Hazelgrove says. “You have to keep going back in the ring.”

The program is significant because it give impressionable young men a positive alternative.

She says the gangs which plague West Englewood provide their members with a sense of belonging and empowerment.

So Harzelgrove tries to fulfill those same needs plus impart to her boxing group the importance of unconditional love and respect towards each other.

Isiah Cook, a seventh grader at Copernicus, has been boxing with Hazelgrove’s group for a year and a half. Since he started with her he’s had 10 fights and won nine of them. He says Restoring the Path has taught him “how to be off the street and stop being bad.” And “how to keep my hands up and throw hooks.”

Hazelgrove has cultivated a strong bond with the boys and their families.

She goes to their homes frequently and takes them to church on Sundays at St. Sabina. Spiritual development is an important part of her club. She believes that going to church gives the boys stability and teaches them how to be still and focus. And it’s what drives Hazelgrove: “Everything is for my reward in heaven,” she says.

 Hazelgrove knows the families of her boys intimately. She goes to their homes

frequently and takes them to church on Sundays at St. Sabina. Spiritual development is an important part of her club. She believes that going to church gives the boys stability and teaches them how to be still and focus. And it’s what drives Hazelgrove: “Everything is for my reward in heaven,” she says.

For all her successes, Hazelgrove can get frustrated. She wishes she had a physical space in West Englewood where kids could box. For now she squishes her boys into a van and drives to St. Margaret of Scotland Church, on 99^th Street, several miles from Englewood. There are about two dozen boys in the program but more than 150 kids on a waiting list.

Her immediate goal is to be able to add ten more kids. There are a lot of girls who want her to start a female boxing club too. But first Hazelgrove needs money and support.

If she’s worried about finding the money, Hazelgrove doesn’t show it. She knows how to fight after all.

“Boxing is just like life,” Hazelgrove says. “You get knocked down but pretty soon you learn to see what’s coming at you and you dodge those blows.”