Lennox Lewis launches local boxing camp for underprivileged
Lennox Lewis and wife announce July dates for week that will also promote character building
KITCHENER — Lennox Lewis is giving back to the city that helped launch his ascent to the top of the boxing world.
The former undisputed world heavyweight champion, flanked by his wife Violet Lewis, paid a visit to the Waterloo Regional Boxing Academy on Tuesday to detail plans for a July 23-29 camp for underprivileged youth.
The League of Champions summer boxing camp is open to 80 boys and girls, ages nine to 17, and will include transportation to the academy from one of five Kitchener community centres in addition to meals and training.
“We’ve already had requests for other locations, but Lennox was adamant that before we went into any other locations, we had to make sure that Kitchener started and that the model was here so we could continue,” said Violet Lewis, who has a master’s degree in social work and is co-creator of the Lennox Lewis League of Championships Foundation.
The program will cost about $25,000 to run, said Rick Cade of the Waterloo Regional Boxing Academy, but campers won’t be asked to pay a nickel. Sponsors will be found to foot the bill, said Cade, which includes a catering bill of about $17,000 for the week.
Applications can be made online in about two weeks at locfoundation.org.
And previous boxing experience is not required.
Lennox Lewis said the camp will return to Kitchener every summer for at least the next five years.
Lewis staged his first League of Champions camp in Jamaica last year and said it was a huge success. He will play an active role in the Kitchener camp and will be joined daily by 1988 Canadian Olympian Eggerton Marcus, who won silver in Seoul in the middleweight division. Lewis won gold in the super heavyweight division at the same Olympics, defeating future world champion Riddick Bowe in the final.
Lewis and Cade trained at the same time under legendary Kitchener boxing coach Arnie Boehm, and both emphasize the upcoming camp goes far beyond boxing. According to a media release, it is dedicated to inspiring the “next generation of champions to affect positive change by instilling the belief that success is achieved through sacrifice, discipline, motivation, dedication to hard work, and believing in oneself.”
“I remember the guidance (I received) and I want to give back and help young kids be the best they can be,” said Lennox Lewis.
“We engage in boxing, but our aim is to make sure that our participants become successful in whatever career they choose,” added Violet Lewis.
Cade looked on as a large group of young boxers worked out prior to the Lewises’ arrival and joked how many of them were sticking around to see the former champion, although many admitted to knowing little or nothing about him.
“It’s funny because they all know who Mike Tyson is,” said Cade. “When I tell them he beat Mike Tyson, they say ‘no way, no one beat Mike Tyson.’’’
The 52-year-old Lewis retired from boxing in 2004 as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, possessing the World Boxing Association, World Boxing Council, International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Organization belts. More than 14 years later, no heavyweight champion has been able to duplicate that feat.
He made his exit with a record of 42-2-1. And his final fight was a sixth-round TKO of Vitali Klitschko in Los Angeles on June. 21, 2003. The previous June, in Memphis, he recorded an eighth-round knockout of Tyson.
Staff at all five Kitchener community centres — Paulander, Victoria Hills, Country Hills, Chandler Mowat and Chicopee — will help identify candidates for the camp. Additional camps are planned for the United States and United Kingdom.