Teddy’s in their corner
TEDDY ATLAS is in a fightin’ mood.
Striding into the Flatbush Gardens Boxing Gym on Brooklyn’s E. 34th St., Teddy scowls even though an astounding seven of eight of his young fighters have just returned from Toledo, Ohio, with their coveted national Police Athletic League titles.
“Don’t get me wrong; I’m thrilled about what these kids have accomplished,” Atlas says.
“That national PAL tournament is a qualifying event for the Olympic trials. All from one little gym that wasn’t even here until a few years ago when a former narcotics detective named Pat Russo opened it to fill the hellhole left by the PAL closing his Sunset Park boxing gym and all their other boxing programs in the city — which is a total, shameful disgrace and a disservice to kids and the citizens of this city, because when the PAL closes boxing gyms, you send more kids out to join gun-slinging gangs instead of learning to box from retired cops and firefighters. That p----- me the hell off, yeah.”
Like I said, Atlas is fightin’ mad. And madly dedicated.
Besides distributing money to the sick, injured, destitute and luckless, his Dr. Theodore A. Atlas Foundation also spends $150,000 a year to keep two boxing gyms open in Brooklyn and Staten Island.
Two more — one in Brownsville and another in the Berry Houses on Staten Island — are awaiting final city certification.
“I’m p.o.’d because we desperately need help so we can give help,” Atlas says. “The Dow is almost 14,000. We need just one big megamillion corporate sponsor to write a $150,000 annual, write-off-able check for these gyms for these kids.”
“There’s no way to measure how many violent crimes these gyms prevent,” says Russo, who has trained many guys he once collared as a narc.
“We only keep stats on crimes committed. But a kid in a boxing gym run by cops is on his way to a life lived by the rules, instead of life for murder. A citizen instead of a criminal. A taxpayer instead of a tax burden. One of our fighters from these streets became a cop this year. Another became a U.S. Marine. A third, a girl, is joining the U.S. Navy.”
“Every kid who trains here free of charge has to show me or Patty a report card,” says Atlas. “If they’re truants or failing, we intervene. Marisa Venier, our licensed public school teacher, tutors them. If the fighter doesn’t at least try, doesn’t pull up his saggy-a-- pants, wear his hat straight, go to school, do his homework, pass his grades, they don’t train here.”
Atlas challenges all our politicians to visit one of his packed gyms after school lets out. “I’d like all candidates for city office to come sit through a Boxing Saves Lives class that Pat Russo and I will teach, where they will learn how boxing can save our city streets from gun violence. How a kid learning self-discipline achieves self-respect, which translates into respect for others and makes them responsible workers, husbands, and most importantly, good fathers. That’s the most important title any guy can ever earn. That’s how you save a city.”
Teddy lives at that vital intersection where “the sweet science” meets social science, and instead of being another moaner with no solutions, he does something every single day to make this a better city with these gyms.
And with the Dr. Atlas Foundation.
When Teddy was a boy, he’d tag along with his medical doctor father as this saintly man, who built a hospital for the poor on Staten Island, made free house calls all around the forgotten borough. Dr. Atlas would exchange a bottle of antibiotics for a jar of homemade preserves, a bottle of cough medicine for a cup of coffee.
“Many times the old people were only suffering from loneliness,” Teddy says. “And all they needed was 15 minutes of company from someone who cared to get them out of bed.”
Those selfless life lessons made a lasting impression on young Teddy.
Sixteen years ago, after steering Mike Tyson and Michael Moorer to heavyweight crowns and a successful career as a TV boxing commentator, Teddy started a charitable foundation in his father’s name.
Teddy assembled boxing greats and other sports celebs to meet and greet paying guests at an annual Staten Island Hilton fund-raising dinner “to help the same kind of forgotten people my dad always remembered.”
This year, the dinner will be held Nov. 15 at the Staten Island Hilton Garden Hotel, where for $200 and up, guests can meet Knicks legends Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley and John Starks, Giants great Phil Simms, NFL Hall of Famer Sterling Sharpe, the entire cast of CBS’s “Golden Boy,” and actors Chi McBride, Theo James, Bonnie Somerville, Holt McCallany, Tony Sirico and Stella Maeve.
This year, donations allowed Teddy to help Diana from Middle Village, Queens, whose husband was just laid off and whose son, Steven, 14, who has cerebral palsy, needed a special van to transport him to doctors’ visits.
Diana located a $15,000 2002 Dodge Caravan for sale and pieced together $9,000 from private fund-raising.
“We gave her the last $5,000,” Teddy says. “That kid, those struggling parents — they deserve a helping hand. The big megamillion charities whose overpaid executives drive around in Town Cars bragging about how three cents of every dollar they raise goes to research don’t help kids like Steven. He doesn’t need research right now. He needs a van to get to the doctor. We made sure he got it.”
The Dr. Atlas Foundation also helped a single woman named Anne, a mid-level Wall Street administrator until she got laid off in her mid-50s. “At her age, no one would hire her on Wall Street, so she went back to school to become a licensed home-care attendant,” Teddy says. “She worked a $10-an-hour job as an assistant home care aide. Here was a woman with no family trying to reinvent herself in midlife with school and a low-paying but important job. When she fell behind in rent, we gave her $1,200 to help make up the arrears because she has guts and heart. Between school and work, she’s on a 24/7 comeback, and she will spend her life caring for the elderly, contributing to society.”
“All these people we help are fighters, too,” Teddy says. “They’re fighting for dignity, fighting for sick kids, fighting for a second chance, fighting to save their own lives. We work their corner. But we need people to come to our fund-raiser, take a $100 raffle on a 2012 Ford Focus, bid in our sports memorabilia auctions. It gets tougher every year. Sorry, that’s why I’m a little p.o.’d today.”
For more information, visit dratlasfoundation.com, call (718) 980-7037 or email alexiv@dratlasfoundation.com
dhamill@nydailynews.com