Friend to youths moves on

Tomorrow will come and go, TGIF, but for John D’Antonio, the day will be anything but ordinary. When he locks the office door behind him at 5 p. m., he won’t be opening it again on Monday. His 14-year tenure as Albany’s Recreation Commissioner will come to an end.

If you’re a boxing fan and a believer in young people, that should concern you a little, and I’ll tell you why, but first some history.

In late 1999, D’Antonio presented then Mayor Jerry Jennings with an idea that many in the Common Council found completely nuts. “I had been looking around for the right building and found the old Hibernian Hall on Quail Street. They wanted $95,000 and I could get it for $65,000.”

But the cost wasn’t the issue; it was his idea. D’Antonio didn’t want space for an after-school yoga program, and he didn’t want somewhere to hold ping-pong tournaments. He wanted a boxing gym for kids, a real one with an annual budget and a full time trainer. It would be the only entirely municipally funded youth boxing gym in the country. This is a community plagued by youth violence, argued Council members, and you want to teach them to fight? Forget it.

He had walked headlong into the stereotype: boxing teaches violence. That’s a hard one to dislodge. I worked in the juvenile justice field for 30 years and let me tell you, nobody “gets it” there either. And that is a shame.

As Angelo Dundee once observed: “When is the last time you were in a boxing gym and a fight broke out?” Things aren’t always what they seem.

Properly managed, a youth boxing program is a powerful youth development/ delinquency prevention initiative. Good people, strong people, boxing people must be at the helm. D’Antonio is all of those. He and Coach Jerrick Jones who heads the gym, have been perfect for the job.

It’s easy to spot kids when they get into trouble, but much harder to notice those who don’t when something better enters their lives. So Albany’s Quail Street Gym has always been under- appreciated. It’s why one of the biggest plealOCal

sures I’ve had writing about this sport was my column on Coach Jones and the Gym in the September 2009 issue of Ring Magazine. They could never get enough ink as far as I’m concerned.

“I’d have to fight for the gym every year during budget time,” D’Antonio said. “Many on the Council don’t understand. Boxing is about discipline, focus, respect for yourself and others. It’s the opposite of the stereotype.”

The same huge sign has hung at the entrance since opening day: “No insubordination, smoking, profanity, etc.” And let me tell you, the rules are enforced.

I remember talking with Jones a few years ago when the noisy gym, filled with 50 kids, suddenly grew quiet except for the booming voice of Assistant Coach Cory Landy. He was escorting a young man out of the building. The kid’s offense: cursing.

What will happen to him now? I asked Jones. “He’ll be back, apologizing. He wants to be here.” Enough said.

“I refer kids there all the time,” said Stephon Frost, Home- School Coordinator at Albany’s Hackett Middle School and a former undefeated middleweight. “They may be drawn at first by the idea of self- defense but then other things take hold, the discipline, the sense of belonging, self-respect, honor. They begin to feel like they’re among family. I see the results in their school behavior.”

When at-risk kids show up the first time, they meet a decidedly different set of role models from those outside the gym doors. They meet young men like 20-year old Abraham Nova, who has as good a chance as anyone in the country for a spot on the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team. well as in stopping the run, Collins is likely to be on the field plenty when the Patriots (13-4) visit the Denver Broncos (14-3) in the AFC championship game Sunday. He might never have gotten his chance if outside linebacker Jerod Mayo had stayed healthy. Collins played just 52 defensive snaps in the Patriots’ first six games. But Mayo tore a chest muscle in a 30-27 win over New Orleans “Boxing humbles you down,” Nova said. “It calls for so much sacrifice, you have to earn everything.” Nova’s also deeply religious. Both his parents are Pentecostal ministers.

And they meet two-time Silver Gloves Champion Shamar Canal, or Thomas Blumenfeld, who last week earned a spot on the U. S. National Youth Team, or any of the scores of kids who decided not take boxing to that level, but are no less dedicated to it. They eat right, treat others with respect, do their homework (or lose gym privileges), don’t do drugs, drink, smoke, or curse. They are Quail Street boxers.

I don’t know why the City Council doesn’t see this. They only need to step closer, always the cure for stereotypic thinking. “The biggest joy for me,” said D’Antonio, “is to be somewhere in a mall or a restaurant with my wife and son and have a young man come up and thank me, saying and Collins started nine of the other 11 games. In his last five games, he’s played 67 percent of the defensive snaps. After inside linebacker Brandon Spikes went on injured reserve before the AFC divisionalgame against the Colts, Collins was in for every defensive play in the most important game the Patriots have played this season.

“It was kind of a difference” all the things the gym did for him.” As he said this, he choked up a little.

D’Antonio, Johnny D as he’s called, is a tough guy, but only on the outside. He’s had to be tough and headstrong to make the gym happen and keep it happening every year, continually ramming it through opposing forces who don’t get it, and likely never will.

But here’s the problem: those forces are still there, and with Johnny D and Mayor Jennings gone, no one knows what’s in store for the Gym. My call to Mayor Sheehan wasn’t returned, but that’s to be expected under the circumstances. She’s just appointed Jonathan Jones, formerly with the New York State Education Department, as Johnny’s successor and is undoubtedly showing him the respect to let him deal with department business when he assumes command.

My fingers are crossed, and yours should be, too. to be in the playoffs, he said, but “every game is the same to me. Just go out there, do what you have to do and, hopefully, it comes out on the positive side.”

In the second half, Collins stopped Trent Richardson for a 1-yard loss, sacked Luck for 8 yards and got down the field to intercept Luck’s pass 23 yards from the line of scrimmage then return it 20 yards.