If you look hard enough, you can still find the heartbeat of boxing. On Saturday night it was in a ballroom at the Westin Hotel in Washington, D.C., where kids separated by geography and culture connected through friendship and fisticuffs. A group of Irish youngsters — some from the toughest neighborhoods in Belfast — met D.C.-area amateur boxers Saturday night in the fourth-annual Belfast-Beltway Boxing Classic, a charity event put together by a group of D.C. businessmen.
The kids met in the ring — 10 amateur bouts in all — but the trip from Ireland, paid for by the nonprofit organization sponsoring the Classic, is more than a boxing tournament.
Over several days, the kids connect through boxing workouts and tours of the District. On Friday, they were together at Arlington National Cemetery. They also went to the White House, a first for many of the kids, including those from Washington.
“It is a real good thing for the kids,” said Tony Johnson, one of the coaches with Diamonds in the Rough Boxing Club in Suitland, Md. “They become friends, eat ice cream together and laugh, but once the bell rings, they go at it.”
Johnson’s son, Theron, went at it Saturday night against Conal Quinn, the third straight year the two fought each other in the Classic, and came away with the decision. He enjoys meeting the Irish kids.
“At first it was strange because they seemed so different,” Theron said. “But then we talk about the same things — clothes, school — and then they seem a lot alike.”
It is a remarkable experience, considering that just a few years ago these Irish kids — Catholic and Protestant — were so divided. Now they work out side by side and travel to the United States to meet American kids, some of whom have a sense of division they live with every day.
There was a time when the Irish neighborhood many of these kids call home was rife with turmoil. Not long ago, four children committed suicide in a two-week period, and nine killed themselves over four months.
That’s when men like Charles Quinn, chairman of the Ardoyne-Holy Cross Boxing Club in Belfast, started the boxing club to try to give kids something to do — and some hope.
“It is kind of a miracle to see it happen,” Quinn said. “Since the agreement, the boxing clubs have grown and gotten better and better.”
Quinn’s son, Manny, who works at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse, is one of the organizers and founders of the Classic, along with Billy Tran?ghese and others. They are working toward finding a way to do the same thing in Belfast — taking a group of Washington fighters to Ireland and making the connection built in the ring and over the ocean even stronger.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
