On almost any day, visitors to the North Area Athletic and Education Center on Syracuse’s struggling North side will find dozens of youngsters sparring in the ring, watched closely by coaches and staff. They’ll also find other kids on computers being tutored for school work.
Watching over it all is the center founder Ray Rinaldi, who over the years has watched a few thousand kids come through this place. He works with at-risk youth; often teens who’ve already been in trouble with the police, or are on the verge of dropping out of school. Rinaldi says he won’t turn away a youngster who’s in trouble and that boxing is often the key to getting them back on the right path.
“There is no such thing as a bad kid. Association is 95% of most of the wrong things going on in this country here,” Rinaldi said. “We have a unique sport. People look at boxing in a lot of different ways you know and sometimes they look at it in a bad way, somebody hitting somebody, but actually all boxing does is brings a 100% discipline to you.”
His standards are tough and non-negotiable: the kids participating in the boxing program must stay in school and stay out of trouble. Rinaldi believes there’s a very simple reason why his program works; why he has been able to turn so many young lives around. He says boxing builds character, giving the kids the self-confidence to turn away from the temptation of drugs and gangs.
“We’re into prevention, so when I say prevention, you can stop these kids at that level so they don’t want to go into the other stuff, they can say no, they can say no easy and guess what, they can back it up, not by fighting but by just being themselves, you see that’s why it works.”
Those who have trained and learned under Rinaldi’s guidance say he is an inspiration.
“One thing Ray always told me was always go 100% in no matter what you do and he’s been there for all my bad times and my good times,” said 21-year-old boxer, Jimmy Garcia. “A lot of people are only there when you’re doing good and then they forget about you when you do bad but he’s always been there and the same as me he’s been there for everybody else.”
Garcia is one of many Rinaldi success stories. He walked into Rinaldi's gym, this one on Syracuse’s West side, five years ago. He smelled like marijuana and says he’d all but given up on classes at Fowler High School. But he wanted to box. Head coach Chris Burns remembers telling Garcia to, "go home and clean up, and come back tomorrow."
When Garcia returned the next day, Burns and the other coaches told him he could stay only if he gave up drugs and allowed them to keep tabs on his report card. He did. His grades improved; he graduated from high school and enrolled at a nearby community college.
And as for boxing, Garcia has put aside the amateur pads and is now stepping in the ring a professional boxer.
He still thinks of past friends who have not given up the street life, and considers himself lucky to have come under Ray Rinaldi’s influence.
Over the last few years, Rinaldi’s gyms have sometimes struggled to find financial backing and have had to cut the dance and art programs they used to offer. But just like he tells the kids, Rinaldi says he won’t ever give up.
“I’ve been doing this for so long, okay, I’ve trained hundreds and hundreds of kids. This program will keep running. It just can’t stop, because it does too much good for the kids. There’s no such thing as a bad kid, some may be lacking certain things - certain social skills - but a kid is a kid.”
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