Local group teaches more than just boxing moves
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Michael Zavala remembers the phone call he received one day. The cry of a mother asking him for help for her troubled teenage son.
“She said we were her son’s last hope and if we didn’t help, she would lose him,” he said.
The Soldiers for Christ boxing ministry began nine years ago. He began coaching one kid and soon turned into 20, then 100 kids, he said.
This is a ministry where we teach discipline, stability and even spiritual boxing, he said.
Zavala does not advertise his boxing ministry. The kids hear about our boxing team through word of mouth, he said.
Some of the boxers have had troubled pasts, he said.
“As far as a connection with God and boxing, the only one is the one I have with God,” he said.
“But I can only reach those who enjoy boxing,” he said.
There is an epidemic with kids and teenagers that if we don’t reach them, they will end up in prison, he said.
Before training begins, he uses the bible to teach them a different message everyday.
“I give them a different message on all aspects of life, according to the bible,” he said.
We hit on every aspect from drugs to listening to peers, he stated.
Zavala trains a total of 11 boxers ages 10 to 30 year’s old and has a waiting list of 100 interested boxers that are waiting to be trained by him.
Two of the boxers he has trained, have turned professional in the last few months and have won several boxing titles.
Zavala trains boxers six days a week, except for Wednesdays. “That is when we have church, that’s a priority of mine,” he said.
Adrian Jimenez, trains up to three hours a day, the Bay City High School student admits if he had not found the boxing ministry, he’d be a troubled teenager.
“I was always looking for trouble and out there starting trouble,” he said. “But after I joined this boxing ministry I am different person,” he said.
This is a place to relieve stress, to get relaxed and everyday frustration is taken out in the ring, he said.
Jimenez was the 2010 Golden Gloves champion in Houston last month.
“He is our guardian angel,” Jimenez said about Zavala. “He has shown us the way and has helped us stay out of trouble.”
Zavala never imagined one of his life’s missions would be to be a boxing coach.
“I never thought I’d end up doing this as a ministry,” he said.
A boxer himself since the age of nine and then a coach, the path that he has taken to help troubled children is welcomed, he said.
We are producing champions in and out of the ring, he said. “I want them to succeed in everything that they do, even outside the boxing ring.”