UFC middleweight contender Urijah Hall, from nearby Queens, also visited the gym and wished it was something available to him when he was growing up.
“Something like this is important for the kids,” said Hall. “I know when I was coming up I wasn’t going down a wrong path; I was more bullied in school, so I didn’t have any good outlet and I think something like this as a positive reinforcement probably would have established me faster. But maybe I had to go through my own journey to get bullied enough to start in martial arts, which is kind of like this and that turned the course for me. So something like this, especially for kids, is something that you should have spreading like wildfire.”
That’s the goal, and with White and the UFC’s commitment to the program, which relies on donations and net proceeds from boxing events Cops & Kids coordinate, it’s one that’s within reach and essential for kids who, like Hall, don’t have that positive outlet.
Skipper Kelp, one of the premier action fighters of the 90s, beamed as he walked into the gym.
“It’s nostalgic, especially seeing these kids,” he said. “This is how 99.9 percent of us all started, in a gym like this in the neighborhood, and it’s pretty cool. All these kids have a dream and if not that, they have an outlet, so it’s really cool to see.”
Also in the gym that day was 130-pound star Chris Colbert and former contender Gabriel Bracero, and who knows, maybe more contenders and champions were being born in that room.
“We were taking pictures here today and the police chief said in six or seven years, one of these kids is gonna walk up to you and show this picture,” said White. “It’s happened to me a million times already, so I can just imagine coming out of here.”
Maybe that’s the dream of the kids putting on the gloves, or perhaps they’re in the gym to stay in shape, be around their friends, or just have a place to go to get away for a couple hours. Whatever it is, Maddrey and the force are all-in.
“We have young people who come from all over the city, who take two or three trains, two or three buses, to come to this program because it’s a safe place for them to be,” he said. “There’s cops and adults from the community – community leaders, elected officials, clergy – that care about them, and it’s free for them to come here, do schoolwork, get homework help, have a mentor, to do physical fitness training. So it’s important that we have places for our young people to go that doesn’t cost them anything. It’s important for their parents, too. It helps the parents when they need a safe place to send them so the parents can work and do the things that are needed around the home.”