Many small businesses, restaurants and other local establishments found themselves on hard times a year ago when the COVID-19 pandemic caused a nationwide shutdown.
Some organizations were forced to close their doors for a few months. Others were forced to shut down for good.
The Columbus Police Athletic League (PAL), a small boxing gym located on South Mapleton Street, feared the worst last spring due to a lack of funds.
Thankfully for all those involved, that reality never happened.
“We’re really wise (with our budget), and we have certain people in the community that really invest,” Columbus PAL coach Seth Caffee said.
For three nights a week during the evening, one can enter the building listening to the sound of the fists striking the punching bags. One can also take a look at all the medals and trophies won by PAL over its many years of operation. There’s also a boxing ring inside the gym to hone a person’s skills as they prepare for live competition.
Since Columbus PAL is a nonprofit, all of the volunteers, coaches and the PAL Board are unpaid.
Caffee, a former Indiana Golden Gloves winner, has been involved with Columbus PAL since 2002.
To stay up and running, Caffee said the gym writes a letter to submit to community businesses stating its mission, what it’s all about, what it provides for the youth community and what it’s trying to accomplish each year.
“All we do is help develop kids and keep them out of trouble,” Columbus PAL head coach Ron Thompson said.
Thompson, who has been with the organization for more than 40 years, says the funding helps pay for the essentials needed to operate the gym.
“I’m thankful that we were able to pay all of our bills, our rent and our utilities,” Thompson said. “That was the big thing because we’d have to move all that equipment everywhere and store it somewhere. Our landlord is a really good guy.”
Caffee added that funding also helps pay for expenses like food, water, gas and hotel rooms when they compete in tournaments that are out of state.
“Indiana is easy because we can drive to most of that, but when we have to do overnight trips, that’s where a lot of that money comes into play,” Caffee said. “We have to really budget out and be wise. We’re trying to figure out cheap hotels, trying to find a bigger vehicle to save from renting a car, things like that. There’s certain people in the community that have really helped us. We’re just really wise about (our funds).”
When the onset of the pandemic hit last year, it made it tough for everyone to get together in the gym due to capacity limits.
Caffee said all of the coaches got together every first Tuesday of the month to discuss the recent positive COVID tests and numbers throughout the state. They also discussed the newly set requirements and recommendations that were provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In addition to the CDC requirements, they also had to follow the requirements by the state officials and then the USA Boxing requirements. In order for the state to open back up competition, USA Boxing required the gym to display that it could effectively do a competition and have a test site. It had to record and document it and then submit it to USA Boxing for approval.
The plan broke down into three tiers: Tier 1 was being able to operate, Tier 2 was being approved for sparring and Tier 3 was being able to compete.
Caffee said that they kept in touch through social media with the boxers and their parents. He added that Columbus PAL opened back up in June with a limited capacity of six, then as the year progressed, it increased to nine, then to 12 and now, it is almost at the brink of being able to run at full capacity again.
Columbus PAL also recently took on new trainees. Once the announcement was posted on its Facebook page, the numbers filled up quickly.
Membership costs $150 and is year-round from January to December.
“We had a lot of people anxious and excited to have their kids come in. It’s a walk-in process. We take kids from all experiences — even zero experience,” Caffee said. “We take kids and young people of all different experience levels. That’s our thing. Either we’re going to mold somebody, or we’re going to help them grow.”
Columbus PAL has provided a lot of the equipment in the past, but that all changed once the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Caffee said that the monthly meetings never stopped so they can continue to evaluate the situation.
“USA Boxing mandated that kids had to start having their own gloves and own equipment,” Caffee said. “Kids can’t share gloves, and kids can’t share helmet gear.”
Thompson added, “We did everything like PPE, face masks, sanitizers on everything. It’s been a challenge.”
When the kids came back after the COVID-19 shutdown, some had to start changing their training style because of their bodies hitting puberty, whether they put on some weight, muscle mass or grew in height. The kids had to train with a mask on unless they’re sparring.
Caffee said Columbus PAL was open for about three to four months before the boxers began sparring. He feels the program is a great opportunity for the kids to give them training and added that a lot of people don’t really see the whole aspect of what boxing is about and is a lot more than what the general public sees during a standard pay-per-view match.
“Boxing kind of has a ‘black eye’ to the common fan because they don’t understand the amateur aspect of it. They don’t know the beauty and the amateur aspect of teaching kids who are 8-, 10-, 12-years-old the work ethic, the discipline, the type of stuff that has to come with it,” Caffee said. “Every now and then, we do get turned away because it’s boxing. Even when a kid tells their parents that they want to do this, they’ll come in, and they’ll look around to see what it is.”
After not holding a competition for more than a year, Indiana Golden Gloves announced last month that it will be holding six events at the Tyndall Armory in Indianapolis every Thursday starting May 6 all the way to June 10.
“It feels like Christmas Eve, especially with them announcing Golden Gloves, and you see surrounding states starting to compete and then gyms in other cities are reaching out to spar,” Caffee said. “It’s hard to keep people motivated for over a year and never having any end goal because it was really up in the air, so some kids started getting burned out. So it was definitely a good feeling to see them get refocused and re-motivated.
“I’m very proud of what we have here, and I’m very thankful that we were able to so far survive because of COVID, but there’s a lot of gyms that haven’t,” he added. “People wouldn’t think we have a boxing gym here. I’m glad we give the youth another opportunity for something else to do.”
