by Bryn Taylor
News Editor
    In San Francisco and across California, boxing clubs are using children to provide high-society entertainment. Wealthy adults don black-tie attire and head to boxing clubs where they are served filet mignon and dessert- all the while illegally gambling on boys as young as eight fighting each other in the ring. 

     Big money is being made by the private clubs and their sponsors that host the amateur boxing events. Legally, youth sports are not allowed profit any private citizen- if money is made, it is supposed to go back into the sport for the kids. In this case, the boxing clubs are taking in thousands of dollars from the elite viewers who can afford to see the amateur fights, and putting the money into their own pockets. 

    The private boxing clubs host the events illegally- in part because they do not conform to the California State Athletic Commission rules, particularly the one that states, “no amateur boxing contest shall be held in conjunction with vaudeville shows, dances or entertainments of any sort.” In violation of the rules, ring girls are paraded around the boxers, and illegal bets are placed on the young fighters. Without the protection of the California State Athletic Commission, doctors are not present during the fights. Additionally, parents of the boxers are not allowed to attend the fights. “The kids that come from underprivileged families, they're the ones with the desire and the hunger to do it,” Todd Jones, a parent of a boxer, explained. 

    Although opinions about profiting from amateur boxing differ, many have strongly spoken out against the events. Amos Brown, the San Francisco NAACP president preached, "We ought to be disturbed…that we have children, not maybe from your family, but children out of our community where fat cats are making money and gambling on your children in the city and county of San Francisco.” Others, such as Gary Sullenger, a boxing coach at Concord’s Community Youth Center, commented, “Are people that maybe have better funds and ways and means using it as a form of entertainment? Yeah. Are they doing any damage to the kids? I don't think so.”

    Further opposition to the amateur boxing fights comes from the state of California’s lead inspector, Tony Guevara. He says that the athletic commission is stretched thin with fights up and down the state, and that, “It matters to us, we don’t want to see it. We come to work every day to stop things like that. It’s not that nobody’s watching, it’s just we can’t get ‘em all.” Oscar Ortiz, a Napa County Sheriff’s sergeant who manages a more accepted amateur boxing tournament, criticized the private clubs: “It's just wrong. I mean, it should be obvious that there's something wrong with that set-up.”

An amateur boxing coach, Ramona Gatto, is worried about how the private clubs will influence the young boxers: “These are our children and we have a responsibility to protect them and take care of them and not let anyone use them or abuse them, because that's what's happening, they're abusing them, and that can't happen.”

    In all likelihood, private clubs will keep hosting the amateur boxing events until state investigators are able to discourage them with a substantial penalty for profiting from the sport. Unfortunately, many children may be exploited before this cat-and-mouse game between the clubs and the investigators comes to an end.

(Sources: abc 7 News, I-team Investigation, The California State Athletic Commission)