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Local boxers get shot at the belt in Golden Gloves tourney
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- Local boxers get shot at the belt in Golden Gloves tourney
SPRINGFIELD — It’s time to knuckle up, Springfield.
The Western New England Golden Gloves — a four-week boxing tournament for local young people — is returning to the city on Saturday. All ticket proceeds will go toward funding the work of Central City Boxing & Barbell, the nonprofit boxing gym hosting the event.
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In the gym at 355 Berkshire Ave., sneakers and boxing gloves hang from the rafters, each belonging to someone who passed through the boxing program. Dean Fay, who runs the gym and the Western New England Golden Gloves franchise, sees boxing as a metaphor for embracing hardship — a value he’s sought to instill in the teens and 20-somethings from troubled backgrounds who form the bulk of his clientele.
Founder, executive director and head boxing coach of Central City Boxing & Barbell Dean Fay retired from the Springfield Police Department in 2025 and has dedicated most of his retirement to young boxers. Fay is also the executive director of the Western New England Golden Gloves tournament, which will be held at his gym on Berkshire Avenue this weekend. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
“It’s how you deal with bad days that determines whether you’re gonna be a winner or a loser,” he said.
Amateur boxers ages 18 and up will fight for a chance to advance to the regionals, where fighters will compete to represent New England at the National Golden Gloves Tournament later this year in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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Proceeds will help pay for winners’ uniforms, airfare and meals, Fay said.
The tournament will span four consecutive Saturday nights, beginning Saturday at 7 p.m. There is also a junior and youth tournament scheduled for the first three Saturdays of February, with contenders ranging from 8 to 17 years old.
The gym’s biggest fundraiser of the year, the tournament is staffed by volunteers and doesn’t require boxers to pay an entrance fee, Fay said.
Gnopo Gnobo, right, of Springfield, trains at the Central City gym on Berkshire Avenue. He is one of the fighters that will be taking part in the Western New England Golden Gloves tournament. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
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Dr. Martin Lesser, a ringside physician who’s been volunteering since the early 1990s, said boxing can be an outlet for those who lack the means to play on a traditional sports team.
“These are largely underprivileged kids,” he said. “A lot of their parents are immigrants, they come from mostly but not exclusively working-class families, and for many of them, it’s the only sport that they do participate in.”
Fay estimates that around half of the program’s boxers are in the state Department of Children and Families system, and many of them are without a father. But when kids start winning fights, their dads come to watch, he said.
Central City Boxing & Barbell founder Dean Fay retired from the Springfield Police Department in 2025 and has dedicated most of his retirement to young boxers. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
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Amateur boxing is also a surprisingly safe outlet. Weight classes allow smaller kids to hold their own in the ring rather than be jostled around on the gridiron, said Dr. Andrew Levin, who is the ringside physician for Saturday’s fight and has been volunteering since 1980.
Lesser noted that amateur boxers are required to wear mouthguards and head protection, which referees make sure are fitted properly prior to fights. Broken noses can be an issue, but those are easily repaired, he said. There are fewer leg injuries, unlike in football, where knee injuries occur and often flare up later in life.
Fay, 51, has seen just one knee injury in his 10-plus years of coaching, and the person involved had a pre-existing issue.
“There’s very seldom knockouts, it’s scored on points, this isn’t people people violently pounding on each other,” Lesser said. “These contenders are all friends with each other.”
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A four-minute drive from Springfield Central High School, the Golden Gloves tourney is part of a broader outreach to the local Springfield community that includes an after-school program, where students go through tutoring as a condition of maintaining their free membership at the boxing gym, Fay said.
Filing a records request form with the students’ schools lets Fay see their grades and place them into tutoring schedules accordingly. Those earning Cs or skipping class have to meet with a tutor every day, he said.
To be part of the Central City Boxing & Barbell Inc. gym on Berkshire Avenue in Springfield, youth have to meet an academic minimum at school, Dean Fay said. If they don’t, they are banned, and there are no second chances. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
Fay is serious about his boxers’ academics: One lost his spot on a team headed for the nationals because he had gotten an “F.”
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The no-tolerance approach Fay takes with his boxing students is partly inspired by his nearly 10 years in the Army.
After leaving the Army in 2000, he joined the Springfield Police Department, where his time in the Street Crime Unit — including in 2009 when he responded to a call for a youth shot through the neck — pushed him to open up a gym.
Lesser invited anyone interested to come join a local event for a good cause.
“Everyone seems to wanna see a boxing match once, and here it is, local,” he said. “It’s a great opportunity to see live boxing.”
For information on tickets or sponsorships, visit centralcitygym.com.
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