NORFOLK
The bell dinged, signaling the start of the match.
Two boxers shifted into fight mode.
And the new Norfolk Boxing and Fitness Center attracted its first Friday night crowd.
Chance Scales, 9, and Juel Campbell, 11, were the first boxers to step into one of two rings at the boxing venue, which opened Friday at Harbor Park.
The 13,000-square-foot facility has two regulation-size competition boxing rings and double the seating and punching bags. It’s much bigger than Barraud Park Boxing Center, where it operated until now.
Nicholas Sullivan, 18, is excited for the new digs.
He’s been boxing since he was 7 and has stayed with it, even competing in national championships.
“Fighting is just, you have to go out there and have fun,” he said. “It’s a chess game, you have to think and see your opponent. If it was easy, everyone would do it.”
Jerry Hart is the new coach of Team Norfolk, the city’s boxing team. He wants Norfolk to be nationally known again for its boxing.
“I think boxing in Norfolk is going to explode,” he said.
Norfolk has a history as a boxing town. Gloria Peek was the first American woman to coach Olympic boxing, the first in the world to coach male fighters at the games, and the first in the winning corner at a medal bout, all in London in 2012.
Then there’s Pernell “Sweet Pea” Whitaker, a world champion boxer from the city.
Team Norfolk has about 50 boxers, as young as 8.
The new space will give them more opportunities to practice and get in the ring.
Hart said there was occasionally a waiting list of 200 people wanting to use the old place. The new center will alleviate some of that.
It will also bring opportunities for Norfolk to host more events. Shaun Wilson, who’s been involved with Team Norfolk for the past 11 years, said it will allow Norfolk to showcase the talent it has right here to a hometown crowd.
Wilson said it’ll be good for the boxers, too.
“I think it will motivate them, inspire them to keep pushing,” he said.
Mayor Kenny Alexander and other City Council members were there to get the crowd pumped up before the first matches.
The room where the two rings are may smell nice and new now, but that won’t last long.
Soon, there will be pools of sweat and discarded towels, and the red and white ropes on the ring’s edges won’t be so shiny.
Boxing is different from football, basketball and other team sports, Wilson pointed out.
“It allows them to have their own individual glory for their own hard work,” he said.
Robyn Sidersky, 757-222-5117, robyn.sidersky@pilotonline.com
