What's Next For The Sport of Boxing?

(Photo: Wikimedia)

“Boxing is a dying sport.” This is a statement that has been thrown around for the past two decades that seems to carry more weight as years pass. It's hard to argue because it seems the public loses more interest in the sport as the days go by.

 However, many fans, including myself, continue to watch, hoping that the sport is able to gain more momentum and give us fights and fighters that can return boxing to the cultural spotlight.

Boxing, has been around for thousands of years, with the earliest depictions of the sport coming from third millennia BC. The sport exploded in popularity in the early 1900s after it attained legitimacy and became a regulated and sanctioned sport. Boxing was only second to baseball’s popularity in the first half of 20th century, with fans coming by the thousands to watch fights in person and millions of Americans around the country gathering around their radios to listen in on the action.

The common criticism about the sport that I hear so often today is that it's barbaric, dangerous, devoid of any substance, featuring two people that are just trying to hit and dance around each other. I would say those arguments have reasonable points. Boxing isn't sunshine and rainbows, it is tough, it is brutal, and when you see former boxers today and the effects the sport has had on their health, I can see why people have a hard time wanting to watch it.

Yet, that just makes boxing all the more intriguing to me. Why do people dedicate so much to this sport? What makes it all worth it?

It was Mike Tyson that said, "The tempt for greatness is the biggest drug in the world."

Many fighters seek greatness. They look to push themselves to their physical limit in the hopes of becoming something bigger than themselves; a star, a champion, an all-time great. Fueled by dreams of a better life, many boxers start out young and put in countless hours a week to become a better fighter. The amount of focus, speed, power and intelligence required to become a world-class boxer is staggering.

George "TNT" Evans is a local boxer who spent most of his career in Albany and currently has plans to start a gym in the area. He is a man who has dedicated his life to the sport. Evans was only five years old when he first went to a boxing gym and he's been in love with the sport ever since. Fighting in 483 total bouts throughout both his amateur and professional career, Evans is as experienced as they come. At one point, he was ranked 15th in the world professionally in the Bantamweight Division.

I got a chance to sit down and talk to TNT one-on-one and get his thoughts on what boxing means to him and the impact it has on his life.

"Boxing has been my life and has taught me many valuable lessons. It can teach you how to defend yourself, it can teach you discipline, it can strengthen your self-esteem," said Evans. "Most importantly it teaches you sportsmanship and compassion. Where else can you beat up on someone, and then they beat up on you and at the end of it all you give each other a big hug? I mean where else do you find compassion such as that?"

Evans credits the decline in the popularity of boxing to the fears over concussions and brain injuries in the late 1980s and the subsequent softening of the sport in the 1990s to make the sport more safe.

"It was a brutal sport, you don't see it as brutal as it was in the '80s. In the '70s and '80s people actually hit each other, but today it's just dancing around the ring," said Evans.

If boxing is dying, then 2017 has been the defibrillator. Entertaining fights like Keith Thurman's impressive win on Danny Garcia, Anthony Joshua's TKO on Wladimir Klitschko in Wembley Stadium, and Gennady Golovkin's unanimous decision-victory over Danny Jacobs, have all kicked off the year in exciting fashion.

The Canelo Alvarez vs. Julio César Chávez Jr. fight reportedly earned over one million views on pay-per-view. To put that in perspective, that is roughly the same amount of views that the highly anticipated Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao fight earned back in 2015. Upcoming fights like Andre Ward vs Sergey Kovalev and Golovkin vs. Alvarez later this year should only prove to add to the excitement.

But just how far can these fights take boxing?

Any fuel to the fire is welcome, and as long as these super fights avoid disappointments like Mayweather vs. pretty much anyone he’s faced in the past decade, then boxing is in good shape. These fights stand out to me specifically because it’s giving the two most popular fighters in those weight classes a shot at each other in their prime. That's ultimately what boxing fans want to see. Not seven years after it should have happened like the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight.

"I think boxing will be making a comeback because of those fights coming up and because we're beginning to see a lot more talented kids come up from the amateur level," said Evans.

Boxing is so much more than a sport -- to many it is their life. It represents hard work paying off and shows that if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. As humans, that’s something we can all relate to. That's why boxing is called the “sweet science,” because it isn't just the technique or the tangible measurables of a fighter that win out. The fighter's heart and determination to overcome the obstacles in their path ultimately prove to be the deciding factor.

While boxing may be down, it sure as hell isn't out, and like the many athletes that practice the sport religiously, it's still got some fight left in it.

"Peace Be Upon You" an Educational Play About The People of Islam

Falyn Lazarus as Sumaiya in dress rehearsal for "Peace Be Upon You"
(Photo: Angela Scott)

Linn-Benton Community College Performing Arts presents a new, informative production about the people of the Islamic faith. "Peace Be Upon You" aims to educate viewers about Islam and break stereotypes that American culture may associate with the religion.

The play "Peace Be Upon You," is the latest form of community-engaged theater, written by LBCC performing arts instructor Dan Stone, through collaborations with students of the Islamic faith. Presented in a "black box" format with seating on stage, the play runs May 18 and 19 at 7:30 p.m. and May 20 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in the Russell Tripp Performance Center. Tickets are $10 for general admission or $7 for students and seniors.

"I have a lot of international students, a lot of them from the Middle East. I just felt with all that is happening in the news now, and even before, with all the misrepresentations about people from the Middle East, that this was a great topic," said Stone.

"Peace Be Upon You" centers around Sumaiya, a Muslim women from Iraq, played by Falyn Lazarus and Chelsea, an American woman who has a lot of misconceptions about Islam, played by Hannah Costa. It focuses on the two character's interactions as they room together in a college dorm and tells the story of how they work through their cultural and political differences.

Community-engaged theater, or theater of place, is a type of play that looks to educate an audience about a micro-community that is either misrepresented or has an important story to tell. Past plays recalled stories about veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, the latino community in Independence, Oregon, loggers and their families in the Pacific Northwest, the elderly, and more.  

Stone writes the plays with the help of members of the micro-communities in a year long process that features multiple interviews in gatherings known as story circles. The goal is to have members of the story circles pitch ideas so that Stone can get insight into what specific subject the play should explore. Stone wrote "Peace Be Upon You" with the help of several students at LBCC from the Middle East who practice Islam.  

"Often times when I write these kinds of plays I look for a common denominator within the community to write about,” said Stone. “When I interviewed people from the Middle East that live here, the common denominator amongst that group of people is: they are just like anyone else, they're human beings just like everybody else. Other than their religion they are no different than everybody else. So the idea of the play is to humanize these people that Americans typically see as completely foreign and different from them."  

Community-engaged theater is cutting-edge and LBCC's Performing Arts program is on the forefront, one of the only programs in Oregon creating these types of plays. They were recently invited to the University of Oregon to do a presentation on this innovative play writing concept. Already looking ahead to their next project, the LBCC Performing Arts program has partnered up with the Oregon Coast Aquarium to create a series of children's plays that focus on several ecosystems of Oregon.

Stone, who has written these types of plays for just over ten years, explained why he finds community-engaged theater to be important.

"Theater isn't just a form of entertainment, it's learning about who we are and who the people that live around us are."

For more information about "Peace Be Upon You" contact the LBCC box office at 541-917-4531 or email them at theater@linnbenton.edu.

At a Glance:

Dan Stone - Performing Arts Advisor at LBCC
Phone: 541-917-4566

Falyn Lazarus - Actress playing Sumaiya Hannah Costa - Actress playing Chelsea

Linn-Benton Performing Arts Center

LBCC Student Delphine Le Brun Colon Recieves NASA Internship

Delphine Le Brun Colon,
mechanical engineering student at LBCC,
was selected for the NASA Internship Program
(Photo: Elliot Pond)

Deep within the winding hallways of the Industrial A building on the Albany campus of LBCC sits a small room dedicated to LB's Space Exploration Club. In here lie both current and past projects of the group -- payloads and rockets sit atop a labyrinth of tangled wires. In a sense they serve as trophies; reminders that represent the hard work put into each project by the club.

For one of the club's most dedicated members, Delphine Le Brun Colon, they represent the rediscovery of a childhood dream.

Le Brun Colon is currently majoring in mechanical engineering at LBCC with a minor in aerospace engineering. She is the second LB Space Exploration Club member to accept a summer internship at NASA. She will be heading down to Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama to work on the RS-25 engine, the strongest rocket propulsion system in the world.

Le Brun Colon was born on the west coast of France and grew up in a small island community called I’lle dYeu. She moved around quite a bit throughout the course of her life and says the constant moving helped her understand the importance of being able to adapt. She had always dreamed of being an astronaut but admits that she buried that idea at a young age, believing it to be too unrealistic.

She eventually made her way to Oregon by way of New York City. At the time Le Brun Colon was seeking to go into Ecological Engineering, and OSU was one of three universities in the country offering an ecological engineering undergraduate program. This lead her to attend college at LBCC and on welcome day, her first year, back in 2014 she met Parker Swanson at the Space Exploration Club booth. After talking with him and seeing some of the projects the club had worked on, she knew that she had to sign up.

"Life has a funny way of bringing you back to your path if you let it," said Le Brun Colon.

In 2015, Le Brun Colon got the opportunity to work with the group on designing a payload that flew on board a NASA research rocket from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. This experience only further confirmed that she had found her true calling.

"Experiencing a rocket launch sparked something in me. I knew I wanted to work in aerospace," said Le Brun Colon.

She went on to lead the group's project in 2016, where they created an ambitious rocket-borne payload that was designed to measure polarized energy from gamma rays in space. Levi Willmeth, colleague and friend of Le Brun Colon and current project manager for the Space Exploration Club, praised her leadership ability and attitude.

"My favorite part of working with Delphine is that she is relentless, selfless, and able to step back and see the bigger picture. She identifies problems months in advance, but will also cancel her weekend plans or pull a late night build session to solve a team emergency. Delphine is an excellent team member in any capacity, either giving directions or following them. Filling both of those roles is a difficult and rare quality," said Willmeth.

Willmeth also accepted a NASA Internship for this upcoming summer and has worked closely with Le Brun Colon for three years now. The two applied for their opportunities through NASA's One Stop Shopping Initiative (OSSI), which is designed for the selection and development of high school, undergraduate, and graduate students.

"I encourage everyone to apply. There are so many opportunities offered and internships at NASA are not restricted to science and engineering type projects. they look for business majors, communication majors, etc," said Le Brun Colon.

Parker Swanson, adviser to the Space Exploration Club, is proud of both Le Brun Colon and Willmeth. He's thrilled that they received such amazing opportunities and says they are both well-deserved. He recounted the time he met Le Brun Colon at the Space Exploration Club booth in 2014 and explained that it has been his pleasure to watch her develop not only into an excellent engineer, but into an excellent manager and key member of the club.

"Delphine does everything with passion, including her engineering studies, her work with our team, several part-time jobs, and also having fun," said Swanson.

After her internship with NASA, Le Brun Colon plans to transfer to Oregon State to finish her bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. She will also perform her own research with OSU's propulsion lab and plans to attend grad school as well.

For Le Brun Colon it has been quite a journey. She talked about the invaluable experiences and people she's met along the way and praises the Space Exploration Club for giving her the hands-on experience to open up a path to a childhood dream.

"All the people I’ve met in the aerospace industry are humble and hardworking. There is something special about having to work together and trust each other to achieve something that is greater than all of us,” said Le Brun Colon. “My favorite things about the Space Exploration Club are: the fact that it is open to everyone, the invaluable hands-on experience, the incredible projects I’ve had the chance to work on, and the people I get to work with. I didn’t know anything when I started but I learned. Don’t let yourself be intimidated. Be curious instead."

At a Glance:

Delphine LeBrun Colon: delphine.lebruncolon.5989@mail.linnbenton.edu
Levi Willmeth: levi.willmeth@gmail.com
Parker Swanson: swansop@linnbenton.edu

LBCC Space Exploration Club

OSSI

"NASA-wide system for the recruitment, application, selection and career development of high school, undergraduate, and graduate students primarily in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines. Opportunities for students in other disciplines are available."