She's a boxer; oh, yes' 'She's a boxer; oh, yes'
Gary Post Tribune, IN - 2 hours ago
... All those crying fits had to be in the back of grandma's mind one Sunday in 2004, when an elder in her congregation at Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall took her... 'It takes heart' But it takes more than hands to make it at the Gary Police Athletic League gym. The P.A.L. gym is a cinderblock cube that used to be the clubhouse for the nine-hole golf course for Gary's black folks. Segregation being what it was, it makes a great boxing gym. There's not a window that opens in the place, and the air conditioning quit maybe five years ago. There's a little boxing history there. Joe Louis golfed the Black Nine on a visit in the 1930s, and since John Taylor moved the P.A.L. into the box, three world champions have trained there. Keeping people out of the gym is as much a part of Taylor's job as keeping them inside. Taylor's fighters are mostly Gary kids, age 8 to 18, who have nowhere else to go. And plenty of the good ones will just as soon go nowhere. Maybe one out of 10 would-be fighters who come into the gym stick around long enough to try for a pro career. Taylor's little box is beset on all sides by temptation from gangs and drug dealers, or by apathy and Nintendo. The gang bangers, the pushers, the homeboys and even the girlfriends aren't even allowed inside. When the girls showed up on their own, Taylor assumed they were looking for boyfriends, and he told them to move on. Sometime in the 1990s, someone told him he'd get sued if he turned away girls just for being girls. Fine. They'd be just like everyone else, do what the men and the boys did -- and probably they'd quit even faster. Girls would break a sweat, or worse, break a nail, and go on home, he figured. Most of 'em did. "It takes heart. Kids now, they play football, they play that basketball. They don't come here like they did," Taylor said, and then his raspy voice raises an octave or two, as it does when he recites a coaching cliche or anything other statement that needs emphasis. "We don't 'play' boxing here. Ain't no play. We box." Mary McGee is there six days a week. She spars with boys, with men. Five days ago, she was there -- late -- but training for her first professional belt alongside Derrick "Superman" Findley, a middleweight who is Taylor's only other pro. Findley is Mary's best friend and favorite sparring partner. It was a Sunday, and Taylor opened the gym up special, just for them. Quit or move out About the hands, the beaters, the rep. Mary was angry. She was immature. She had a temper . . . but that's gone now, pounded at the gym and in the ring. Mostly. But Mary was a cheerleader, and to hear her and her friends tell it, they were part of the popular crowd at Roosevelt High School. Of course, at the 'Velt, that means there are plenty of people who don't like you, just because other people do. The girl Mary beat up (and her sister who Mary also beat up at the same time) singled Mary out after Mary stuck up for a friend after some jostling in the halls at school. Again, Mary was a cheerleader, only had been going to the P.A.L. gym for a few months at the time. She was leggy, slim, with a model's high cheekbones and a small wedge of a nose. Nice clothes she got from her doting grandma. Pretty. The smart money was on the bigger, louder girl, who was so bold she walked into a classroom, during class, to call Mary out. She probably didn't even know Mary boxed. The fight was several hours after school. Mary does not go into details. It was not boxing. "I walked away a winner." And that would've been that, except the girl's mama complained to the school. And the teacher had seen the challenge and had warned them not to fight. Mary was suspended for most of sophomore year. Idle hands were the problem. She had tried basketball, where you could have talent and practice all day and lose the game because your teammates couldn't make a shot. Cheerleading was a bunch of fussy girls, and Mary was a different kind of fussy. By the standards of Gary, Mary had it pretty good. She was raised by her grandma, who took her from her mother when she was just two weeks old. She wanted for nothing, never even had to do housework. But her mother wasn't there for her -- or her brothers. Her brothers turned mad, too. Both have served jail time. One is out and is coming to see Mary fight for the first time tonight. The other is serving out his sentence on a robbery charge in Colorado, where he has lived since grandma shipped him off to boys' camp. Mary wasn't that kind of bad. "But I was out all the time," said Mary, who flirts like a young Muhammad Ali. "And out ain't a good place to be around here." Little things, she can't even remember what they were, set her off. And stupid things. Freshman year, grandma took her to the shoe store with a generous budget of $90 for new sneakers. But Mary had to have the new Air Jordan XVII, $215. Grandma said no, and Mary fell out right in the store, had a tantrum. She walked away a winner, the shoes tucked inside the special stainless steel case. She never wore them. All those crying fits had to be in the back of grandma's mind one Sunday in 2004, when an elder in her congregation at Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall took her aside. Mary went out to the parking lot to pull the car around, and waited. "She was in there forever," Mary recalls. "I said, 'What took you so long.' She said, 'You. You and your boxing.' " Turns out, those nights Mary and her grandfather watched boxing on television were illicit under the strict doctrines of Witnesses. So too was training at the P.A.L. gym, and shadow boxing, for hours at a time, in the back yard. Mary had just won the Chicago Golden Gloves, one of the premier amateur boxing contests in the country, and members of the congregation read about it in the local papers. Participating in boxing or another martial art is grounds for the Witnesses' version of excommunication,called disfellowship. Mary had to quit boxing or move out. She cried and she yelled. She agreed to quit. But she was 17, and she did what teenagers do when they want to do what they want to do. She trained in secret, and told her grandmother she was staying late at school. In secret she went with the P.A.L. team to a fight in Indianapolis. "My auntie lived down there and she saw me on TV and called my grandma. She didn't know I wasn't supposed to be fighting," Mary said. "When I got home, I was out." A pro boxer It would be hard enough to box if that were all you had to do. A professional boxer has to run three miles a day and train, five, six days per week in a gym, and another fodays a week in a gym that has weights. An unranked boxer fights maybe once a month, for $100 a round mostly for a four- or six-round bouts against somebody whose manager hired you to get beat. [email protected] Send your letter to editor
NEWS-DFed for seeking ATHLETIC CAREER
by DannyHaszard 8 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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DannyHaszard
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carla
jw's aren't supposed to watch boxing? What about football? or hockey? or when baseball teams get into huge fights?
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DannyHaszard
'She's a boxer; oh, yes' 'She's a boxer; oh, yes'
Gary Post Tribune, IN - 2 hours ago
... in2004, when an elder in her congregation at Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall ... watched boxing on television were illicit under the strict doctrines of Witnesses. ...Danny Haszard comment-this shows how the congregation elders are the 'control freaks with a mean streak'
INCIDENT DATED 2004
GOTCHA! This is put up by a non apostate and high ranked worldly journalist (nice job too) dub trolls everywhere deny and lie that the WBTS tries to suppress 'extra curricular' athletic and higher education enddeavors.
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DannyHaszard
Money talks don't it? Just like the scientologist WBTS wants their VIP celebs
Prince puts his bets on a Las Vegas nightclub
International Herald Tribune, France - Nov 14, 2006
... from his recent "3121" album, Prince delivered a ... deity who since declaring himself a Jehovah's Witness has surfaced with music that spans both sex and salvation ...Prince begins his reign
Press-Enterprise (subscription), CA - Nov 13, 2006
... just after midnight on Saturday, Prince delivered a ... who since declaring himself a Jehovah's Witness has surfaced with music that spans both sex and salvation ...Prince the Nightclub King?
Los Angeles Times, CA - Oct 24, 2006
... citation and wonders how the converted Jehovah's Witness will fit ... street address of the house Prince rented for ...But regardless, God and sex have always mingled ... -
DannyHaszard
Money talks don't it? Just like the scientologist WBTS wants their VIP celebs
Family and friends mourn Levert
Crowd honors big star who had big heart Friday, November 17, 2006 15 minutes ago Michael Heaton Plain Dealer Reporter Almost 1,000 family members and friends of deceased singer Gerald Levert and his family attended a private ceremony at the Civic in Cleveland Heights Thursday. Among the celebrities attending on the cloudy, rainy day were singer Bobby Brown, comedian Mo'Nique andpresident of Universal Motown Records Sylvia Rhone. The noon service was standing-room-only. An ambulance was called when several mourners overcome by heat and grief passed out during the jam-packed service. A member of the Jehovah's Witnesses congregation to which Levert's mother belongs gave the eulogy and cited Revelations 21: 3: "And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying,
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bernadette
Inspiring
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blondie
Of course, JWs are not DF'd for just pursuing any athletic career but this is the WTS stance on boxing:
*** w81 7/1 pp. 30-31 Questions from Readers ***
Can a dedicated and baptized Christian take up professional boxing and still remain in good standing with his congregation?
If a Christian were to become a professional boxer, this would put him in conflict with God’s counsel. Let us consider some of that Biblical advice.
The Scriptures clearly show that dedicated Christians are to produce the fruitage of God’s holy spirit, which is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness and self-control. (Gal. 5:22, 23) Professional boxing flies in the face of all such fruitage. The Bible counsels us to be "peaceable with all men" and not to fight but to be "gentle toward all." (Rom. 12:18; 2 Tim. 2:24) Similarly, at James 3:18 we read that "the fruit of righteousness has its seed sown under peaceful conditions for those who are making peace." Moreover, we are told to ‘love our neighbors as ourselves’ and that love works no "evil," and therefore no harm or hurt, to one’s neighbor.—Rom. 13:9, 10.
Professional boxing cannot be considered simply an innocent sport. It is a well-known fact that boxers go into the ring with a strong urge to hurt their opponents. For the time being, they may even have a murderous feeling toward them. This spirit may be sensed by observers, as can often be seen from the way spectators react at a boxing match. Time and again they are heard shouting, "Kill him! Kill him!"
So it is no wonder that from time to time the press reports that a boxer has been mortally injured in the boxing ring. In boxing there is always the risk that one of the fighters might become a manslayer, and, as the apostle John states, "you know that no manslayer has everlasting life." (1 John 3:15) Bearing on this is the opinion of one veteran boxing official that boxing is "legalized murder" and should be prohibited by law. It has also been described as "assault with malicious intent." And still another sordid aspect of professional boxing is the kind of people involved in running the sport. Often it is in the control of the underworld criminal element.
In view of these facts, what should be the attitude of the congregation elders toward a dedicated and baptized Christian who takes up professional boxing? First, they would want to counsel such a brother in keeping with the Scriptural principles enunciated above. (Gal. 6:1) They should kindly, yet firmly, present the reasons why such boxing is not compatible with being a dedicated follower of Jesus Christ, the "Prince of Peace." (Isa. 9:6) They could show him that a Christian is to "do hard work, doing with his hands what is good work." Earning money as a professional boxer by battering a opponent in a boxing ring can hardly be termed "good work."—Eph. 4:28.
The individual should also be reminded that while professional boxing might provide him with a comfortable livelihood, Christians do not need to stoop to such means, for God’s Word assures us, at Hebrews 13:5, 6: "Let your manner of life be free of the love of money, while you are content with the present things. For he has said: ‘I will by no means leave you nor by any means forsake you.’ So that we may be of good courage and say: ‘Jehovah is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’"
Therefore, such a person should be given a reasonable period of time to discontinue his unchristian profession or occupation. His failure to do so would mean that the elders would have no alternative but to exclude him from the congregation.—1 Cor. 5:11-13.
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BCZAR2ME
Hmmmm.
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darth frosty
When I was at bethel there was this cat who left to pursue a college career in sports. Of course everyone was like how can he leave to go to college? Looking back I should have joined him.