On Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., in the gymnasium of the Bayview Opera House annex, Coach Marvin Wilson runs a boxing gym for kids ages 8 to 17. The gym has run every Saturday since the fall of 2003. He has never charged a kid to come.
Marvin is 61. He fought as a middleweight in the late 1980s, three pro bouts (1-2 record), then trained other fighters for a decade at a gym on Third Street that closed in 1999. He started the Bayview Saturday gym four years later because, he says, the kids in his neighborhood were getting beat up by life and could use a place to practice fighting back.
About 50 kids come on a typical Saturday. Some come for years. Some come once and never again. About 15 are regulars in the sense that they show up most weeks. Three have gone pro: Lonnie Cole (lightweight, 4-1), Marvelous Maya Robinson (junior welterweight, 7-0), and Devontay “DeeDee” Brown (cruiserweight, 11-2). Lonnie helps coach now. Maya is on the East Coast. DeeDee has a fight in Las Vegas next month.
The gym is small. One ring (Coach Wilson built it himself from canvas and rope in 2003 and has reinforced the corners three times). Six heavy bags. Four speed bags. Two double-end bags. A wall of jump ropes on hooks. A handwritten signup sheet that has been written, every Saturday morning at 8:50, in Coach Wilson’s tight block lettering.
“You teach a kid to punch and you teach him to stop punching,” Coach Wilson says. “The second part is the part nobody teaches.”
He works with one assistant, Lonnie, the pro who came up through the gym. Lonnie volunteers Saturdays. Coach Wilson pays him in lunch at a chicken spot up the block.
The gym is funded by a small Bayview neighborhood foundation grant ($4,000 a year), a longstanding sponsorship from a Bayview-based barbershop ($1,200 a year), and a yearly fundraiser the parents organize. Most years the gym just clears its expenses. Two years it has not, and Coach Wilson has paid for the difference from his pension.
In 2014, Coach Wilson’s godson Jamal, age 16, was killed in a shooting at a corner store two blocks from the gym. Coach Wilson did not open the gym for two Saturdays. He opened it on the third Saturday. He has not closed it for any reason since.
On the Saturday I visited, eleven-year-old Devin was on the heavy bag working a basic one-two-slip combination. Coach Wilson stood beside him for nineteen minutes, occasionally tapping Devin’s left shoulder to remind him to keep it up. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. After nineteen minutes Devin’s combination was clean. Coach Wilson said, “Take a drink.” Devin smiled. He took a drink.
The fight DeeDee has in Las Vegas next month is for a regional title. If DeeDee wins, he will be the second WBC regional title-holder Coach Wilson has trained from age 8. If he loses, he will fly home, drive straight to the gym from SFO on Saturday morning, and help coach the kids. He has done that, win or lose, after every one of his fights since age 21.
