A welcome reminder why boxing warms the heart like no other sport

Maybe boxing isn’t dead after all.

It was standing room only at Gleason’s Gym even before the first bell rang for the Brooklyn landmark’s monthly amateur boxing event on January 25. My bride and I were 20 minutes early and we still had to settle for a side view behind a pole. 

It made scoring fights difficult, but we got the general idea of what was going on, and if we couldn’t see what was going on, we heard it, as whoever was controlling the fight had their cheering section roaring.

It’s different watching amateur boxing as opposed to the pros – or any sport, for that matter. You don’t get this type of dedication at a soccer match or a little league game. It’s hard to put a finger on it, but it’s primal, intense and beautiful when someone you love is getting punched in the face. The cheers are almost intended to will their fighter to victory, and there’s nothing like it when those exhortations work.

There was a novice bout between a tall kid and a short one who looked like he got his trunks at Old Navy. I predicted that he was going to lose. He didn’t. And though if I was scoring, I would have given the decision to the tall kid, maybe I was blinded by the trunks and the pole blocking half my view. It was a good fight, though, and maybe the winner will go on to do something big in the sport in the coming years. 

That’s the appeal of shows like this for those without a vested interest in one of the combatants. You could be watching a future champion, the next Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson. Or maybe that win in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge in the home of some of the greats of the sport will be the last one for the kid in the Old Navy shorts.

Call me crazy, but sometimes that’s enough. It certainly was for the people cheering that kid on. Their guy got the win, he got a medal, and it was early enough for the team to take a walk and get the best barbecue in Brooklyn at Bark in the Time Out New York food hall.

Or maybe they were just going to stay for the nearly 20 bouts taking place that night. I sure didn’t see any seats freeing up while I was there. And why was I there? No one I knew was fighting, but I was there for a fighter.

I met Dave Quiles when he showed up late for our Sunday soccer league game and he got punished by taking the job no one wanted – goalkeeper. That experiment didn’t last long. I got thrown into the net, and we weren’t any better off. But I made a friend. 

Dave was a Brooklynite to the core, and since we had a decade (or two) on our soccer peers, we hit it off immediately. The young ’uns and upwardly mobile didn’t exactly get our sense of humor or the art of breaking balls, but we continued to ignore them and played season after season on free agent squads until we found our footy home with the Corrupted Youth squad. 

With this group, it was more than seeing each other on game day. The group of us would hang out, eat, get into trouble and, yeah, play a game every Sunday. One night last summer, we were at a comedy/soccer show (it’s an NYC thing), and my infamous amateur boxing career came up. If you’re one of the few people on the planet who hasn’t heard the story, in my lone sanctioned boxing match, I got knocked out in 63 seconds in the 1997 New York Golden Gloves. You would think this would be the perfect fodder for a little Dave Quiles ball-breaking. 

It wasn’t. A big boxing and MMA fan, Dave told me that he always wanted to have a fight. Sure, he had his share of scraps on the street growing up, but a real, sanctioned boxing match is a different animal altogether. I told him about USA Boxing’s Masters program and that while I wouldn’t endorse such a thing, I believed every man should have at least one fight. As Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden said in Fight Club, “How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?”

Dave doubled down. I told him I knew someone. He agreed. I texted former world titleholder Heather Hardy and, that next week, Dave was in Gleason’s, training for what was supposed to be his amateur boxing debut – at 47 – in Las Vegas in February.

He loved it, and Hardy and the fighters in Gleason’s loved him right back. It was impossible not to. I was even going to fly to Vegas with him to carry the spit bucket for him. I promised that the first big shot he took, I was throwing in the towel. He did have two kids, you know. But I think he would have done well.

By now, you’re wondering why everything is in the past sense, and that’s because in October, Dave was diagnosed with gastric cancer. Despite his diagnosis, he still showed up to play in our game in Brooklyn, weeks after he dragged us through a Tough Mudder in Pennsylvania. When the game was over, he told us the news and we were crushed.

On New Year’s Day, surrounded by his family and friends, Dave passed away.

Hardy would text for updates while Dave was battling cancer, and she believed he was going to make it. We all did. But when he passed, one of the first things she told me was that Hardy, along with Gleason’s Bruce Silverglade and Sonya Lamonakis, were going to do something for Dave during the amateur show. 

It was Hardy’s birthday, but she was going to be there for the two fighters she cornered – and for Dave. She made sure his mom, two kids and family were there, and after the third fight of the night, Lamonakis took the mic, telling the crowd about our friend before the traditional 10 count was tolled in his honor. Of course, with many still yapping, it was a true Brooklyn moment when someone yelled “Quiet” before the first bell rang.

When the 10 count was over, Hardy presented Dave’s mom, Aida, with a USA Boxing championship belt that had his photo on it. 

“Even though he never got to be a champion in the ring, he was a champion in life,” said Lamonakis. “He did a lot of wonderful things for many people.”

“He started training with me over the summer and signed up for the Masters Tournament in Las Vegas in February,” wrote Hardy the next day in a Facebook post. “Training was going well, then in October he was diagnosed with cancer and he left us on January 1. He brought this team of girls together, and we boxed last night in his honor.” 

Everyone in Gleason’s cheered, and as sad a moment as it was, I was able to joke to my wife that Dave would have loved this reception he got. It was well-deserved, too, because he left a positive impression on everyone he met. In a sporting sense, he was the heart and soul of our soccer team, and apparently he did the same thing for the folks at Gleason’s.

Soon it was time for the next fight, and life went on. But if I needed any reminders why this is such a wonderful sport at its purest level – despite everything conspiring against it from outside and within – I got it in a couple hours in a gym.

It was a Saturday night well spent.