Thomas MacMillan Photo
As she prepares to open a boxing gym in Dixwell, former world champion Devonne “Da Bomb” Canady dreams of a new victory: Finding a young female pugilist to train for the 2012 Olympics.
Canady shared that goal the other day as she put up signs on a building on Henry Street, giving notice of a Board of Zoning Appeals meeting on June 8. Canady will be there to ask permission to open a boxing gym in the former gas station at the corner of Henry and Orchard streets.
The building, which has been empty for years, sits in a weedy lot of cracked asphalt across from a liquor store and one block from Hillhouse High School.
“This is ideal,” said Canady as she stood on the corner on a recent afternoon. The 40-year-old Hillhouse graduate said she’s pleased with the proximity to the school. She said she also feels called to Dixwell; she wants to get kids off the streets and into the gym, to give them “a positive outlet.”
Canady, who works as a respiratory therapist at Yale-New Haven Hospital, grew up in Westville and now lives in West Haven. When she got the idea to open a gym, she started driving around Dixwell, looking for a location. “I know the potential here,” she said. “I’ve always felt this is the area to be in.”
Canady’s gym will be called the “Elephant In The Room Boxing Club.” It’s a reference to unaddressed problems in the neighborhood, she said. Everybody knows that Dixwell has crime and teen pregnancy, but no one’s doing anything about it, Canady said.
Elephant In The Room is designed to do something about it. The gym will offer boxing training for children and adults ages 8 and up, to give them a place to be after school and an activity to be involved in. Boys and girls under 18 will pay only a small fee for gym membership. Adults over 18 will pay a larger fee. Neighborhood parents can’t afford the full fee for their kids, Canady explained. “This is not a middle class neighborhood.”
Canady said she’s in the process of registering the gym as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. She hopes to fund the boxing club through grants and donations.
She’s enlisted her former trainer Gary Smikle as head Elephant In The Room trainer. He was a national champion in Jamaica and went to the Olympics in 1988.
Canady, who wears a little gold glove on a chain around her neck, has an impressive record of her own. “I competed in two world championships,” she said. In the first women’s boxing world championships, in 2001 in Scranton PA, “I was the only gold medal winner for the U.S. team,” she said. The next year, the championships were in Turkey. “I flew to Turkey and won the bronze,” Canady said.
She said she’s also won nationals twice, won Golden Gloves in 2000, and was the Connecticut state champ.
As a pioneer in the sport, Canady has seen women’s boxing grow over the years. It’s now been accepted as an Olympic sport and will debut in 2012 in London. After turning 40 this year, Canady said, she recognized her time in the ring is over. “My goal is to train a young lady to be in the games in 2012,” she said.
Before she can do that, Canady has another daunting task ahead of her — renovating the long abandoned gas station.
The site has to buried gas tanks that will have to be removed. Canady said she’s hoping to find some public environmental remediation money to help pay for that.
The building itself needs an overhaul. The wall above the front door has a gaping hole. Inside, half-built cinderblock walls close in a main room with exposed wooden joists overhead and scraps of lumber on the unfinished concrete floor.
Canady said the building’s owner has been working to fix up the building. She said she doesn’t know how much it will cost to get the gym up and running. But she has a target date for opening: August.
Elephant In The Room will be the latest of several youth-oriented boxing gyms in New Haven. Last year, the Boxing In Faith gym opened in Fair Haven. In the Hill neighborhood, Brian Clark has run Ring One boxing for years.
Canady said it’s important to have gyms in different neighborhoods, since kids may not feel able to travel across to town to train in someone else’s “turf.” Canady said she hopes to break down some of that territorialism by holding boxing tournaments between Boxing in Faith, Ring One, and Elephant In The Room. The tourneys could break down barriers by allowing kids from different neighborhoods to visit and get to know each other, she said.
Ms. Canady,
Not sure if you're at the point yet where you are looking for equipment, but I have a used heavy bag that I would be happy to donate to your program. My name above should link to my email address; please feel free to contact me if you're interested. Best of luck!