The Teamsters Gym

                                                      By kiki

My first time stepping through the doors of the Teamster Gym was around 1949 when a friend and I rode the bus and street car from the Simons Brickyard to watch boxers train. I fell in love with that gym—and its people. The doorman was an old cranky guy, Joe Kelly, who even though he only weighed about 110 pounds would grab you and throw you out if you didn’t pay your two bits.

The cast of characters that made up the Teamsters boxing family were some of the elite fighters, trainers, and managers of Los Angeles boxing in that golden era. Johnny Forbes trained Gil Cadilli, Frankie and Juan Luis Campos, Keeny Teran, Carlos and Al Chavez, and many others. Louie Jauregui and Bob De La Fuentes managed Rudy Jordan, who went on to become a well-known referee. Also under their wing was Hank Aceves, a top main eventer, as well as some top prelim fighters. Louie and Bob had a falling out and they went their separate ways with their fighters. Louie went on to manage Butch and Dave Contreras and co-managed Mando Muniz to world title fights against the great Jose Napoles. Bob went on to manage his sons, Ray and Orlando De La Fuentes.

Hoyt Porter had mostly amateur fighters in his stable at the gym, with one or two pro fighters. Hoyt was my first “professional” trainer. I fought a few amateur fights for him, and then I finished my amateur boxing career with Louie Jauregui; I never fought pro. Some of the top fighters who I sparred with in that old building were Lou Bernal, Fabela Chavez, Bernard and Maxie Docusen, Lauro Salas, Rudy Jordan, Rudy Garcia, Gil Cadilli, Cisco Andrade, Hank Aceves, Dave and Butch Contreras, Carlos and Al Chavez and Keeny Teran—the list goes on and on!

In the early ‘60s after I had stopped boxing I would still go to the Teamster on Saturday mornings just to work out and to spar with the young guns. It was during those Saturday mornings workouts in 1964 that I introduced my two older boys, Frankie and Tony, to the sport of boxing. The boys took to boxing the way ducks take to water. They were soon winning multiple Junior Golden Gloves titles. My other boy, Bobby, later joined the team; he too won a number of JGG titles. Frankie and Tony went on to have good professional careers. Bobby had six pro fights and called it a day, which was okay with me; I was never one to tell them “you have to fight.”

In the early 1950s, with the backing of the Teamster Union, Louie Jauregui and Johnny Flores started the Junior Golden Gloves. In 1965 I became tournament director and was so for ten years. In those ten years we had kids come through the program that later on went on to have stellar boxing careers. Some became world champions, some top contenders, and to be honest, some didn’t win more than twenty five percent of their fights—but to their credit; they fought on when the odds were against them.

Today that old building is still there, but the gym was closed years ago. All that remains of the storied Teamsters Gym are the ghost of those great and, yes, some not so great fighters that trained there, fighters who I would like to think are still shadow boxing on the wooded floor of that old gym, with old Joe Kelly yelling at them, “you better not spit on the floor!”