State To Monitor USA Boxing Eventes

California State Athletic Commission orders the monitoring for at least two months. The action stems from video that showed young children boxing without parental supervision at a USA Boxing amateur c

By Lance Pugmire

In November, a Bay Area television station aired footage of a USA Boxing amateur card at the exclusive Olympic Club in San Francisco where children as young as 8 boxed without parental supervision and grown men were heard gambling on the outcome.

Last month, the California State Athletic Commission stepped in to issue a cease-and-desist order to stop USA Boxing from sanctioning amateur fights in the state -- throwing legitimate youth boxing into limbo amid a threat to revoke the organization's future participation in the state.

But the situation moved toward resolution Monday when the commission ordered state inspectors to monitor all USA Boxing events for at least two months, after which an updated report will be filed about the amateur organization that sends U.S. fighters to the Olympics.

"Hopefully, it'll work out," said Karen Chappelle, the state's supervising deputy attorney general who brokered the agreement in an hourlong closed-door meeting with USA Boxing Chief Executive Jim Millman and an attorney for the U.S. Olympic Committee. "As you've seen from the turnout at this hearing, there's a lot of interest in amateur boxing in this state."

Javier Molina, a 2008 U.S. Olympian from Commerce, attended the hearing, along with former U.S. Olympic fighters Vicente Escobedo, Henry Tillman and Paul Gonzales.

Commissioners were told that it's unfair to punish 2,200 amateur boxers participating in USA Boxing events in Southern California with the cease-and-desist order.

Chappelle negotiated for USA Boxing to institute a mandatory safety plan for transporting injured fighters to medical facilities, and Millman has tightened guidelines to ban non-boxing clubs such as San Francisco's Olympic and City clubs from hosting USA Boxing events.

The U.S. Olympic Committee placed USA Boxing on probation in February for "fiscal" reasons, USOC attorney Rana Dershowitz told the commission Monday. She said USA Boxing "is moving in the right direction," although the California troubles only added to the organization's tarnished reputation after a dismal showing by U.S. boxers at the Beijing Olympics last summer.

"We were very concerned about our future here in California," Millman said after the hearing. "The single most frustrating issue is that we're talking about one event out of 200. By now defining what a boxing club is, we'll eliminate what happened at the Olympic."

Said Chappelle: "That one show at the Olympic put the spotlight on them, and we found other issues. I don't think all their events were bad, but they weren't responsible to the commission, and now they are."

In addition to the new mandatory safety plan and new club guidelines, USA Boxing must put coaches through background checks, make it easier for amateurs to file a grievance, improve training for coaches and upgrade record keeping for fighters to avoid dangerous mismatches.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com