I grew up a fan of all kinds of sports. First, basketball. Second, boxing. And then everything else. Scanning library shelves throughout El Paso public libraries
as a kid, my eyes were set on anything related to basketball, boxing and Walter Dean Myers. That's how I discovered The Contender by Robert Lipsyte.
After that, I would follow the careers of Oba Carr, Roy Jones Jr., Oscar De La Hoya, Arturo Gatti, Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrerra, Bernard Hopkins,
Larry Holmes, Virgil Hill, Johnny Tapia, Shane Mosley, Julio Cesar Chavez, Riddick Bowe, Hector Camacho, Vinny Pazienza, Pernell Whitaker, Kevin Kelly and others. Post 1999,
I lost track of boxing and it wasn't until recently that my interest in the sport came back through Antonio Escalante. On July 24, 2009, Escalante faced Cornelius
Lock from Detroit, MI, defeating him by unanimous decision and bringing Escalante closer to becoming the Sun City's first boxing world champion. The fight took place
in El Paso, TX at the Don Haskins Center. Prior to this fight, the only other nationally televised professional boxing match out of El Paso that I watched was the battle between Erik Morales and Daniel Zaragoza that took place at the County Coliseum in 1997.
Before the Escalante & Lock fight, I didn't know who Antonio Escalante was. Included in the following link is an outdated biography I was able to find online along with photographs I shot at
the Carolina Rec. Center on July 21, 2009 during Escalante's public workout and lunch. There are many parts of his story that I believe many families, including my own, can relate to when talking about
the challenges, struggles, road blocks and opportunities that are born, raised or in some cases brought to an end throughout our communities in El Paso, TX, Cd. Juarez, Chihuahua and surrounding regions.
For Escalante, I'm real proud of his accomplishments and influence on many youngsters throughout El Paso that have high hopes for their future inside and outside the ring. Here is the link to the bio and photographs: click here.
Also shout out to El Paso's Abraham Han who's currently 6-0 as a professional boxer, with two of his latest wins taking place within one week. Han was on the
undercard in the nationally televised Escalante bout July 24, 2009 and at George Foreman III's heavyweight bout in Las Cruces a few days later. Abraham Han
is a son and brother of a family with more than four decades of history in the martial arts. Han's father Master Bae H. Han has influenced and trained fighters for years, including
my own father who achieved his 1st degree black belt a year before my born day in 1980. For more information on the Han family, please visit the following link:
Hans Oriental Martial Arts.
Below you'll find news articles and various links to information related to this website's content. I also encourage you to check out past Newsletter posts by visiting the
Newsletter Archive and also
check for updates at the Voices Behind Walls Myspace. Below you'll find an audio recording by Filemon also known in class as Fili. Over the course of one month Fili created poems
that ranged in subject matter with performances that had us all anticipating his next recording. The piece included below is titled "The Box" with a message that shares common reach
with being a contender in life.
