{"id":937,"date":"2010-04-21T16:14:30","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T16:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/magazine\/?page_id=937"},"modified":"2017-09-06T11:38:49","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T15:38:49","slug":"punch","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/back-issues\/y2007\/fall07\/departments\/punch\/","title":{"rendered":"Slipping the Punch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social worker first and boxing trainer second, Whitney Wright \u201990 helps at-risk youth face the world in a boxer\u2019s stance<\/strong><\/p>\n

By H. Jay Burns<\/p>\n

Punished for talking back to his teacher, one of Whitney Wright\u2019s teenage boxers almost missed his after-school training session.<\/p>\n

Later, in a group discussion with Wright and his fellow boxers, he insisted that the teacher was playing him, trying to get him in trouble. But the others confronted him. \u201cYou were all offense and no defense,\u201d said one. \u201cYou got hit \u2019cause you went in straight. Slip under the punch, man, re member?\u201d<\/p>\n

The boys\u2019 use of a boxing metaphor to deal with a real-world problem was a small victory for Wright, whose program combines boxing training and social group work.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoxing is rich in metaphor, and metaphor helps them be insightful about life,\u201d says Wright.<\/p>\n

Though her own boxing credentials include the flyweight title in the 2002 San Francisco Golden Gloves, Wright is first of all a clinical social worker. She has spent most of her working life \u2014 aside from time off after the birth of her son Rex, 35 days after this March 2007 photo session \u2014 working with at-risk teens and young adults. These days she\u2019s in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco as director of behavioral health for the Third Street Youth Center and Clinic.<\/p>\n

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At the Straight Forward Club boxing gym, Whitney Wright '90 \u2014 at the time eight months pregnant \u2014 focuses her attention on Twan, age 17. He works the double-end bag, used for target practice. Photograph by Victor Blue.<\/p><\/div>\n

She began boxing in the 1990s, when she and her husband, Thomas Goetz \u201990, lived in Brooklyn. \u201cI\u2019d spent a lot of time traveling alone, in Latin America and Europe, and was always very confident,\u201d she says. Then an act of violence struck her family, leaving her feeling vulnerable. \u201cI looked into self-defense classes, but they seemed to be more about walking with confidence and things like that. I wanted something more dynamic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her search ended just down the street from her home, at Brooklyn\u2019s famed Gleason\u2019s Gym, training grounds for Muhammad Ali and Rocky Graziano, among many others. It\u2019s where Robert De Niro became Jake LaMotta for Raging Bull, and where Whitney Wright became a boxer, thanks to trainer Stuart Bakal. \u201cI\u2019d never had a trainer-trainee sports relationship,\u201d she says. \u201cHe and I just clicked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whitney Wright ’90\u00a0is director of behavioral health for the<\/span> Third Street Youth Center and Clinic<\/span><\/a>. The mission of the community-based agency is to “provide youth in Bayview Hunters Point with medical and behavioral health services that encourage them to make decisions that support their health, safety and development.”<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Wright\u2019s relationship with Bakal mirrors her own relationship with at-risk youth. \u201cIt was so obvious that boxing lent itself to my work,\u201d she says. \u201cThe focus is on building on personal strengths, and I do with my kids what Stu did with me. If they\u2019ve had a hard round, I hug them. I give them water when they\u2019re sparring. And if I\u2019m with them in the ring and they look at something going in the ring, I\u2019ll hit them in the face. I\u2019m going to challenge them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her occasional face swats notwithstanding, Wright argues that boxing is not about violence. \u201cBoxing is about engaging with the other person in the ring and not hiding. Violence means you are not engaging. You\u2019re driving by and shooting someone.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the amateur ring, she says, boxers respect and identify with their opponent. \u201cAgain, that is the opposite of violence. If you identify with the person you\u2019re inflicting violence on, you\u2019re probably not going to inflict the violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like a one-two combination, the boxers in Wright\u2019s group learn to respect each other, fostering a sense of mutual aid, a social-work term implying how a group becomes a team. Talking about life and about boxing in group discussion sessions, \u201cthey get a cognitive understanding of their experience in the ring,\u201d Wright says. The team members learn to give help and take help, and start to recast their self-identities. That\u2019s not a small matter in a neighborhood where getting shot is a typical way to bolster one\u2019s self-image \u2014 \u201cto show, like, \u2018I\u2019m really from Hunters Point,\u2019\u201d as one of her boxers said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSelf-identity is the guiding factor in youth behavior,\u201d says Wright, who outlined 10 positive attributes of her boxing program in \u201cKeep It in the Ring,\u201d published in the academic journal Social Work with Groups in 2006. \u201cThere are myriad reasons at play when teens shoot each other, but a healthy self-concept is not one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than any of the many Hollywood boxing films, Wright\u2019s favorite boxing movie is the documentary On the Ropes. Likewise, she has no Hollywood ending for her story.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I could say that everyone graduates from high school and becomes a productive member of society. But it\u2019s not the case,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I believe in long-term work. I\u2019m still in contact with kids from New York, and I know boxing has played a part in their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs their coach, counselor, friend, I care what happens to them. I am experiencing all of this with them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\t