Boxing day.(boxing for sport and recreation; narrative)(Column)

'THREE! (... two, three)--Go!--Switch! Six! (... four, five, six)--Go!--Switch!--Switch! Twelve! (... ten, eleven, twelve)--Go!--Switch! ..."

I am watching my son, Daniel, age nine, working the big bag. The instructor calls out how many blows the boy should land on the bag. After the last blow, Danny must dance off sideways round the bag, switching direction on a word of command, waiting for the next number call.

My son is taking his weekly session at a local outfit named Fitness Through Boxing, run from a modest storefront near us, and containing a full-size boxing ring, some bags, and a small gym area fitted out with benches and free weights. We come here every Wednesday evening for an hour: Danny to take the training, I to catch up on magazine reading.

FTB is the brainchild of a local amateur boxer, Rob Vanacore. Rob told me he fell in love with boxing in 1971, when he was nine, the night of the tremendous first Ali-Frazier fight. From that moment on Rob belonged to the small, blessed band of human beings whose life is fired with a determination to do just one thing really well. He started out practicing with a neighborhood kid named Tony. They had only one pair of gloves, so they wore one glove each, taking turns so left and right both got a workout. Tony went on to join the U. S. Army, boxed professionally in Europe, and won a junior-middleweight championship. Rob--who, at 5'8" and 147 lbs., boxes welterweight--worked as a pizza-maker for a few years, but he worked only in order to box. The great event for amateur boxers in the New York area is the local Golden Gloves, a competition run by the Daily News. Rob chased the championship for 14 years, making it to the semifinals twice.

Tony is back in the neighborhood now, working at the gym with Rob. A large and superbly muscled man, Tony would be very intimidating but for inborn good nature and tireless enthusiasm. Earlier in the evening I'd seen him sparring with one of the more advanced students, a boy of about 17. Ducking, weaving, skipping easily to and fro, Tony was a marvel to watch. I talked with the teenager afterwards. "With a regular sparring partner," the lad groused, "you throw a punch, three times out of four you'll hit his glove. With Tony, you never hit anything. By the time your glove gets there, Tony's some place else."

I can't call myself a great boxing fan. I've always liked the sport, but never followed it closely. If I'm channel surfing and catch a boxing match in progress, I'll stop and watch it through--that's about the limit of my enthusiasm. I had a brief moment of glory at age 13 when the gym teacher at our boys-only school organized a boxing tournament, with a ring set up in the school auditorium. Though a fundamentally unathletic kid, I was going through a growth spurt, and, as often happens, different parts were growing at different ...