Greetings Coaches, Officials, Athletes, and Staff,

Over the past several years we have traveled to Compton California to compete in the Regional Silver Gloves tournament. Some of us have been successful in advancing to the National Tournament while others have not. I commend everyone that has been supportive of this tournament and ask that we continue to be supportive of this tournament and our Region.

My name is Coach Jerone C. Penrose, Jr. of Santiago’s Boxing club. I have been a student and lover of boxing since I was a kid but put complete focus into it after meeting my mentor Jose Santiago. Over the years I have observed the politics of boxing and watched an amateur sport that is supposed be about the children become about the leadership. As a coach and official, I can no longer sit in the shadows and watch children work hard day in and day out giving 200% of themselves only to be a victim of the politics of boxing. This past year my club lost an athlete to the violence of the streets and I never want to feel that type of pain again. As a coach, I want to attend graduations and not funerals. How can we as coaches teach our athletes sportsmanship and how hard work pays off if they continue to put forth maximum effort only to be cut down by the politics of others? Change is a must! Before any change can take place 2 things must happen… change within self and change within our home. In this case, our home is our region, Region 8.

In all honesty, I cannot tell you when was the last time that we held our Regional Tournament outside of Compton CA. Every Silver Gloves Regional tournament that I have participated in has had minimal officials with the vast majority coming from California which makes it impossible to not have a conflict of interest. Our athletes receive a silver or bronze medal for competing, which we have all seen local shows provide better awards. We all know that if your athlete is competing against someone from California, especially Southern California, you’re going to lose. This includes those in California that are outside of Southern California. So, we spend a couple thousand dollars for hotels, gas or flights, food, etc. to be denied because of not having impartial judging. The result, we now have whole states within our region that refuse to participate in the Silver Gloves tournament. This is unacceptable. There are several other reasons as well, but I don’t want to expound on the problem.

What is the solution? The first order of business is to have the Regional Director, Joe Zanders removed from office. As of 07 January 2019, the request for Mr. Zanders to step down as director of Region 8 has been submitted to Mr. Zanders and Mr. Rogers. He has been given to 01 April 2019 to step down, but the request for his removal will be submitted by 01 March 2019. I will need as many clubs, coaches, officials, athletes, and staff to sign this petition before the request is submitted. The solution that I am working on is that we create a board of directors, one for each state within our Region. The region that host the tournament for the year will act as Region 8 directors. To ensure that we don’t have this type of dictatorship again, all positions will be up for re-election after a determined period. Considering the logistics of having a tournament in Hawaii, they will have a board member, but no tournaments will be held there. The states not hosting the event will assist in Hawaii’s financial burden of sending a full team to the tournament. Each state will send a minimum of 3 officials to the event. Each state director will also work toward providing a legitimate sponsor to assist in sending the winners to the National Silver Gloves, as well as better awards for the athletes. These are just a few examples of solutions to better the program and others can be discussed at a future date.

If you are ready for change in our region and eventually in USA Boxing as a whole, sign the petition and send it on to your fellow colleagues. I would ask that if you have any grievance with the tournament as it is today, please email me at sbc719.eatin@gmail.com and I will add it to what will be sent to Mr. Rogers.

Respectfully,

Coach Jerone Penrose