This year's Pennsylvania Silver Gloves tournament will be coming to Lancaster — and the team at Lancaster City Boxing Academy, headed up by coach Will Torres, is hosting.
It’s a first for Torres, who opened the doors of his gym (called Lancaster City Boxing Club at the time) to aspiring boxers in 2013.
“I never imagined I’d one day host the Silver Gloves. Not in 100 years,” Torres said.
Certainly not in 2015, when his then-11-year-old son Will “Puba” Torres (30-plus fights) won the Silver Gloves state championship at The Rock Ministries in Philadelphia.
Not even on the road trip to Ohio — just Torres, his father William Torres, and Puba — for the regional competition that same year. Puba was disqualified from the event for being an ounce overweight.
Torres calls the disqualification “a big-time learning experience for us that never happened again — to him or to any of my kids.”
Learning, and moving forward, are core ideals to Torres. Since 2013, when he was partnered with coach David Rivera, Torres has learned how to coach and train amateur and professional boxers. He took Golden Gloves state champion James Bernadin (10-2) pro in 2018. Many of the young boxers who have trained, and still train, with Torres have represented Lancaster at the national level. His team boasts at least 10 national champions with several — four, at last count — ranked in the top 10 in their division by USA Boxing.
That record and reputation are reasons Torres will be putting on the state Silver Gloves this year, according to Silver Gloves Region Two assistant coordinator Johnny “Rocket” Rivera.
Torres is the “only coach in the East (part of the state, outside of Philadelphia) to win national title after national title after title,” Rivera said.
Rivera knows the work it takes to move a kid from sparring in a local gym to competing at a national boxing tournament. He coaches in Philadelphia at The Rock Ministries, which has hosted the state Silver Gloves multiple times.
The Pennsylvania Silver Gloves is an amateur tournament sanctioned by USA Boxing and open to youths ages 8-16. The age parameters are exactly the reason Torres thinks the Silver Gloves, of all the USA Boxing national tournaments, is so important, especially for the youngest boxers.
“I started with little kids,” Torres said, referring to his earlier years of coaching his son and other pee wee and bantam boxers. The Silver Gloves are a chance for the youngest boxers to earn a shot at a national championship.
Just last year, Major Seth, then 8, who’s trained at Lancaster City since 2020, fought and won three days in a row at the 2023 National Silver Gloves. He came home a champion.
While some tournaments begin and end with a national event, like the 2023 USA Boxing National Championships this December, the Silver Gloves require an athlete to work their way through state and regional qualifiers and maintain their conditioning, skills and weight over a three-month period.
Regional winners will face off at the national tournament, scheduled to begin Feb. 1 in Missouri.
“It means a lot,” Pennsylvania Silver Gloves president Hamza Muhammad said of the tournament. “This is where it starts (because it’s) the only remaining advancing tournament for the children.”
Torres has always wanted his kids to “really earn their way” before competing at the national level, he said. If they show the dedication and rack up wins, Torres will find a way to pay for the registration fees, travel and other expenses.
Lancaster City Boxing Academy has put on two club shows in the past 10 years, but nothing as big as the state Silver Gloves.
Typically, at least 200 kids register for the event — which has multiple divisions based on weight and age — and about 50 get matched (randomly, using a computer program.) So, while Torres has certainly put in the work and earned the chance to host the event, it could be another “big-time learning experience.”
Torres plans to use the ring side of the gym for the competition, and have food and a warm-up area on the other, possibly streaming the fights to that side of the building as well.
He’s even secured some parking spots from a neighboring church.
It’s clear that Rivera and Muhammad think Torres and Lancaster are ready to take on the tournament.
“The support from Lancaster fighters, parents, fans … it’s been amazing over the years,” Muhammad said.
