Young Boxers Learn Valuable Lessons for Life’s Tougher Fights : Junior Olympics: La Colonia club enters 12 of 20 youngsters representing the county. A five-time world champ shows up.

Edgar Jasso, 10, of East Los Angeles wore a face that meant business as he shadowboxed in the blue corner, waiting for the bell. Across the ring in the red corner, David Luevano of Baldwin Park glared back.

Then it was time to rumble.

Edgar came out with a flurry but after one round his manager, Ernesto Gallardo, 65, trainer of four world champions, seemed concerned.

“Take your time,” he whispered into his fighter’s ear, as Rachel Carmona, 13, walked around the ring in shorts and a red tank top carrying a sign announcing the end of the first round. The boys in attendance whistled and howled.

“Two more rounds to go,” Gallardo said. But when it was all over, it was David who walked away with the win.

So it went at the Southern California Junior Olympics boxing tournament in Oxnard, where more than 60 children, ages 8 to 15, are fighting this weekend for the right to advance to the national finals in Marquette, Wis., at the end of June.

It began like all great boxing events, with a moving rendition of the national anthem. Three cadets, ages 10 to 12, from the Navy League Cadet Corps in Port Hueneme climbed into the ring carrying the flag and wooden rifles. They stood in stiff salute as Camille Gaston, 12, of Oxnard intoned a jazzy, high-pitched version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

By the time it was over Saturday, more than 400 spectators had witnessed triumph and defeat during 16 grueling bouts.

Regardless of each fight’s outcome, the boxers learned lessons in confidence, discipline and self-esteem--the very qualities many will need to emerge from tough neighborhoods as true winners, trainers and parents said.

“Almost all of the kids I train, their parents work on the fields all day picking strawberries or are employed in packinghouses,” said Martin Noriega, 30, a trainer at La Colonia Boxing Club of Oxnard.

“They don’t have time for their kids, but they know that as long as the boys are involved in boxing, they are in good hands.”

La Colonia entered 12 of about 20 boxers representing Ventura County. All of them have a good future, the trainers said, but few are as impressive as Fernando (Dynamite) Vargas, 13, who raised his record to 11-1 after a convincing victory in the ninth bout.

“I like boxing because it keeps me off the street and away from gangs,” he said before his fight.

Does he think he’s going to win?

“I know I am.”

Does he think he can become a world champion?

“I will be a world champion,” he answers, throwing a left-right combination that stops inches short of his smiling trainer’s face.

Vargas was concentrating so hard he barely noticed the guest of honor, five-time world champion Tommy (The Hit Man) Hearns, who sat by the ring. A stream of youngsters and parents came by to get their boxing gloves autographed or their pictures taken with the champ.

The children remind him of his own beginnings, Hearns said.

“I started off in the Junior Olympics in Detroit,” he said, adding that things haven’t changed much since he was a boy.

“Always the same--a lot of hard work, a lot of hard work. You know these kids have done a lot of training to get ready,” he said.

Matthew Doucette, 10, another La Colonia Gym boxer, came up to Hearns and asked for an autograph. The champ wished him good luck.

“ Oh maaaaan!! ‘ ‘ Matthew said as he walked away with the champion’s signature. “It feels real good!”

Matthew’s father, Dennis, couldn’t be prouder of his son. “My father was a Golden Glove winner and a prizefighter during the Depression,” Doucette said.

“Matthew reminds me so much of my dad. . . . You know what he told me? He said, ‘Dad, I’m gonna be a world champion and a lawyer.’ And I believe him, you know. He’s a straight-A student and a tough little fighter.”

Matthew’s mother, Anne Marie, said it’s hard to watch her son getting whacked in the ring, but that in the end, it’s worth it.

“He doesn’t fight in the streets. He knows the difference. And it’s really exciting . . . until the fight starts. But he’s got confidence, and I think that’s good. He’s a great kid.”