Magnet for Troubled Youth : Boxing: John Ibarra’s coaching turns street kids into fighters. His message is that hard work and heart matter most. Ibarra’s most famous student, Oscar De La Hoya, recently won the Olympic gold medal.

Alex Nunez, 13, is swiveling and ducking, doing his best to stay out of reach of 19-year-old Rodrigo Aranda. The two are sparring in the boxing ring at the Boys and Girls Club of San Pedro, and Nunez is being pounded in the head and chest.

Aranda--nicknamed Tweety--coils and explodes, sleek and relentless, as he pressures Alex, circling and striking.

Boxing Coach John Ibarra matched the two to give Alex the benefit of fighting someone much better than himself. No one expected him to beat Aranda, a silver medalist in the Los Angeles Golden Gloves tournament earlier this year.

Alex, like most of the youths in Ibarra’s boxing program, is determined to be a professional boxer. He has seen the success of Ibarra’s other fighters, including Ibarra’s most recent star, Olympic gold medalist Oscar De La Hoya. He knows he can be as good, if he survives the bout with Aranda.

Punctuating Aranda’s blows is a volley of admonitions from Ibarra: “Keep your jab on him and you won’t be so tired. Alex, keep your left hand up, keep it up by your chin! Alex! Keep your eyes on Tweety. When you lose sight of him, he nails you.”

Alex, head down, loses sight of Aranda, and Aranda nails him with a right to the head, ending the bout.

Ibarra is nevertheless pleased with Alex’s performance.

“This kid’s tough, huh?” he said. “He hasn’t really trained in two months and he looks good.”

In the weeks since the Olympics, many of the 30 or so youths in Ibarra’s program have returned to training with a new intensity--determined, like De La Hoya, to rise above their humble beginnings to claim the gold.

Yet even before the Olympics, Ibarra’s boxing program was a magnet for youths seeking a refuge from gangs and a route to success. Located in a side room of the spacious Boys and Girls Club of San Pedro, many of the young fighters have been gangbangers, and some have been in youth camps or jail for robbing people, doing drugs or beating people up.

But inside the boxing room, where only boxers are admitted and the door automatically locks when closed, the young fighters describe themselves as “nice guys.”

Most do not climb into the boxing ring and change into disciplined, well-behaved young men. They swing between the love and discipline of Ibarra behind the locked door of the boxing room and the lure of easy acceptance offered by the streets, spending some months here and some months there until one side wins. Ibarra often wins.

Ibarra, 28, lives boxing and offers his program to the troubled youths at no price. A longshoreman at the Port of Los Angeles, he works nights until 3 a.m., sometimes until 7 a.m. Catching a nap, he then gets up to train his professional boxers at Gold’s Gym in Long Beach. From 3 to 5 p.m., he trains boxers at the Boys and Girls Club, then runs to meetings, goes to his fighters’ tournaments and goes to work.

Much of his time and most of his money is spent keeping the program going. The dreams of many rest on his shoulders. He has told his fighters that they can turn pro, they can win an Olympic gold medal, like Oscar.

The far wall of the boxing room is really a series of long windows, and light careens around the boxers and glances off the mirrors on the wall on the far side of the ring; throughout practice, someone is always in front of the mirror--dancing, jabbing, looking deep into the glass for signs of style and grace.

Any kid with a little ability and a lot of heart can be a good boxer, Ibarra said. Hard work will always win out over raw talent. Take Oscar, Ibarra said. Hard work is why he won an Olympic gold medal.

It is a refrain heard often by Ibarra’s trainees: Oscar worked hard, was dedicated. That’s why he is where he is.

De La Hoya, from East Los Angeles, lived with Ibarra in San Pedro from 1986-1989 so he could train with him. He still visits the club, and autographed pictures of him line the walls. One large picture of De La Hoya with Ibarra and co-trainer Al Stankie is by the door, a last thought for fighters leaving the room after practice.

When Ibarra leaves the room, the youths are emphatic that they believe in him because he is a good coach, not just because he has trained successful boxers.

“But it gives him an edge when he’s talking to you ‘cause you know he knows what he’s doing,” said 21-year-old Michael Cruz of San Pedro.

Lithe and soft-spoken, Cruz, like almost everyone else in Ibarra’s program, is in search of an Olympic gold medal and a professional career. He has the potential to have both, Ibarra says.

A gold medal, Cruz said, would restore his sense of self-worth and erase the disgrace he has brought to his family by going to jail for robbery. It would pay his debt to his community and to God, he said.

“I have to do something positive, for myself. My family forgives me, and I know God forgives me,” Cruz said. “But I don’t forgive myself. I owe myself more than what I’ve given myself in the past. I owe so much, so much to everyone.”

If Ibarra’s boxing program is awash in potential professional fighters and Olympic athletes, it is not because of something in San Pedro’s water. Good boxers have heart, Ibarra says. That message is adrenaline to his fighters. Anyone who loves to fight can do it. Any one of them can do it.

Next in the ring are 14-year-old Flaco (Skinny) and 13-year-old Labios (Lips). Flaco--his real name is Joe Carvajal--is so called for obvious reasons. Ibarra calls Sergio Diaz “Lips” because he talks too much in school. Their session begins with a demand by Ibarra to bring in report cards.

“See, that’s the thing with Oscar. He was so dedicated that we would take his books around with us to all of his fights,” Ibarra tells them.

It’s a dogfight compared to the strategic choreography of the Aranda-Nunez sparring. Flaco is the more aggressive of the two, and Labios wears a look of pain that will remain after the sparring ends, throughout the sit-ups that follow and until the pushups that end practice are over.

While others are on the mat, 20-year-old Mitchell Waters--tall, golden and muscled--enters the room.

“You’re too late. You’re not God--you can’t just come when you want to come,” Ibarra says. Waters takes off his shirt and begins to work out with a punching bag.

“I should’ve been in the Olympics, but I’m not going to let it get away again,” he said. Waters, who studies at Harbor College, says that he may turn pro before the next Olympics.

A day does not pass that Ibarra does not remind him that he should have gone to Barcelona--the price he paid for not going to a gym for months.

“He should’ve been there with Oscar. He has everything it takes but the discipline,” Ibarra said, shaking his head.

Waters, silent, keeps hitting the bag while Ibarra runs down the list of his weaknesses. Ibarra’s diatribe is in proportion to Water’s potential, and everyone has stopped to listen as Ibarra builds up to repeating the one requirement to be a champ:

“It’s heart. I’d rather see somebody with heart than talent any time,” Ibarra said, glancing at Waters. “See, that’s the thing with Oscar, he has heart.”

Waters, nodding, fights with the bag.