Prized Fighters

One is a natural, the other a master of technique in “the sweet science,” and now both are teenage boxing champions.

Albert Albillar, 13, and Leonel Madrigal, 16, slugged their way to the top of an amateur boxing competition in early February in Kansas City.

Both brought back championship belts after winning national Silver Gloves titles in their respective weight divisions. They hope to move up the ranks now and fight in the Junior Olympics and eventually on the Olympic team.

Albillar, a flyweight and eighth-grader at Oxnard’s E.O. Green School, caught many off guard with his quick rise to the top after only 15 months as a boxer.

Madrigal, a bantamweight and Channel Islands High School junior, put together four years of hard training to fight his way to the championship.

“These guys are real good,” said local boxing promoter Robert Valdez. “I’d say Madrigal is a textbook fighter, and Albillar has a sort of free style that you can only be born with. It’s a real gift that they have.”

When the pair returned to the gym, they received praise from the 40 other young fighters with whom they train in a converted indoor handball court at the Port Hueneme branch of the Oxnard Boys & Girls Club.

This is a big achievement for the Hueneme club where fighters have labored in the shadow of La Colonia Youth Boxing Club in Oxnard. The Oxnard club, which has produced such champion boxers as Robert Garcia and Fernando Vargas, has earned a reputation as one of the top amateur programs in the state. By producing its own state, regional and now national champions, the Hueneme club hopes it has earned a similar reputation.

Both clubs have been widely acclaimed for their power to steer boys away from crime and toward discipline, self-respect and responsibility. And from the pool of local boys who are one step away from either the street or the farm fields, the clubs have found eager recruits.

Valdez, who along with promoting boxing matches in his free time also works as a service manager for a car dealership, said the boys’ victories have helped put the Hueneme club on the boxing map and bring praise to Alfonzo Mendoza, the head boxing coach at the gym.

“I’ve always felt that Alfonzo has not gotten the recognition he deserves,” Valdez said.

When the Hueneme club closed briefly last year after the local Boys & Girls Club declared bankruptcy, Mendoza trained his boxers in his backyard.

“It’s really amazing what they’ve been able to do on such a shoestring budget,” Valdez said.

At the Hueneme club, Madrigal and Albillar and their families talked about their recent victories over the din of other boxers knocking out rhythms on speed bags or jabbing and throwing a flurry of uppercuts while shadowboxing on the frayed canvas that serves as the club’s ring.

Albillar’s mother and father attributed his quickness and ability to take a punch to years of punishment from his five brothers. Albillar said he had wanted to be a boxer since he was 4 but his mother would not let him.

“She didn’t want my face to get messed up,” he said with a crooked smile.

But her attitude changed a little over a year ago after her son got in trouble with the law. While doing community service work at the Boys & Girls Club, he was encouraged by Director Jaime Zendajas to get involved with boxing.

“They put some gloves on him and he bloodied a few noses and was hooked,” his mother, Alice, said. She and her husband, John, said although they worry about him during his matches, boxing has redirected their son’s energy and given him a tremendous amount of self-confidence.

“It’s keeping him out of trouble,” John Albillar said. “He’s really confident now, focused.”

Madrigal’s father, Alberto, who is also his coach, said his son has impressed him with his skill.

“I’ve seen a lot of boxers, and Leonel is a real boxer’s boxer,” he said. “He has very good technique.”

Alberto Madrigal is one of three trainers who work at the Hueneme club helping to train boxers ranging in age from 6 to 21. Although he volunteers his time, head coach Mendoza, who works as a truck driver, is paid minimum wage for the four hours of training he does with the boys each day.

Both the young Madrigal and Albillar have the same routine, hitting the gym about 4:30 each afternoon and staying sometimes as late as 8 p.m. They run three miles, work with the speed bag and heavy bag, and shadowbox each day and spar at least twice a week.

“My days are always pretty much the same,” Albillar said. “I wake up at 6, go to school, come home and rest and then I go to the gym and train for a few hours. I go back home, eat and go to sleep.”

Fresh from their victories, the boys had a short rest before returning to the gym to begin training for the Golden Gloves competition in May.