Al 'Hollywood' Meggett teaches discipline, life lessons with boxing

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Hollywood Meggett

Al "Hollywood" Meggett has been training the young people of the Charleston area to box for 25 years. Now he is training his boxers' and former boxers' children.

Happily observing Al "Hollywood" Meggett's school of boxing and life one recent Saturday morning, Howard Gatch beamed along with the sun streaks on the hardwood floor. Standing between a teenager taking uppercut lessons from a former world champion and the 77-year-old master-mentor preaching his Dietary Law to another attentive boy in Everlast gloves, Gatch recalled that very first step up the staircase.

Like Meggett, the old red brick firehouse on upper King Street appears plain at first. But the stairs lead to an always frenetic, sometimes magical second floor and a big heart.

Open the side door and before your front foot hits the bottom step, here comes a boxing orchestra.

"I stood at the bottom of those stairs and I heard the

'boom-boom-boom' of guys punching," Gatch said. "I heard guys punching speed bags, guys punching slow bags. I heard guys banging around up the stairs. I stood down there for a few seconds. I really wanted to go up those stairs but my heart was pounding."

More than 25 years later, both eyes well.

"Finally, I took a deep breath and went up the stairs," Gatch said. "Right away, Hollywood just took me in like a son."

Gatch, a 42-year-old West Ashley residential contractor, thinks boxing the Hollywood way changes young lives, which has been precisely Meggett's goal while officially running Charleston's Police Athletic League boxing program for 26 years. More than 100 people — mostly boys 8 to 20 — are signed up. There is no charge for children 18 and younger who come to learn "the sweet science" in a one-room character lab with a wood panel ceiling.

"Boxing is a vehicle I use," Meggett said. "Football and basketball are good vehicles, too. But for me it's boxing, and it's more than love. It's a passion. It's a commitment. It's ordained. You know?"

He has trained and promoted amateur and professional fighters, including Golden Gloves champs and Pan Am Games qualifiers. The students brave enough to walk up the stairs are black, white and Hispanic. Some boxers are in their 20s, and a few girls participate. Rebecca Nettleton trained here and became a Golden Gloves champion in 1999.

"They come from all over," Meggett said. "James Island. North Charleston. I tapped this neighborhood out a long time ago."

Meggett learned about boxing in his native Harlem, deep in the basement of a Catholic church. Long ties to the sport he loves and its icons line the white brick walls inside the PAL Gym.

An autographed photo of Muhammad Ali.

"Worked with Ali at his camp in Deer Lake, Pa.," Maggette said.

A Joe Louis poster.

"Met him several times."

A giant American flag.

"Obama? Oh, he has inspired me so much. I'm ready to do some more. How he's inspiring this country is needed. Hey, do you know the president of the United States is a lefty?"

Meggett makes each kid read the posted words: "God's gift to us is our potential. Our gift back is what we do with it."

Father and son

The man is flashy. Occasionally, Meggett will roar over the gym noise.

"Hollywood is the man! But y'all know that, right?"

He wears three gold chains, one adorned with a miniature boxing glove. But when the garnet 2000 Chevy Express van with the scripted "Hollywood" front license plate rolls up each afternoon, it is all business.

"You know what? The best part about this is discipline," Meggett said. "You see, these youngsters can achieve goals with discipline. I emphasize that because it works. If kids want to advance in life, it's discipline first."

Meggett was making his boxers stick to proper diets way before people considered fat grams. This long into it, he is teaching the sons of his former boxers.

"I put my grandson in the program," said Charleston educator, counselor and radio personality Osei Chandler. "Not to box, just to develop some self confidence."

On a Saturday morning, generations took turns in a ring set up alongside the original firehouse sliding pole. The guest celebrity teacher was Roger Mayweather, a 47-year-old former world champion and trainer whose clients include his nephew and more famous champion, Floyd Mayweather Jr.

"You gotta be faster," Mayweather told 16-year-old Johnny Campbell Jr., sparring and listening. "The guy already hit you."

Johnny Campbell Sr. watched with pride. One of Meggett's most successful Golden Gloves champions, the elder Campbell serves as a part-time assistant coach.

"My son has been watching me spar all these years," Campbell said. "I told him once he started driving, he could drive himself up here."

Not much has changed inside the gym since the elder Campbell first came up the stairs in 1986. Except the file cabinet in Meggett's tiny, cramped office. It is stuffed with hundreds of certification cards for boxers past.

"See, this is 'The Rebel,' " Hollywood said, pointing to a photo of a boxer whose trunks are a replica of a Confederate battle flag. "I gave him that nickname, The Rebel. I've taken boxers to fight as far away as Denmark." He didn't mean Denmark, South Carolina.

Jamild Jones, 17, jabs and bobs well enough to dream. He has been boxing since he was 8.

"I want to fight in the Olympics," the Military Magnet High School student said. "But I want to go to college, too."

Rule No. 1

Cruz Krafsig, 26, is a graduate of Academic Magnet High School, the College of Charleston and MUSC's school of nursing.

"I always liked boxing but never knew a place to do it until I found this," said Krafsig, who has had some official bouts. "Hollywood is great with all of us, but particularly the kids. He makes them do their homework every day before they put on the gloves."

The gloves are larger and more padded than those professionals use, lessening the chance of injury. Meggett's boxers also wear thick black headgear and padded red waist protectors.

He isn't worried about potential budget problems.

"We started with nothing," Meggett said. "All we had was a dream, and that was 30 years ago. So I'm not worried. We can adjust to all means."

Meggett is a grandfather whose father was born on Edisto Island. He served in the Navy. He worked for the post office and on the waterfront.

"Lots of jobs," he said, "but, basically, boxing has been my thing."

There is another framed item on the white wall at the old firehouse, "The Top 10 Rules To Be The Best."

Rule No. 1: "Value Excellence."

Gatch got the message. A mixed-up teen from James Island when he arrived at the gym, Gatch boxed his way to a national tournament in Pompano Beach, Fla., in 1989.

"We went down there, us boxers and Hollywood, all of us in a Suzuki," Gatch said. "I thought, 'Man, all these palm trees. The beach. This is beautiful.' "

Later, he moved to South Florida, went to Miami Dade Community College and went to Florida International.

"I have my own business now," Gatch said. "All that probably wouldn't have happened without boxing in Hollywood's program."

The elder Campbell started with Meggett when he was 16.

"I got in Job Corps and took welding," Campbell said. "I worked at the shipyard, then traveled a lot with the Navy doing ship repair. I took advantage of all the classes I could and I read every blueprint I could."

Campbell owns his own ship repair business on the old Navy base and has government contracts.

"In everything I've done," Campbell said, "I've used the same lessons I learned in boxing."

Meggett knows all about Campbell and Gatch, and so many similar stories.

"Does it make me proud?" the grinning old man said. "That's why I do this. You know what? Everyone knows right from wrong. It's about making decisions for yourself."

If only Gatch had known as much as a teenager. He would have rushed up those stairs.

Reach Gene Sapakoff at gsapakoff@postandcourier.com or 937-5593.