Their names, scrawled in black Sharpie on blue painter’s tape, stretch across the fronts of yellow lockers. They are a group of Missoula’s youth, members of Missoula Boxing Club and USA Boxing, learning to box, but only after they hit the books: working with tutors to finish schoolwork before donning the gloves.
JD Partain, founder of Missoula Boxing Club, is not a boxer himself. He’s an entrepreneur with a background as a pastor who volunteers as a court-appointed special advocate. Several years ago, he sat in a meeting with school administrators, teachers, and a student—a young man who needed to graduate from high school but who had fallen behind, academically and in his desire to finish school.
“I thought to myself, ‘if this kid doesn’t want it, what do we have?’” JD explained. “That put a question in my heart: what does a kid want and how to leverage that into what they need?”
That question led to a news article about the Detroit Boxing Club, an organization working with inner city youth, putting academics at the forefront, learning to box second, and getting students to graduation.
JD found a mechanic’s garage on South Avenue and began renovations. By December 2020, student boxers were training on site.
As a member of USA Boxing, Missoula Boxing Club follows strict protocols and rigorous training standards, ensuring proper technique and safety measures for its members who pay a membership fee to USA Boxing but no monthly fee to join.
“We train theses kids very hard,” JD said. “We’ve had kids throwing up in the alley. There’s camaraderie in that. They are sweating, hair stuck to the sides of their faces.”
Members of Missoula Boxing Club make a commitment to academic progress, making strides to finish homework and improve grades before stepping into the ring, whether they have straight-A or failing grades.
JD pointed out that the goal, though, is not just improved grades or top-notch fighting ability.
“While our metric is that we want kids to graduate, more importantly, we want kids to have the opportunity to launch into what comes next,” he explained. “My hope is that this effort is a realistic endeavor.”
The club’s website offers real-life statistics about graduation rates and their relation to crime and the number of children in foster care in Missoula.
“Many times, generations are stuck in a cycle of poverty and abuse. We have kids here who are in the foster system because their parents are abusive because they were abused themselves,” JD explained. “We hope to help break whatever cycle of brokenness they may have been born in.”
Boxing is a special sport, requiring a different level of physicality, athleticism, and sometimes, risk-taking.
“There’s something formative about this sport. Pain serves a purpose. Pain is very transformative,” JD said. “Boxing gives them the tools to deal with pain.”
That encouragement to overcome and the springboard into life’s next steps are perhaps the cornerstones of Missoula Boxing Club’s mission—a goal close to JD’s heart and to his hope to contribute to the Missoula community.
“Hopefully, these kiddos will say, ‘My road was this way but because of Missoula Boxing Club, my road went another way’,” said JD. “And if that’s the case, that definitely does change the fabric of our city. These kids will be the future leaders, the future champions of our city.”
Missoula Boxing Club is located at 1633 South Avenue West and can be reached by calling 406-529-5610 or by visiting www.missoulaboxingclub.org.