Word spread at the event about a $1 million-plus donation from an Internet businessman. Believing Kronk had all the money necessary to operate in the short term based on the new infusion of cash, many potential donors backed off.
But the Internet businessman’s money never materialized, nor did much from anybody else, and to this day Steward said he still is trying to pay off all the expenses from the fundraiser.
“That’s the worst thing that could have ever, ever happened,” said Steward, who wants to put together another fundraiser, but hasn’t had the time to organize it.
For the time being, though, Steward is doing his best to concentrate on the sport he loves.
During a gathering at his home in Detroit this week, Steward and some friends watched a DVD of a recent fight featuring up-and-coming Irish middleweight Andy Lee.
“He got two punches in before the other guy even tried one,” Steward said excitedly after Lee’s second blow connected squarely with the face of his opponent, who went sprawling to the canvas.
If Lee someday wins a championship belt as Steward predicts, he will be just the latest in a long line of Kronk fighters to win a professional title.
The Kronk’s first professional champion was Hilmer Kenty, a lightweight from Columbus, Ohio, who started training there in 1978 and won the WBA title two years later.
Kenty, now a local businessman, is doing what he can to help his former trainer save the gym that launched his career more than a quarter-century ago.
“I want to do everything possible to not only keep the boxing gym open, but also keep the recreation center open,” he said. “I just think it’s a shame to see it have to close down.”
Kenty and Steward both say the gym and the rec center are a benefit to the depressed southwestern Detroit neighborhood as well as the city.
For one, it keeps at-risk kids out of trouble, Steward says, citing a recent attempted car theft in front of the building that was thwarted by Kronk fighter Johnathon Banks.
“A lot of these kids would be in the streets” were it not for the Kronk, Steward said. “They live for this.”
These days, visitors to the Kronk are met by a paper sign taped to the front door that reads “BUILDING CLOSED.” The parking lot is strewn with broken glass and overgrown grass and weeds cover sidewalks and an adjacent basketball court.
Just beyond the locked front door, a telephone could be heard ringing one afternoon this week, but nobody was around to answer it.
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