Knock Out Your Limits

Wolfe Boxing

TRAINING TO BE A WORLD CHAMPION

Training

Master the Art of Boxing with our Expert Coach Gary Wolfe

I grew up in Parkersburg, WV and had my first boxing experience in my neighborhood. An older teenager had a pair of gloves (which no one would wear today), and we’d pick who would fight until one would outshine all the others. The local police chief owned an apartment building next door to my grandparent’s house and told me about a new police league boxing program that had just started. He encouraged me to try it and I have never stopped pursuing the sport since.

I loved football and played it from the peewee league through high school. I will never forget the few good years I had with my teammates, but boxing was what gave me my identity and real confidence to grow.

After high school and a few boxing accolades, I wasn’t quite sure what I needed to do to make a living. I took jobs while I planned how I could further my boxing lessons. I tried Marshall University in Huntington, WV, for multiple reasons, but mainly because it had the best boxing gym and coaches in the state. School was short lived, because my life wasn’t in a place that was ready for that yet, so, I went home. With very little money, I asked my best friend to drive me back to Huntington and drop me off. He thought I was crazy when I told him I would figure it out, but I knew that was how it must be.

I worked at two different jobs and spent the rest of my time at the Luby Grant Boxing gym near the railroad station on the West Side of town. I left there after my solid finish in the National Golden Gloves Tournament. I came home and turned professional and won a 4TA Round KO in early April of 1987 in Moundsville, WV.

I fought professionally on and off for many years while working and building a real career in Sales and Management. I eventually married a good woman and had two great sons that are very successful today - my oldest, Luke Wolfe and my youngest, Ben Wolfe. Above all else, they are the two greatest accomplishments of my life and the greatest gifts from God.

I had a fun ride throughout my professional career with some good wins and some tough losses but wouldn’t trade any of them for the lessons they taught – lessons to use in and, more importantly, out of the ring.

My boxing career would not be what it was/is without my life-long coach and mentor, Sam Jones. Sam taught me the major part of my craft. He owns the oldest boxing gym in America, which was opened in 1936 by his grandfather in a small coal mining town called Glouster, Ohio. Through Sam’s teachings, I found myself giving back to young kids in the gym and teaching what I had learned and experienced in the ring through competition. I operated a nonprofit youth boxing center for ten years and was fortunate to mentor and change the lives of many young community members that needed guidance and the boxing education to help learn those tough lessons. Several of those coming from broken homes have gone on to graduate and build and operate their own businesses and make a solid living.

I now co-own and operate my own training camp with Wolfe Boxing and have laid a pipeline to Youngstown, Ohio with exciting young talent. We have great plans in store for the promotional group and feel the future will be great!

In closing, I feel coaching and managing boxers is what the Good Lord put me here to do and boxing myself for a lifetime had to be part of His plan. When I first met my great coach and mentor, Sam Jones, these were his first words to me, “They told me you were a good boxer, but here’s what we are going to do – first, I’m going to teach you how to be a champion in life and then I’ll teach you some boxing skills.” I now know exactly what he meant.