Originally published for the Jersey City Times

It started with a punch. Noticing fighting outside his home, Joe Botti ran and separated the two kids. 

“You don’t know how to fight anyway” Botti told the two. 

One of them responded, “Why don’t you teach us?”

Botti, a former amateur boxer said okay. Botti went to his basement, picked up a couple old gloves and equipment and let the kids duke it out in his makeshift ring. Botti assumed the kids would let off some steam in the ring, get a headache or two from the hits and that would be the end of it. However, the next day they came back. 

Within two weeks, over 50 kids were in his basement in Union City asking to be trained. 

Realizing kids kept coming back because they had nowhere else in the community to go, Botti, whose love of boxing stemmed from watching Muhammad Ali fight as a kid, would devote the rest of his life teaching and training kids and adults boxing free of charge. 

Born in Christ Hospital in Jersey City and raised in Union City, Botti spent 30-plus years working during the day and training kids and adults at night. While the work was tiring and came without pay, Botti never cared about the money as watching his fighters develop positive change in and out of the ring was priceless to him. 

“It’s a lot of time, a lot of sacrifice, I got to put a lot of money (into the club) because you know a lot of these kids don’t have money. It’s a thankless job, but you get a great feeling knowing hey look this kid walked into my gym, didn’t know how to stand properly and now look they’re raising his hand in a fight. There is no greater feeling knowing I was a little part of that.”

Botti’s Union City gym quickly attracted potential fighters from across Hudson County.  
 
“My original gym was situated right at the Ninth Street and Palisade Avenue. So, it was right at the border of Jersey City and the tip of North Bergen. I would get all the kids from Hoboken, Jersey City Heights, North Bergen, Secaucus, West New York. It was like a county gym.”
 
Botti, who joined the police force in 1997 and would eventually rise to the rank of Captain, found that a lot of kids were surprised about the positive impact a cop could have on them.
 
“I think I opened a different mindset for these kids on what police officers are. And I’m not saying that for all kids, but there was definitely a few of them that really got a kick out of the fact that a police officer was their mentor and was training them. “
 
Former Jersey City welterweight pro Juan Rodriguez Jr., who spent a couple years of his youth in and out of the criminal justice system, told RingTV in 2009 about his experience learning from Botti.
 
“Joe is my second pops; he does a lot for me in and out of the ring. When I look back, I was an ass, and I wouldn’t want my kids to go through all that. The streets have nothing good in it, you just end up dead or in jail.”

As his gym grew, so did the need for new equipment. With the help of his late mother Patricia Caputo and his former boxing trainer Sal Alessi, Botti hosted boxing shows, becoming one of the most prolific boxing promoters in the Northeast. Most notably, Botti promoted the first sanctioned female amateur boxing match in the New Jersey/New York area in 1993.

“So, I took some heat from a couple of coaches saying I was going to ruin the sport. When the show came, I didn’t expect how many people were going to show up. I mean, the place was packed. The funny thing is a couple months later, the very same people who told me I was ruining the sport started bringing girl fighters.”

Botti’s career culminated with an induction into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame this past November and the National Boxing Hall of Fame, in which the ceremony will be held in California next April. Under Botti’s direction, the Union City Boxing won six first-place state team titles, 35 New Jersey Golden Glove Champions, and Botti was named New Jersey Trainer of the Year in 1995. Botti has also authored two books on boxing, “Thunder and Lightning: The Fighting Gatti Brothers” and “Joe Jennette: Boxing’s Ironman.”

Even in retirement Botti can’t keep himself away from the sport, still training kids part-time in Middlesex County along with assisting at his former students’ gyms. As today, Botti sees boxing more than just a sport, but as a metaphor for hard work.

“That’s how it is in boxing. That’s how it is in life. Nothing’s going to be easy. You must work for everything. And I think that to me is the most important part of boxing, and that’s what I love getting out of it: seeing them grow as athletes and as people.