Retired boxing referee Richard Steele poses in the ring at the Richard Steele Boxing Club in North Las Vegas Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020.
Friday, Jan. 1, 2021 | 2 a.m.
Richard Steele is leaning against the corner of a boxing ring at his North Las Vegas gym. He’s wearing a black shirt with his gym’s name on it and posing for a photographer.
He’s doing all he can not to smile, but the photographer, an avid boxing fan, is succeeding in getting a grin out of the hardened boxing icon.
And that’s just what Steele is.
A former All-Marine fighter and Olympic hopeful, he became one of the most well-known referees in the sport. He’s been in the ring with names that even the most ambivalent of boxing neophytes can pick out of a crowd — Ali, Tyson, De la Hoya, Mayweather.
In his office at Richard Steele Boxing Club, Steele has photos with more luminaries than you can count. He points to a snapshot of himself receiving an award from Nelson Mandela for refusing to officiate boxing matches in South Africa to protest apartheid.
“Here’s a little Black kid from Los Angeles, California, who has met presidents,” Steele said. “Boxing gave me all this.”
Now, Steele is a 76-year-old gym owner who wants to give back to the world through boxing. His business had been doing well since he opened it nearly a decade ago in North Las Vegas, but even legends aren’t spared from a pandemic.
Richard Steele Boxing Club is open, and has been since June when the state of Nevada eased COVID-19 restrictions and allowed nonessential businesses to reopen.
But the gym is not what it used to be. Its closing in March along with every other nonessential business in the state caused what might turn out to be irreparable damage.
“It took me over seven years to get over 300 kids in this gym from all over Las Vegas,” he said. “And it took me two months to lose them.”
Punch of the pandemic
Steele estimates there are about 80 kids enrolled in the gym. Between the gym closing up shop for two months and the ongoing financial hardships in the community, going to a specialty gym has become an unaffordable luxury for many.
Besides, members at this boxing gym can’t even box. Part of the state regulations set out by Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak allow fitness centers to be open, but with no contact.
Training for boxing matches without a sparring partner would be like training to hit a fastball without ever seeing live pitching: You can work on speed bags and footwork all you want, but telling people they should come box without throwing punches is a hard sell.
“It’s tough because you get in workout shape, but in boxing all your conditioning comes from getting in the ring and sparring,” said Eli Pride, 19, a gym regular. “It sucks, but it’s something we’ve got to deal with right now because of the coronavirus and everything that’s going on. We’ve just got to keep ourselves safe.”
It’s a strange time for every industry, and boxing is no exception. Pride last took part in a competition in September. He was training for a national tournament when the world came to a halt in March. Another tournament that was once postponed to this month has been postponed again to who knows when.
“Once we get back to sparring, it’s full-fledged back to work,” Pride said.
Steele’s gym is a registered nonprofit through the Richard Steele Foundation. As a youth. Steele found structure through boxing. Now, he wants to bring that to underserved youths in the North Las Vegas community as well.
“Boxing was the only thing that I really knew that I loved that really helped me stay off the streets,” Steele said. “So I gave it to the kids.”
In his 30-plus years as a trainer, Steele has had three fighters go to the Olympics and four compete professionally for a world championship. Those are the exceptions though. Of the hundreds of kids who have come to his gyms, most go on to live normal lives.
Of course it’s a place to work out and hone boxing skills, but there are signs throughout the gym for after-school tutoring too. The gym is partners with the Police Athletic League (PAL) of Southern Nevada, which sends officers to work out with the kids to help foster a positive relationship.
Steele stresses that becoming a good citizen is more important than becoming a good boxer.
He’s just as proud of his pupils that have become teachers and lawyers as the ones who have become Olympians. One gym-going student just graduated from UNLV, and Steele laments that the pandemic kept him from attending her graduation in person.
“I’ve had kids from all over come to my gym because they know it’s a safe haven,” Steele said. “Safe, structured properly and we care about your education.”
But the gym is struggling financially. As a nonprofit, Steele’s gym draws revenue through membership fees, donations and government grants. All of those have dried up because of the pandemic.
There’s also the fear another shutdown could be coming. Sisolak continues to hint at more restrictive measures as neighboring states are locking back up. Any such an order would figure to include gyms.
Steele is afraid he may have to close his doors for the second time in less than a year. He fears for his gym, but he is particularly afraid of the effect it will have on his members who will no longer have somewhere to go.
“Boxing is very exciting and very important to a lot of kids,” Steele said. “It gives them a chance.”
Providing an outlet
Steele lives in Henderson, about a 30-minute drive from the gym on Cheyenne Avenue near Martin Luther King Boulevard.
So, why not open a gym in Henderson and save the travel? He laughs.
Years ago, the gym operated in Henderson, but it was less successful — about 40 kids to the North Las Vegas location’s 300. He found that kids of more affluent parents favored racket and club sports, and the underserved kids near North Las Vegas needed something in their neighborhood for recreation.
But he still attempted — albeit it briefly — to introduce them to other sports.
“So what I did was I went and bought a whole bunch of golf clubs,” he said through a laugh. “I started taking kids over to (Las Vegas Golf Club, down the street from his North Las Vegas gym) and I can’t. It was just too hard.”
Steele isn’t looking to develop championship fighters. Rather, it’s all about introducing them to boxing and giving them an outlet.
Steele’s introduction came in the Marines, where he found he had a natural talent for it. He went 12-3 as an amateur, which included his rise in 1963 to become an “All Marine Corps Champion” and a run at the U.S. Olympic Trials.
After compiling a 16-4 record as a professional, he thought he was done. Instead, refereeing called him.
He recalls attending a showcase in Los Angeles where Muhammad Ali boxed four fighters consecutively. Ali saw Steele and asked him to officiate the matches. It was Steele’s first assignment as a referee.
Steele has officiated 167 world title bouts over a four-decade career. Famously and most controversially, he stopped a 1990 title fight between Julio Cesar Chavez and Meldrick Taylor with two seconds left in the final round, declaring Chavez the victor by technical knockout, despite Taylor leading for most of the match.
He is a member of the World Boxing Hall of Fame, International Boxing Hall of Fame, Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame and US All-Marine Corps Boxing Hall of Fame.
“All the fights that I watched as a kid that led me to loving boxing, he was involved in them,” said Percy Pride, Eli’s father and a trainer at the gym. “So coming here was like a dream come true.”
‘Stop on top’
Steele says he doesn’t want to be like Willie Mays, which sounds odd. Mays was one of the greatest baseball players of all time, dominating to the tune of 19 All-Star Game appearances, two MVP awards and a World Series title in 21 years with the Giants. But Mays played 22 years in the major leagues, and that last year with the Mets was forgettable.
“Willie Mays was famous for the catch, a basket catch, and I saw him miss a ball one time,” Steele said. “I thought, ‘oh my God, I don’t want to stay too long.’”
Steele likes to say he wants to “stop on top.” He wants to be remembered as a titan with the Giants, not a has-been with the Mets. It’s what he did in his career as a fighter and what he did as a referee, and he sits at the top as a gym proprietor.
But the gym is one area where Steele has no plans to stop on top. He gets pensive sitting in his office and thinking about how his time will end. Asked if he will die in that chair, he jokes he’s more likely to die trying to get in and out of the ring.
He’s done everything he needs to in the world of boxing. He’s fought, he’s refereed, he’s been rewarded and inducted into Halls of Fame and continues to make an impact at a gym in a North Las Vegas business complex.
He won’t, however, ever hang up the gloves for the last time.
“I would do boxing for the rest of my life,” Steele said. “And I will.”
