Austin man teaches boxing to keep people out of trouble, but finds impact limited

Editor’s note: The above video shows KXAN News’ top morning headlines from Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The first boxing ring ever put in Austin sits in the middle of Rosewood Neighborhood Park, Ray Williams said while sitting in the center of it, smiling.

“I love this ring,” he said.

After he served 20 years in prison for getting caught with 200 pounds of marijuana, Williams now spends his days at places like Givens Park and the Montopolis and Rosewood recreation centers – all places where young people often hang out on the east side.

If he sees them with weapons, fighting or otherwise getting into trouble, he steps in with boxing gloves to introduce them to a healthy outlet.

“If I see them going the wrong way. If I see them play fighting, that interests me. I want to take them away from that,” he said.

His efforts spread through the community by word of mouth, and people eventually started seeking him out.

“A lot of people, as far as, you know, parents have come to me saying their child got suspended from school,” Williams said. “They’ll be like ‘Coach Ray come work with them, talk to them.'”

Tayla Terry is one of Williams’ regular trainees. She has a pending case in the legal system, a 4-year-old daughter and a sick mother.

“You can drive me into performing acts of recidivism,” she said of her current situation. “I’m hungry. I don’t have the funds.”

But she’s proved to be a fighter in more ways than one, crediting Williams for keeping her on track.

“When I throw my punches or he’s telling me a combo, in my mind, I’m putting my life in those punches,” she said. “Life’s steady throwing punches. I get an hour to throw mine.”

The below video contains accounts of Williams’ efforts and the culture of the east side.

East Austin crime statistics

Williams primarily works with people in City Council Districts 1 and 3, encompassing southeast, east and northeast Austin.

KXAN compiled Austin Police Department data to create the below charts detailing theft, assault, vandalism, auto theft and burglary rates in Districts 1 and 3 from 2021 through 2023.

The bar graph below compares overall theft, assault and burglary rates of each council district from 2020 through Feb. 28, 2024. District 9 includes downtown Austin.

Limitations to Williams’ impact

“I wanted to reach out to a lot of individuals who was lost, a lot of individuals that’s going the wrong way and making bad decisions,” Williams said from inside the gym at the Dorris Miller Auditorium at Rosewood Park, a rare time he said he was able to find space inside thanks to the generosity of one of the center’s facilitators.

He doesn’t charge his clients – because he said many don’t have the means to pay – and runs his operation solely on donations, and otherwise gets by with the financial support of his wife.

And he’s missing a key component – an indoor space to train his clients.

“Space is very important to me right now. That’s what cripples me, space,” he said. “When it gets cold or it’s raining outside, I don’t have that say so to go into this gym and say let’s workout now.”

He also lacks a structure to measure his success.

“I ain’t never wrote nothin’ down,” Williams said, laughing. He said the only way he can measure his clients’ success is if people choose to fill him in and keep in touch with him.

In 2019, APD learned of Williams’ efforts on the east side and tapped him to help with a then-longstanding community policing initiative called “Operation Blue Wave.” Police launched the program at Givens Park after a murder there rocked the community.

“We can’t be held accountable for what’s happened in the past, but we’re trying to brighten up the future right now,” Williams told KXAN in a 2019 interview.

That’s a future Williams has to try to brighten up on his own now. “Operation Blue Wave” doesn’t run anymore. That’s the most structure – and help – he’s ever had.

“I want to continue to do that, that’s what I love to do,” he said.

Currently, Williams is getting some help from Urban Power Connections (UPC), a group of entrepreneurs dedicated to mentorship in marginalized communities.

“We saw what he was doing and what he was able to pull together,” Rodney Williams, one of the heads of UPC, said. Rodney said UPC helped Williams buy a portable ring and assisted with some boxing events.

But he said getting Williams a permanent space is a much bigger challenge.

Williams knows he wants to do more, he just doesn’t know exactly how to do it.

“If we show these people that we care. Bring more activity to east Austin, I don’t think there will be so much crime,” Williams said.

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