Coaches, boxers leave Ybarra's gym in Pueblo after financial questions go unanswered

Carlos Fernandez started boxing with Scott Gomez in Pueblo when he was 8 years old, but two open heart surgeries in three days ended his boxing career when he was just 15.

When Gomez told him about a new boxing gym opening in Pueblo in 2021, Fernandez was excited to follow his former coach to work at Ybarra’s. But that turned out to be a “dream that wasn’t going to come true.”

After Gomez allegedly asked gym owner Luis “Joe” Ybarra for the financial records of a recent fundraising event the gym hosted, Gomez said Ybarra fired him along with the rest of the coaching staff.

Over half of the families whose kids box at Ybarra's have since stopped going to the gym and are planning on working under Gomez at a new gym he’s opening in a basement space near the intersection of Second and Main streets.

Fernandez started coaching his younger brother, Micael, a few years ago. Micael was one of a few boxers from Pueblo to qualify for the upcoming National Junior Olympics tournament in Texas.

Without an adequate training facility, Gomez said he had to make the difficult decision to pull Micael and another qualifier out of the tournament.

Ybarra also runs a gym in Colorado Springs and operates the organization as a nonprofit. Coaches and parents told the Chieftain that Ybarra did not regularly attend trainings and came to Pueblo only to collect money.

The coaches and staff at the gym were not paid for their time. Gomez said he spent upward of $29,000 last year to take boxers to tournaments around the region and country and was not reimbursed by Ybarra.

When reached by phone, Ybarra referred the Chieftain to Andrew Long, his attorney. Long declined to comment on specific details but said Ybarra denies the accusations people have made and is considering suing for defamation.

How Ybarra’s came to Pueblo

Amy Funk and her grandson Brandon were walking to the chile festival in 2021 when they saw a sign for Ybarra’s saying it would be opening soon. Brandon, now 15, had been talking about wanting to try boxing — he was one of the first participants at Ybarra’s when the gym opened in fall 2021.

Ybarra leased a part of the Pope Building in downtown Pueblo at the discounted rate of $1,200 per month for 7,400 square feet of space. City council approved the month-to-month lease in July 2021.

City spokesperson Haley Sue Robinson confirmed Thursday that the lease is still active and that Ybarra has been making regular payments. Ybarra has not been paying any utilities or facility fees for the city-owned building, which has three other tenants.

Gomez has been in the boxing world for over three decades and served as the president of USA Boxing from 2000 to 2008. He left his position at another gym to work at Ybarra’s.

The gym was one of the best facilities in southern Colorado, if not the entire state, Fernandez said.

“(Ybarra) never helped us. He never gave us funds to travel, to register, gas, food: He had never given nothing. Not one penny went back toward the kids or to the coaching staff to help us,” Gomez said.

But “we were OK with that. I paid for it out of my own pocket because we had this nice facility,” Gomez said.

Pueblo Mayor Nick Gradisar said in an August 2021 Chieftain article that the gym could help bring underprivileged kids into the sport.

But Gomez and Fernandez claimed that Ybarra turned away families who couldn’t pay the $100 monthly tuition — 30 in the past few months alone.

Ybarra’s also received a $17,000 grant from the city’s American Rescue Plan Act to purchase a new boxing ring in June 2022.

Here's what happened after a May 6 fundraiser

Gomez said Ybarra fired him and his staff after he started asking questions about the financial records from a May 6 event, which featured boxing matches, a classic car show, food and drinks on a closed-off block downtown.

Funk recalled that she and her family arrived at 7:30 a.m. May 6 for a weigh-in and didn’t leave until after 11 p.m. that night. Several parents from the Pueblo gym also helped run the event. Funk donated her time — and her popcorn machine.

Despite selling out 750 wristbands, multiple people told the Chieftain that Ybarra claimed the event did not generate any money.

Gomez ran the food and beverage section of the event. He and the other volunteers took detailed records of how much they sold off of the menu — for example, 105 hamburgers, 23 sloppers, 97 hot dogs and 433 waters — as well as who took leftover food and drink home at the end of the night.

According to Gomez’s documentation, which he shared with the Chieftain, food and beverage sales netted nearly $4,000 in profits and the classic car show made $700. Gomez also calculated that the sold-out admission tickets would have brought in approximately $13,000. General admission tickets went for $15 each, and multiple businesses sponsored tables.

Gomez said he asked Ybarra about the records from the event. At a meeting with some parents held a week later, multiple people present said Ybarra and his son shared some financial data but declined to share it in writing when asked.

Gomez alleges Ybarra told him that they would talk more about the money at a follow-up meeting in a few days before the regularly scheduled gym time. Gomez asked to see bank statements, tax returns and receipts for the past year and a half.

Gomez showed up early to the gym that day but before practice started, he said Ybarra told him they weren’t working together anymore.

Dozens of boxers didn’t practice that day — they didn’t want to be in the gym without their head coach. Many of the kids’ parents also chose to pull their boxers from Ybarra’s after Gomez left the gym.

Selina Ozuna’s 19-year-old son had been going to the gym for nearly a year, and his 14-year-old brother had been tagging along to help the coaches. Ozuna said her son started going to the gym because they felt comfortable with the coaching staff.

"They really ran that gym well,” she said.

The boxers who left have since been practicing some at the Central High School track, but without adequate boxing facilities, Gomez said he had to pull the two boxers who qualified for the junior Olympics tournament because they wouldn’t be ready for it.

“They're not ready. … It’s the biggest fight of their life. Why would you take them there if they're not ready — to get hurt? It's our job to say no,” Gomez said.

Ozuna said her sons feel “betrayed” by the events that have unfolded over the past few weeks.

“(The coaches) have been trying to just work them out at Central as much as they can and do their best with what they have available. (My sons) have still been going to practice, but it's just frustrating for them to see all the stuff that their coaches have had to go through because of what happened,” Ozuna said.

‘Where is the rest of his money going?’

Gomez and Fernandez said Ybarra came to the gym a few times a month to pick up money and sell equipment, and they claimed he didn’t interact much with the students.

“(Ybarra) was always so money hungry,” Fernandez said.

Ybarra’s was founded as a nonprofit in 2009, Colorado business records show. A gym under the same name is operational in Colorado Springs. Ybarra’s is listed as an exempt organization for the city of Pueblo’s sales tax collection.

Detailed tax records are not available from the IRS's publicly available tax returns because the reported total incoming funding was less than $50,000.

Monthly tuition is $100, and the gym is regularly open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. The program's participants also purchased some boxing equipment from Ybarra, which Gomez claimed was at a markup.

Gomez said there were approximately 68 students in Pueblo and that the gym last year collected approximately $66,000. But after accounting for the $1,200 monthly rent, Gomez said the numbers don’t add up.

“You do the math yourself. … Where is the rest of his money going?” Fernandez questioned.

Funk said she paid for her grandson’s monthly fees in cash every month and didn’t get a receipt when she asked for one.

Gomez also paid out of his own pocket for travel to tournaments around the country. He said that when he asked Ybarra to pay him for travel expenses — nearly $29,000 last year — Ybarra told him no.

Gomez is opening another boxing gym soon

Gradisar told the Chieftain that the situation at Ybarra's gym is “unfortunate,” but it’s not his place to intervene in the dispute between Gomez and Ybarra.

“I think this situation is unfortunate because it's the kids that are being hurt by it, and that's oftentimes the case,” Gradisar said. “It's unfortunate that it's a fight over money for organizations that are trying to help kids — so I don't know whether it can be resolved or not. I think the kids will make a determination.”

Gradisar said the “market would decide” the future of the club: If families want to choose to leave Ybarra’s and work with Gomez’s new gym instead, then that’s their choice.

If Ybarra wants to keep leasing the current gym space and continues to pay on time, then “I don't think we have any reason to terminate the lease at this point,” Gradisar said.

Gomez is opening a new gym downtown as a nonprofit, a few blocks from the Pope Building. He said he knows the landlords and got a deal on the rent, but it’s nowhere near as sweet as the $1,200 per month deal with the city.

Ozuna and Funk said the majority of parents with kids at Ybarra’s would be working at Gomez’s new gym.

Micael Fernandez, the boxer who can’t go to the national tournament anymore, is still planning to keep going with the sport. He has beat a national champion before and wants to become a pro boxer.

“I could care about less about not having a building — I just care about these kids getting taken advantage of. That's not what I'm here for,” said Carlos Fernandez.

Anna Lynn Winfrey covers politics at the Pueblo Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com or on Twitter, @annalynnfrey.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Financial dispute at Ybarra's Boxing Club in Pueblo sparks exodus