Niagara Boxing Legend Ray Napper Jr.
The awards continue to pile up for Ray Napper Jr.
In early April, the 39-year-old Welland native was named the winner of the Gil Beaulieu Memorial Trophy as the City of Welland’s outstanding coach in 2023 and on Friday he will be honoured at the Niagara Legends Boxing Show Friday night at the Merritton Community Centre.
Also being inducted into the Niagara Boxing Legends as part of the Year of the Young Guns are Ryan Baulk, Steven Wilcox, Ryan Rannelli, Daniel Ryan, Scottie Paul and Stephen Ryan.
Napper, who is the head boxing coach for Team Ontario and the chair of the coaching and high performance committee, has a long history in boxing.
“I started when I was born. My family owned the club and I started off going in as a kid and just hitting the bag and seeing my grandfather and my dad. After my grandfather passed in 1995, my dad asked me if I wanted to box and said he would keep the club open as long as possible if I was interested.”
In 1997, he began a fighting career that lasted until 2005.
“In 2005, there were two associations which were OBA and Boxing Ontario, so my dad wanted to have two head coaches in case one of us got suspended. He went with OBA and so I became the head coach of Boxing Ontario. The OBA folded and Boxing Ontario stayed so I have been the head coach since 2005.”
It has been quite the adventure.
“I went on a trip with national team members to Puerto Rico and have had a whole bunch of great experiences.”
His career highlight as a boxer was winning the Canadian junior championship in 2000 while his top moment as a coach came just recently in 2023. As head coach of Team Ontario at the Canada Winter Games in Prince Edward Island, he saw all seven of the province’s boxers earn medals, the only province to do so.
“It included two golds and my one athlete (Simon Romero from Napper’s Boxing Club) won bronze,” he said.
The low point of his boxing career came when he stopped fighting.
“When you compete and you stop competing it is like a drug. It’s like withdrawal and you don’t know what to do because you are used to being in the spotlight and training hard for something.”
He loves the sport of boxing.
“You can’t fake anything. You have to work hard or you are going to get beat up. You can’t say I did that and not do it because it is going to show in the ring.”
He is honoured to be named a Niagara Boxing Legend.
“Any accomplishment I have I am honoured but I don’t look at it as anything. I just do what I do every day and I love it.”
Scheduled to make guest appearances at the fight card are Gerry Cooney and Boom Boom Mancini.
St. Catharines boxers scheduled to fight on the card are Dylan Maisonneuve, Irish Gavin Freel, Bobby Haynes, Ray Adamyk, Pat Ryan, Alex Lindsay, Megan (Mad Dog) Reynolds and Aasher Raja.
Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. For more information or tickets call 905-988-1244.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and boxing starts at 7:30 p.m.
