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To: Done, gone. who wrote (186)	10/3/2006 8:29:59 PM
From: scion	Respond to of 1681

Kronk gym's future on ropes as financial difficulties mount BY MIKE HOUSEHOLDER \| THE ASSOCIATED PRESS news.cincinnati.com Last Updated: 8:37 am \| Saturday, September 23, 2006 DETROIT - Emanuel Steward covered his face with his hands - the same hands that made him an amateur champion and later a tutor to some of the world's top fighters. "I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet," he said softly. The Kronk - the dingy, overheated basement gym that has produced champions such as Thomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard and Lennox Lewis - is nearly down for the count, and Steward isn't sure whether to throw in the towel. The 62-year-old Hall of Fame trainer has been reaching into his own pocket to keep the Kronk running in the eight months since Detroit shut down the recreation center that houses it because of a major budget shortfall. But the potential knockout blow came last weekend, when thieves made off with copper pipes from the basement boiler room, cutting off the gym's water supply. Steward has been told it will cost between $20,000 and $40,000 to fix the damage to the gym he has run for more than three decades. "I don't have that kind of money," he said. He has two options: find money to get the gym running or open a new Kronk elsewhere. Ideally, Steward would like to repair the damage at the Kronk, but he worries about the likelihood of another robbery. In the meantime, Steward is renting space at a gym in Dearborn so his young fighters can train. The best of the Kronk's amateurs are scheduled to compete in two weeks in the National PAL Championships in Oxnard, Calif., and in October, several Kronk professionals are to appear on a card at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. But the uncertainty about the Kronk's future and the prospect of scraping together enough money to send his young fighters across the country is wearing on Steward. "This man is a legend. He doesn't deserve to have all this going down," said Bobby Bostick, a Florida fight promoter who is trying to line up corporate sponsorship for the Kronk to ease the financial burden on Steward, who says it costs him about $2,000 a week to run the gym. Steward says the gym and rec center are a benefit to the depressed southwestern Detroit neighborhood as well as the city. For one, it keeps at-risk kids out of trouble, Steward says, citing a recent attempted car theft in front of the building that was thwarted by Kronk fighter Johnathon Banks. "A lot of these kids would be in the streets" were it not for the Kronk, Steward said. "They live for this." news.cincinnati.com Message 22871731