West Edmonton Knights fight for success

By Dale Boyd

WEST JASPER PLACE — Hard work, determination, focus and a little bit of luck are all crucial elements for success in the boxing ring.

At the West Edmonton Knights Boxing Club this not only holds true between the ropes, but outside as well.

Stuart McGrandle has boxing in his blood. His grandfather was a boxer and trainer in the “dirty 30s” and his father, Billy McGrandle, was the youngest Canadian selected to represent Canada in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.

McGrandle began competing in 1986 and kept fighting through to 1996. When he got older he began to drift from the sport because he was working as a boilermaker and starting a family.

Trying to get back into boxing he looked at other gyms in the area but felt he wouldn’t be able to coach and train people in his own way.

“I poked my head around a few other gyms and just didn’t like what I saw. As far as my ability to do what I wanted to do and properly coach and train kids for success in this sport,”

He admits now that it was impulsive, but McGrandle decided to open up his own gym. Although he had difficulty finding a space in 2007, they managed to find a spot at a former Taekwondo gym in a basement at 10074 151 St.

“I decided that I would find a place, lease it, renovate and open up, and that’s what we did. Now here we are almost four years later.”

McGrandle not only financed opening the gym, but he literally built it from the ground up, doing all the renovations, including building the ring, himself.

Financing the club wasn’t easy though. Doing odd jobs and keeping an eye out for deals, like relieving the local YMCA of their old lockers and selling them, helped buy the equipment for the gym.

“We were just trying to wake up everyday and find another way to make a hundred bucks,” McGrandle said.

Fast-forward to today, and the gym has had multiple competitors taking provincial championships, competing in national championships and winning the Alberta-wide Golden Gloves boxing tournament.

According to McGrandle, the gym has also had success that can’t be measured with medals or trophies.

“We see kids come through here and change their personalities and behaviors, and have them achieve things they didn’t think they could achieve,”

That is the overall goal of the gym said McGrandle’s wife Sonia, who was with her husband every step of the way.

“We help a lot of kids. That was our first priority to get kids off of the street and give them a safe place to come hang out and learn boxing,” Sonia said.

The gym doesn’t turn anyone away, training between six to ten children for free every month. Also, the two bring young fighters on the road for competition themselves free of charge.

The club keeps funding coming in with personal training and Olympic weight training. Stuart has even designed his own sports conditioning system called U.S.S R (Union of Speed and Strength Revolution) which attracts not only boxers, but hockey players and other athletes during their off-season.

With Stuart working during the day and running the training sessions at night running the gym has been no easy task.

“I’m very proud of what we’ve done,” Sonia said “We’ve had tough times. There are sometimes where you want to throw in the towel,”

Luckily one of the gym’s members, Lynsey Torok-Both, enjoyed the programs and the atmosphere enough to begin volunteering and teaching classes to help Stuart out.

“I love it here. It’s really great, everyone is so nice and you get to help out a lot of people,” Torok-Both said.

The gym not only has a very friendly family-like atmosphere, but the walls are full of Edmonton’s boxing history. Fight posters and pictures line the walls, and there is a hallway full of nostalgia dating back to Edmonton’s fight scene in the 1950s.

Tom White, who is affectionately called “Grandpa” around the gym, has his grandson Connor Andrews enrolled in boxing classes.

White knows Edmonton’s boxing history better than anyone, being a fighter himself in the 50s. White used to fight with the Southside Legion Boxing Club in Edmonton and was a Golden Gloves champion.

Although boxing turnouts have declined in the past few years, especially this past Golden Gloves tournament, White feels boxing is still a great way to get young kids into shape in a time when obesity in youth is on the rise.

“I just heard on the news today that young people are getting fatter, and fatter and fatter,” White laughs. “The main thing about boxing is the discipline. It teaches you no to eat junkie foods and pop and stuff, to work out and get exercise, and prepare yourself to be an adult one day.”

McGrandle’s son young Cesar McGrandle, named after six-time world champion Julio Cesar Chavez, has taken a keen interest in boxing as well.

It’s unknown what the future holds for the West Edmonton Knights Boxing Club as it continues to look for sponsorships and funding. However, Sonia feels what goes around comes around, and she always try’s to remind her two young boys of that.

“It’s not about what you have. Giving is better than receiving, and that’s the way we’ve brought up our boys,”