Amy Donaldson: New Fullmer Legacy Center Is More Than A Building

SOUTH JORDAN, Utah – Fear was the first thing Mary Ceballos felt when her 14-year-old asked if he could try boxing.

“It scared me, because he was born with a cleft lip and palate,” she said of her oldest son, Gabriel.

But it wasn’t just the physical risks that gave her pause.

As a single mom raising two boys, she had a list of worries like – what would it cost, would it interfere with his school work, and what kind of influence would her son find at a boxing gym?

 

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Turns out, her son happened into a gym that managed to calm all those maternal fears – Fullmer Brothers Boxing Gym.

First, he could box for free.

Second, coaches gave him time, space and help with homework.

And as for the ‘influences’, Mary’s eyes fill with tears as she talks about what her son found inside the gym.

“It’s so amazing for me as a mom,” she said, standing next to her sons, after the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a brand new Fullmer Brother’s Boxing Gym, about a mile from the Equestrian Park location. “I’m a single parent, and I am overcoming drug addiction. I have a year clean. They don’t have a father in their life. …So it has meant so much to have positive male role models. …He has grown up so much, and it’s been so positive for him. I’m so grateful.”

And as of May 3, her gratitude extends far beyond the coaches who gave Gabriel a place – and a path – to pursue his passion.

The New Fullmer Legacy Center

That’s the day South Jordan City officials joined with the Fullmer family, their board of directors and a long list of businesses for a ribbon cutting on a 16,000 square foot facility that is part museum, part boxing gym and part community center.

Fullmer Legacy Center in South Jordan, Utah

Mary and her sons joined hundreds of others who toured the two-story building in South Jordan’s sports complex that finally gives the gym a permanent home at the Fullmer Legacy Center. It is a monument to the boxing accomplishments of Utah’s first-family of Pugilism by displaying belts, trophies and other memorabilia from World Champion Gene Fullmer and his brothers Don and Jay Fullmer.

But it also a monument to the commitment the Fullmer family had to give back to their community a little of what was given to them. It is more than a building, and it promises to be a place that will launch the dreams of young athletes like Gabriel Ceballos.

He smiles when asked to consider what it means to him that so many people he’ll never meet were willing to invest $7 million into his life – and the lives of children like him.

“It feels so good,” he said, glancing around the impressive facility.

Not only will young people like Ceballos feel seen and supported by this investment, but it will undoubtedly raise the bar for the sport in Utah.

Ceballos beams at the chance to talk about why the boxing gym – wherever it is – is his favorite place to spend time.

“I think it’s a really great sport in general, and I think I could do it for a really long time,” he said. When asked what he enjoys about boxing, his smile widens.

“I like the coaches, and the people in the gym were all super nice, and then boxing – sparring, jump rope, bag work. It’s just a great sport.”

And, at least according to mom, Gabriel has talent to go with that desire.

“He’s actually got really fast hands,” she said, smiling at him. “But he’s just done so good, and he’s grown up so much. Oh my gosh, he’s become such a good man.”

As Mary and her sons enjoy the grand opening of the gym in May, they don’t realize is he is now part of a boxing legacy years in the making.

In fact, if you consider the real legacy of the Fullmer family, the two-story building’s soul began to take shape decades ago before Gene won his world championship, before Don fought for a world title, and before Jay invested every spare minute in teaching young boxers. It began when the trio were just boys who found boxing was a great way to stay out of trouble and see the world.

After the Fullmers retired from professional fighting, they started a gym, hoping to give to their community a little of what had been given to them. Their first ‘gym’ was an old chicken coop, and while Larry Fullmer can recite all the places the gym has moved, the one thing that’s remained consistent is the Fullmer belief that any young person should be able to come learn the sport for free.

Jay Fullmer took the lead at the gym, but Don and Gene could be found there teaching and teasing boxers until their bodies made it impossible. With their deaths, the mantle fell to their children, and Larry Fullmer, in particular, found himself leading a fight he never expected when Salt Lake County decided to sell the Equestrian Center to Utah State University.

“We just said, ‘You know, we need our own place so we don’t keep getting kicked out, ’” he said. “We were just thinking, if we can get a piece of ground donated and just put a tin building on it, maybe a 10,000 square foot building or something.”

They organized into a non-profit, and board members and businesses quickly encouraged the Fullmers to think bigger than ‘a tin building.’
Larry said the architects – VCBO – donated time, renderings and even soil samples. State lawmakers and local government officials in South Jordan found them land, and then the family and board went to work doing what might be the toughest kind of work there is – fundraising.

It was a fight, much like those of his father, Don, and his uncles Gene and Jay, might have waged – well-planned, strategic and relentless.

“We still have another million dollars to raise,” he said, laughing.

Raising money might even be tougher than taking a punch from Sugar Ray Robinson – the legendary boxer his uncle Gene beat to win the middleweight world title in January 1957.

“$7 million isn’t easy to raise,” Larry said as his brother, Brad, chuckled behind him.

Larry Fullmer met weekly with architects and contractors while they were raising money.

“Every time I come down here, when it was being built,” he said the week before the Legacy Center opened, “I would choke up. So they’d make fun of me. It took me about six months to quit crying every time I came down.”

He blushes when asked why, and then says, “So much has gone into this.”

And he doesn’t just mean the efforts of him and his family. So many people, from the gym’s coach, who lived in a trailer for nearly two years to oversee construction, to the volunteer board members. The gym bears the Fullmer name, but it is the work of a massive community effort.

And it was, as it always has been, for young people like Gabriel Cabellos.

“For the kids, it will always be free,” Larry said. “But we’ve got to keep the lights on, so now we’ve got to do (other activities) in the day, so we’ll have exercise classes and stuff.”

For the first time, the gym will offer memberships to adults, which will ensure the programs for the children will always be free.

It’s hard to know what Gene, Don or Jay might think of the new gym. My guess, as a reporter who interviewed all of them multiple times? They would love it. But they’d also blush at the attention, at the mythmaking, at the honor their families rightly hope the building gives them.

But if I learned one thing from the Fullmer brothers, it was that sometimes a gym is more than a place to work out. Sometimes it’s a place where you meet your limits, and sometimes it’s a place where you find your community.

And sometimes it’s a place where you get the chance to do something no one thought you could, something so spectacular, the cheers and joy and celebration echo even after you’re gone.

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