Ray Napper Jr. is racking up awards.
In early April, the 39-year-old Welland native was named the recipient of the Gil Beaulieu Memorial Trophy as the City of Welland's Outstanding Coach for 2023 and will be honored at the Niagara Legends Boxing Show on Friday night at the Merritton Community Centre.
Additionally, Ryan Bourque, Stephen Wilcox, Ryan Llanelli, Daniel Ryan, Scottie Paul and Steven Ryan will also be inducted as Niagara Boxing Legends as part of the Young Guns Year.
Napper, who is Team Ontario's head boxing coach and chair of the coaching and high performance committee, has a long history in boxing.
“I started boxing from the time I was born. My family ran a club and I would go to the club as a kid just to punch the bag and see my grandfather and father. After my grandfather passed away in 1995, my father asked me if I wanted to take up boxing and said he would keep the club open for as long as possible if I was interested.”
He began his fighting career in 1997 and continued until 2005.
“In 2005, there were two associations, the OBA and Boxing Ontario, so my father wanted to have two head coaches in case one of them got suspended. He chose the OBA and I became the head coach of Boxing Ontario. The OBA folded but Boxing Ontario remained, so I've been the head coach since 2005.”
It was quite an adventure.
“I traveled to Puerto Rico with the national team and had a lot of great experiences.”
The highlight of his career as a boxer was winning the Canadian Junior Championship in 2000, while his best moment as a coach came most recently in 2023. As head coach of Team Ontario at the Canada Winter Games in Prince Edward Island, he saw all seven Ontario boxers win medals, the only province to do so.
“There were two gold medals and one of my guys (Simon Romero from Nappers Boxing Club) won a bronze medal,” he said.
The lowest point in his boxing career was when he stopped fighting.
“When you compete and then you stop competing, it's like a drug. You're used to the attention and working hard for something, so you go into withdrawal mode and you don't know what to do.”
He loves the sport of boxing.
“You can't fake anything. If you don't work hard, you're just going to get beaten down. It's going to be obvious in the ring, so you can't say you did this and you didn't do that.”
He is honored to be selected as a Niagara Boxing Legend.
“I'm honored by any achievement, but I don't see it as anything special. I just do what I have to do every day, and I love it.”
The fight card will feature guest appearances from Gerry Cooney and Boom Boom Mancini.
St. Catharines boxers scheduled to compete on the card are Dylan Maisonneuve, Ireland's Gavin Freel, Bobby Haynes, Ray Adamic, Pat Ryan, Alex Lindsay, Megan (Mad Dog) Reynolds and Arsheel Raja.
Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door. For more information or tickets, call 905-988-1244.
Doors open at 6:30pm and boxing begins at 7:30pm.
