Albert Brewer had been coaching boxing for years in the ratty Merrill Community Center.
Now that the center -- renamed as the Pine Bluff Community Center -- has been fully renovated, Brewer is coaching boxing in the ratty gym at the old Southeast Middle School.
Therein lies the problem.
Brewer, who heads up the Gloves Not Guns boxing program, would like to be tutoring his young boxing proteges at the new center, which opened earlier this year after receiving a $1.3 million facelift, but he bristles at the options the city has given him for doing so.
Officials with the city, on the other hand, have said they want him in the new center, but they have balked at allowing Brewer to coach there under the conditions he wants.
The difference between the two sides amounts, in some ways, to about six hours of practice time, which doesn't sound like much, except that those hours are prime time for other organizations that might want to use the gym as well.
Brewer said he went to a meeting with city officials earlier this year and was handed a sheet of paper that spelled out his three options for using the new community center. One was for him to pay $1,000 a month for exclusive use. Another was to pay a small fee for limited use. And the third option was for Brewer to "come under the umbrella" of the Parks and Recreation Department and become the employee within the department who oversees a boxing program.
Considering that Brewer paid $1 per year for the use of the old Merrill center, and pretty much had the place to himself, the idea of paying $12,000 a year was upsetting to him.
"How would they expect me to pay this?" he said. "That can't be compared to $1 a year. I'm sitting there with fireworks going through my head and just wanted to turn over the table in front of me at that meeting. I could have just up and walked out that door."
As for the other two options, there were no specifics about how much Brewer would be charged for less-than-exclusive use of the gym or about how much he would be paid if he went to work for the parks department.
"We never talked about no salary," Brewer said. "I knew then I was done with them. I'm always fighting someone."
Brewer coaches youngsters from ages 8 to 16, hoping to keep them more occupied with training and boxing than with the trouble they might otherwise get into on the street. And he wonders why, considering the crime-fighting problems the city has, he can't get more support for his organization.
At a recent practice session, about a dozen youngsters, both boys and girls, warmed up with jumping jacks and other cardio exercises in the chilly gym. After that, they were headed outside for some road work, and then they would return to the gym where they would work on boxing techniques. The boxing ring has many homemade qualities to it, and it sits in the middle of a gym floor, which is uneven and buckled in places and falling apart in others.
"I'm trying to make this the best program in the state," Brewer said. "But the city folks are just trying to make themselves look good. I don't understand that. I've been volunteering to do this for 20 years. I'm OK with that."
As for what would make Brewer happy, he said he would like to have the community center for his club from 4 until 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
"That's all I'm asking for," he said, adding that with that amount of time, his boxers could be successful.
"If I don't know anything else," he said, "I know boxing and how to develop a boxing club. I'm not crazy, and I'm not even asking for a salary."
No one with the city has suggested Brewer is crazy, but they say his request to be in the new facility four days a week during the most popular hours is unreasonable.
Samuel Glover, director of the city's Parks and Recreation Department, said that, because students are out of school at 3:15 p.m. and many parents get off work around 5, the prime-use hours for the community center are 4 until 7 p.m. When Glover was told the times and days Brewer was requesting, he was taken aback.
"Wow," he said. "His requested times amount to exclusivity, do they not? And on school nights. That is not workable. Where is the equality and equity for the rest of the community?"
Glover said Brewer had been offered the use of the gym on two nights a week from 4 to 7 -- Mondays and Wednesdays -- at no charge, but Brewer had rejected the offer. Glover said there was no dollar amount associated with that option on the sheet of paper given Brewer because Glover had wanted to charge Brewer a nominal fee of $25 a month, just to cover some cleaning supplies. But he said Mayor Shirley Washington said she didn't want to charge Brewer anything.
As for the $1,000 a month fee, Glover said that amount was high because Brewer wanted exclusive use of the gym at a time when there had been considerable investments made in the new community center and other groups now wanted to use the space.
Asked what Brewer would be paid as an employee, Glover said Brewer would be brought on as a part-time employee and paid the same rate as other such workers -- $13.76 an hour.
Glover said if Brewer accepted that offer, Brewer would head up an overall boxing program but not one that just included Brewer's program. Glover added that, even if the city did start a boxing program, the new program would not be able to practice every day during the 4-to-7 p.m. slot for the same reasons that Brewer was not allowed to have it.
Brewer, as an employee, would also have to go through training because he would be dealing with minors on city property, Glover said.
"We have rules," Glover said. "And we need to follow those rules."
The issue between the two sides has spilled into the public arena, Glover said, adding that some people have called him to express their displeasure with how they feel Brewer is being treated, and others have said they wanted their child in a boxing program but not the one that Brewer runs.
Brewer has said he feels as if the option for him to work within the parks department is a way for the city to take over what he has created. Glover said that was not true.
"We don't want to take over Gloves Not Guns at all," Glover said. "No, we don't want his program."
Council Member Ivan Whitfield has been a vocal supporter of Brewer and Brewer's program, questioning why a swim team associated with the new Pine Bluff Aquatic Center has been accommodated but that Brewer's boxing team isn't able to be in the Pine Bluff Community Center.
"That's what bothers me," Whitfield said. "If we make a way for the swim team to be at the aquatic center, we should be able to find a way to make the boxing team comfortable at the community center."
At a recent meeting, Mayor Washington said she was disappointed the city had not been able to find a way to include Brewer into the community center schedule and asked that another meeting be set up to see if the two sides could reach an agreement. Glover and Whitfield both said that such a meeting would happen but that a time for it had not yet been worked out.
The Gloves Not Guns boxing team practices at the old Southeast Junior High School gym where the floor is buckling and broken in places. (Pine Bluff Commercial/Byron Tate)