The Early Days

In 1954, in Jim Crow Louisville, Kentucky, a twelve-year old boy named Cassius Clay had his bicycle stolen and vowed to take his revenge on the perpetrator. Before he could act, a nearby white copy named Joe Elsby Marin suggested to Clay that he first learn to box at the Columbia Gym where Martin trained young fighters. It was precisely the right advice, perfectly timed, and Clay showed up at the gym the next day. Without this chance encounter between a black kid and a white copy, the storied rise of Muhammad Ali might never have happened.

Rising to the Top

In 1970, a Latino police capital named Rudy Deleon was facing a rising gang problem in East Los Angeles. DeLeon concluded he could not defeat the gangs by enforcement measures alone, so he decided to take the unprecedented step of converting the basement of the local police precinct into a gym for kids. His plan was to disrupt the gangs’ supply of recruits. A tough L.A. cop name Al Stankie (Stankiewicz), born in Erie, Pennsylvania, soon returned to DeLeon’s gym with Paul Gonzales who, although barely ten years old, had already survived a shotgun blast and was headed for worse. Under Stankie’s tutelage, Gonzales would become the first Latino to win a Gold Medal for the U.S. in Olympic competition. His rise from the barrio of East L.A. was a powerful symbol to Latino kids everywhere.

Bringing it Back Home

On July 29, 2015, Erie County Chief Deputy Sheriff Jon Habursky, in uniform and on his way home in a marked vehicle, drove through his old neighborhood on Erie’s Eastside. The nearby kids took note when Habursky parked his vehicle and walked on to a familiar basketball court to shoot hoops. A youngster challenged him to a game of one-on-one. Neighbors came outdoors, kids ran down the sidewalks and gathered around to observe what they scarcely could have imagined. Social media took the scene viral, and for at least a few moments, the tension of troubled streets seemed to fade against the backdrop of a kid and a cop testing each other on a basketball court.

All of the officers mentioned above intuitively understood the power and promise of the cop-kid relationship. This attitude was replicated on a larger scale by the Police Athletic League (PAL) that emerged in urban America following World War II as a sanctuary for kids to pursue organized athletics under the supervision of police officers. PAL chapters supported an emerging inner city population of white kids from immigrant European households and African-American kids from families migrating to urban centers.

Squeezed by economic, cultural and racial divides, many of these kids showed up at PAL or Boy’s Club facilities that at the time were rooted in the allure of the boxing ring. Erie legends Johnny Bizzarro and Gene Toran emerged from such programs. Erie Police Chief Salvador “Sam” Gemelli helped build the first Erie PAL chapter in the 1950’s that was sustained a generation later by Erie City Councilman Bernard “Babe” Harkins, among others. Bizzarro and Toran found notable recognition away from the hard-scrabble streets of the city. Toran won All-Navy and Inter-Service military titles as a top national amateur, and Bizzarro would challenge for two world championships televised nationally in the U.S. and the Philippines.

Once a flourishing local organization, Erie PAL has been absent from the local scene for more than forty years. Beginning in August 2015, local organizers under the leadership of Erie Police Chief Randy Bowers, County Sheriff John Loomis and Attorney Ronald DiNicola, began meeting and formed the ad hoc Committee on The Revival of the Erie Police Athletic League.