Pittsburgh’s Team 412 Boxing molding champions, providing ‘safe haven’ for youth fighters from across Western Pennsylvania

It may be the most unassuming street corner in the city of Pittsburgh.

But for a couple of hours each evening, 365 days a year, the immediate area surrounding the Subway restaurant located at Third Avenue and Ross Street, Downtown, springs to life with activity.

Fighters from Team 412 Boxing, a Pittsburgh National Youth Boxing program of the city’s only National Police Athletic organization, arrive at the historic 3rd Ave. Boxing Gym to train.

Ranging in age from 7 to 22, Team 412 Boxing’s nearly 50 fighters engage in workouts that bring them onto Third Avenue and inside the gym located in the basement underneath the Downtown Subway to spar and prepare for bouts around the country, said Cpl. Aaron Allen, a Pennsylvania State Police trooper in the Heritage Affairs Office, who is a volunteer coach with Team 412 Boxing.

“These kids range from all areas of the city of Pittsburgh, from the Hill District to the North Side, Manchester area — everywhere you can think of,” said Allen, who is a Greensburg resident. “It’s a free program that we hold for our kids.

“The beautiful thing about our program is we take anybody,” he added. “We take girls. We take guys. We take anybody — kids that just are looking for something, and our gym is the beautiful thing that brings these kids together, gives them a purpose.”

And the fighters have had plenty of success.

Team 412 Boxing currently boasts eight fighters ranked in the top 10 nationally by USA boxing, according to the team’s head coach, Jim Hoy.

“The Pittsburgh boxing community has been very supportive of me coming in as a boxing coach and have shared their knowledge and their gyms with us,” he said. “I’m fortunate that I am retired because I can put in a ton of time.

“We tell our kids all the time if you want to be an Olympic champion we will move heaven and earth to make that happen. We’ve had three national champions and eight kids ranked in the top 10.”

One of those fighters is on track to potentially be competing in the Olympics someday soon.

Trinity Burke, a 21-year-old Ambridge resident, is Team 412 Boxing’s most prominent fighter. She won a national championship in the 165-pound weight class six weeks ago at an event in Detroit, and for the past two weeks has been training with the U.S. Olympic team at its facility in Colorado Springs, Colo.

“It is definitely different, and it’s eye opening,” Burke said of training with the U.S. Olympic team. “I like it overall because I know what the best athletes in the country are like and what it takes to be one of them.”

Former Allegheny County Police Department narcotics detective Jim Cvetic began Pittsburgh’s youth boxing program about 25 years ago, Hoy said.

When Cvetic died in February 2019, Hoy said he became involved with Team 412 Boxing.

“I actually visited him in the hospital the day he passed,” said Hoy, who is a former boys basketball coach at Sharon High School. “He asked me to get this going, keep this thing alive, and you are seeing this guy literally on his death bed, hoping that his life’s work doesn’t end with him. That’s a tough one to say no to.”

Over the ensuing years, Team 412 Boxing has grown considerably.

Aside from Hoy and Allen, Team 412 Boxing’s volunteer coaching staff includes Stu Lyons and Gil Villanueva.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Lenihan, of the Western District of Pennsylvania, is chairwoman of the team’s board of eirectors. The board also includes Kaitlyn Burns, attorney with Feintstein, Doyle, Payne and Kravec; Mark Sarver, CPA, Howmet Aerospace; Samantha Clancy, assistant general counsel with GNC Holdings; Robert Lovett Jr., vice president, legal and compliance, Stronghold Digital Mining; Kenneth Minefield, child welfare administrator with Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth and Families; and Scott Schubert, retired Pittsburgh police chief.

“We are a safe haven for kids to compete in sports,” Hoy said.

For Allen, however, Team 412 Boxing’s impact on the community now begins with Hoy.

“Jim Hoy is a phenomenal, phenomenal coach. He is the one there day in and day out literally dedicating his life to his kids,” Allen said. “This is literally a gym like no other gym in the country.”

Quentin Jackson couldn’t agree more.

A 22-year-old North Side resident, Jackson is Team 412 Boxing’s captain. He fights in the 165-pound weight class.

“It’s a great opportunity for people to get into,” Jackson said. “They’re based on family. It’s good vibes. It’s been amazing and an honor fighting for them.”

Hoy said he gave Jackson the nickname “Preacher” because he often leads the team in prayers before meals and fights.

“He’s going to be the guy who takes over for me,” Hoy said of Jackson. “He already has his coaching license and his book, and he’s coached a few times for me when we’ve had too many kids fighting in a tournament and not enough coaches.”

Jackson said he takes pride in what Team 412 accomplishes every day.

“What I want Pittsburgh to know about Team 412 is we’re not just about boxing,” he said. “This isn’t just a sport with us. It’s family. It’s somebody that you can come to whenever you need help.

“There’s boxers at our gym who don’t even box with us and still come to the gym and be needing help. We’re not just an ordinary gym. We are a family.”

Team 412 Boxing boasts champions in Sonny Taylor, who won a Junior Olympics national title in 2021, and Mike James, who won a USA Boxing National Championship crown in December 2021 in Shreveport, La.

Youth boxers Gea Fultz, an Arsenal Middle School student, and Tank Carter are ranked in the top 10 nationally and could someday soon be holding championship belts, Hoy said.

“The kids that I have I honestly believe that if you gave me the rule book for lacrosse, they’d be winning championships,” he said. “They put in the work. Our kids are there seven days a week.”

Hoy said he is hoping for more support from Western Pennsylvania’s residents. He said financial donations and simply supporting his fighters as fans would be beneficial for Team 412.

“We need some help from the city,” Hoy said. “If you go Downtown anytime between 4 and 6 [p.m.], you will see our kids working out every single day.”

As far as Burke is concerned, with a little support the sky is the limit for Team 412 Boxing.

“It feels good, and it’s like I feel like I have to have higher expectations for myself because I have all these people looking up to me,” Burke said of her success with Team 412 and the U.S. Olympic team. “We’re just all a big family and we all work as hard as we can and we have a lot of good fighters. We’re there every day.”