Barrys run a tight gym

Barry's Boxing Center has been around for more than 20 years. The Barrys started off small with a gym on the Southwest side of Las Vegas. Then they went the huge route with a warehouse-sized gym. For the last three years, they have been in a set of buildings at 2763 South Highland Dr., just south of Sahara Avenue. Pat Barry said it is great to be in a place that is just right.

"This is ideal. It's perfect," Pat Barry said. "But better than the facility are the people who work here."

On any given day, the gym is packed with well-known boxing instructors like Augie Sanchez, Teddy Padilla, Sal Lopez, Flor Rivera and Mario Servin. But the most colorful characters are owners Dawn and Pat Barry, themselves.

Dawn Barry owned her husband long before she married him; or at least she owned his boxing contract. The two were good friends when Dawn bought Pat's boxing contract in 1977 from Johnny Tocco, owner of the Ringside Gym.

By 1978, the business arrangement had turned into romance and the couple got married.

Pat kept fighting and Dawn kept managing even with their first daughter on the way. Every once in a while, the arrangement got the expectant mother into trouble. Dawn made all of her husband's fighting clothes, so she took it personally when an audience member questioned her husband's sexual orientation -- since his shorts and his shoes matched perfectly. Eight months pregnant, with hormones raging, Dawn turned around and punched one drunken heckler square in the jaw and set him reeling.

"Two security guards picked me up and quickly showed me the door," she said.

The biggest matchup Pat Barry ever encountered was a bout set up against 1976 Olympic gold medalist Michael Spinks. As the fight approached, Barry dropped weight, getting down below 165, and Spinks gained weight running up to 178. The weight changes put the fighters in different fighting categories, so the fight was called off.

"Once I got to see Michael Spinks up close, I was glad it didn't work out. He was a big man," Pat Barry said.

Within a few years, both Barrys retired from the competitive boxing world and took up law enforcement. Pat works with juvenile offenders and Dawn works for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. But that's only their day jobs. By night, the couple teaches boxing to young competitors at their gym.

Dawn Barry lived through her husband's boxing days and now she watches as her daughter Dawn goes through the same pain.

"I always loved to watch boxing and it never bothered me until I fell in love with a boxer," Dawn Sanchez said.

The Barry's daughter is married to Augie "Kid Vegas" Sanchez, one of Las Vegas' best known, home-grown fighters. Sanchez's most publicized fight was last August against the then World Boxing Organization Featherweight Champion Prince Naseem Hamed. Sanchez lost that fight, but in January he bounced back to beat former World Boxing Council Featherweight Champion Luisito Espinosa.

"His most significant win was my daughter," Pat Barry said.

Dawn and Augie Sanchez were high school sweethearts who met at the gym. The young fighter never worried about dating the daughter of an imposing boxer.

"I was more worried about her mom," he confessed.

Dawn Sanchez dabbled in boxing as a child, but she was much more serious about karate. There weren't too many girls who were into the sport then. Dawn Barry said boxing is more coed now. Their gym alone has 12 female competitors.

The Barry's most successful woman boxer is Jenny Borquez, the first female Gold Gloves national champ to come out of Nevada. She was the 1999 winner of the 95-pound weight division.

Although the gym caters to professional fighters and competitive amateur boxers, Dawn Barry said she's in the sport for the kids. Every day after school lets out, the place fills up with kids as young as 8, all eager to learn the science and art of boxing.

"We like the kids," she said. "I know a lot of people who say 'send me the bad kids.' I don't want the bad kids. Give me those kids who are at the point where they could go either way, the ones who are on the line. There is so much out there for the bad kids, but nothing for the good kids."

A few months back, Dawn Barry got a call from a champion boxer who was ready to pay big money to rent the gym all day to practice before a big fight. She didn't hesitate before turning him down. Fighters can rent the gym in the morning, but when those kids come at 4 p.m. for their daily classes, she feels the gym belongs to them.

The gym may belong to the kids, but Dawn Barry insists on running a tight ship. Ring ropes are covered in plastic and everything is kept spotless.

"The guys will come in and tell me the place smells like a hospital, but there's nothing wrong with a clean facility," she said.

There is no spitting on the floor, no toleration for colorful cuss words and even the youngest competitor is expected to arrive on time and work hard. Kids who don't follow the rules are faced with push-ups.

"It's a good punishment," Dawn Barry said. "It builds them up, too."

For more information about Barry's Boxing, call the gym at 368-2696.