Oral History Project
For my oral history project I got to interview my former boxing trainer and mentor Dave Siev where he showed us his pads he uses to train pros, kids, anybody he works with in boxing. Dave talks about the discipline needed to train boxing and how it reflects everything we do in the real world. He states that boxing makes us tough and shows us that through hard work in boxing, we can use that ability in the real world and we will succeed. I didn’t learn anything new about Dave in this interview because he always gives us this advice from time to time. He states that he doesn’t train boxing to create the next world champion and he tells us in this interview that being a boxing trainer sure doesn’t pay well. But what Dave always told me and my friends which Dave calls us “his guys,” he always told us that he trains boxing because he genuinely loves the sport. This honors the legacy of Dave because we get to see someone speak about something that he is passionate about, which is training disciplined kids the sport of boxing and keeping them on the right path in life through the lessons boxing teaches us. I’ve been training under Dave for about a year so making this interview was natural to me, I was comfortable speaking with him. I felt proud during the interview because I had the chance to be coached by Dave. I haven’t told him this, but he has made a great impact on my life. He always told us that we were his motivation in life because he saw how hard we worked in the gym everyday and he always made sure to let us know that he trained us to become better men, physically and mentally, not to create the next world champion. He always told us he wasn’t doing this for the money and of course, he always told us to put school first before anything. I hope viewers take away from this interview the message of how sports or anything that makes you work hard you can use that ability anywhere in life to succeed.