Boxing

Joe Stray dropped boxing career to expose the sport to others

Courtesy of Joe Stray

Two years after his first fight, Joe Stray was the New York state amateur champion and competed in Olympic qualifying bouts.

When Joe Stray walked into his first amateur fight at the Chuck Jennings Classic in Geneva, he was just 17 years old. A few minutes after the fight started, the future amateur champion had won by technical knockout.

That fight lasted just one round. For all his accomplishments in the ring, Stray’s career in boxing is defined by what he’s done for the sport since hanging up the gloves. When the fighting stopped, another career began.

“I like to sometimes say I have a Ph.D. in boxing,” Stray said.

For the 26-year-old, that’s how his boxing career has come about. A broad interest became a hobby, a hobby became a passion and now the passion is his livelihood for him, his girlfriend, Shakyya, and their newborn son, Jasiah.

As a sport, boxing has declined from prominence in United States culture, and Stray wants people to find their way back to the sport that has brought him so much peace. He works to spread the culture of boxing however he can, now serving as a research assistant in the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics.



“My research will be looking at the self-concept and self-esteem within boxing,” Stray said, “and focusing on the positive side of boxing and not so much the negative rhetoric around medical literature that shows the negatives of boxing.”

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Courtesy of Joe Stray

The Syracuse native first discovered boxing at age 14. In the early 2000s, he injured his shoulder playing football and remembered his dad discussing the big fights of the 1990s with his friends. So, he put on the gloves. In boxing, Stray found an inner peace. He trained with Ray Rinaldi, a boxer he knew.

“It’s as simple as throwing 100 jabs and making sure that every time your chin is tucked, your shoulder is protecting you,” Stray said. “(Boxing) gives you a different lens and level of attention. It teaches you about what devotion is, how long it takes to perfect something.”

At 17, Stray fought in his first professional fight while a student at Westhill High School on Onondaga Boulevard. Then, he said, he compiled a 10-1 official record and, after graduation, attended Onondaga Community College. In 2012, two years after his first fight, Stray was the New York state amateur champion and competed in Olympic qualifying bouts.

After a loss in the Olympic qualifiers, Stray ended his competitive career to pursue a career in education and the science of boxing. He transferred to Syracuse to pursue a degree in sociology. Shortly after arriving, he started SU’s Boxing Club, with the goal of teaching college students boxing basics.

“I like the social aspect of boxing and to form a youth program that can show nontraditional students a way to be engaged in academics and athletics,” Stray said. “It helps to spread the culture of boxing authentically.”

The club grew quickly. Stray reached out to people of all ages, backgrounds and skill levels. Soon, there were 80 students, faculty and even Robert Colley, Syracuse’s former associate dean of the University College.

While Stray left the club after graduating in 2014, he now spreads his passion through private training. He trains eight students, including Gokul Beeda, a Syracuse sophomore who started taking lessons with Stray in May.

“He learns your personal style and teaches to help you improve,” Beeda said. “He’s very free spirited.”

Between his career in the ring as a fighter and as a trainer, Stray also works for a global boxing academy started by Mike Tyson. He’s also the lead actor in a new independent film, titled “The Cold Days of Summer.”

Independent director Michael Flores was scouting boxing gyms to use as a set when he first met Stray, and realized he had found his perfect lead character.

“Immediately after talking to Joe and hearing about who he was and his background and what he’s come from, I realized he basically is our lead character in this film,” Flores said. “The similarities are pretty incredible.”

The story is focused on a character named Vincent who follows his passion of boxing despite other distractions getting in the way.

“He brings an authenticity to the role,” Flores said.

With the experience Stray, has built inside and outside the ring, in the classroom and on camera displaying his love for boxing, Stray hopes that boxing can return to the prominence it had in U.S. just a few decades ago. Stray is willing to train and teach anyone who wants to learn about the art, sport, and science of boxing.

“Boxing is the most unexpected place to find peace, but I find it to be very peaceful,” Beeda said. “When I’m training with Joe, he’s very motivating and it’s clear he’s very passionate and enthusiastic about the training.”





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