Boxing coach Barry Stumpf, who has been instrumental in keeping the boxing championships in Lancaster for nearly three decades, said his long-running dispute with local businessman J. Freeland Chryst has left the statewide competition in limbo.

If the problem isn’t resolved quickly, he said, the Golden Gloves will leave Lancaster, probably to relocate in Shamokin at least for one year.

“If we lose the Golden Gloves, it’s done for all these kids,” Stumpf said. “Boxing will be dead here. Lancaster will lose a valuable program.”

The dispute centers on the former East Side Athletic Club at 219 E. King St. Chryst, founder of the Jay Group, purchased the building, which Stumpf could no longer afford to maintain, in 2000 and provided financial help to keep the boxing program going there for five years.

The partnership was a positive move for the youth of Lancaster, both men said at the time.

But financial troubles caught up with them, and the partnership dissolved last year in a flurry of accusations and court actions over who owed what to whom.

Chryst took over the property, leaving Stumpf without a local gym for training boxers. Because of the financial dispute, Stumpf said, all his boxing equipment and personal records remain under lock and key in Chryst’s building.

“They still will not give me my equipment,” he said. “They were going to put it all up for a sheriff’s sale.”

Stumpf said the main issue is a $700 judgment against him regarding money he owes Chryst. Stumpf said he paid the judgment, with interest, Sept. 28.

Harvey Miller, Stumpf’s attorney, was reluctant to discuss specifics of the case, saying only it centers on a dispute over money owed and personal property and equipment.

“We’re working on it,” Miller said. “We’re trying to resolve this amicably without further litigation.”

Chryst’s attorney, Jeff Reich, could not be reached for comment.

Stumpf, who has long touted the boxing program as a way to keep at-risk youths off the streets, said the deadlock is “frustrating because I’m losing a lot of kids to the system.”

When he can, Stumpf drives young boxers to Pottsville to train — but that involves only a fraction of the youths he helped at the East Side gym.

Stumpf said he has found a new site for a gym — the former El Capitan peanut factory on Liberty Street — but he can’t move forward without his gear.

“We have a spot to move in to,” he said. “We have a new board. I just need my equipment.

“This is very frustrating, and I’m running out of time,” he said. “I think I just have to accept that it’s over.”

Frank Cariello, president of the Pennsylvania Golden Gloves, said Wednesday he would be reluctant to pull the competition from Lancaster.

“We’ve been in Lancaster for more than 25 years,” he said. “Barry’s been involved for all those years, and he’s always done a good job.”

But with no local gym at which Golden Gloves competitors can train, the competition’s organizers are reluctant to come to Lancaster.

It’s a shame, Cariello said, that a “problem with the landlord” has put the popular competition in jeopardy.

But without a training site in Lancaster, Cariello said, he has to look ahead to the next Golden Gloves bout in March.

“It’s tough to run and promote a show,” he said. “I can only wait so long ... to be fair to the other guy.”

Cariello said he told Barry he needs to know by Dec. 1 if a boxing gym will be available.

Even if the competition, held last year at Hotel Brunswick, has to skip a year in Lancaster, Cariello said he would want it to return.

“The city needs a gym,” he said. “It gets kids off the streets and into the program. ... It’s a successful juvenile-delinquency prevention program.

“It works in every other city. It would be a shame if it can’t work in Lancaster.”


Tom Knapp’s e-mail address is tknapp@lnpnews.com.