Reformed Boxer

By Angie Thompson/senior reporter

TIFTON May 17, 2008 08:09 pm

— Jarvis Reddick was released from prison several weeks ago with a cardboard box full of his belongings and a bus ticket back to Tifton. After serving 10 years for armed robbery of a Tifton bank, the 27-year-old said he's no longer the gangster he once was and he wants to make the most use of his talents to bring a message of hope and direction to his community.
While living with his father in Texas in the ‘90s, he said he "fell in love with the gang-banging lifestyle."
"In Texas, I joined the Black Gangster disciples, now called the 'GDs,'" Reddick said. "I was 10 years old when I started and I was 14 or 15 when I became the gang's regional director."
Reddick said that he was in the local drug trade before his incarceration. Then, Reddick said, he and two other young men planned and made the decision to rob First Liberty Bank. He believed robbing banks was safer than commiting street crimes for money, plus, he said, he could justify "stealing from the government."
"I didn't believe it was breaking God's law," Reddick said. "I look at it now as wrong is wrong. There is no big or little sin and you have to stay ahead of the Devil."
Once in prison, Reddick said he learned that there were different social groups and communities with different beliefs inside just as it is on the outside. He said prisons don't rehabilitate and it's up to the person to chose the path to take.
"It's easy out here," Reddick said. "Everything out here is on the inside, it's just that you can't get into your car. You have to correct yourself."
Reddick, who has been interested in boxing since he was 8, said that he never considered boxing seriously until he met others in prison who were interested in the sport. He met Yank Allen Neloms from Miami, Fla., at a Jesup prison and shadow boxed with him.
"He said, 'Youngster, you can box,'" Reddick said. "He started training me and I started sparring with other guys."
Neloms introduced Reddick to Billy Brown, another boxer who boxed on the outside and had trained professional fighters in Charlotte, N.C. "Billy trained me on the professional level in prison," Reddick said.
Reddick said books of stamps were used as money and bets on fights reached $500. "We'd give guys cigarettes to look out for the officers to let us go three or four rounds," Reddick said.
Reddick said his initial love for boxing has waned since his father died in 2005, but he knows he has talent.
"My ultimate goal is to become a champion at boxing," Reddick said. "My longterm goal is to wake up women and children in Tifton from a mentally and morally dead grave. We've got 40 and 50-year-olds who haven't made the transition from boyhood to manhood."
Reddick believes establishing a local youth boxing program would teach young people the discipline and control the sport has taught him.
"They would learn how to control their emotions and desires," Reddick said. "If it worked for me, it will work for any other youth."
Personally, Reddick desires to win a boxing medal as he promised his father. "But the two go together," Reddick said. "A rapper is just an entertainer, but people listen. If I am successful, people will listen."
Reddick has been training since his release. His daily routine consists of miles of running, and he said he has been training at Agonizo's here and at Turner's Boxing Gym in Albany. He plans to obtain his professional boxing license soon.
Reddick's mother, Patricia, said Reddick had matured and changed in positive ways over the 10 years he spent behind bars.
"He has a message for young people," she said. "He said that if he could get people to run around with him when he was doing wrong, he could get them to run around with him when he is doing right."
Reddick said he is open to suggestions from the public concerning how to take the message to the community. He believes those who have actual experience in the world of drugs and gangs can best communicate and take a message of hope to young people at risk. He said he would consider making public appearances to provide motivation.
"You have to have someone come from among the people to lead," Reddick said. "If I become someone in boxing, I'll have a strong voice in that community."

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