Efforts underway to expand pro boxer Archie Moore's legacy in Ramona

The late boxing light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore could be making a comeback in Ramona.

Efforts are underway to continue his legacy of teaching boxing to youths as a positive alternative to drugs and gangs, and separately, to raise money for a statue in the boxing legend’s honor.

Moore’s son, Billy Moore, is continuing his push to extend his youth boxing training program, Any Body Can, that he operates near downtown San Diego to Ramona.

“All we have to do is get some people interested in helping our youth,” said Moore. “Because our youth are in trouble. They need our help and we need their help.”

Archie Moore was born in 1913 and passed away in 1998 at age 84. His first fight was in 1935 and his last was in 1963, nine months before his 50th birthday. His unchallenged ring records still stand today and include 220 fights, 186 wins, and 141 knockouts.

Moore, who once owned 110 acres of property around Mt. Woodson, had a training camp on Salt Mine Road — where the Mt. Woodson golf course is now. The great heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali trained at the camp when he was known as Cassius Clay, as did former Oakland Raiders player Charlie Powell, his son said.

Moore held the light-heavyweight title for 10 years, which is longer than any other fighter has ever held a world title in any division, said Dan Summers, who is leading fundraising efforts for the statue.

“I think everyone I talked to is very interested,” said Summers, a Ramona resident who has childhood memories of watching his dad, who had been a professional lightweight boxer, spar with Archie Moore. “My dad took me to the training camp and I watched him get in the ring and spar with Archie Moore – the light-heavyweight champion of the world. That is why I’m doing this.”

Billy Moore is working to bring Any Body Can to Ramona. The program begun by his father in 1957 teaches boxing to anyone from the age of 7 to 75. But the focus is on directing youths down a path of productive, meaningful lives by building their self-esteem and confidence, he said.

“It’s a life skills gym,” he said. “Boxing is just the catalyst to get the kids in. We have a library in the gym. ABC is teaching kids how to step up in life with their best foot forward, without cowardice but with courage and dignity.”

Moore began expanding his program in 2022. He opened a second boxing training center at Liberty Station in San Diego that year. But the program only lasted about two years at that location because they didn’t have enough coaches to supply both the downtown area site and Liberty Station, said Moore, CEO of the Any Body Can Youth Foundation.

“Hopefully, we can go back to Liberty Station because all kids are important to ABC,” he said.

He said he was motivated to bring the ABC program to Ramona because his dad ran the boxing training camp in the community for about 20 years — and loved it.

“My dad really wanted to move my whole family to Ramona, but my mom was a city girl and she wasn’t for that,” he said of his mom, Joan Hardy Moore. “That’s what my dad wanted to do — move to Ramona. Ramona had his heart.”

His first attempt to establish the same program in Ramona in June 2022 was to hold a USA Boxing-sanctioned amateur boxing exhibition with 14 bouts at Ramona High School’s basketball gym.

The event did inspire some youths to join the program, Moore said. They drove to San Diego every day to train at the gym, he said.

Moore isn’t ready to give up on the Ramona location.

“We really would like to start an ABC in Ramona,” he said.

That’s where the visions of Moore and Summers converge.

The two say they would like to see another boxing event, possibly at Ramona High or another location, to raise funds for a statue in Archie Moore’s honor, while also promoting Billy Moore’s youth program.

“Archie Moore’s legacy is still expanding long after his nights in the ring and his days of caring for our youth have ended,” Summers wrote in a February 2023 column promoting the idea of creating the statue. “Very few individuals have attained his level of athletic accomplishment and civic responsibility in San Diego or Ramona.”

The idea for the statue was first suggested by former Ramona Community Planning Group Chairman Casey Lynch when Billy Moore made a presentation about his program to the group.

Planning Group members voted unanimously in May 2022 to send a letter to county Supervisor Joel Anderson, expressing their support to hold a boxing show and create a youth mentoring and tutoring program in Ramona.

Summers is spearheading an effort to raise an estimated $350,000 to have a statue of Moore crafted by sculptor William Behrends of North Carolina. The sculptor has already created statues of famous professional baseball players — Willie Mays in San Francisco, Mickey Mantle in New York, and Trevor Hoffman and Tony Gwynn in San Diego, among other statues.

“William Behrends is ready and willing to make a statue of Archie Moore, and is just waiting for a green light,” he said.

Summers said he has offered a photograph of Archie Moore in a boxing pose for the sculptor to replicate. The statue could be as large as 9 feet high, Summers said.

The former Planning Group member has also begun researching locations to place the statue, possibly at the Ramona Community Library, the Ramona Post Office or the planned Ramona Sheriff’s Substation.

An Archie Moore Memorial Fund account has already been set up and is waiting for donations, he said.

For more information or to donate to the Archie Moore Memorial Fund, call Summers at 858-735-9670.

Originally Published: December 18, 2024 at 10:28 AM PST