One Man Making A Difference

By ADAM WISNESKI
Multimedia Producer
Tulsa World

Saved By The Bell

Keith Reed imparts important messages to the at-risk youths who work out in his gym.

She was falling. Fast. Smoking weed, drinking and hanging out with the wrong people. Cheyenne McKinney went from someone who was doing a lot at Booker T. Washington High School to someone who no one thought would graduate.

She had lost her motivation, her inspiration to do anything.

She lost her Pops. He died in April 2008 and she didn’t know what to do.

Then she took a second look at Orlando Hawkins. He had been a friend at Booker T., but had gotten in trouble and was arrested. But he found a way to stop falling out of a good life. He became a boxer.

Cheyenne McKinney takes a break between rounds at The Reed Foundation boxing gym in north Tulsa. “As soon as I met Coach Reed, it’s like, that’s the turning point in my life,” she says.

She wasn’t sure if it was going to work for her. Her mother certainly didn’t think so when she drove her daughter up to Keith Reed’s boxing gym near Apache Street and Cincinnati Avenue.

“I’m not letting you get out in this ghetto neighborhood,” McKinney recalls her mother saying. “Go ask that man who the boxing coach is.”

Soon they met the man inside the building. A thick-framed man, 6 feet tall, 275 pounds, with a gold-tooth speckled smile. He wasn’t like her Pops, a man she called “her heart.” But Cheyenne quickly found out Reed would serve a different role. She would eventually call him her savior.

“As soon as I met Coach Reed, it’s like, that’s the turning point in my life,” McKinney said.

Back then, almost two years ago, the Reed Foundation boxing gym in north Tulsa was rough.

“We just had a real raggedy building, you know, you could see the sky, the rain, it was terrible,” Reed said.

That wasn’t the way Reed remembered it. The building had been a boys club when Reed was a kid. In the early ’70s, it was thriving with athletic programs, and would eventually lead Reed to find himself and his passion.

“Without boxing, I could have been real hot-headed. Boxing cooled the head down because once you get into boxing, you realize you’re not the toughest person in the world,” Reed said. “There’s always somebody who’s tougher than you are.”

Boxing took Reed around the world as a teenager. He’s a Golden Glove winner who won third place in nationals when he was 17 years old. He has fought big names such as Sugar Ray Leonard.

Those experiences taught him to love his fellow man, he said. Now he spends four hours every night re-giving the gift that the boys club gave him.

Today, the Reed Foundation gym features two boxing rings, pro equipment, treadmills and about 60 members, including Cheyenne, someone who graduated her senior year with A’s and B’s and has her sights set on the Olympics in 2012.

It’s here that Reed takes at-risk youths and teaches them self-confidence and discipline through the sport of boxing.

“I just stick by him, and they call me ‘Little Reed,’ ” McKinney said.

“I asked my mom, like, ‘did you ever think boxing would be my turning point?’ ” McKinney said. “This could be my future. I never thought about it like that.”

Read more from this Tulsa World article at www.tulsaworld.com.