World boxing champion Sugar Shane Mosley will join Heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, Mark Breland and Bobby Czyz in attendance this Tuesday at the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark to receive boxing awards. Other boxing celebrities such as Emmanuel Steward, Harold Lederman, Larry Holmes, Michael Spinks, Bernard Hopkins, Ivan Robinson, Al Cole, and Tomaz Adamek are also scheduled to appear at the 7th Annual Awards Dinner and Celebrity Reception hosted by C.O.M.B.A.T.T., Inc. Former New Jersey Athletic Commissioner, Larry Hazzard is founder of the non-profit youth organization hosting the awards dinner and expressed his joy in honoring the champions and others on April 7th. “Being a former school principal I have always emphasized to students that they can excel in the classroom while participating in sports,” Hazzard said.
“Wladimir Klitschko will be receiving the Founder’s award this year and he epitomizes not only the best of our sport but he’s also well educated; possessing a PhD in education. Klitschko as the heavyweight champion of the world is the best example of athletics and education being perfect together,” he added.
“C.O.M.B.A.T.T., is an acronym for Community Organization Making Better Alternatives Today for Tomorrow. The dinner is the organization’s major fund raising event to benefit young boxers in Newark, Irvington and Jersey City. Our program is more than a boxing club. We guide our young people through their transitions into productive adults, who contribute positively to their own successes in life and their communities,” said Rhonda Utley-Herring, co-founder and CEO for the group. She continued, “It can be an overwhelming challenge for many professional boxers once they outlive their boxing skills. And, since the majority of our children will not exceed the amateur level of boxing competition, we go beyond your typical boxing club to offer young people the opportunity to explore healthy lifestyles, boxing and alternative career planning, life skills training and appropriate social behaviors.”