Local boxers chase national dreams as Junior Olympics return to Wichita
The dream started with a simple problem: the Torres family was spending more time at the boxing gym than at home.
For nearly five years, Alvin Torres Sr. watched his son, Alvin Jr., pour himself into the sport. His daughter, Liliana, followed. Practices became part of the family schedule. Training became part of the family rhythm. Eventually, the gym felt less like a place they visited and more like the center of their lives.
So Torres and his wife, Sandy, decided to build their own.
“Boxing is a full-time commitment, so we were basically living in the gym for five years,” Torres said. “It just felt like we were spending too much time away from home. So we decided to build our own gym.”
Torres Boxing Academy opened in north Wichita, near 53rd and Meridian, in the winter of 2024 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit gym. Alvin and Sandy both coach there. Their two children both compete there. And this week, the small family-run gym has a chance to make noise while the national youth boxing world is in its own backyard.
The USA Boxing National Junior Olympics is being held in Wichita this week, bringing one of the premier national youth boxing competitions to Century II. The weeklong event began Monday and concludes Saturday with bouts in Bob Brown Expo Hall.
It will feature five days of competition across multiple divisions, including male and female pee wee, bantam, intermediate, junior, youth, elite and masters categories. The national event is back in Wichita for a third time after previous stops in 2022 and 2024 and Visit Wichita projects the tournament will generate close to $3 million in economic impact.
But for local fighters, the value of the week is measured in something much more personal.
A year ago, Torres Boxing Academy had fighters good enough to qualify for a national tournament. The problem was the event was in Las Vegas and the cost of travel kept some of them from going.
This time, the national stage came to them.
“This has been a big goal of ours to not just represent our gym, but to represent our community of Wichita,” Torres said. “It’s been really cool to be able to do it as a family.”
Four fighters from Torres Boxing Academy qualified for this week’s national tournament: Alvin Torres Jr., Liliana Torres, Arayiah Cassidy and Luciano Rodriguez.
Alvin Jr., 18, is competing in the 121-pound elite male division after winning a regional Golden Gloves title earlier this year in Oklahoma City. Liliana, 13, is competing in the 95-pound intermediate female division. Alvin Jr. is scheduled to fight in Wednesday’s 6 p.m. session, while Liliana is scheduled for Friday’s noon session and Cassidy for Saturday’s noon session.
Other Wichita natives who qualified for the national tournament include Giovannie Alarcon, Emilio Gonzalez, Evelyn Hernandez Garcia, Tedric James, Cecil Richardson, Fermin Rodela and Benjamin Rodriguez. Rodela already delivered one local highlight Tuesday, advancing in the Bantam male 80-pound weight class with a 3-2 split decision victory.
For Torres Boxing Academy, the week is both an opportunity and a measuring stick. National events like the Junior Olympics can improve a fighter’s ranking, raise their status in the sport and open doors for bigger opportunities. For young boxers with long-term dreams, this is the kind of stage where a strong week can change how they are viewed.
For Torres, simply having four fighters from his gym qualify is already meaningful.
The gym is less than two years old. The family is still building its name. Torres said the results feel like validation that the way they train is working, even if he is quick to redirect the credit toward the fighters putting in the work.
“Of course I would love to see them get gold, that would be the ultimate accomplishment for us,” Torres said. “But even just making it here is a huge accomplishment. It’s humbling.”
That humility comes from experience.
Torres, 36, is originally from California. He said he got into trouble as a kid and ended up in the juvenile system. He does not run from that part of his past because it is one of the reasons he cares so deeply about what boxing can provide for young people now.
He wanted his children to grow up with more structure, more discipline and better direction than he had. He also wanted to create a place for kids in the community who might need the same thing.
Torres was not a boxer growing up, but his older brothers were. He came from a large family with limited money, so his two older brothers were the ones who got the chance to compete. Torres watched from the outside and learned the sport a different way. He came to see himself as more of a motivator, the kind of coach who can push young fighters while still understanding what they need emotionally.
That role has become his calling.
“In team sports, there’s always that best player that you can rely on,” Torres said. “In boxing, it’s just you. You have coaches there to help mentor you and guide you, but at the end of the day, it’s just you when you step inside that ring.”
Torres believes that is one of the reasons boxing can be so powerful for kids who struggle to find their place elsewhere.
Some young athletes do not fit naturally into team sports. Some are shy. Some are uncomfortable in big groups. Some do not feel like they belong. Torres said he has seen those types of kids walk into the gym unsure of themselves, then slowly change as they learn how to train, how to listen, how to handle adversity and how to trust themselves.
Boxing may look like a fight on the outside. Inside the gym, he sees it as a tool for discipline and confidence.
“We get a lot of compliments from schools,” Torres said. “Ever since these kids pick up boxing, then they start doing better at school, they start working with classmates better and interact more. Boxing is not a sport for everyone, but it does teach kids a lot about discipline.”
It has also shaped his own household.
Alvin Jr. takes the sport so seriously that his family jokingly calls him the gym’s dietitian. He watches what he eats, studies weight management and helps others think through their diets so they can make weight.
Liliana follows her older brother’s lead. The two siblings are close, their father said, and they push each other. One of Torres’ favorite sights is coming home from work and seeing his son and daughter working out together or jogging through the neighborhood.
For a father who remembers the trouble he was in at their age, watching his children build their lives around something positive has been powerful.
He calls them a dream.
“It means a lot to us as parents because boxing is something that they are doing together as siblings,” Torres said. “They’re going to remember this for the rest of their lives. Whether they win gold and go on and make it to the Olympics or even if that doesn’t happen, this is going to be something we all remember and talk about for the rest of our lives. It means so much to me.”
This week has not only been about the kids in the ring, either.
Sandy Torres has long helped around the gym, but with USA Boxing holding a coaching clinic in Wichita this week, she completed the training and became certified as a coach.
That is what this week represents for the Torres family.
A national tournament is in town. Rankings are on the line. Medals are there to be won. Local fighters have a rare chance to compete against some of the best in the country without leaving Wichita.
But for Torres Boxing Academy, this week is also proof of something larger.
A gym that started because one family wanted to spend less time away from home has become a place where Wichita kids can chase national dreams close to home.
.jpg)