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(Red shirt, back row) Rico Wicks, a Trussville resident, runs Hustle & Motivate Boxing. The club helps kids from underpriviledged areas in the city learn boxing and life skills. Photo courtesy of Rico Wicks.
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Starnes Digital
Rico Wicks, a Trussville resident, runs Hustle & Motivate Boxing. The club helps kids from underprivileged areas in the city learn boxing and life skills. Photo by Savannah Schmidt.
Rico Wicks, a Trussville resident, hosts Hustle and Motivate boxing classes during the spring and summer to serve children from under-resourced areas.
“Being from the inner city, you don’t have many extracurricular opportunities. Kids who don’t make the basketball or football team have more time to get in trouble,” Wicks said.
While he teaches basic boxing techniques, he also demonstrates life skills and offers them mentorship.
“I try to give them confidence, something many kids may not have considering their home lives,” Wicks said. “Some of the kids can’t read, so I start by teaching them the 5 values: hard work, discipline, sacrifice, patience and dedication.”
Wicks is proud to watch the kids transform and start to make decisions according to those values when challenging situations arise.
“Kids like us didn’t have much to look forward to,” Wicks concluded. “I see myself in them, and it makes me happy when I see them going down the right path.”
