Book description
Welcome to Billy Graham's Naenae Boxing Academy. Where young men's
lives are changed forever. Boys have entered with nothing: hungry, no
self-belief, little hope. But they have left as confident young men
looking forward to the future. Making Champion Men reveals the secrets
behind one of the most remarkable success stories in New Zealand youth
work and teaches some important lessons. The lessons have been learnt
the hard way: Billy Graham had a tough childhood, in trouble with
principals and police, until he found boxing. He went on to become a
national boxing champion, and then a globally recognised motivational
speaker, winning a standing ovation at the prestigious Million Dollar
Round Table convention in Atlanta. Billy came home to Naenae to set up
the boxing academy and has never looked back. Awards have flowed, local
police say youth crime is down 30 percent, and a Massey University study
has confirmed the academy's amazing ability to turn troubled boys lives
around. In Making Champion Men Billy shares his journey and tells, with
passion and humour, how to work the same miracles in your home or
community. He tells, through experience, what boys need: encouragement
and kindness, discipline and rules. They need male role models and to
learn the consequences of their actions. Most importantly, they need
someone to believe in them. Phil Gifford is an award-winning
broadcaster and journalist. The author of 14 books, 10 of them
biographies, that in total have sold over 205,000 copies, he was the
first person to be twice chosen as the New Zealand Sports Journalist of
the Year. From 1981 he worked in breakfast radio for 23 years, hosting
No. 1 shows at Radio Hauraki, 91ZM and More FM in Christchurch. In that
time he won 12 New Zealand and two Australasian radio awards. He has
reported on one Olympic and three Commonwealth Games, on every Rugby
World Cup since 1987, covered every rugby test in New Zealand since
1977, and reported on rugby in Great Britain, France, South Africa,
Argentina, Ireland and Samoa. He created in print a satirical rugby
character, Loosehead Len, a column that ran for 32 years from 1973, and
spawned six comedy books that sold in total 65,000 copies. He now hosts
the rugby show “Up Front” on Radio Sport every Saturday, writes a weekly
column in the Sunday Star-Times, and airs sports comments on NewstalkZB.
