The boxing community lost a great man, and so many of us lost a good friend.

I met Bob Lynch in 1997, when I walked into Muscles & Fitness (now Ford’s Gym) and entered his boxing ring for the first time. He had always been generally opposed to females engaging in the sport, but I soon changed his mind and he became my boxing coach and manager. And when I retired from competition and started helping him coach, he became my mentor and good friend. When Bob handed me the reins to take over his amateur boxing program at Ford’s in 2014, I started a nonprofit, the Bob Lynch Boxing Foundation, to help support amateur boxing locally, naming it in living honor of this man who has embodied everything good about the sport for as long as I’ve known him.

Boxing has long had a reputation as being corrupt, but I was so fortunate to have been brought up through the sport by a man with incredible integrity. He spoke his mind and kept his word; I always knew I could trust him with my life.

Others will add to this narrative, about how he fought in Korea, earned not one, but two purple hearts. How he played rugby into his 70’s. How he’d been involved in the sport of boxing for over 60 years, as a competitor, an official, and as a beloved coach to champions and Olympians, but also just about anyone who came to him with a desire to work hard and listen. His name would come up in the strangest places and it seemed that he knew everyone, could freakishly recall names and dates, and always had a story to share.

I’m so sorry to say goodbye, but am so fortunate to have known him, and honored to have called him my friend. He will be missed.

– Coach Andrea Nelson