EUTAWVILLE -- It would be easy to miss FML Boxing Club as you roll through this small town.

These days, you can find the club by finding the Family Dollar store. In the parking lot next to the store is a small shopping center that houses a Chinese restaurant and a building that would appear vacant if not for the sign hanging above the entrance that reads, "Mattresses and Vinyl."

Actually, there are no mattresses or vinyl inside the building, only the smell of glue from the business that once called the small aluminum space home. For now, while the original building goes through some renovations, this is also the space that is home to FML.

There are no signs to announce that the club is operating in the building, but in Eutawville there is little need for heavy advertisement. The kids seem to know where FML is and how to get in touch with the club's coach, Dexter Ladson. A captain with the Orangeburg County Sheriff's Office, Ladson opened the club in 1995, and since then he estimates that over 100 young men have come through his doors.

Currently, FML is the home away from home for 10 fighters, and Monday afternoon one of those fighters -- 17-year old Jeremy Sellers -- showed up at the gym ready to train. Sellers said he is a former football player for Lake Marion High School, but school wasn't going the way he wanted it to so he left Lake Marion and football behind for FML and a private school in Summerville.

"Right now, I am just concentrating on getting my diploma," he said. "I want to make something outta' myself."

As the lanky young man spoke, he kept busy shadow boxing. He would talk for a second, and then throw a combination of punches against an imaginary opponent. Ladson cranked up some music on a boombox in a chair in the corner -- vintage 80's rock -- with, fittingly, Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" kicking things off. With the music thumping in the background, Sellers moved to a set of white ropes that stretched chest-high from wall-to-wall in the building. Starting at one end of the line, he crouched into a fighting position and began working his way toward the other side. With every step he would stop, dip under the line, and pop up on the opposite side.

As he moved across the floor, Ladson looked on. Sellers fought over the weekend -- defeating Aiken's Brandon Taylor -- and usually on the Monday after a weekend fight FML boxers will take it easy. But, Sellers said he wasn't happy with his performance, and Ladson said his fighter is hungry.

"You see those ropes," Ladson said. "Most fighters don't want anything to do with them. That will eat up your sides, but it's important. You have to be able to avoid a jab."

Monday, Sellers ran through a myriad of drills to improve his skills. Ladson -- who holds the South Carolina Amateur Boxing Masters Division Heavyweight Championship -- stayed after him most of the way encouraging him to be quicker and more fundamental in every movement. For more than an hour, the young man kept his body in motion.

"That's amateur boxing," Ladson said. "You have got to keep your hands moving. It's not about hitting a guy with one shot and knocking him out like the pros. It's about out-pointing the other guy."

And, according to Ladson, with a little hard work Sellers could see big returns.

"He's been here for two years," he said. "He missed a little bit of time, but if it weren't for that he could be a real good one right now.

"He had some things he needed to work out," he continued. "But, he stays in here. He's hungry, and he could be the one to do it."

The "One" -- the first FML boxer to qualify for the Olympics -- is something that Ladson said he is looking forward too. But, it's not what the club is all about. FML, he said, offers kids a chance to stay off the streets. To drive the point home, Ladson slipped a boxing glove on his right hand, and while Sellers continued to whip his imaginary opponent, he explained his club motto.

"You see this glove," he said. "Our motto at this club -- and I think it is a pretty powerful one -- is that you can't pull a trigger with a pair of boxing gloves on."

It's a motto that many young men in Eutawville now know well. Several, Ladson said, still stop by even though their boxing days are long behind them.

"We have guys that are married now with kids, and because of work or whatever they just can't do this anymore," he said. "But, they will still stop by to see the guys we have, and sometimes they help out and give some of the kids a few pointers."

Now 38, Ladson's hope is the club has had a positive effect on the lives of all the young men that have come through its doors. That's possible, and ironically, the club was born out of the positive effect that others had on his life.

He was raised in Hoboken, NJ by Frank and Maggie Ladson, his grandparents. To honor them, Ladson named his club after them. FML stands for Frank and Maggie Ladson, and that is fitting because it was during his time with them that he picked up his first pair of boxing gloves. It was where -- he said -- the small club in Eutawville was really born.

"I fell in love with this sport when I was nine-years old," he said. "I was living with my grandparents, and my aunt bought my cousin and I a pair of swimming trunks and put us in a swimming class at a recreation center."

He looked towards Sellers jabbing on the floor, and a newcomer to the club -- 15-year old Reggie Washington -- who was trying to jump rope near the middle of the building. He paused for a moment in obvious reflection and then broke out in a wide smile.

"You know, I think I was probably the only nine-year old in the boxing class with a pair of swimming trunks on," he said. "I got my butt tore up for that, but it was worth it."

T&D Sports Writer Brian Linder can be reached by e-mail at blinder@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5553. Discuss this and other stories online at TheT&D.com.

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