How selling shoes led to Peoria teen boxer winning a Silver Gloves national championship

PEORIA — Isaiah Ghantous proved he could take care of business when he was 10 years old.

Six years later, he took care of business again when no one else believed he could, winning a Silver Gloves boxing national championship.

The former Richwoods High School student — now a Peoria resident attending Knoxville Center for Student Success — won a Silver Gloves national title in his 154-pound class in a USA Boxing-sanctioned event in Missouri on Feb. 3.

"I went to nationals as an underdog," Ghantous said. "Never been to one before. Not one person in Illinois thought I was going to win. But I went through state and regionals, and it was my first fight in a year. In the nationals, my first fight was against a 6-foot-4 defending national champion. I knocked him down with a right.

"I put it together after that and beat some of the biggest names in Silver Gloves boxing."

If the shoes fit

Ghantous was 10 when he decided boxing was his passion. It was initially a split decision as far as his mom, Jennifer Lamar, was concerned.

"My mom didn't want me to do it. She was scared for me," he said, "So I started selling shoes on Facebook Marketplace at age 12. I'd find used shoes, bargain for them, fix them and clean them up and sell them.

"I wanted to show my mom I could pay for boxing. Show her I was responsible. Once she saw that from me, she was OK with it and she paid for my boxing."

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Ghantous grew up in Peoria, went to Richwoods, then moved to Elgin with his father. He boxed at a lot of places, including a start at Core Training Center in Morton. He moved with my dad and boxed at Molinar Boxing in South Elgin, winning a 2022 Illinois state Silver Gloves while there. He started kickboxing at Fusion Academy of Martial Arts in Elgin and then moved back to Peoria.

"I don't have a home gym here," he said. "I just train at a number of places. Take what you can for sparring, technique, conditioning, each place is strong in some portion of it."

And he studies one particular boxer.

"I watched every one of Floyd Mayweather's fights," Ghantous said. "He always stood out to me because of how much work he did outside and inside the gym. And he ran his own promotional company. He's a great boxer, and a very successful man."

In the Silver ring

Ghantous won the Illinois Silver Gloves State Tournament, then he won his regional, which included state champion boxers from Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. That earned him a place in USA Boxing's 2024 National Silver Gloves Tournament, at Stoney Creek Hotel in Independence, Mo., on Feb. 1-3.

The National Silver Gloves Association event drew boxers representing state and regional champions from all over the country.

Ghantous, who turned 17 two days after the tournament, found himself in the ring against the defending national champion, Gustavo Beltran Ceballos (from Region 8, representing California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Hawaii). And he put Ceballos down.

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Ghantous then defeated Christopher Rudd Jr., on Day 2, with a decision over the Region 6 (Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi) representative. Then Ghantous defeated Adrian Valdez (Region 1, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont) on Day 3 for the national championship.

"There are eight regions in Silver Gloves, boxers from all over the country," Ghantous said. "The state champions move on to regionals, then the regional champions come here for nationals.

"Then we settle it."

A championship belt and a dream

Ghantous took a picture wearing the Silver Gloves national championship belt, with his mom, Jennifer, and John Hinkle, a man who is not his biological father but who Ghantous says raised him and served in that role. He is thankful for their support. And he knows his journey isn't done; he wants to compete in the USA Boxing National Open Tournament on March 9-16.

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"When I went there to the Silver Gloves, I was in my head, nervous, my first national championship. You don't feel human in the ring," Ghantous said. "But you wake up the next day as a national champion and you want to win more. There's still more to come and more to do."

Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men's basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: USA Boxing: Peoria teenager Isaiah Ghantous wins Silver Gloves title