WA's First Regional Golden Gloves: Nomad Boxing Club Hosts

Manny Dunham Hung His Bags at Gas Works Park

Manny Dunham hung punching bags, speed bags, and a slip rope at Gas Works Park, hauling heavy bags, ladders, mats, and jump ropes five days a week. He had no address to give anyone. The boxers picked the name for what they were: Nomad, because for those months the club did not have a home. "After the pandemic hit, I was hanging all my bags up at Gas Works Park," Dunham told KING5. "I didn't have a gym yet but still wanted to keep my team active." Nomad Boxing Club runs out of two buildings, one in Ballard and one in Skyway, and in April it hosted the first Pacific Northwest Regional Golden Gloves ever held in Seattle.

The Amateur Who Ranked Sixth in the Country

Before he ran any gym, Dunham was ranked sixth nationally as an amateur boxer. His record: 56 wins, 14 losses, three Pacific Northwest Championships, and a regional title of his own, the Oregon State Golden Gloves. For years, a Washington fighter chasing that regional crown had to leave the state to find one. Nomad's own website calls Dunham a 27-year veteran of the sport. A gym directory and other secondhand accounts put it at 22. Both list the same run of titles: three-time Pacific Northwest champion, three-time McCracken Fight champion, Arctic Glove champion, and neither explains the five-year gap between them. The record and the title list line up across every account that mentions them. Only the math on how long he has been fighting does not.

Coach Bumblebee and the Boxers Who Stayed

Willie "Bumblebee" Briscoray coached Dunham for years, long enough that the two lived together for what Dunham has called seven, almost eight years. "Me and Coach Bumblebee, we have one of those Mike Tyson, Cus D'Amato relationships," Dunham told the South Seattle Emerald in 2021. He had founded Nomad Boxing Club as a nonprofit two years earlier, in 2019, before the pandemic forced it outdoors, and built it around a competitive amateur team that trains five two-hour sessions a week. Alongside the fighters chasing titles, Nomad runs a grant-supported youth program for kids six and up, a women's program, and space for members who are formerly incarcerated or still in school.

From a Ballard Flower Shop to Seaview Avenue

When Nomad got its first roof, it was a former flower shop. Classes started May 1, 2021, inside the old Ballard Blossom storefront on Market Street, sharing the building that year with tenants selling donuts and locally made clothing. Nomad has since moved to 6319 Seaview Ave NW, its current Ballard address, and opened a second gym at 12600 Renton Ave S in Skyway, the building where the tournament's preliminary bouts would eventually land. Both locations open at 6 a.m. on weekdays and close by 8:30 p.m. Saturday closing runs to noon on the gym's own site, though at least one online listing still shows 2 p.m. Nomad does not publish a price at either address. The first class is free, no credit card required, and the number comes up after that.

A County Van Replaces the Bags on the Grass

In September 2023, King County handed Nomad the keys to a retired Metro vanpool van, one of three nonprofits picked that year for the county's van retirement program. The club said it would use the van to drive boxers to other gyms for sparring and to competitions, the kind of errand Dunham used to make happen with whatever gear he could carry to the park himself. The county's own bulletin quoted the gym's motto back at it: "How you do anything is how you do everything."

Washington's First Pacific Northwest Golden Gloves

In April 2026, Nomad hosted the Pacific Northwest Regional Golden Gloves. USA Boxing sanctioned it under number 26-36-864929, with Jeffrey Macaluso as organizer and John Denker as ringside physician, drawing fighters from Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. Preliminary bouts ran Friday, April 10; the tournament continued Saturday, April 11. The Seattle Sports Commission called it the inaugural regional competition held in Seattle and the official pathway to the National Golden Gloves. USA Boxing's own paperwork lists both days at Nomad's Skyway gym. Tickets for the weekend put the final night somewhere else entirely: Fremont Studios on North 35th Street. The Sports Commission's own promotional listing also promised a personal appearance from Roberto Duran over the course of the weekend.

The Regional Title Dunham Once Had to Chase

Coverage of the weekend also called it the first regional tournament in the Golden Gloves' "108-year history," a figure that does not survive contact with the tournament's own record: the concept traces to a 1923 Chicago start, ran its first Intercity tournament in 1928, and settled into its modern national format in 1962, none of which reaches 108 years by 2026. What is established, and narrower, is still true: this was the first time a Pacific Northwest regional had been staged in Seattle, in the same city where the club hosting it used to hang its equipment at Gas Works Park. Dunham had to leave Washington to win his own regional title. This April, the state finally had one to give out at home.