My name is Officer Michael Davison and I have been a proud part of the Rowlett Police Department since November of 2014. Prior to starting with the RPD, I worked with the Dallas Police Department for 5 years. While serving with DPD, I was a volunteer boxing coach with their Dallas Police Activities League (back then it was called the Dallas Police Athletic League) and I have watched the Dallas PAL program evolve into something that is really quite amazing -- and that has grown to offer a number of programs and activities.
The birth of this idea to start something similar here in Rowlett started about 5 years ago, but has suffered many setbacks and delays due to everything from a tornado, to COVID-19, to personal circumstances in life that had me on the ropes for about a year and a half. As with everything else in life, seasons change and things die and fade away; however, to those who persevere is given the opportunity to see new growth and yes... the birth of something new.
After my first year or two of answering calls for service involving our youth here in Rowlett, one of the glaring deficiencies was that we didn't have much to offer parents and young people in the way of effective programs. At least when it came to something that was inexpensive or free, and especially when it came to "at-risk" teenagers. Just telling citizens things like, "I can't fix in thirty minutes, what it took years to break.", or "Maybe a juvenile boot camp program might help.", never really "cut the mustard" when it came to effective problem solving.
I understand tough love and will neither agree or disagree here with the primary onus being on parents to be their own best advocates towards solving their own problems. The truth is, that would be about as effective as telling someone during a mental health crisis to "calm down and stop acting crazy", or to a homeless person, "just pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get yourself off the street". I believe creating avenues of change and tools for success are better methods of adding value to our lives here in the Rowlett community.
With any new program, you absolutely have to crawl before your can walk. My vision for this program goes way beyond boxing; to giving our youth a safe place to explore art and photography, to giving our gamers a safe place to make friends and participate in Fortnite and Overwatch competitions, and to giving our creative young minds a safe place to develop their skills at graphic design using Adobe Illustrator and the like, or turning their already existing talents using social media into something that is a marketable skill. So yeah, we are probably more than a decade from building a multi-million dollar state of the art facility to accommodate such lofty goals, but in the meantime, lets start learning how to crawl.
Boxing is an excellent place to begin. It is a sport that builds confidence and perseverance, it teaches you how to take a punch and how to throw a punch, and how to pick yourself back up when you get knocked down -- it teaches you how to win, how to lose, and how to learn to live to fight another day. And most importantly, to understand that while at times it seems like you are fighting alone, the truth is you're not. You have plenty of people rooting for you and investing in you in the hope that you will always strive to have more wins than losses in life. Or if winning in certain circumstances just doesn't seem possible, how to choose your battles more wisely, minimize the damage, and yes, how to cede defeat gracefully, remembering that it was only one stupid fight.
As a survivor, I have learned the easy way and the hard way that I am never in the fight alone. Truth be told, we are better when we quickly realize we can't do it alone. That being said... I can't do this alone ya'll. I need a small army of volunteers to help me make this happen. So let's own this together and strive for a better community.
Please continue to tune in, keep an eye on the Facebook page, and read the News and Updates on this website where I will be posting a monthly newsletter regarding our progress, and letting you know what we need.
