Boxing: Local personality set to be remembered

Mike Dawes remembers the day he got the text message.

It was the type of text you never want to get about someone who was a friend, sports coach and mentor.

"I was sitting in a meeting at work and there was a project we were doing at the time and there was a lot of problems going on and everyone's whining and moaning about the problems and you get the text and you go `oh, you know what, your problems aren't problems anymore','' he recalled.

"It's one of those big putting-things-in-perspective moments.''

Dawes got a message in July last year telling him that his boxing coach, Doug McLay, had taken his own life.

"I didn't see anything coming,'' Dawes said.

Few people do foresee such things occurring but the good work of McLay stuck with Dawes.

McLay, a former Upper Hutt butcher who owned McLay's Meats before he sold up and moved on to other ventures, was a popular figure in the city.

McLay trained people who had a variety of motivations at his boxing classes in Heretaunga and one of those people was Dawes.

Dawes took part in a charity boxing night for police and fire fighters in 2012, when he was an IT consultant to the police, and decided to climb in the ring in a bid to lose weight.

"I was typical IT,'' Dawes said. ``Eat and drink at work, sit in front of the screen, come home, eat and drink at home; the usual cycle.''

But in the space of 15 months, Dawes won his debut boxing match, shed 23kg and started to feel better about himself.

After he got word that his coach had done the unthinkable, it festered: `What could he do to honour his memory?'

Dawes had pondered running a charity boxing night to appeal to IT people in a bid to get them out from behind their desks.

Then thinking of a friend lost, Dawes had added motivation and they partnered up with the Key to Life Charitable Trust to concoct a fight night, which will raise money and awareness around suicide.

This Saturday, the Indian Cultural Centre in Wellington will host `IT Heavy Hitters' with McLay's memory in mind.

His son Mat and daughter Jess will be on the card, which has attracted a range of people who wanted to put themselves to the test.

"This is very, very much out of my comfort zone,'' Jess McLay said.

"It's just such a good thing for me and my brother because it's given us focus and it's given us something to draw strength from.''

Jess, 27, will meet Deanne Dollimore this weekend, while her brother will get in the ring with Haini Palu.

"It's for a good cause, so I may as well get involved and spread the word.''