A Winnipeg boxing club is creating a unique place for at-risk young men to learn, train and live a life away from crime.

Members of the Pan Am Boxing Club have sponsored the creation of Pan Am Place, a 15-bed facility that will open later this summer in a building next door to the club in the Exchange District.

The residents of the facility will be required to go to school or find a job and train in the ring, according to project manager Susan Scott.

But that’s not all.

“They need to volunteer here. They need to give back as we all do,” she said.

Roland Vandal coaches at the club and used boxing to help fight his own drug and alcohol addiction. He believes the facility will go a long way to helping kids get onto the right path in life.

“We are not in this world alone and if we have a coach or a teacher or a principal or if we have one of those people who really go outside of themselves to help us, [we'll] remember it for a lifetime,” he said.

Ali Hassani, 17, has been going to the boxing club for two years and says it has already paid dividends.

“It keeps me away from trouble — everything in the streets,” he said.

Scott hopes the facility’s capacity will double to 30 beds by next year.

Pan Am Place has been sponsored by several local foundations and the City of Winnipeg, but long-term funding is still beign sought from the other levels of government.

Freddie Roach, the world’s top trainer, signed on a year ago amid great fanfare to lend his expertise to the U.S. Olympic boxing program. Today, there is a question of whether Roach is even a member of the team.

Roach says yes, but USA Boxing officials can’t agree. Gary Pliner, a member of the USA Boxing board of directors, told Yahoo! Sports’ Martin Rogers on Monday that “there is no more involvement” between Roach and the program.

Freddie Roach thinks he is still part of the Olympic team’s training program. (Getty Images)

But Anthony Bartkowski, the executive director of USA Boxing, said he is hopeful to keep Roach with the amateur program.

Roach will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in June and is a five-time Trainer of the Year. His addition to the USA Boxing staff as a consultant last year was seen a boost to the country’s sagging amateur boxing program.

But less than three months before the start of the London Games, the U.S. is without a coach and the situation surrounding Roach is muddled. Joe Zanders was told in February he would be replaced as the Olympic coach. USA Boxing has nominated Basheer Abdullah to replace Zanders, but the nomination is subject to approval by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Pliner was unequivocal in his statement to Rogers that Roach was no longer involved with USA Boxing.

“There is no more involvement,” Pliner said of Roach. “That’s finished. Freddie was never actually going to coach at the Olympics anyway. There was an issue with time. He has a lot going on with his professional fighters and he was away or busy. It was a mutual thing. Obviously, our guys are close to the Olympics so they are right in the middle of their most important preparation time. We are happy with the situation we have in place and our fighters will be ready.”

Roach, though, was surprised when Yahoo! Sports told him Wednesday that Pliner said he was out. Roach, who is known as one of boxing’s squarest shooters, said he is still working with the team and that as far as he knows the team members are planning to work out soon at his Hollywood, Calif.-based Wild Card Gym.

He said he is eager to continue his involvement and that he only had backed off because he felt Zanders didn’t want his help.

“We’ll be back together, as far as I’m concerned,” Roach said. “The previous coach [Zanders] didn’t want my help, so I wasn’t going to force myself on someone who didn’t want me around. But my plan is to help them. I know we just had a good performance at the [Americas] qualifier in Brazil and I want to help the best way I can. I’m available for the new coach, and the guys are supposed to be here [at the Wild Card] so I can work with them some more.”

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Bartkowski said Wednesday he was happy with Roach’s work, though he said he wished Roach had more opportunity to coach the amateur fighters.

But Bartkowski said he plans to arrange a telephone call between Roach and Abdullah next week.

“Freddie is not out of the picture yet,” Bartkowski said. “We want to renew the relationship and continue to work together going forward. However, because Freddie has been training Manny Pacquiao and we’ve had a lot of events going on, we haven’t been able to get them together. But I believe we’ll get that done next week and have Freddie talk to Coach Abdullah and hopefully integrate some ideas.”

Six American boxers qualified for the London Games at the Americas tournament last week, giving the U.S. team nine fighters. Roach said he thought the Americans “had a good-looking team,” adding “it looks pretty good that at least three guys” might medal.

The U.S. has won 109 Olympic boxing medals, more than any country, but has been very poor in recent years. In the last five Olympiads – from the 1992 Games in Barcelona through the 2008 Games in Beijing – the U.S. won three golds, one silver and 10 bronzes. The 2008 team was one of the worst performers in U.S. history, with the only medal a bronze won by heavyweight Deontay Wilder.

In the three Olympiads in which the U.S. competed from 1976 through 1988 (the U.S. boycotted the 1980 Games in Moscow), it won 17 golds, five silvers and four bronzes.

Bartkowski, who said he is optimistic the team is on the right track, said the coaching change from Zanders to Abdullah was necessary in order to retain funding from the U.S. Olympic Committee, which had given USA Boxing “performance markers” it was required to hit.

Anthony Bartkowski, the executive director of USA Boxing, was in meetings Wednesday and unavailable for comment. But he released a statement regarding the coaching change in which he said it was done to ensure performance and to maintain funding from the USOC.

“Our goal is to have the best team we can and to start winning medals for our country again,” he said. “We need to do what is right for the athletes and make sure we have a coach who is focused and has an open mind on helping this program to improve.”

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One of the most interesting and exciting sports for the London 2012 Games will be women’s boxing. I say this because it will be the first Olympics that the event will be showcased, which on the face of it is all the better for the Team GB medal count.

One of the best prospects is 29-year-old Nicola Adams from Leeds. However, first of all Nicola needs to make sure that she qualifies for the Olympic Games. To qualify, Nicola will need to perform well in the ongoing World Championships in China.

The task is simple to get to at least the semifinal stage, or be one of the last four European competitors in the tournament. Nevertheless, this should be seen as a formality, especially given the success that she has had in the past. Adams won a silver medal in the World Championships in 2010, as well as a European gold medal in 2011.

So, assuming all goes according to plan this will be a historical time for Adams, as she looks to put a marker down by securing a gold medal in London. Boxing has been a sport that Britain has done fairly well in, so there is little reason to suggest that trend will not continue with the women’s event.

Having a new event added in time for London Games makes everything a bit more interesting and exciting. Especially when there is a genuine prospect of a gold medal in this sport, Savannah Marshall and Natasha Jonas will also be hoping to qualify for the Games.

And hopefully the whole nation will get behind the girls in their quest for success. I am sure there will be a collection of people that will be against women’s boxing. But now is not the time for those sorts of opinions.

The Olympic Games is all about backing your country’s competitors for success in the sport that they choose and have an awesome talent in. In the case of Adams and the others, that is boxing, and it represents an opportunity to excel in that final medal table. I would hope that having home advantage will play into Team GB’s hands.

James Kent is a general sports fanatic and takes a keen interest in the Olympic Games and Olympic sports; follow him on Twitter and Facebook.