NABF STAR OF THE MONTH

 Rhonda Utley-Herring

Two weeks ago was the COMBATT Award Dinner. Many of our great boxers attended and paid tribute to the organization and the children it’s helped over the years. Joe Frazier, Mark Breland, Al Cole, Harold & Julie Lederman, Melvina & Doc Lathan are just some of the people who were there. The founder is Larry Hazard but the CEO and driving wheel is our Rhonda Utley-Herring… our NABF Star of the Month!

Larry Hazard may have been the dreamer, but Rhonda was the dream maker. She is the CEO of COMBATT.  “As the CEO, I have to keep all the wheels turning for a smooth ride.  I write all of the grants and plan all of the activities .  Larry Hazard does a wonderful job in legitimizing our organization and working daily with the children, mentoring, tutoring and training them for adulthood.  He also supervises all of the staff & volunteers on a daily bases.  Together, we’ve been able to help many youth and their families overcome some of their many challenges. Our most accomplished student, Ms. Tabatha Younger, has been in our program since our inception.  She graduated from high school two years ago an honor student for three years.  Tabatha also received scholarships from boxing organizations for her accomplishments both inside and outside of the ring.”

Rhonda grew up with thoughts of becoming a dentist – that changed after she took an internship at a dentist’s office.  Rhonda admits she was not a boxing fan; but in 1980 she entered the boxing industry in an intern position at the New Jersey Office of the State Athletic Commissioner as part of the governor’s summer program initiative for college students. She began her initiation into the sport of boxing with one of New Jersey’s greatest boxing champions, Jersey Joe Walcott, who was the state athletic commissioner at that time. In 1985, Rhonda was hired full-time as a MIS technician by then commissioner, Larry Hazard, Sr., who groomed Rhonda to become a boxing administrator and taught her most of what she knows about boxing. Rhonda was proud to be a part of the historic  meeting that led to the plan often referred to as the “Association of Boxing Commissions Unified Championship Rules”. She is also the first female as well as African American elected official to the Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC).

.After leaving the commission, Utley-Herring was tapped to head the amateur boxing organization, Community Organization Making Better Alternatives Today for Tomorrow, Inc., (C.O.M.B.A.T.T.), which Utley-Herring co-founded in 1996 and incorporated in 2002. Under Rhonda’s leadership as CEO of the non-profit organization, C.O.M.B.A.T.T. has expanded its social services provided for boxers to three cities, Newark, Irvington and Jersey City, NJ.

She is the founder of the Frederick Douglass Achievement Award, which is an academic youth scholarship. Other organizational leadership positions formerly held by Rhonda include, president and vice president of the Trenton State Psychiatric Hospital Board of Trustees (11 years membership and seven years as an officer), president of the Visiting Nurses Association Community Services Board of Directors, president of the La Debu Debutantes Alumni Association, fund development chairperson of the National Urban League Young Professionals and a founding member, treasurer (and member) of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church and member of the Mercer County Black Business Association. Current affiliations/memberships include, National Consortium of Certified Public Managers, Greenway Wetlands Preservation Society, New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame Inductee (2004), Rider College Alumni Association, Rutgers University Alumni Association, and the NAACP.

Rhonda currently resides in Trenton, NJ. Daughter of the late Alcine and the late Shirley K. Utley, Jr. She enjoys attending and watching all combative sports, professional football, reading, creative and screen writing, community service, shopping, traveling, theater, movies, backgammon, music, “ladies’ day of spa treatments” with her best friends, Roxanne and Carolyn, and spending quality time with her precious pet French poodle, Colbie.

We are very proud to have Rhonda as a friend of the NABF and a pivotal part of the boxing community. Where others talk-the-talk, Rhonda walks-the-walk. We thank her for all she does for our sport and the youth who are lucky enough to have her as their guiding light.