ROCKINGHAM — After graduating from Richmond Senior High School, Jaquan Everett traded his shoulder pads for boxing gloves.
The linebacker-turned-boxer is currently preparing for his first professional fight Aug. 14 in Greensboro at the Frank and Florence Williams Event Center.
Although he moved to the Triad after school, Everett still considers Richmond County home — and made sure to include that on his promotional poster for the fight.
Everett was raised by his grandmother, growing up in both Rockingham and Hamlet. However, without his father living nearby and his mother having her own problems, Everett said he had anger issues.
“Some kids deal with anger issues just because they don’t know how to express it,” Everett said.
“Football was … my therapy,” he continued, adding that the sport helped him stay out of trouble. “So when I didn’t have football, I found boxing.”
Everett said he was “hanging out with the wrong people” when he moved to Greensboro. With a child on the way, Everett thought: “I need to find something positive before he gets here.
“If you don’t change it, then it ain’t going to change — if you don’t change your surroundings, your circle.”
He now has two sons and is trying to be a positive influence.
“I think that’s the reason I’ve got boys … (to) show them the way — not tell them the way, just show them,” Everett said. “They see me in the gym, they see me (at) home and nowhere else.”
Everett’s first venture into sports was trying out for the Hamlet Middle football team, but he was cut. He said he started working out during the summer between eighth and ninth grades, adding size, strength and speed.
“I love the process of it,” he said. “Getting cut, having to grind … the motivation from that … it’s everything.”
Everett played for Richmond’s junior varsity squad his freshman and sophomore years and was on the varsity team his junior and senior years. In 2017, Everett was one of 11 Raiders to make the all-conference team. He was also on the school’s track team.
Although he walked through the doors of Rockingham’s Dungeon Boxing Club in 2014, Everett said he decided to focus on football.
“I didn’t really know the background of boxing, didn’t know the process of boxing — I didn’t even know you could make money in boxing at the time,” Everett said.
After graduation, Everett moved to Greensboro and took up boxing in 2019.
“Coach said I was a natural,” Everett said, adding he was told he had the strength, he just needed to learn the techniques.
That strength, which he said came from playing football, is one of his strongest assets in the ring, along with being tough.
“I don’t want to take a hit, but if I have to … I can take it.”
Everett said he initially had no intention of being a competitive boxer, but his coach saw potential. He went on to compete in amateur tournaments across the region, including in Fayetteville and Wilmington.
When comparing football to boxing, Everett said “the hunger” to win is the main similarity. The largest difference is that unlike the team sport of football, you’re on your own in the ring.
“You’ve got to hold yourself accountable, stay disciplined,” Everett said. “When you get in the ring and you fight, you’re going to see a lot of what you did outside of that ring.
“Either if you trained hard, (or) you played around …it’s gonna show,” he added. “When you work hard, it overdoes the skills.”
Everett has been preparing for his upcoming fight by training with more experienced boxers like DeAngelo “Muscle” Evans (15-0, 14 knockouts) and Joseph “Action” Jackson (20-1, 16 knockouts).
“Just sparring a guy that’s got way more experience than me … it’s definitely got me confident,” Everett said. “The hardest part is preparing … the easy part is when you get in the ring.”
Everett admits that his opponents can be dangerous — “you just gotta feel like you’re more dangerous.”
In the future, Everett said he would like to bring a boxing match to Raider Stadium.
“I gotta work, gotta get my name out there, got to get the wins — that’s one of my dreams, though,” he said. “Sell it out like a regular football day.”
