On The Ropes: Former Poudre standout fights his way out of homelessness
Life changed for Joe Buckner when he had to call his kids and tell them he wasn’t coming home.
There’s no grace period to say goodbye to family before going to prison for dealing drugs.
“It sucked that I went through it, but I’m grateful that I did,” said Buckner, a standout athlete at Poudre High School in the early 1990s. “That changed everything for me.”
That was 13 years ago.
Since that day, Buckner has done a lot of fighting. He's fought out of homelessness. He’s fought to turn into the type of man his family and friends admire. He’s fought to build his dream.
Fighting resonates with Buckner and is the catchphrase for his dream: the boxing studio he now owns, named Beautifully Savage: The Art of Pugilism.
“Everyone in life is going to fall down,” said Buckner, a 1993 Poudre graduate. “Fighting solves everything. Not fighting in terms of fisticuffs, but internally fighting. We all have a battle to fight.”
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Sports came naturally to Buckner, who was a football, basketball, baseball and track star at Poudre. But since those glory days, Buckner has become well-practiced in falling down and needing to pull himself off the mat.
After college, he was 25 and working a sales job making about $60,000 a year. But he was envious of friends who worked much less and made significantly more.
That’s when selling drugs proved too enticing. He made good money until three years in when he was caught. He was able to avoid a long prison term only by agreeing to go through a boot-camp program. Run by Army leaders, the camp is intended to break people physically and mentally.
Buckner thrived there.
The slap in the face delivered by cleaning toilets at the facility for $1 a day to make enough money to call his kids on the weekend made him a changed man.
He prayed that “when I’m the man that would never get in this trouble again, that’s when I want to (be released).”
After his release, he worked two jobs. Everywhere he went, he worked his way up the ladder. Then in 2013, he suffered another body blow, when the relationship he was in ended.
Having paid the bills on the house where his kids lived, Buckner was without money to find a place to stay after the split.
In the city where he once starred on the field, court, diamond and track, he found himself sleeping for months in his car at the Harmony Park and Ride at Harmony Road and Interstate 25.
When he saved up enough money, he would spend a few nights at the Motel 6, which he called "The Mansion," located at the seedy intersection of Mulberry Road and I-25.
Despite being down, he continued to the fight the mental demons and win.
“Even when Joe is struggling, no one would know his struggles because he’s trying to help you through a bad day,” said Lindsay Glanz, Buckner’s fiancee. “He’s definitely an inspiration. I’ve seen him fight through so much. Not once has he said, ‘No, I’m done.’ ”
That drive pulled Buckner out of homelessness.
Every Wednesday, he would put on a suit and go to a networking meeting. One day, a man named Heath came looking for someone with sales experience.
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Buckner jumped. After about six months of homelessness, he was making money and bought a new home.
This summer, he decided to make the leap into running a business. He was fond of boxing as a child and loved the parallels between the sport and life. If Muhammad Ali was knocked down, he got back up.
Beautifully Savage, which opened Sept. 1, is a small boutique boxing studio on Pine Street, just blocks from where Buckner’s grandparents' farm used to be.
The white brick building at the corner of Pine Street and the Old Firehouse Alley in Old Town still reads Asmus Sign Co. above the garage door. But when boxing classes are in session, the walls thump with music.
Clients work through a variety of sessions, with the 45-minute workouts leaving them dripping in sweat, with legs wobbling from fatigue.
Buckner, now 41, shouts encouragement throughout. He’s not verbally sharing life lessons, but he hopes the clients are picking up on the message to keep fighting.
“It’s about creating a space where we can inspire people to go after whatever they want,” Buckner said.
Business is steadily growing, with Buckner happy to organically add clients through word of mouth.
His past is part of him. He doesn’t want it to define him, but the lessons learned are a constant reminder of who he never wants to be again.
Kirah and Collins, the daughter and son he had to call when he was arrested, are now 20 and 17, respectively, and he's fiercely proud, tearing up when talking about them.
Everything Buckner does is with his family and close friends in mind.
“You want the people that love you to be proud of you. Every day that’s what I do. I get up and I need to make my family proud,” Buckner said.
“Them seeing me fall down so many times motivates me to no end now. I never want them to ever see that again. More importantly, when they struggle in their life, I want them to look back and be like, ‘I come from that. The person who doesn’t know how to give up and is always pushing forward, I have that in me, too.’”
Follow sports reporter Kevin Lytle at twitter.com/Kevin_Lytle and at facebook.com/KevinSLytle.
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