Raising Beasties

Written by Diane Krieger | Photographed by Siri Berting

Cedric Jones knows all about clawing up from rock-bottom while chasing a dream. He came to Los Angeles 20 years ago to become a movie star. Three months later, he was living on the street and begging for food.

Today he’s a successful businessman, a happily married father of three, and the surrogate dad to more than 30 boys and young men who call themselves the Beastie Academy. Jones is the owner of Beastie—a boxing gym in Manhattan Beach. The grit he demonstrates in his life makes him a powerful role model.

“I always tell my boys, ‘Anything you want in life, it takes patience. You’ll go through some adversity, but don't give up. It’s about chasing dreams, it’s about really believing in yourself and being competent.’ And they can honestly see that’s what happened to me,” he says.

At 45, Jones still wants to be an actor. On lunch breaks in the middle of his busy day, he’ll dash off to audition. When he doesn’t get a callback, the boys console him.

“They’ll say, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get the next one. Don’t quit, don’t give up.’ It’s so inspirational to see them trying to tell me the same stuff I tell them when they see me going through my struggles.”

Jones’ passion for mentoring started 10 years ago with a kid he met at Ross. The boy’s sneakers were in tatters, but his aunt said she couldn’t afford a new pair. Jones paid for new shoes, exchanged phone numbers with the aunt, and that boy became his first project. As Jones added more kids to the Beastie Academy roster, the older boys started mentoring the younger ones. All have stayed involved, including five who are now in college—three of them All-American football players.

Working out alongside gym members and Jones’ private clients, the boys get to know successful adults who sometimes step up as academy sponsors and volunteer drivers. Beyond gym workouts, there are organized activities for the Beastie boys: a book club, financial literacy workshops, neighborhood cleanups.

On Monday nights everyone gathers for a weekly Zoom meeting, where the boys share their successes and failures, aspirations and worries. They also connect daily through an open chat, where they can count on receiving unconditional support anytime.

There’s no application process for academy membership. It all happens informally, by word of mouth. Most of the boys come by bus from places like East L.A., Compton, South Central and Watts. If they need a ride, Jones will send an Uber or pick them up himself. “One way or another,” he says, “I make sure they get to me.”

Jones used to only take underprivileged youths, but rich kids, he has found, can be just as troubled as poor ones. Some of the newer boys are well-off South Bay locals.

“It has nothing to do with financial status,” Jones explains. “Sometimes kids just aren’t willing to listen to their parents. I try to be that extra voice, that extra discipline, that extra push.”

The mother of a “privileged” Beastie boy recently called Jones to gush about “the huge turnaround” she’d witnessed in her son academically, mentally and physically. Another newbie, a 9-yearold from the inner city, recently lost his brother to gang violence.

“He’s a great kid, but he was definitely on his way down the wrong road,” Jones says. “The gym is the perfect place for him. He gets to punch the bags and let all that frustration out.”

If that isn’t enough, Jones lets boys gut-punch him until their arms give out. “I want them to learn to burn off that extra energy. I tell them, ‘Don’t go drink and smoke and do crazy things. Come to the gym with me.’”

Cedric grew up in Macon, Georgia, the son of a minister and a nurse. A “theatre kid” since age 7, he attended a performing arts academy in Atlanta and earned an associate degree in dance before moving to L.A. With only $5,000 in his pocket and no job in sight, he soon ran out of rent money. Jones lived on the street for more than a year.

Cedric Jones has many dreams and aspirations but always puts mentoring young boys in need of guidance as his top priority.

Random acts of kindness by complete strangers made all the difference. An older woman, who turned out to be an executive with a temp agency, got him a construction job, then a retail job and eventually full-time employment in the call center of Beachbody, where he worked for eight years.

On the side, he was boxing. Two pro boxers he met while living on the street had offered to train Jones for free. His dancer’s physique and iron discipline—at no point did Jones fall prey to alcohol or substance abuse—allowed him to excel in the sport. He boxed in more than 120 amateur bouts and qualified at the Olympic trials in the light-heavyweight category before pulling the brakes on his boxing career.

“I wasn’t committed to it,” he explains. “My dream was to be an actor.”

Boxing continued to open doors, however. Jones started auditioning for roles in movies and landed a small part in the 2015 boxing film Southpaw. He’s had several other movie roles, including in the new Will Smith drama Emancipation.

In 2014, Jones opened his Beastie gym in Manhattan Beach. Around the same time, he established the BMoved Foundation—the formal name of his nonprofit.

Although he currently trains only boys, Jones believes his 14-year-old daughter, Brooklyn, shows the most raw talent. “My daughter is a beast. She’s probably a better boxer than all of them.” Jones plans to open the Beastie Academy to girls once he recruits a strong female leader. He also wants to lease a separate facility for the academy, underwritten by grants for which he currently has no time to write proposals.

BMoved and Beastie Academy's goal is to support young men from whatever age to help them make wise decisions and keep them in a positive mental and physical space despite their circumstances. Owner and founder Cedric Jones knows how to motivate a crowd!

Jones lives at a furious pace. (His wife, Barbie, sometimes wonders if there are two of him.) His alarm is set for 3:30 am, and he starts the day with a 7-mile run. His young sons Braxton, 9, and Bryson, 5, ride with dad from their Compton home to the gym, where Jones’ first private training session begins at 5 am. He drops the kids off at school before his 8:15 am client arrives, and picks them up again in the afternoon.

His wife is a wardrobe stylist who runs her own boutique in Inglewood, but when they met, Barbie was working for the sheriff's department. Jones was living in transitional housing for formerly homeless men.

“The first time she came to my place, I was so embarrassed,” he recalls. “But she never said one word about it. We fell in love, and we’ve been together ever since,” Jones says, beaming.

Life would be easier if Jones gave up his dream of acting.

Emancipation was filmed on location in New Orleans. “That was rough. They kept me out there for six months,” he says. Though his on-screen role was

small—Jones plays a soldier—he also worked as a stunt man and project adviser. He and Will Smith became friends, and the movie star has promised to meet the Beastie boys in L.A.

While away, Jones left the academy in the hands of gym staffer and longtime friend Christopher Ananeh-Firempong. The two men met back when they were both homeless, and later learned to box together. Jones also gets help from devoted foundation board members Heidi Thompson, Marci Cullen, Ryan Green and Megan Phillips.

Though stretched to the max, Jones won’t compromise. He’ll keep mentoring his boys. And he’ll keep auditioning for parts.

“My story is not over,” he says. “I want to leave a mark. When people speak my name, I want them to relate it to hope, inspiration, being able to thrive and go get it.” •