Photo courtesy George Peak
If you’ve ever driven down Dixie Street, then you’ve probably run into George Peak.
While he would normally spend most of his days outside enjoying nature and listening to ESPN on his mobile devices, Peak has decided to embark on a new adventure by announcing the launch of his new podcast First Punch.
The weekly podcast, which will be an hour long, will cover everything there is to know about boxing. Peak says his love for boxing began when he was just 4 years of age.
“My father was a boxer. Not professionally or anything, but he and a couple of guys from our neighborhood in Miami, would compete against each other for money,” he said.
Growing up Peak wanted to be just like his father, but he wasn’t much of a fighter. In high school he joined his school’s wrestling team before suffering an ankle injury during one of his matches.
A childhood friend of Peak, Zuri Hampton, described him as a determined individual who was eager to join the world of boxing in any way that he could.
“There’s no stopping George,” she said. “I would always ask him why he wasn’t interested in something else like golfing or tennis, you know, something less dangerous?”
Peak eventually left Miami to start school in Tallahassee at Florida A&M University, where he majored in sports management. It was during his time at FAMU that he got the idea to start working on his own podcast in 2016.
It wasn’t until earlier this year that the first episode launched on YouTube. Peak, along with his co-host, who goes by the name Marco, were excited about their initial launch, but underwhelmed with the amount of engagement from social media users.
“We weren’t really knowledgeable on how to market it,” said Marco. “We thought it would be this really big thing, but it wasn’t.”
Now, nearly seven months later, the two are ready to revamp their podcast and hope that its new debut, which is set to take place later this year, will draw in more engagement with listeners.
“It’s one thing to have your own platform to express your views, it’s another to actually have listeners to express those views to,” said Peak.
Peak hopes to one day land a dream job as a boxing analyst for ESPN, but in the meantime you can find him on YouTube or strolling down Dixie Street doing what he loves the most, listening and talking about everything “boxing.”