TOLEDO, Ohio

The new fighter knows he will bleed, and he fears it.

He used to play football and run track at Robinson Middle School here until both teams were disbanded for austerity reasons. On a recent snowy Monday, he flings a wild right hook at the punching bag, steps back and takes a self-conscious look around Bang ’Em or Hang ’Em, a gym that is suddenly overflowing with young, sweaty boxers.

“Every time my nose gets hit, it starts bleeding,” the fighter, Antonio Ellison, says quietly, rubbing his face gently with his boxing glove’s padded red knuckle. “I’m really scared for my first fight.”

Antonio, 14, is among the hundreds of Toledo youths who have discovered boxing this year after the public school system, facing a $39 million deficit, cut its athletics budget. It is a scenario that is being played out across the country, as high unemployment, falling home values and declining tax revenues continue to batter school finances.

Some children, and their parents, are checking out sports that until recently were unfamiliar, including boxing  and without inspiration from the Oscar-nominated movie “The Fighter,” which many here have not yet seen.