Notre Dame magazine

Published Winter 1998-99

Fourth-year architecture major Aimee Catrow has changed that by starting a women's instructional boxing program on campus. The women don't face off in a tournament like the men's legendary Bengal Bouts C at least not yet. But they follow the same training regimen as the men, and many go on to spar with one another in supervised competitions.

Catrow says she became interested in boxing after watching the Bengal Bouts her freshman year. She learned the sport by training informally with some friends in the men's club, then improved her skills over the summer by joining a boxing gym near her home in California.

When she returned for sophomore year, however, she realized that no venue existed for women's boxing. After training that fall with the novices in the Bengal Bouts club, she set out to create a women's program.

In its first year, 1996-97, the women's instructional program attracted about 50 participants. The total rose to 100 the following year, and this spring Catrow expects to have as many as 170.

Catrow says the women aren't in it so much for the fighting as the exercise. She describes the workouts as "really vigorous and very challenging." During the fall, novices train 1 1/2 to 3 hours daily as part of a crash course on the sport. In the spring, they embark on the same six-week routine as males training for the Bengal Bouts.

At the end of each spring season, Catrow says, about 70 percent of the women who've stuck with it choose to go on to sparring. This consists of non-pointed private bouts. The pairs face off in the gym for a set time with a coach present.

Catrow hopes women someday will have a boxing tournament of their own at Notre Dame. In the meantime, they help the men raise money for starving children in Bangladesh by selling Bengal Bouts tickets and programs.

"Right now, we just want to be respected as athletes," she says.

She also imagines a future reward.

"Our kids will be able to say, 'My mom boxed at Notre Dame.'"

Winter 1998-99 contents