Boxing in the Shadows
By Noreen Gillespie
News Writer
It's Monday in the gym, and after four weeks of practice, Notre Dame junior Brigid McHugh is getting the chance to do what she's been training for two seasons to do: enter the ring.
In the thunderstorm of pounding gloves, the air that hangs heavy with smells of musty leather and sweat, she warms up normally, counting out loud doing jumping jacks with the other 69 members of the boxing army. You can't tell she's nervous.
She probably should be. It's week five in the women's boxing team veteran season. After completing the fall instructional novice season and four weeks of intense training with the returning members of the team, it will be McHugh's first time in a real match-up inside the ring.
Athletics come easily to this confident, self-described tomboy from Georgia. She was a member of the rowing team and track team her freshman year. Being in the center of the athletic stage isn't unfamiliar — she was often in the spotlight as a member of her high school's basketball team.
McHugh was matched with a teammate during week three, when captains evaluate boxers in the ring. After boxing with a captain, coaches and captains rank the boxers on a scale of 1 to 4 in skills, and match them according to skill and height. The system is to ensure both safety and an evenly-matched fight so that the athletes have the chance to use their skills without fear of getting pounded. Today's match — a dress rehearsal for the sparring in week six of the season — is the first real chance McHugh has to fight.
But despite the precautions, getting in the ring makes nerves electric. Two rounds of two-minute bouts can seem like two days — even for a composed athlete like McHugh.
"I've got butterflies," she says, pacing nervously with eyes sizing up the ring.
Fighting in the Shadows
It is here, in this den of sweat and strength, the women's boxing team calls home. It is here they train, day after day, week after week, in a tucked-away basement in the lower level of the Joyce Center.
The program, in its sixth year of operation, follows the same training pattern as the storied men's program. They learn the same combinations, same fight strategies, work with the same coaches and train in the same gym. They raise money for the Bengal Missions, and send a joint check with the men's team every year after the Bengal Bouts. Including training and service, the programs are practically identical.
Except for one thing.
When the men's boxers took their skills into the public ring last week with the start of the annual Bengal Bouts tournament, the women held their own series of spars in the Joyce gymnasium — in private.
Since the program began six years ago, the women haven't been allowed to fight in public. While they are allowed to have a private set of fights during the final week of the spring season, the move to any public series of fights seems to be a long way off.
Most of the women's boxers try not to think about it. At least not often.
"You are really forced to focus on your own strengths and weaknesses, not just if you win or lose," said sophomore boxer Jessica Brogan. "But I would like to see the girls do something like this in public. I don't think anyone who's down here wants to be hidden."
Fighting to Fight
Eight years ago, Aimee Catrow didn't have a team to fight with. The sophomore who had a desire to box joined the men's boxing program and began training informally with the team.
Catrow was lured into boxing by watching Bengal Bouts her freshman year, and like
most who join the women's boxing team, she had no prior experience with the sport.
It took her two years before she convinced administrators and coaches to
give their blessing for a women's program. Catrow had to overcome who hurdles: starting a new program, and choosing one with a significant stigma around it.
After all, women didn't box. And it wasn't just at Notre Dame. Women were banned from the sport by USA Boxing until 1993, when 15-year old amateur boxer Dallas Malloy filed a federal court case in Seattle against the boxing governing body. Malloy won the case after a judge ruled the ban was an act of gender discrimination. Still, even with the ban lifted, the sport isn't widely publicized, and the first national championship competition for women wasn't held until 1997.
College boxing programs were — and still are — rare. Even today, with the Notre Dame boxing team fully recognized as a club sport, the University is the only institution in the country that offers a women's collegiate boxing program except for the service academies, where learning the sport is mandatory.
Tom Suddes, one of three coaches for the men's and women's team, helped Catrow
get the team off the ground. "Once we got around the fact that women do box, the only real issue was what we were going to work toward," Suddes said.
The program matured into a very different program from the one Catrow started . In 1996-97, only 50 women came out for the fall novice season. The following year the total rose to 100, and has stayed at about the same.
The women stayed out of the ring during the first season, focusing on skill development. Today they include a week of instructional sparring and supervised, non-scored sparring into the six-week spring season.
Because competition isn't public and isn't scored, the program takes on a distinctly different focus than the men's program. There is a higher emphasis on form and style here, and more intensity placed on the individual. "With the ladies, it's a different thing," Suddes said. "They're in it for the self-improvement, self-confidence, self-discipline."
It shows in their individual training styles. In practice, partners will stop each other to correct form, patiently demonstrating and carefully critiquing each other's execution. The women's team, Suddes said, tends to be more focused in the absence of a competitive tournament to work toward. "They're here for a different reason," Suddes said. "And I don't think it's self defense. To train two hours a day, they have to get something else out of it."
Coached by seven team captains and three coaches who rotate between both the
men's and women's programs, the push of the women's program is on the individual boxer.
With a coaching system that relies heavily on peer instruction and teamwork, teammates self-police and help each other better technique. The captains are the legacy of the program, Suddes said, and a powerful example for the younger boxers moving through the program.
"I didn't know what to expect when I became a captain," said Kari Jerge, a captain who runs the day-to-day administration of the program. "But I don't think anything this year lit me up as much as when I see girls loving this program the way I love it."
The peer-driven instruction, combined with coach's oversight, has produced skillful athletes. There are some on the team that can even throw punches as well or better than the guys, Suddes said. But when captains came to coaches last fall with an idea for a campus event tentatively dubbed "Friday Night Fights," they were encouraged not propose it to Student Activities. The event was supposed to showcase bouts between the veteran captains at a small campus venue. But coaches' concerns about the skill level of some of the boxers and whether the program was ready to go public doomed the proposal.
"The problem is the public perception of women's boxing is still very negative," said Jerge. "We want the respect we deserve. My fear of turning this into a public thing is the misconceptions."
The perception of boxers as violent also plays into the stereotype of women's boxers, and in a Catholic environment, that doesn't always play well.
For a program that trains in the shadows, overcoming those stereotypes in order to cultivate an accepting environment for a public event is difficult.
"If you look at the men's bouts, there can be a lot of blood," said captain Beth Rinkus. "It can be pretty violent. Since they never come to watch us, they don't see it's more about form and control. This isn't violent. But they assume it's going to be that way with the women, and they have a big problem with that."
Still, while the captains occasionally field questions from novice boxers who wonder why they can't fight in public, right now, fighting in public might not fit with the mission of the program.
"The interesting thing about this program is that our win is getting in the ring, period," Jerge said. "I don't feel we need points or judges, wins or losses. For a lot of the girls, it's a huge battle just to get themselves in the ring."
The Battle Within
Inside the ring, McHugh has a square area of about 14 by 10 paces to throw punches at her opponent. Tapping her gloves against her partner's, the two walk carefully around the ring, sizing up the competition in small, square steps.
Driven by adrenaline — and maybe nerves — she starts on the offensive.
She throws once.
She throws twice.
She connects, then backs away, pulling her arms in front of her chest in a defensive stance.
But her opponent rebounds, throwing punches until McHugh gets caught. She ducks, moves away, and connects with her opponent so hard, she rolls her eyes as she recovers.
Walking out of the ring, she jokes with the supervising coach. "I've never done this before!" she says, defending her performance. But down here, in this basement gym, this isn't something anyone has done before. As she rehashes her test match with her teammate, the two talk about what went well, what didn't, and what they need to improve on.
They're also glowing with pride.
"It takes a kind of unique person to want to get punched in the face," she says, laughing as she unties her boxing gloves and spits out her mouth guard.
The athletes here know they are unique, know they are competing in a sport most women don't ever think about. They know they compete in something that isn't ever considered feminine, and something a lot of people consider violent.
But athletes like McHugh and Brogan are driven down here by passion, a desire for perfection and an insatible thirst for competition. Brogan, also a self-described tomboy from Granger, worked all summer with her mom running and lifting weights to get in shape for the season. Now that she's survived almost two seasons, there are still days when the normal workouts aren't enough, and she runs and lifts before or after the two-hour marathon at the Joyce gymnasium.
There are still moments, though, when she has a gut check. Wonders what she's doing. Once during training, she threw a punch, connected, and hit so hard she made her opponent cry.
She immediately felt guilty.
"I felt so bad, seeing someone cry right in front of me," she said. "But then I thought, whoever I'm fighting came out here to fight too. She has every opportunity I have to work on her defense and offense. She knows what's coming, and so do I."
Inside the Ring
It's Monday in the gym. This time it's time for the final round, the last chance. Today is the day when the athletes who have trained for six weeks, pacing and punching, jumping and jabbing, bouncing and bouting, will face off in the ring and put their skills to the test.
There's a small crowd of friends gathering around the ring. Roommates, boyfriends, parents. Nervous chatter fills the room. In the corner behind the ring, Brogan, with gloves laced tightly, practices throwing punches.
Her match-up isn't easy. She's boxing a captain, Katie Schwerdtmann, evidence of the advanced level of skill her hours of practice have helped her develop during the season. It won't be easy. Schwerdtmann's a senior, a three-year veteran, and she's known to be a tough fighter.
Inside the ring, captain Jerge greets the team milling around the ring.
"This is our competition, the best part of our season," she says to the athletes, nervously awaiting their chance to box, and watch their teammates box. "We want to see even fights. We don't want to see people beat up," she finishes, cautioning to keep the fights under control.
Behind her, Brogan and Schwerdtmann chat quietly. It's an even fight, they promise each other. They want to show the team good fighting technique, good punches. They tell each other to have a good fight. Showcase what they've learned.
They tap their gloves. The fight begins.
It isn't an easy fight. Both throw their punches hard, much harder than most of the competitors here. Brogan shows she's the amateur of the two fighters, getting caught for most of the first round under Schwerdtmann's flurry of punches. She keeps her concentration, keeps her gaze fixed, tries to avoid the thud of a connected punch.
It doesn't work.
Round one is over.
But round two is a different story. With two minutes behind her in the ring, she's learned her territory, knows her opponent's fighting style. She whispers, softly mouthing directions to herself as her punches begin connecting. One. Two. Three. She's back in the match.
Round two is over.
"I didn't think I could box like that last week!" she laughs, hugging Schwerdtmann post-match. The crowd that gathered around the ring is clapping, and teammates slap them on the back in good-luck wishes. It's over, this six-week buildup of nerves, anxiety and confidence checks. It's over, this four minutes in the ring. It's over.
It's an accomplishment. Even though she'd trained, she wasn't prepared for the crowd of people watching her, judging her. But after fighting with a captain, surviving, and connecting punches, she knows she did well.
"It was definitely shocking, seeing all of those people," she said. "It was the biggest thing I had to get over when I got in the ring."
But as she unlaces her gloves, unwraps her hands, and removes her gear, she knows she'll get back in. She knows she'll be back in the gym, next season, for the rush the ring gives her.
"I can't wait for next year," she says, smiling.
All News Stories for Friday, March 1, 2002
