Walk-Overs, Trophies, and a Pro

Samantha didn't get to fight at the Golden Gloves last night. Her opponent pulled out of the tournament, claiming something was wrong with one of their knuckles. "We all know that's code for they didn't want to fight," she told me. Her dad and I agreed. That's so frustrating to train all that time, get up to the show, then the other person backs out. Samantha won the championship by walk-over.


From reading the posts on Twitter, the Golden Gloves publicist seems to have a bias against female boxers. The publicist, Trayce, is female, and a few times she posted "Yuck!" about the bouts. "The girls are 99% garbage. I lost my feminist membership a long time ago," she said in another post. It's bad enough when that stuff comes out of men. It just strengthens my resolve to promote and encourage women in boxing.


Somebody said Kelly Pavlik was in the building. I didn't believe it at first until JJ came running over to me with his cell phone. "I took a picture with him!" he said. I ran to the other side of the gym, and found Toby (Kevin). "Where's Kelly Pavlik?" I asked him. "He's right there," Toby answered. Pavlik was sitting down a few steps from Toby, signing an autograph for someone. I got a couple of shots of him. The first shot is Pavlik standing with the Loyola Gym boys. I don't know the name of the kid standing directly left of him, but in the foreground is Nate Jr., Toby and Diego. The second shot is of Pavlik standing with Andre (to the right) and another amateur boxer.







JJ got the trophy for being the best boxer at the Golden Gloves this year. The picture below is of myself and JJ, along with Coach Barry (on the left) and referee Gary Cruz (on the right).