Saturday Night Finals

I was surprised when I arrived at Gordon Tech High School for the final night of the Golden Gloves -- the programs were free.  Hoy, a Spanish newspaper that was one of the sponsors of the tournament, had printed them up in full color.  In the past, the programs were in black and white.

There were some cute pink T-shirts for infants for sale that read: "Future Golden Gloves Champion".  I had told Pastor Roger that I would buy a Golden Gloves shirt for his baby son, Isaac.  The pink shirts were nice, but Isaac is a whopper.  The boy was about nine pounds when he was born, and at four months, he's a lot bigger now.  I lucked up on a kid's medium gray T-shirt which I hope will fit Isaac.  After I made my purchase, I saw Gary.  Gary had Barry on the phone.  I was happy to learn that Barry did get the copy of the DVD I'd made of the Loyola Park boxing tournament.  I had left it in a drawer down at the gym for Barry to pick up.  Barry couldn't make it out to the fights and neither could JJ; JJ had to work that evening.

Percy was working the glove table as usual.  He told me all of his boxers didn't make it past the prelims and the semi-finals due to illness.  A few guys had the flu, another guy got pink eye.  I'm just getting over a cold myself, one that I caught from Pastor Roger.  It's getting on to mid-spring, and the last of the colds and flues are going around.

Thirteen fights were scheduled for the evening, but one didn't take place because one boxer was a no-show.  The other boxer won by walk-over, but judging by the look on his face, I'm sure he would have rather had the fight.  I've never seen any boxer in that tournament happy to win a bout that way. 

There were several matches between female boxers.  I got to shake the hand of Megan Rembold of Rockit Boxing, who won in the 114 lb. open category against Brittany Brown of By Faith Boxing.  While they were in the ring, I thought to myself, "I wish I was their weight."  I was also wishing I fought more like Kendra Cooper of Harvey Boxing who won over Scarlett Swerdlow, who wasn't attached to a boxing club (139 lbs. Senior Novice category).  Cooper measured her punches and picked her spots. 

The ring girls were on hand, and here's another reason why they don't add anything to the sport.  In-between the first and second round of one of the matches, one of them pranced into the ring holding the round card upside down.  She didn't catch on what the audience was trying to tell her until she had gotten half-way around the ring.  Finally, she looked up at the card and turned it around.  There were a group of guys that kept standing up and cheering every time she switched by their side of the ring. I noticed there were no girlfriends and/or wives in their group.  I thought, "If I was the girlfriend or wife sitting next to one of those guys, I'd jumped up and slapped the guy back down in his seat."  Yeah, I'd be that type of wife, and I was that type of girlfriend the last time I had a boyfriend. 

The best fight of the evening was between Alex Martin of Harvey Boxing and Termaine Pride of the Jesse Torres Boxing Club in the 152 lbs. Open category.  I had heard many stories about Martin's prowess in the ring, but I didn't remember seeing him fight before.  Martin was the example of  taking a few punches to get some in, and he really got them in.  Crisp, clean jabs and hooks.  Martin never looked like he was in a rush nor did he panic when Pride backed him up and threw flurries of punches.  Martin handled his business, and deservedly won the Best Boxer of the Tournament award. 

I lost all track of time.  When I finally looked at my watch it was after 11:00 PM.  The matches ended about a half hour to 45 minutes later.  On my way out of the high school, I felt someone tapping me on my shoulder.  It was Tim Kane, who writes some very good boxing articles for the Chicago version of Examiner.com.  "I said to myself, 'I know that girl!  I've seen her on the Internet!'" he told me.  It was very nice to meet him. 

It was a long walk down to the Addison Red Line 'L station.   The Addison bus stops running after about 9:30 PM.  I don't think the California bus runs that late going north, either.  The Brown Line was a little closer, but it didn't make much sense for me to get on, ride one stop south to Belmont, then switch over to go back in the right direction.  That was the main grievance I had about the tournament being switched from St. Andrews to Gordon Tech.  Those of us on public transportation who want to see the fights to the end have to hoof it awhile to get to the next bus or train that's running afterwards.

Certified

I dragged myself out of bed at 5:00 AM yesterday in order to catch a Metra train to Harvey, IL. A coaches' clinic was held out at Harvey Boxing Club that morning. I had been expecting to have a hike to get to the gym once I got to Harvey, but it was practically around the corner. Carlos ran the clinic, which I found out normally runs for six hours. Mike Q. was there before it began to collect the applications and the fees.

Erin's uncle, John, was there to re-up his certification. "She can come to my garage and workout. I have it set up with boxing equipment," he said. I had seen Carlos before, and I'm acquainted with Mike Q., but other than John, I didn't recognize the other guys there. Carlos was a professional boxer, and now he's a professor. He was very clear, and made sure we received lot of valuable information. I took a lot of notes that I plan to review often. He gave us his business card at the end of the day in case we had any boxing questions in the future. I was the only woman in attendance.

The Harvey Boxing Club is a nice facility. I had heard about it many times. During a break, I peeked in on the kids training. There was one girl in the gym, and she looked like she was either 12 or 14 years of age. The girl looked very comfortable working out with the boys, which is always a good thing.

I got most of the questions on the test right, so now it's a waiting game to receive my license in the mail. "It depends on how fast Colorado (home of USA Boxing) will send the licenses out," Mike Q. told me. "Oh, I know. I waited awhile for my boxing license to come when I first signed up for one of those," I told him. The receipt I have should allow me to get into the Golden Gloves finals later this week with no problem. On the way home, I thought to myself, "About time." Ever since I was diagnosed two years ago with diabetes, I kept saying I was going to get a coach's license.

Today, after Easter church service, I told Pastor that I passed the Level 1 certification. "You got it? Great!" he said, and we gave each other a fist bump like Obama and Michelle. Two young men were standing nearby; I assume they were Pastor's relatives. He has several nephews. "She was an amateur boxer, and now she's a coach," he told them. The youngsters had a look on their face that seemed to say, "Girls and boxing don't compute." I smiled to myself.