February 23, 2005 News & Views » Cover

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Thousand Dollar Baby 

Or, How I Fought My Way Through College

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I left the fight with Greg before my three one-minute rounds were up. I was worried I would get a concussion.

Two English professors were in our boxing club, one of whose Romantic Poetry class I was failing. The other was my personal favorite Creative Writing professor. From these two, I learned two equally important lessons: the worth of victory and the opposite yet equal worth of loss. Mr. P., the Creative Writing Professor, fought me once. It was one of my first fights, soon after the debacle with Greg. Mr. P. and I were more evenly matched. He was about my height, a little slower than me, but more experienced and a harder hitter. We went all three rounds, and during that time, I got the satisfaction of equally matching someone punch-for-punch. There's a certain happiness in knowing you're hurting someone as much as they're hurting you. It's an inner glow, an internal satisfaction in feeling the bones and flesh of another person actually take your force, your violent advances. With Greg, it felt like I was getting pummeled by a brick wall. Nothing fazed him at first. With Mr. P., I took a few ringers, right on my nose, but I gave it to him in the ribs. It was a good fight, and both of us walked away feeling tired, bruised, and thoroughly content.

That week in Creative Writing, he told me in front of the class that his ribs still ached. This public recognition is almost as important as the fights themselves, just as the pre- and post-sports shows are nearly as vital as our modern events. They display the courage, the will and the victory of the fight. As people about me in class murmured about how they could never fight, never get in the ring like that, I told Mr. P. he'd left me hurting too. "Helluva headache, my nose felt like it was in my brain."

Mr. P. soon gave up boxing after an MRI showed Greg had cracked his septum nearly in half. Of course he talked about it. Who wouldn't? But I think we both always wanted another round, another shot at the good fight that comes from well-matched opponents.

Mr. T., the Poetry professor, was entirely different. He was a massive guy, at least six-foot, and coated in muscle. When I hit the heavy-bag, it shook a little bit. When he hit the heavy bag, it went flying. Turns out, Mr. T. was a Scandinavian boxing champion. He'd torn through an entire country of fighters, some with larger builds than him, and won. Now he was teaching Romantic Poetry at an all-girls school and facing off with me, a student he disliked enough to fail.

I almost quit right there.

I almost wet myself.

I almost cried, which I just don't do.

I made it through all three rounds. No doubt he pulled his punches. There was no blood, no concussion, no truly bad bruising. But he still fought me, he still clocked me nice on the jaw so my teeth bit into my mouthpiece, creating a reverse-mold of them in the bright green plastic. The indentations of my teeth compressed by his uppercut are still there, almost three years later. He could have killed me, and there's a certain honor that comes from fighting someone capable of putting you to death.

In the end, I pulled a B+ in his class, and I doubt it was from my unique interpretation of Blake's poetry. I think there's a point where every fighter respects another fighter simply because they fight. There's no need to fight, no malice in these circles as there is in competition. When you pull a group of students and English professors together and face them off against one another, it's simply for love of the fight. It doesn't matter so much who wins, it's how you do it. The feel of your arm swinging out and connecting with someone. The feel of it not connecting, the vibrations of pain and a missed mark sliding up and down your arm. The taste of blood, coppery and thick and full of pride in your mouth.

I'm not sure if Mr. T. gave me that B+ because he'd made me bleed, or because I'd made him fight a little harder, a little differently, because I was a woman and women do fight in a very different way. I switched feet a lot, a forbidden move only Ali used and he used it sparingly. When I switched feet, it never worked. It was a remnant of Tae Kwon Do, but it made me less predictable than the meaty Scandinavians, more of a threat. Something for Mr. T. to contemplate in the gymnasium.

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