The women of Idaho’s boxing club steal the round

Two women face a wall of mirrors. Making eye contact with themselves, they step, pivot and shuffle. Their movements are smooth but quick. They move like dancers — dancers ready to punch someone in the face.

Anna Nagel, a biology major, and Bailey Wilson, a criminal justice and Spanish major, are the most experienced boxers in the University of Idaho boxing club.

Wilson isn’t choreographing a dance or counting off rhythms, and Nagel’s hand isn’t swollen from back handsprings or flips.
They’re boxing in the basement below Memorial Gym three nights a week, bleeding, sweating and sparring all for their next bout.
“They keep us in the basement ‘cause they’re not sure if we’re house-broken yet,” said boxing coach Pat Pellett.

Students trickle into the Multi-Purpose room. The chains holding the four bags rattle and wince, and the open ceiling creates an echo of fists punching the bags.
Wilson is the club’s president and has been training for three years. Nagel came to boxing a year and a half ago from karate and the jujitsu club.
Pellett said the only fights the club gets are against amateurs, and rarely face other students.

“Not only do these kids have part-time jobs and go to school full time, they come here and compete against kids that are just working and training,” Pellett said.

Pellett coaches with encouragement and love. He circles the fighters as they spar, clapping and shouting “yes ma’am” and “right on the money.” Pellett coaches each of them between rounds.

One of the fighters had blood dripping down his nose and face on the mat during a spar. Pellett hit the buzzer and ran out of the room. He came back with a wet towel, held the fighter’s face and wiped away the blood carefully.

“He’s a feminist and a sociologist and is so worldly,” Wilson said. “He really cares about us.”
A stranger to the club may find Pellett as out of place to boxing as the two women. He looks more like “The Dude” character in “The Big Lebowski” than a fighter. His hair is pulled back in a pony tail and he wears earrings. His flannel shirt, jeans and worn tennis shoes compliment his age and physique. But once Pellett smiles and shows his missing tooth, rolls up his sleeve above his forearm tattoo and steps in with the boxers, his experience and knowledge are evident.

Pellett has been around boxing for more than thirty years. He came to UI from Wisconsin in 2003 and volunteered as a coach when he began his undergraduate degree in sociology. He could be accepted to graduate school but doesn’t know if he’d fit in.
“I don’t give a s— which wine goes with which food,” Pellett said with a laugh.

Coaching amateurs and being in the corner is where he said he belongs.
“I get more enjoyment out of just the good people we have,” Pellett said. “Can’t you tell I’m proud of the girls? They’re phenomenal. I get goose bumps talking about them. I feel blessed.”

The club feels the same way about him.
“He’s like a father figure to all of us in a goofy, silly way,” Wilson said.
For Pellet’s birthday, one of the boxers ran into the room carrying a flaming birthday cake with 130 candles. Pellett dropped to the floor with laughter.

“I don’t want to say I live through the kids because we’ve all been around parents that do that and it’s pretty ugly,” Pellett said.
He thrives on seeing his boxers do well though, particularly his two “golden girls.”

“(Nagel) can punch going backwards,” he said. “I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal but she does stuff that I can never do. That’s cool as hell.”
Nagel’s athleticism impresses Pellett and he’s felt Wilson’s strength.

Pellett said he’s been off his feet maybe five or six times in 30 years of boxing 250-pound fighters. He’s never been knocked out.
“Bailey made me quit,” Pellett said. “She hit me with a hook and gave me a stinger. She’s the strongest person in the gym.”

Despite their athleticism and strength, female fighters face obstacles and stereotypes.
“They find out they’re boxers and everyone assumes they’re lesbians or somehow they can’t be feminine,” Pellett said.
Pellett had Wilson working the corner with him during one of his male fighter’s matches. The referee came to him yelling and asked what she was doing in the corner. Pellett told the referee she was an athlete but he didn’t believe him.

“I got a woman working in the corner with me so they harass her,” Pellett said. “I was pissed.”
But Wilson and Nagel don’t let it bother them. The boxing club is a mystery to most on campus anyway.

“Most people don’t know about it unless I show up to class with a black eye or something,” Nagel said. “Usually people think it’s not something that I would do because I’m pretty quiet and reserved. But it’s a sport and I love it.”

Wilson described boxing as a skill and strategy and said it’s a game of technique.
“If you mess up, you know it cause it hurts,” Wilson said.

However, it hasn’t been easy getting the women competition.
Pellett couldn’t get the women a fight all spring, but with three weeks of school left, he got Nagel a kickboxing fight May 2 and Wilson a fight Saturday.

In her three years of boxing, Wilson has only had one fight and she’ll finally get her second. Wilson said she was nervous, but Pellett prepares his fighters for fear.
“I probably talk about fear more than anything,” Pellett said. “The scariest thing I’ve ever done is bend over and climb through the ropes. You’re not gonna conquer it, so let’s address it for what it is and move on.”
Nagel and Wilson will get the chance to climb through the ropes again and the women said they know Pellett will be in their corner.

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