Blessed Big Time

“A quick jab to the head.” “A left to the head and a right and another left.” “a left hook to the head and a right to the head. It’s a left to the body and another left to the head. There’s a left cross and a right to the head.” Reading these lines from “Champion of the World” by Maya Angelou brought back memories from my own short lived boxing career. Although this passion of mine came to an end due to injury and the naturally changing path of life, my respect and appreciation for the sport will not fade. The new sense of discipline and motivation I gained were life-changing, along with the advice of my own inspirational Joe Louis – Lonny “Honeybee” Beasley. I had the privilege of training with Lonny, a champion boxer, regularly for a good part of a year. More often that not, if it was a Sunday, it was a morning spent with Lonny. Besides the “sit-ups for breakfast,” he fed me with immeasurable wisdom from his life full of experience. Long after I’m old without any trace of physical activity left in my body and when I can no longer remember the sound of his poorly hummed rendition of the theme from Rocky, the impact Lonny made on my impressionable teenage mind, through boxing, will remain. Boxing contains some sort of magic that allows it to transcend the limits of being considered a sport. It’s more than that. The way it will continue to shape my life in the days or months or years to come is still unclear to me; but for Maya Angelou and the rest of the African American community around her: boxing was equality.