This is not a favourites list as I love all my children equally but there have been some students that have had significant influence on our club that I would like to mention.
Will Doomadgee
Will or sometimes Alec Doomadgee came in 2008 and changed my life forever. First off he was this great physical specimen who seemed born to box but as our journey progressed Will’s devotion to his people and indigenous causes lit a fire in me that still burns today. In 2018 I drove from Sydney to Gregory in the Gulf of Carpenteria where Will had produced The Frontier Festival which combined music and indigenous dance acts from all around the world plus tent boxing and a rodeo. Will with no budget created an amazing full length documentary which is now rtegulalrly played on SBS and in schools and tracks Zach his son journey through his manhod ceremony and was filmed half in Sydney with several scenes around boxing and then the other half in his hometown of Doomadgee near Burketown where the famous Morning Glory cloud phenomen hails from.
Will is attending the anniversary and on Friday 30th July 2027 we play Zach’s ceremoney and he will speak on all things Indigenous.
Stephanie
A student here wrote a book after the count which explored the death of Davey brown in the boxing ring and her own journey with concusssion
Rachel the world adventurer who has gone on to do amazing things in Physiotherapy in NHS UK and is now designing emergency departments at hospitals in sydney . One of the funniest nights for me was when Rachel came back from and overseas trip and did sparring and many of the boys not knwoing her and her boxing skills proceeded t get a good whopping !
Nadine
Nadine came to us in 2011 with 8 fights experience from Germany (4-4) With some training with Justann Crawford she entered state titles in 2011 and beat out Arlene Blencowe who has gone on to win world professional boxing titles and fight Cyborg twice in Bellator. Nadine became the first woman to represent Germany at an Olympics in boxing.at Tokyo 2020 and won European championships and won a broze medal at world championships.
Ethan did about 9 fights here (5-4) but also built some of our best equipment frames for heavy bags. Hopefully Ethan will be doing his gold shirt on the anniversary fight night too. Pete also in this photo below who also did 9 fights with the same record as Ethan these two made boxing alot of fun with great poise and humour.
Ben was our most successful homegrown student to date doing 26 fights and making Commonwealth Games Trials in 2017. More importantly ben’s sportsmanship made the whole of Boxing NSW fall in love with him. Ben now lives in Berlin with Sarah and son Samson and is now in a heavy metal band an dis putting that same energy and committment that he did with boxing.
Pablo has been our backbone instructor for over 10 years now I don’t know what we would do without him. Nothing more to say!
Justann Crawford was my co coach for 16 years and guided our journey into competition. Justann a two time Olympian and nine times Australian amateur champion with an enduring passion for boxing second to none. Although not here on a weekly basis I’m sure we see Justann at the celebration and hopefully he will share some of his knowledge at our seminar.
More to come