Maggie Suarez dances around the ring, bobbing and weaving as she delivers a series of left jabs and right hooks to the firm padding of her coach’s mitts.
She wipes the sweat from her brow, takes a sip from a water bottle, and does it all over again.
Four days a week, she’s in the gym at the Minami Center, training, hitting bags, and sparring with the other—mostly male—members of the Santa Maria Boxing Club. Her coach, Willie Flores, the club’s president, has seen fighters of all walks of life come and go in his 30 years of coaching amateur boxers, but Suarez is officially something special.
At the prestigious California Golden Gloves tournament on March 21 in Los Angeles, Suarez did something groundbreaking: She took home the trophy for the most outstanding women’s fighter of the night, following a decision-victory over an opponent trained at a camp funded by boxing legend Oscar de la Hoya.
“She just kept coming at me,” Suarez said. “I think me and her came in wanting the same thing, and I just worked my butt off.”
Suarez started her boxing career two years ago while watching her son, to whom she gave birth when she was just 15, take lessons at the gym as part of a Police Activities League program.
“It started out as a workout, an exercise to lose some weight,” Suarez said. “I got in the ring, and I just fell in love with it.”
What she enjoys the most, she said, is the rush of adrenaline that comes with stepping in the squared circle.
“You get in there, and every time the punches come in, you get pumped up even more ready to go at it,” she said. “I think I’ve always had a little bit of fighting in me.”
Suarez was born in L.A. and moved to Santa Maria at the age of 9, following her mother’s death. She dealt with struggles in junior high and high school, but now, at 26, she’s focused on finishing up her college degree and improving her boxing skills in the hopes of someday turning pro.
“I came a long ways, I’ll put it that way,” Suarez said. “It just gratifies me that everybody in here supports me. They tell me that I can get far, and they’re all a big motivation.”
Her co-trainer Gesa Figueroa worked with Flores to teach her how to cover the ring, score points with punches, and set up an opponent for the knockout—all techniques Figueroa picked up in his 13 years of amateur boxing.
“She’s learning the sport,” he said. “It’s not just swinging and throwing punches. It takes a lot to keep your hands up and move around the ring and throw two and three things at once. She’s coming along nicely.”
In her four official fights, Suarez has compiled a record of 3-1. She credits her rapid development to the fact that she spars mainly with men.
“It’s slow with the females,” Suarez said. “There’s been so many times that I’ve gone to different cities and I’m ready to fight and the other fighter doesn’t show up, or there’s nobody in my weight class and I come back with nothing.”
As with most other parts of the country, female boxing is still in its infancy at the Minami gym. Four years ago, at age 12, Jennifer Velasquez became its first female boxer. Word quickly spread, especially among the younger girls.
“After a while, the girls started coming, once they saw what was going on,” Velasquez said.
Now, four of the boxers in her program—intended for youth ages 8 to 18—are girls. The girls and boys spar and train together at no cost, thanks to funding through the Police Activities League. Velasquez, who trains five days a week, has fought successfully in several major amateur tournaments, including the Junior Golden Gloves and Junior Olympics.
“I like that it’s a contact sport,” she said. “And if you mess up, it’s all on you and no one else. You’re by yourself.”
More young girls are being inspired to take up the sport, Flores said, due to the attention given to recent women’s boxing champions like Mia St. John and the popularity of the film Million Dollar Baby.
“When I first started, it was a novelty,” Flores said. “Today, most of these kids are serious. They want to compete.”
A boyhood spent fighting for survival on the streets of Mexico City and 29 years working in the prison system led Flores to devote his life to helping more than a thousand young people learn the ropes, literally and figuratively. Today, the club is comprised of 10 volunteer coaches and about 20 boxers. In his program, trainers teach the students self respect, encouraging them to keep their grades up and stay out of trouble.
“They’re venting a lot of their frustrations. A lot of energy is expended here,” Flores said. “We try to exhaust them to the point where they just want to go home, get a shower, eat a meal, and go to bed—and not hit the streets.”
Once through the PAL program, many young boxers move on to the boxing club, which Flores started decades ago in a homemade ring in his backyard. Over the years, Flores has trained a number of amateur and professional champions, including former California welterweight champ Tony Ojeda.
As for Suarez, she’s just getting started.
“They say I have the power to punch, to knock out a girl,” she said. “I’m just going to go wherever it takes me.”
Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas wants his writing to pack a punch. Contact him at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 2-9, 2009.