Ring the Bell: Working Out with the Babson Boxing Club
In a corner of the fitness studio, on top of a rack of weights, rests a digital timer. As students file in for a late Thursday afternoon boxing class, the timer’s relentless counting of minutes and seconds will keep the studio humming with action.
“This whole class revolves around this box right here,” Joel Eulo ’26 says of the timer. He’s one of four coaches leading the student-run class at Babson’s Len Green Recreation and Athletics Complex (LGRAC).
When the timer beeps, the students jump rope for three minutes, the same length of time as a boxing round. After several brisk sessions of jump rope, each ending with a timer beep, they switch to shadow boxing. “Gloves on,” says Will Coppa ’25, president of the Babson Boxing Club, which runs the class. “Partner up.”
In three minutes of shadow boxing, two students mimic the movement of a match, practicing how to slip out of the way of an oncoming punch. Then the beep sounds, and after a 30-second break, they do it again. “If you have a mouthpiece, I want you to put it in now,” Coppa tells the students. “I just want you to get used to it.”
The timer keeps ticking, and the beeps keep sounding. The workout is hard. The students are sweating. Eventually, they switch to striking punching bags of various sizes. “I want your arms to be on fire after this round,” Coppa says.
Four times a week, the Babson Boxing Club holds these popular classes in LGRAC. The classes are a way for participants to push themselves, both physically and mentally, and students speak of the training’s many benefits. They learn self-defense, gain confidence, and grasp how to roll with the punches, literally and figuratively. “This has been remarkably helpful in navigating the anxiety in my everyday life,” says Alan Burgess ’28, a class regular.
For Coppa, who founded the club, these classes also represent an entrepreneurial success story.
Putting Skills to the Test
Growing up, Coppa was surrounded by boxing. His dad boxed for decades and inspired his mom to take it up. His sister and other relatives also boxed. “Ever since the age I could walk, my dad taught me how to throw a punch,” Coppa says.
As a first-year student, Coppa formed the Babson Boxing Club. Only five or six students showed up for classes initially. Eventually, Fuad Ahemedin ’25 became the group’s first coach. Coppa and Ahemedin knew each other from Manhattan’s Xavier High School, where they both were members of that school’s boxing club. “We’re bringing our New York energy here,” Ahemedin says.
Since those early days at Babson, the boxing club has experienced tremendous growth. The sight of people training in the fitness studio, on the first floor of LGRAC, has intrigued many passersby. In the past year, some 200 people have participated in the club to varying degrees, with as many as 25 at a time showing up for classes. Sometimes, faculty members have popped by, as well as students from Wellesley and Olin colleges.
FROM BABSON MAGAZINE: Read more about the rich variety of club sports—from equestrian and e-sports to pickleball and polo—that are available at Babson.
Every other Friday, the club goes off campus, hosting sparring sessions at the Nonantum Boxing Club in Newton, Massachusetts. Nate Sheer ’27 relishes those moments, when he can take what he learned in class and practice against an opponent. “You put your skills to the test. You put your mind to the test,” says Sheer, a club member. “Nothing compares to the adrenaline you get from sparring.”
Sparring may be a challenge, but it’s a friendly one. Many in the boxing class never choose to spar, but if they do, they wear head gear and come together in the spirit of collaboration. “This is not an all-out aggressive class,” says Eulo, who also happens to hail from New York City. “When we spar, we are not there to hit each other’s heads off. We are there to teach each other.”
Sheer agrees. Welcoming and inclusive, the club has a tangible espirit de corps. “It is a very encouraging group,” he says. “You make friends here. We’re rooting for each other.”
Strength, Grace, and Strategy
To watch the young boxers in LGRAC is to appreciate the complexities of the sport. Boxing isn’t just about force. It has a choreography to it. Feet slide, hands swing, bodies weave. Boxing represents a mix of strength and grace, of sweat and strategy.
“One of the reasons I love boxing is the ability to combine the physical and mental,” Eulo says. “Those two may seem like polar opposites. When you put them together, you get boxing.”
For 13 years, Hanae Barnett ’25 had studied ballet, but she always wanted to learn how to fight. She says a lot of boxers take dance lessons. It helps with their form and footwork. “People label boxing as aggressive,” she says. “I don’t think it’s true. I think boxing is very graceful.”
Barnett is another coach with the club, and on this Thursday afternoon, she is working with some of the less experienced boxers. They are in the adjoining spin studio, and all of the room’s exercise bikes have been moved aside so the class can practice slipping away from punches. In front of a wall-length mirror, they duck their heads, move from side to side, and pop back up. “Make it smooth,” Barnett says.
Boxing may feel like an inherently masculine sport, but Barnett is one of a half-dozen women attending this day’s class. “If men can do it, women can do it, too,” she says. While Kennedy Johnson ’25 enjoys playing volleyball, she appreciates how the boxing class gives her an entirely different workout and experience. “Seeing girls here makes me feel more empowered,” Johnson says. “I am able to garner a sense of strength in myself.”
From time to time, the boxing club hosts exhibition matches. More than 250 people attended an event it held last year at the Nonantum Boxing Club. Such enthusiasm is gratifying for Coppa, who has watched his passion for boxing spread to so many. “I felt like, this is what I worked for,” he says. “It is fulfilling to see the fruits of your labor.”
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