Different By Nature

By W. Hudson Giles ‘67

The following article appeared in the 1967 Bengal Bouts program. Its message is still relevant to the Notre Dame Boxing Club of today. Some traditions don’t change.

He must be the only boxer in the world who carries a text of Chaucer around with him. But he’s a different sort of boxer altogether. He’s a Bengal Bouter.

It is rather easy today to be down on boxing because of past turmoil and unfavorable publicity. It’s that bad. And in the process, "boxing" has almost become a dirty word to the sports fan of America.

But alas, there is one bright star on this rather bleak horizon. It is the amateur, the man or boy who boxes for recognition of his skill. Maybe a cup or a plaque. And maybe for nothing more. He may be a Golden Glover in the big city, but at Notre Dame, he’s a Bengal Bouter.

A Bengal Bouter is usually also several things besides a fledgling pugilist. He’s a student first and foremost -- perhaps a future obstetrician, or a sculptor, or a space engineer, or the man who may write the great American novel. Maybe he’s somebody’s roommate and maybe he’s some belle’s beau. But he is not a hungry young man fighting for a way up -- "shot at the top." He is a concerned, athletic young man fighting to help some hungry child in Pakistan so that child might have "a way up."

All boxers are supposed to be mean and tough, with squashed noses, leather skin and circled, sunken eyes. One trip through the Bengal training headquarters and the myth is crushed.

One finds bright eyed, shaggy haired, dedicated young men with unmatched zeal and spirit. They look like the kind of kids who are worried that their mothers might find out what they are doing and will make them come back home. These boxers don’t growl and sneer, they smile and laugh.

Their coach, Nappy, gets them in good shape with hundreds and hundreds of jumping jacks and an unbearable number of sit-ups and push-ups. He teaches them the techniques, the skills and the poise of the sport. And he gives a meaning to their efforts that few professionals will ever know.

The bouters themselves help one another. The more experienced hands show a trick of the mode to the novices. They hold the bag for one another and spar with each other. And then they get into the ring together on a March night and fight the fight of their lives, trying to beat that very same guy they laughed with and trained with.

A Bengal Bouter isn’t worried about winning or losing. He is more interested in fighting a good fight when the house lights go down and the ring lights come up. Better to lose a good one than to win as a lesser of the two uncapables. So all that work, and all that training, could be for only a half dozen minutes. But its rewards can be better than any blazer or plaque.

So the next time someone mentions boxing and you get that bad taste in your mouth, think of the Bengal Bouters. Anybody that carries around a copy of Chaucer can’t be all bad.