As his West Point opponent’s boxing glove delivered a “haymaker,” a winding punch typically reserved to end a match, Luke Runion’s ear drum exploded, but his adrenaline rush masked the piercing pain.
Then a freshman at Penn State University, Runion vowed for revenge, “so I could bust him,” he said.
Now the coach of the university’s revamped boxing team, Runion dedicated himself to a five day a week, three-month long training regime that included running four miles at dawn and traveling to a warehouse-turned gym in Brentwood, Md. to perfect his punches and footwork. Four months after their first encounter, Runion and his West Point nemesis met again. In the third and final round, Runion delivered the ultimate punch and won with a knock down.
This motivation drove Runion, a senior Spanish major who is ranked third in USA Boxing’s super heavy weight division, to come to this university and single-handedly revive the once-thriving Boxing Club. Tomorrow, three years of work will be displayed in a tour-de-force of Terrapin boxing.
In front of an expected 500 person crowd, the boxing team will challenge the United States Naval Academy, the United States Military Academy and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill tomorrow at Ritchie Coliseum. The team hopes the match, the first on-campus boxing event in half a century, will become an annual tradition.
“It feels great to be part of UMD boxing history. It’s something I never thought I would be able to do,” said team Captain Larry Mitros, a member of the club since last year.
“I had some experience, but had never competed before,” said Mitros, the 2006 USA Boxing’s Eastern Regional 156 lb. Champion. “I really owe a lot to Luke, because without him starting up this club and helping me out, I wouldn’t be boxing right now.”
In 2004, Runion began recruiting other boxing enthusiasts to follow his passion and led a promotional boxing meeting in Cole Field House. Current club president Mike Poling attended along with 29 other eager novice boxers, which was four more students than Runion needed to get the club started, he said.
Runion has since seen a dramatic increase in membership over the past three years. In their sophomore year, the club was 90-student strong. Now more than 140 students arrive at the club’s meetings to learn the art of the sport, Runion said.
“We started off with only a few guys,” said Poling, a senior criminology and criminal justice major. “We had no equipment, no money and we were literally punching the air. Now, we have punching bags, hand wraps, gloves, mitts and are funded through club dues, CRS and the SGA.”
The Boxing Club serves as an opportunity for the everyday student to practice boxing skills and possibly join the Boxing Team, which fights competitively. Unlike the team, however, the club does not allow its members to spar – man-on-man punching – because Campus Recreational Services does not allow on-campus boxing due to safety concerns, said Brian Kile, assistant director of sport clubs.
“We just don’t have the facilities on campus,” he said. According to Kile, other schools like Army and Navy pay their coaches for professional supervision. The boxing team, however, is completely student-run.
The university is allowing an on-campus fight because extreme safety precautions will be taken. The match will be supervised by U.S. boxing officials, certified insurance, on-sight medical personnel as well as judges, Kile said.
Yet Runion and his colleagues believe the club sport – which uses professional headgear – is safe enough. In most matches, a referee will stop the fight if someone is about to suffer a severe injury, said Runion, who has never seen a knockout throughout his six years of amateur boxing.
“I don’t think the people at CRS know a whole lot about boxing,” Runion said. “There is definitely a stigma about boxing. We feel like the administration is against us, but we are always trying to work with them, not against them. We need their help.”
Boxing’s heyday at the university ended in the mid-’50s as the NCAA grew suspicious that coaches were illegally recruiting boxers with previous experience. New NCAA rules burdened the teams and one by one, universities ceased their boxing programs.
As of March 21, 1955, Athletics Director Jim Tatum officially discontinued this university’s boxing program. He cited “the impossibility of arranging a practical schedule,” as the reason, according to a 1955 Diamondback article.
More than 50 years later, students like Mitros, a senior civil and environmental major, had the opportunity to feel the excitement of the ring and “beat the crap out of each other.” After a grueling match against Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, an exhausted Mitros and his opponent embraced in a hug to finalize his victory.
“Boxing is something you can’t experience until you actually get in the ring with someone,” Mitros said. “When it’s all over, you have the most respect for the dude in the ring across from you.”
Contact reporter Alicia Hartlove at newsdesk@dbk.umd.edu.
