During the 1930s, when football players wore fewer pads and basketball games drew tiny crowds, another sport grabbed the campus spotlight: boxing.

Varsity boxing at the university had its debut season in 1931. Coached by William Whipp, “the Old Liners won eight out of a total of 21 bouts,” according to the 1931 Terrapin yearbook.

Success in the 1933 season established Maryland as a top boxing program, and, in 1934, the team won six of its eight bouts and placed second in the Southern Conference championship tournament team competition. In 1935, they were unbeaten in seven dual meets and tied for second in the conference tourney.

In 1937, a new coach, Harvey “Heinie” Miller, took over. That year, Terp boxers were very successful, “emerging from the 1937 season with an undefeated dual meet record and wearing the Southern Conference crown,” according to the 1937 Terrapin. After the conference championships, 21-year-old sophomore Benny Alperstein went on to take the lightweight crown at the National Intercollegiates in Sacramento, Calif.

In 1938, Alperstein returned as the National Intercollegiate 125-pound champion. He was also voted “Best Boxer” in the Southern Conference Championship, taking the crown.

“It was exhilarating,” said Alperstein, 90. “I was thrilled to win for my family and for my school.” After leaving the university, Alperstein served in World War II and then returned to the area to help with his family business, Alperstein Furniture Co.

No other Terp was able to match Alperstein’s accomplishments until Vincent Palumbo joined the team in the mid-’50s, a time when collegiate boxing faced an uncertain future. In a Diamondback sports editorial dated Feb. 25, 1955, the future of boxing at Maryland was questioned:

“Rumors have been flying for several months about the demise of the sport at College Park in view of the general hard time that boxing is having throughout the country,” the article said. “The rub of the whole thing is that as more schools drop the sport, others are forced to do the same due to a scarcity of opponents.”

Army, one of Maryland’s most stalwart opponents, had already ended its program, and Virginia was about to do the same.

The column also suggested an NCAA ruling against college boxers with previous experience had brought the idea of discontinuing the program in front of the Athletic Board.

“They were bringing in ringers,” said Alperstein, who kept an eye on Maryland boxing. Coaches had been suspected of recruiting boxers with previous experience - also known as ringers – and new NCAA rules made it difficult for schools to maintain their teams.

“All the best coaches were moving on to better things,” Alperstein said.

Despite an unknown future, boxing at Maryland continued in 1955.

“I can’t remember any of our bouts where the arena was not packed. Boxing was so popular that they used to have doubleheaders, boxing and basketball. In those days, basketball was not that popular, and they used boxing to draw in the crowds,” said Gary Fisher, who boxed on the team.

That year, the university hosted the 32nd Annual Eastern Intercollegiate Boxing Association Tournament. On March 11 and 12, 1955, six colleges met in Ritchie Coliseum to decide a victor: Maryland, Syracuse, Army, Virginia, Georgetown and Catholic universities.

Fisher was named top boxer of the tournament after winning the 147-pound class.

Palumbo won his second consecutive National Collegiate Boxing Championship after the tournament, repeating his 1954 victory and boxing the last varsity match for Maryland. He went on to become an oral surgeon in the area and is now retired.

Nine days after that tournament, on March 21, 1955, Athletics Director Jim Tatum announced the discontinuation of the boxing program, citing “the impossibility of arranging a practical schedule,” according to a 1955 article in The Diamondback.

Many of Maryland’s boxers who still live in the area say they were disappointed by the discontinuation.

The sport has recently returned to the campus in the form of a club team.

Officially approved last fall, the club boxing team advertises one free workout to students and requires $25 in dues to continue working out and receive handwraps and a mouthpiece. According to Lucas Runion, a transfer student from Penn State University who started the team, 40 to 50 people on average attend each practice. About 100 people have registered this semester alone, more than in all of 2004, he said.

Runion has a meeting with university President Dan Mote on Oct. 19 to discuss holding a boxing event in Ritchie Coliseum where club members and local professionals could have a chance to showcase their skills, and where alumni and former Terp boxers could reunite.

“I want to ask [Mote] what the reasons not to have an event like this are,” Runion said. “The sport is stigmatized, but it has a history in Maryland.”

Contact reporter Kevin Rector at newsdesk@dbk.umd.edu.