Joy Liu

Second-year Columbia Law student Joy Liu used to like to play in pick-up basketball games at the Harvard gymnasium until one day when she passed a room with a sign hanging over it that read "Harvard Boxing Club." Since then, she has traded her fade-away jump shot for a mean left hook.

Liu recently became New York City's Light Welterweight (up to 139 pounds) Golden Gloves champion when she scored a three-round decision over NYC police officer Elizabeth Rosado in the finals of the tournament held at The Theatre in Madison Square Garden. The New York Daily News said that Liu "proved early in the contest she can throw as clean a right hand as anyone in the tournament."

So how did this 23-year-old aspiring corporate lawyer, the product of a prestigious Connecticut boarding school and Harvard undergraduate education, find her passion inside a pugilistic pen of canvas? The answer, for her, is simple.

"There's an amazing feeling you get when you tag someone really cleanly," she says. "You feel your arm jarred because it's connected with someone's head or body. When you land that punch, it's a pride thing."

Legendary Harvard trainer Tommy Rawson, now 92, helped Liu learn proper technique through exhaustive repetition, which also helped to build her strength. Since taking up the sport as an undergraduate, Liu has twice won Boston's Golden Gloves in her weight division. She is undefeated against every woman she has faced, with a record of 6-0. Her results against men in the ring are not quite as good, but impressive still is her fearlessness when facing them.

The Cheshire, Conn., native couldn't find much same-sex competition when she began boxing, so she would regularly spar against men training in the Harvard gym, sometimes competing with male boxers who outweighed her by 30 or 40 pounds. The experience enabled her to handle a level of speed and technique she rarely sees against other women. "I just picked up what I could from them," she says. "Maybe that's why I have an edge." Courageous against any foe, Liu once had her ribs broken by a male opponent during a heated sparring match.

Until last January, Liu hadn't been in a ring for nearly two years, taking a hiatus from the sport to concentrate on the demands of law school. When she decided to train for the Golden Gloves, Liu enlisted the help of Mickey and Negra Rosario of the Thomas Jefferson Community Center in East Harlem, who are well known in the local boxing community for getting fighters ready for competition. Three months of intense training paid off.

Although Liu is proud of her accomplishments in the ring, she admits to being frustrated because the skill level for women's boxing has not reached its potential. "There aren't that many competitors," she says, noting that several weight classes of the female division in New York's Golden Gloves only had two contestants entered. Another issue Liu takes with the sport is how many women tend to just come out brawling in fights, without a strategy or attention to technique. This often prevents women's boxing from gaining the respect and credibility it deserves, she says.

"I don't want to be considered just a brawler or some sort of entertainer who goes on before the real fights begin," says Liu, referring to men's bouts which usually follow the women on a bill.

The next challenge for Liu will be competing in the National Golden Gloves competition this August, where she hopes she will do some damage. Although she has no desire to turn professional, opting instead to fight lawsuits when she finishes school, Liu wouldn't mind keeping her options open three years from now.

"I hope the sport will get into the Olympics," she says, adding that the Olympic Committee is considering women's boxing for the 2004 games in Athens. "I would definitely give it a try."