USD boxing club revived, eventually hopes to compete

Jody Harnois has learned a lot of lessons throughout his life. Many of those lessons stem from his time spent in the boxing ring.

Now, he’s hoping his 35 years worth of experience will impact the lives of USD students and provide them with similar life lessons through the revival of a campus boxing club.

“It’s a great sport,” Harnois said. “A lot of good life lessons come with it.”

Harnois is a boxing coach at Coyote Combat Sports in Vermillion. He’s also worked with students from Kappa Tau Epsilon to help put on the annual TKE Fight Night charity event in the past.

Senior Joel Springman was one of the main organizers of last year’s TKE Fight Night, and decided to reach out to Harnois about the possibility of organizing a more permanent boxing club at USD.

To gauge student interest, Springman organized an informational meeting last week.

Nearly 30 students, a mix of men and women, attended the meeting.

“There’s enough interest and dedication. I thought now was a good time to start it up again,” Springman said, who is in the process of creating bylaws so that the club can receive funding from the Student Government Association.

Springman and Harnois explained to the crowd of interested students how the club might operate in the future, along with their expectations of boxers.

“Boxing is about (the most) physically demanding sport you’ll find,” Harnois said. “It’s a tough one to stick with.”

Harnois emphasized that no experience is necessary and that he wants to train whoever is interested, but that a certain amount of commitment is necessary to be part of the club.

“As coaches, we expect a certain amount of commitment. You have to learn commitment first,” he said. “We typically shoot for the four-day workout week. Friday is kind of open gym. It’s a great gym, we’ve got a ring set up.”

Located on Cherry Street across from Pizza Hut, Coyote Combat Sports will become the main hub of all activity for the newly founded club.

Most of the equipment, such as boxing gloves, are provided by the facility. But Harnois said members who plan to be heavily involved in the club should invest in hand wraps, a mouthpiece and eventually gloves. Additionally, boxing club members need to apply for a license and register with USA Boxing in order to start sparring.

Registration is around $65, Harnois said.

“… we’ll help you guys out until you know this is something you want to do,” Harnois told students at the Oct. 8 meeting.

While no punches were thrown at the Oct. 8 gathering, students got the chance to step into the ring for the first time Tuesday night.

Around 20 students gathered at the Coyote Combat Sports gym to receive some basic instructions on boxing, including the basics of a punch as well as proper stance.

Junior Maddie Elkins has never boxed before, and said Tuesday’s first meeting required more technique than she thought.

“I did it as a stress reliever and to stay active,” she said. “It’s more difficult than it looks.”

After Harnois shared some basic instructions with the group, students were split up into three stations, where they spent around 20 minutes learning various boxing techniques.

First-year Sam Alvine heard about the boxing club through his fraternity, TKE. He hopes to compete in TKE Fight Night in the spring.

“I’ve always been interested in boxing,” he said. “I hope it’s fun. Hopefully I don’t get knocked out.”

In the future, Springman and Harnois are considering putting together a competitive/traveling team for those looking to advance their boxing skills. If interest remains steady, Harnois said it could be fun to challenge SDSU for a boxing match.

“Unless you’ve got someone to compete against, it’s hard to keep training,” Harnois said. “You want to have an end goal.”

Harnois added he’s been talking with other boxing organizations in Mitchell, Sioux Falls and Brookings about the possibility of eventually putting together some competitions.

“We’d like to get to the point where we have two or three events here in Vermillion,” he said.

Though Tuesday’s meeting was a bit cramped, Harnois was excited about the turnout. The next club workout session will be held Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at Coyote Combat Sports.

First-year Tanner Waddell has been looking to get involved around campus, and said after the first breakout session during Tuesday’s workout that boxing was something he hadn’t really thought about before.

“I was interested in this because it was something new,” Waddell said. “I’ve never done combat sports before, but I thought why not give it a try?”