Boxing has 16-year-old girl eyeing Olympics
MILWAUKEE – Eddie Lopez comes from a boxing family. His wife, Brittni, did not.
When their eldest daughter took up the sport eight years ago, Brittni braced herself.
“I thought I was going to be worried about bloody noses and those things,” she said. But that’s not the way it has played out.
Instead, their concern became how to encourage a promising athlete without pushing Violet down her largely uncharted path.
And now, how to maximize an experience that often seems unreal, the idea that their daughter will represent Team USA, and that the Olympics are a dream within reach.
“This has been a year of eye opening,” Brittni said. “We always knew it was possible, but it wasn’t so close that you could taste it.”
‘There is no ceiling’
Violet Lopez explored other sports before following some cousins to the boxing gym at the United Community Center on Milwaukee’s near south side, where she fell in love with a pursuit not typically associated with 8-year-old girls.
Since then, Voilet has won 10 USA Boxing, Junior Olympics and Silver Gloves national championships, been the subject of a locally produced documentary that drew nationwide attention and led more young girls to the gym.
In December her latest national title earned her a spot on USA Boxing’s Youth High Performance Team, meaning she has been invited to the Olympic Training Center for a two-week training camp starting in late April, another in the summer and ultimately the world championships.
“There is no ceiling,” said Angel Villarreal Jr., her coach at the UCC. “It’s how far she wants to go. I firmly believe that. That’s what we’ve always done, that’s been our goal, that’s been the message and that’s what she’s done. … There’s nothing she hasn’t won that you could win at her age.
“I don’t want to sell an Olympic dream. That’s so political. But as far as, is she in that caliber? Yes. Yes. … That level of being a world champion and WBC, WBO, yeah, I believe that’s all there.”
More girls take up boxing
Villarreal is family, a cousin on Eddie’s side. Perhaps that has made the journey easier. Not easy, but easier.
“I didn’t really have a blueprint,” Villarreal said.
Villarreal tried to be more cognizant that she was naturally different from an overwhelming majority of his fighters and, he said, the importance of “letting her be a girl,” too.
“What’s best for Violet might not be best for the other 200 boxers, but that’s their problem,” he said. “I’m working with Violet. And that’s how I treat all my boxers, as individuals. Every story is different.”
Together, the coach and fighter are doing something right.
These days, dozens of preteen girls move from station to station in the UCC gym.
“That’s the Violet effect, right there,” Villarreal said.
“But definitely as far as inspiring, as far as the message of you can achieve and (breaking) barriers and that, yeah. It doesn’t necessarily have to be boxing. I feel her story in general is just about a girl pursuing what she dreams of and believes in, whether it’s this or soccer or whatever.
“This is a little more special, I think, a little more unique. Because she fights by herself. Her team is outside the ring.”
Challenges of a female boxer
Her day begins with weightlifting around 5 a.m., followed by school, then homework and then workouts at the UCC from about 4-7 p.m.
“Then I go home, eat dinner, do some more homework and go to sleep,” she said. “That’s my life on repeat.
“Weekends, boxing as well. Weekends, I go out of state for some different sparring or some different girls to box. Or boys. Boxing is basically my world. My life revolves around boxing. I plan my day around boxing.”
Violet alluded to one of the problems she faces as a standout performer in a small community of athletes. There is little competition to challenge her and help drive her progress.
Anytime she steps into the ring at her home gym, her opponent is male. Finding girls to spar involves a trip to Chicago, if not farther.
By Violet’s estimate, her 31 fights are perhaps one-third as many as the boys of a similar age who started boxing at the UCC around the time she did. Nearly all of them have come in tournaments.
“I can’t really get any local fights around the area because there’s not that many girls and the girls that are here, they don’t really want to fight me because they know,” said Violet, who fights at 119 pounds. Then she added with a chuckle: “I wouldn’t want to fight me either.”
COVID-19 and losses
The start of the COVID-19 pandemic touched off a downward spiral that had her on the verge of quitting before she figured out how to turn frustration into motivation and self-discovery.
“Obviously, I had to stop boxing for a bit because the gym closed and we couldn’t find a place to work out, get boxing training,” Violet said. “So I was off for three to four months with no boxing, no working out or anything. I was just living life.”
Training outside was better than nothing but only went so far.
“And then our tournaments kept getting rescheduled, and then they kept getting canceled again,” Violet said. “That was messing with me mentally, because I was preparing, and then they’d cancel. Then I’d have to prepare again, and they would cancel it again.”
Fights had been scarce; suddenly there were none to be had, period. She went a year without a match, then lost when she came back.
“That messed with me even more,” Violet said. “Then I kept going to tournaments, and I wasn’t winning and I kept pushing myself. I was trying 100%, but I wasn’t getting what I wanted.
“I grew in the process. Physically, I grew, but I grew a lot more mentally because I knew I had to go. I couldn’t keep letting myself keep doing that, because then I wasn’t going to get anywhere. It was more up here in my mind. I was physically ready, but mentally I wasn’t prepared, which was causing my losses.”
Violet also lost one of her biggest supporters when her maternal grandmother’s boyfriend died. Sonny had been around for all her life and was her grandfather, and his loss provided another test for her to overcome.
His memory will forever be close. Violet got her first tattoo inside her left biceps last month. It says “Something in the Orange,” the name of a hit song by country artist Zach Bryan he liked and a nod to his favorite color.
‘I want to go to the 2028 Olympics’
Life is taking another turn for the family with Violet becoming part of USA Boxing’s youth international team.
Although she participated in a weeklong camp with the junior team two years ago, this time she will be spending more time at the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs working with national team coaches. There she will prepare for the youth world championships, which are scheduled for November, although the venue has yet to be determined.
Outside the ring, Violet is still pondering her next move. She intends to go to college, but she’s not sure where. Regardless, the timing and travel have to work with her training and boxing.
“I want to go to the 2028 Olympics,” Violet said.
After Paris this year, the ’28 Games are in Los Angeles.