Local girl finds boxing an outlet for aggression
Dad says she’s more confident, focused
THERE IS A BOXING ACADEMY on State Line Avenue in Texarkana. On the outside, it looks like a men-only kind of place. But it isn’t. Plenty of women throw punches here. Girls, too. One of the youngsters who enjoys the sparring is Derrick May’s 12-year-old daughter Makenzie, who’s going on two years as a gym regular. Out of the blue a couple of years ago, she asked for a punching bag, and from there she joined the gym.
“SHE HAD TO FIGHT A BOY BECAUSE THERE WASN’T ANOTHER GIRL THERE. IT WAS JUST FINE . ... SHE DOES NOT MIND GETTING HIT BECAUSE SHE’S GONNA HIT HIM BACK.”
—Derrick May, father
Derrick says her self-esteem has gone through the roof. She’s picked up other positives, too.
“You just name it, really from one end to another: stronger, more confident, more focused. It’s kind of brought her out of her shell. There hasn’t been one negative thing to come from it,” he said.
It all started with her 10th birthday, when she wanted a heavy bag to unleash her aggression.
“To go out there and just let out on. Nobody in her family has ever boxed. She’s never really watched boxing,” Derrick recalled. Eventually, they found Coach Courtney Pitts.
“She went over there just to visit and been going there ever since,” Derrick said, noting that one day on their way home she discussed what she’d missed during a break from her training: the smell and feel of the gloves when she puts them on.
“The family atmosphere is what she really likes there,” Derrick said. People are encouraging and helpful. He likes how Coach Courtney works with the kids.
“He brings out the best in you,” May said, noting his daughter attended an open spar down in Marshall, Texas. She had to fight a boy because there wasn’t another girl there. It was just fine.
“She does not mind getting hit because she’s gonna hit him back,” Derrick said.
Her training
With a cityscape mural and rustic brick interior as backdrop, Texarkana Boxing Academy schools the young and old alike on the right way to fight.
Run by Courtney, Texarkana Boxing Academy is in a building that once housed a convenience store and in later years a joint called the Hookah Lounge. Inside you’ll find a small ring with colorful mats, black-and-blue Everlast gloves, dumbbells, a small set of lockers and a group of aspiring boxers putting their sweat into this education, dedicated to getting skills for the ring.
And if you sit down to talk boxing with Courtney, he’ll tell you that it’s footwork that’s needed, no matter how strong you are, and that adults can be more difficult to teach than the youngsters. They come to him as young as 6 years old. Their coach has both pro boxing and mixed martial arts experience.
“For me, myself, I’ve been boxing since around 19 or 20,” Courtney recalled. He was taught the ins and outs of the sport and developed a love for what boxing can do. It can be transformative.
Courtney works with youngsters ages 6 and up, amateur boxing starting at age 8, he said. He has 15 to 20 students who practice in the evenings, Monday through Thursday, 7 to 8:15 p.m.
What are the children looking for when they saunter into the gym? Well, it’s not too hard to figure out.
“They’re just excited about actually getting to punch something,” Courtney said with a hearty laugh. “And get away with it.”
You have to calm a kid down, the coach said, and then you can teach them. It’s tough.
“Most of the time they’ve got to learn to chill out, to slow it down. At the same time you can’t get the exercise if you’re going full-speed when you first learn it. It takes time for you to develop the skills, and then you can move fast with it,” he said.
Pitts started his career late, but with boxing he put in two-and-a-half years, followed by a couple of years at MMA. He fought in Shreveport, Dallas, New Orleans and Memphis.
The work itself is rewarding for him, and he encourages people to come and try it out.
“They bust their butts in here,” Courtney said. “It’s like blood, sweat and tears. You’ve got to go through something to be somebody. It don’t matter what area it is. Wherever you go, whatever you do in life, you’re going to know that. I’ve got that art of hard work. I know how to work hard.” n
(Texarkana Boxing Academy is at 906 N. State Line Ave., phone 903-306-6243. You can learn more at Facebook.com/TexarkanaBoxingAcademy online.)
(An unabridged version of this article was published in the Sunday Accent section of the Texarkana Gazette.)