Do's and Don'ts of Becoming a College Boxer
While in college, you can come across numerous fun and exciting activities that can become simple hobbies or even lifechanging experiences that could shape your future career.
Many professional boxers' route to success started in college or university, such as Olympian Joe Joyce and Central Area title contender Daniel Slaney.
If you are reading this as a studt, you probably might think about how to become a boxer in college without sacrificing your academic performance. Of course, first things first, you need to study in one of the boxing colleges that work with the National Collegiate Boxing Association, but what do you do next? These are things you need to do and things you should not do in order to become a good boxer.
Do Mind Your Academic Performance
It is not enough to be fit and hit hard, you need to be a good student too, so make sure you do each and every assignment, write all of your papers and pay attention to what your professors say. If you are too focused on boxing and have no time to study, pay someone to do your assignment and go on with your training. Truth be told, if you become a top-tier professional boxer, you will hardly ever need your history lessons, but it does not mean you should ditch your education completely. You need to study or at least appear as if you are studying hard – just show some commitment, and you'll be good to go.
Do Reach Out to Your College Boxing Coach
You will not be the only boxing student there because most colleges with boxing teams have many prospective young athletes who would all compete for the attention of their coach. Unless you are a real prodigy, you'll have a hard time competing against all the people, so do yourself a service and pay a fair share of attention to getting your coach's attention. If you want to learn how to become a good boxer, start by learning from someone who knows more than you do. Your college coach might be a perfect person for the job, so stick to them and learn.
Do Qualify for All the NCBA Requirements
Make sure you are fit enough to meet the standards of the National Collegiate Boxing Association. The NCBA has its requirements for the colleges and the students, so you need to meet those requirements if you want to pursue a career in boxing. The requirements might differ from country to country, and they won't be the same in the UK and in the US, so you should look online to find what your target goals are. Be fit, work out regularly, and just be physically prepared for the challenge. Boxing requires some real strength and endurance, which is exactly why you need to train and prepare yourself for that challenge.
Do Not Ruin Your Social Media Image
Let us imagine a situation 5 years from now; you are on top of the world, one of the best young boxers, people from all around the world buy tickets to your fights, Nike and Adidas fight over the advertisement contracts with you. All of a sudden, someone finds your old Tweeter post where you said something insensitive about a particular group of people. And before you know it, you are in the middle of a huge controversy. That is why you need to think about what you write on your social media. Writing some edgy or provocative things online might be fun, but the consequences of such actions might turn out to be much more than you'd bargain for.
Do Not Rely on Your Coaches Too Much
Having a great coach is a good thing, but as it is often the case with the young successful boxers, they would often grow out of their college boxing teams and move forward. This means that you must not rely on your college coach and your team too much, because if you are up for making some real progress and some papers, you need to be prepared to leave when the time is right. So, do not get too attached and be ready to move on when you see the right opportunity.
Wrap Up
Becoming a successful boxer might turn out to be much harder than just punching people in the face as it takes much dedication and commitment to achieve this goal. Of course, being fit and throwing some heavy punches is not enough here. You've got to be a decent student too, so you should do your assignment, work on your papers, do all of your homework, and never ditch your education. This is the path to becoming a successful individual and achieving the heights of your boxing career.