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FUNDRAISINCHAMPIONSHIP

38 MAY | JUNEDonal 2009 McElwee THE and Nathan GAZETTE Dyer go for broke in the legendary Blue Horizon. PHOTOGRAPHY BY CANDACE DICARLO Philanthropy at the end of a fi st. Grad students beyond thunderdome. Chin-rattlers. Brain-shakers. G Welcome to Fight Night.

BY TREY POPP Before he stood in a ring edged by 1,200 frenzied spectators, gloves slicked with sweat, white trunks speckled with the blood of his charging opponent, Donal McElwee worried that his manager would fail to deliver the dwarfs.

THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MAY | JUNE 2009 39 It was going to be the Wharton welterweight’s only bout of the year. All his friends would be there. He didn’t care if it cost a thousand bucks. The Irish native was dead set on hav- EVEN RING FIXERS ing leprechauns in his entourage. GET THE BLUES “It’s a matter of luck,” McElwee said in a dressing room, his Philly Fight Night is brogue heavier than a sock full of stones, as the opening bell of the brainchild of three Wharton students who went to the Blue Philly Fight Night drew near. “You need the little people in your Horizon on a lark one night five years ago. When they came corner when you’re fighting. I feel 10 times more confident with out, R.T. Arnold WG’05, Schuyler Coppedge WG’05, and Dave them than without them.” Birnbaum WG’05 couldn’t shake the venue from their minds. Already, the belly of North ’s legendary Blue Carved out of a row of brownstone mansions whose facades Horizon boxing hall was quaking with noise. The 900 advance date to 1865, the smoke-stained auditorium has been called tickets allotted to Wharton had sold out in 20 hours, at $35 the best place in the world to watch boxing by none other than and $50 a pop. Now Penn Law students were streaming Ring magazine. The ring sits in a cavity taller than it is wide, through the security pat-downs to support their own contin- framed by wooden balconies that dip down so close to the gent of pugilists. There were six bouts ropes that a spectator could almost lean on tonight’s card. Ten men and two over and land a bareknuckle punch. women were about to climb past an EMT In the city of Joe Frazier and Rocky and a fight doctor to risk more than “I’m going Balboa, where “fighters come out of the their pride in three rounds of combat. womb knowing how to throw a left hook”— The gate take, plus a handful of corpo- to go for the as local sportswriter Bernard Fernandez rate sponsorships, would amount to a once put it—the Blue Horizon is a land- $55,000 donation to the Boys & Girls mark unlike any other. It boasts of having Clubs of Philadelphia. At the moment, head, go for hosted 30 world champions since open- however, McElwee’s entourage seemed ing in 1961. Stand in the hall when it’s to be the subject on everyone’s lips. empty, and the idea of 1,200 people cram- “I heard he’s hiring midgets as lepre- the knockout, ming inside makes you wonder how chauns,” said Wharton first-year Dana much the fire marshal gets bribed. Scardigli, all but spilling out of the mini- Experience a packed house, and you’re mal attire required of an official ring and walk out bound to fall under the spell that gripped girl. “I don’t know how I feel about that.” Arnold, Coppedge, and Birnbaum. Then she disappeared into the giggling seeing her “We kept talking about it for a week commotion of the ring girls’ ready room, or two afterwards,” Arnold recalls. “So where someone cried out, “More rouge!” we came up with the idea that maybe we Across the way, grad students wear- on the fl oor.” could convince Penn grad students to ing sweatpants and sneakers tried to get in the ring for charity.” whittle away such distractions. Choosing a beneficiary was a cinch. The James “Playboy” Williams plucked out a pair of iPod earbuds to Boys & Girls Clubs of Philadelphia serve some 15,000 local share his strategy for the third fight. “Knock his nose in, then his kids, and sports are a major component of their programming. eye sockets, then his cheekbones,” the student of entrepreneurial Recruiting boxers turned out to be surprisingly easy as management declared. “All in round one.” Perhaps confidence well. The trio managed to coax 16 fighters—experienced and would get him further than his 0-1 lifetime record. “I’ve boxed once, otherwise—onto their card in fairly short order. in Thailand,” Williams confessed. “I was just on holiday there and Then they hit the hard part: getting a critical mass of their class- wanted to fight. So I got myself into a fight in Chaweng Stadium. I mates to a part of town where few had ever set foot, to watch a sport lost.” But this time he had trained. And there was no question that that almost none had ever paid money to see. It was the same chal- his head was in the game. It bore the long spike of a freshly shaved lenge every promoter faces, only no ring fixer in history has been mohawk, rendered “by popular request—of three people.” deluded enough to rely on grad students to churn turnstiles. Third-year law student Bill “The Big Show” Stone looked up By noon on the big day, it looked like the trio was about to from his wrist tape to consider whether he had ever done any- learn why. thing this crazy—or done anything at all, for that matter, in front “We had sold about 200 tickets,” Arnold says. “I mean, hardly of 1,200 people screaming their throats out. “If I have, I was a lot anything. We were looking at each other. We weren’t even sure better at what I was doing than what I’m doing tonight,” he said. we were going to be able to cover our costs, let alone give any “I’m just going to try to conserve my energy, make it to the end of money to the Boys & Girls Clubs.” A couple hours before show the fight, and try to land some haymakers if I get the chance.” time, Arnold was pulling down folding chairs. Fight Night was Elena “The Russian Bombshell” Aidova, a second-year law bleeding before the first punch had been thrown. student, allowed that her opponent was “a nice girl.” Then, minutes from the opening bell, a huge crush of peo- “But that’s all out when we get into the ring,” she quickly added, ple hit the box office. Eight or nine hundred bodies poured for there is no boxing without bluster. “I’m going to go for the inside. Yet the mood was still uncertain, skeptical even. No head, go for the knockout, and walk out seeing her on the floor.” one seemed sure what exactly the night had in store.

40 MAY | JUNE 2009 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE “People didn’t believe that the students were actually Escorting Taj was a quartet of what can only be called “lady going to fight,” Arnold remembers. “They thought it was cops.” Navy blue mini-dresses, eight-point police caps, black going to be a joke, or some sort of performance. No one could boots to the knee. Forget about the right to an attorney. Is really get it. And when the first fight started, and they real- there a right to be arrested by the cast of a midnight feature ized that it was actually for real, the place just blew up.” on Cinemax? No wonder Donal “The Lethal Leprechaun” McElwee felt pressure to live up to his ring moniker. An ama- On February 28, 2009, the teur fighter might be forgiven a disappointing bout, but his DO DEAD MEN Blue Horizon’s floor literally entourage had better give the crowd its money’s worth. trembled beneath a sellout After the hoopla of their arrival and the ding of the bell, the DRAW BLOOD? crowd as Praveen “The Baby opening combatants circled the ring tentatively. Their first clash Face Assassin” Lingathoti turned quickly into an embrace. Feet shifted, arms flailed, and made his way to the ring in a wooden coffin borne by four the two bodies locked together again. So the clinch-heavy theme hooded figures dressed like Benedictine monks. of the first fight was set. The convict landed no blow worthy of a An 18-year-old Boys & Girls Club member named Jessica felony rap sheet. The assassin managed a few valiant flurries and Sledge had just kicked off the fifth annual Fight Night with bloodied his mark’s nose, but spent too much time leaning away an object lesson in guts, belting out the national anthem from the action. Bottom line: neither man managed to send out unaccompanied by background music— the other in Lingathoti’s raw-pine convey- or the duet partner who had been ance. At the end of three rounds and a 2-1 struck songless by the room’s unreal split decision, the referee raised Taj’s voltage. Now it was Lingathoti’s turn to clenched fist. The throng bellowed and face the glare. It would be an uphill booed. Penn Law 1, Wharton 0. battle for the Wharton second-year. He’d be giving up 20 pounds and three inches in height to Al “The Truth” Taj CGS’01, a third-year law student who entered the arena wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and handcuffs.

Praveen Lingathoti tangles with Al Taj. Above, each fighter’s entourage. THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MAY | JUNE 2009 41 To even the score for the MBA side, Ryan “Rampage” Berger would have to go through all 210 pounds of Bill Stone, the biggest man on the card. It was hard to know what to make of this match-up. Berger, who once broke an ankle dancing around a make-believe jump rope at a wedding reception, had been playing it coy in the run-up to Fight Night. “No mat- ter how much preparing I do, I’ll still be lost in the ring,” the New Orleans native said a month before his bout. “But hope- fully the other guy will be too.” The other guy wasn’t. Stone came out at the opening bell with haymakers still on his brain, stunning his smaller opponent with a shot to the nose that drew blood halfway through the first frame. As the clock expired on the opening 90 seconds, Berger looked Ryan Berger comes from behind to vanquish Bill Stone. astonished. “When you’re sparring,” he said later, “one and a half minutes seems to gear slipped off. The Wharton contingent last forever. But this was totally different. roared as the tide seemed to turn, and When the ref said Round!, I was blown Berger blew the lid off in round three away. It felt like we’d just started.” with the first proper wallop of the night. Only after Stone landed a second stiff “I don’t know where it came from,” he blow in the next round did the Wharton said afterward. “It wasn’t anything I’d first-year snap out of his daze, driving planned. I just let my arm go. Before I the bigger man into the ropes three times even knew I had done it, the crowd was in rapid succession even as his own head- going nuts and he was going back. I had

42 MAY | JUNE 2009 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE James Williams sends Tommy Forr to the canvas. Above, Williams with his entourage. THE ALUMNA BEHIND those days you had very few African the Blue Horizon Americans attending Penn. And Penn would make statements like, ‘We Boxing at the Blue Horizon goes Horizon for dozens of problems, including couldn’t find any qualified candi- back to 1961, but the venue itself has fire and electrical code violations. Its new dates.’ Well, you can’t find any quali- been on the ropes more than once in owners knew the building needed work, but fied candidates if you’re not looking! recent years. Perhaps no person has hadn’t realized just how much. The city had So I had to challenge the school to done more to keep it in business—and promised $2 million for the Blue Horizon step up to the plate and begin to find out of condemnation proceedings—than that year, but that line item never made it qualified candidates.” Vernoca Michael SW’72 GCP’74. from the budget to the bank. Michael and Almost 40 years later, Michaels says In 1994, Michael and business part- Ray managed to scrape up enough money Penn has been a longstanding partner ner Carol Ray quit their jobs and took to patch up problems here and there, but to the Blue Horizon’s nonprofit arm, on $500,000 in debt to buy the Blue more rounds of daunting code violations which provides job training, internship Horizon. What primarily attracted them followed and at times it seemed like every opportunities, and other social ser- were the building’s architecture and its fight at the Blue Horizon could be the last. vices geared toward preparing young potential to become a cultural hub on They kept at it, eventually pulling down adults for the “world of work.” Broad Street, which Philadelphia was a $1 million state grant and a $1 million “Many people don’t know the kinds rebranding “The Avenue of the Arts.” low-interest loan from the Delaware River of things that we do with the students “I was supposed to be just an investor,” Port Authority to make the renovation a in the community,” she says. “They Michael says. She ended up being far more. reality in 2002. only want to see us from a boxing point She started a nonprofit educational founda- Since then, Michael has carved out an of view. And I say to them, ‘We do box- tion, helped to orchestrate a badly needed, unusual niche in the male-dominated ing approximately 10 days a year; what $3.5 million renovation of the historic build- world of pugilism. “That proved to be do you think I do the other 355?’” ing, and became the first African-American challenging,” she says. “However, attend- Of course, a lot of Philadelphia woman boxing promoter in Pennsylvania. ing the University of Pennsylvania when I sports fans might consider Michaels’ “From a legal standpoint,” she says, “I think did, in the ‘60s and ‘70s, helped prepare efforts to keep the punches flying in there are now about four in the country.” me for that kind of thing. this hallowed hall a social service in None of it was easy. A month after “I had the experience of challenging its own right. As the Gazette went to the purchase, the city’s Department of larger institutions when it came to some press, the next round of fights was on Licenses and Inspections cited the Blue areas of discrimination,” she explains. “In the calendar for May 15. a good feeling then that if he didn’t come out of the standing next to the ropes. The throng came unhinged. The sound of eight count and put me on the ground, the fight was mine.” the bell was almost inaudible five feet away from the clapper. The final bell sounded with both men still standing. The The next time it rang would be the last. Again Williams and judges were unanimous: Berger had evened the score. Forr charged into the center of the ring with breathtaking It wasn’t until the third fight, however, that the crowd fused speed. They clashed and spun, far from the corners, until one into one primal mass and fell off its collective rocker. Tommy punch froze the action for good. Forr tossed a left jab that “1-2-3” Forr got cornered before the bell even rang. The rugby exposed his head just long enough for Williams to power players in James Williams’ entourage backed him against the through with a devastating right cross. The strike sent Forr’s ropes with a Maori war dance—the haka performed by the New head bobbling as though his neck was made of springs. His Zealand All Blacks before international matches. knees buckled. Williams followed with a gentle left hook that It did not intimidate the second-year law student. Forr, almost caught nothing but air. Forr was already falling away, who carried a 7-1 record as an undergraduate at Notre Dame, his legs splayed fore and aft as his back collided with the mat. had scored a three-round victory in last year’s Fight Night. “I have no doubt that he had me on points in both rounds,” The bell rang. Forr came out of his corner with leonine grace, Williams said later. “He was great. But my corner man said, feet sweeping over the mat in a balletic whirl, hands quickly ‘Throw the overhand right, and if you land that, he’s going recoiling after each probing jab. Williams moved almost as flu- down.’ So I listened.” idly, but heaved more of his body with each lunge. A shot to his Forr rose to his feet more slowly this time, and walked to his midsection caused him to stagger, yet it was Forr who first lost corner. The referee looked into his eyes for a moment and his balance, hitting the canvas after a glancing blow to the head. then waved off the action. The judges held on to their score- He bounced back to his feet in less than a second, answered cards; it was Williams by technical knockout. Wharton 2, the ref, and flew back at Williams like a pinball from a paddle. Penn Law 1. The airspace above the ring suddenly filled with a Williams stepped into his charge. Clearly neither fighter spectator who had leaped out of the balcony in a lunatic vic- would be playing it safe. A pulse of energy rippled out from the tory dive. He thwacked the canvas on all fours and sprang up ring as Forr reclaimed the offensive, doubling Williams over to embrace the victor. The hysteria of the crowd was total.

THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MAY | JUNE 2009 43 THE CHARMS OF “That was a lot of fun,” says Rick Springman EAS’02, a doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering. “We SMACKDOWN PHILANTHROPY talked to a group of about 30 to 50 kids, aged maybe 7 Some people jog for charity. Others walk. Not long ago an to 11, about the importance of education and exercise. We kind American breast-cancer foundation staged a stroll-a-thon of used boxing as a tool to emphasize the role of discipline. whose participants didn’t even have to get off the couch, “Then we got to work with them and show them some stuff, deputizing online avatars to walk for a cure in cyberspace which I thought was funny,” he adds. “I was thinking about instead. Yet in the last five years, dozens of Penn graduate their parents, and how they were probably going to hate us for students have elected to take an actual physical beating to teaching their kids to box—because the first thing I would raise money for a cause. Why? have done if I learned to box as a kid would probably be to box “It’s kind of ancient, in a way,” muses Lou Marchetti, an MBA my brother when I got home. But the kids really enjoyed it, student and one of this year’s organizers. “It’s a little barbaric, but and I think we probably enjoyed it just as much.” not totally—there are rules. But it’s really just man-on-man, or “That’s one of the most important things for us, that con- woman-on-woman, with no one else to help them out in the middle nection,” Molica says. “University of Pennsylvania kids are of the ring. So your heart is racing for that person. Because whom- high-level folks. We want to give our kids an understanding ever you’re rooting for, it’s them against their opponent, and if they of what they can aspire to be.” lose, there’s some consequences of getting knocked out.” For Wharton students, whose educational experience is often channeled through group cohorts and teamwork, there may be THE CATS FIGHT, THE BULL something uniquely appealing about the competitive purity of box- ing’s every-man-for-himself dynamic. After all, boardroom victo- BLEEDS, THE LEPRECHAUN ries can come in all flavors, including poisons that have none. The GETS IN HIS LICKS ring is a simpler affair. The field of combat is well lit. Your oppo- nent can’t sneak up behind you. You can’t win by subterfuge. Insofar as aspiration requires courage, it would be hard to Or maybe it’s just irresistible to do something that would find a better example than Wharton’s Leeatt Rothschild. At all but spell doom in the post-graduation quest to impress five feet and two inches, she would have had trouble seeing some firm’s senior partners. the action from any row but the first. Yet she had a different “For a lot of business-school students,” says R.T. Arnold, “they problem when the referee signaled the beginning of bout say, ‘This is a chance to do things I may never do again.’ There’s four. Namely, she was in it. definitely a risk, but everyone I’ve spoken to who’s done it, In the absence of an official tally, it’s impossible to know if whether they’ve won or they’ve lost, said it’s just a once-in-a- Rothschild threw more punches per second of combat than any lifetime experience that they’re never going to forget.” other fighter of the night. Her rapid-fire, battering-ram approach For others, it’s a chance to revisit a feeling that age will soon to Elena Aidova’s belly made it seem like a strong possibility. put beyond reach. “Look,” Tommy Forr said with disarming She may have lacked Rocky Marciano’s deltoids or Mike Tyson’s cheer after his loss, “I’d much rather do this than stand before dental attack, but Rothschild was a true swarmer. the Supreme Court and make an argument. Any day. But God Aidova’s response drove both the crowd and the referee didn’t give me those gifts.” wild: she simply grabbed Rothschild and threw her onto the The intensely local nature of Fight Night also scratches an canvas in the first round. itch that sometimes nags grad students who pass through town without really making a connection. “We want to show that Wharton is about more than just having kids run around Philly for two years,” Marchetti says. “You want to make sure you’re out there in the community, and not just doing your own thing.” For the Boys & Girls Clubs, “$55,000 is a huge number,” says Al Molica, the orga- nization’s chief development officer. “It’s the second-largest fundraising event that we’ll have over the course of the year.” And this year there was more to it than the money, he adds. “This year we had Lou, [fellow organizer] John [Buchanan], and some of the fighters come out to our Bridesburg club and work with our kids— sort of teach them a little bit about box- ing, and present solid role models.”

44 MAY | JUNE 2009 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE Leeatt Rothschild rears back for a blow to Elena Aidova’s body. Donal McElwee, right, with his entourage.

“But you and your opponent are the smallest fighters on the entire card. What makes you the big draw?” “Because I’m explosive. I can guarantee you I’ll be crowd- pleasing, and the guy I’m fighting is good.” “Will there be small-statured men in your entourage?” “We’ll see,” the 142-pound Irishman smiled. “It’s not as Rick Springman triumphs easy as you think getting those people on board. I’ve got my over Adriano “The Bull” Blanrau. manager in charge of that. He spent many hours trying to get a hold of little people.” Duly warned, the law student went on to use her superior To all appearances, that was more time than 149-pound Nathan reach to fend off her smaller opponent, landing the occa- Dyer had spent mapping his whole fight strategy. “Don’t get hit: sional blow between Rothschild’s game charges. The bout that’s my strategy,” the Graduate School of Education student said ended in a bloodless split decision for Aidova, deadlocking in his dressing room. “If I don’t get hit, and I hit him once, I win.” the Wharton-Law tally at 2-2 in head-to-head competition. But appearances are deceiving. On the basis of a three-year- The penultimate match pitted Wharton’s Adriano “The old press clipping, Dyer would be anything but timid in the ring. Bull” Blanrau against Springman. The engineering alumnus “In the only knockout in the first set of matches,” the Notre would be giving up 20 pounds to the big Brazilian, but had Dame Observer reported in 2006, “the referee stopped the fight credentials to fill the gap. Springman was a two-time All- in the second round to save freshman Jack Carroll from the American wrestler as a Penn undergraduate. beating he received from junior Nathan Dyer.” Fight Night would give him a chance at a sort of crossover If life were a boxing movie, McElwee and Dyer would have comeback. “It’s been about eight years since I competed. I’ve entered the arena towering over every man in it, and their grown to miss that intensity,” Springman reflected afterward. battle would have ended in a come-from-behind knockout. But “Pre-match, when you’re in that space where it’s just yourself, life is a bit weirder than that. And weirder still on Fight Night. and you know you’re going up against an opponent, and it’s Dyer ascended the ring clad in black shorts and quiet resolve. only the two of you out there … it really felt good.” McElwee entered in a tartan kilt. Both men towered over two Blanrau gave him two and a half rounds to add to his recol- shamrock-covered members of the Irishman’s entourage, but lections, but the ref called the bout for Springman ahead of the bagpiper was a head taller still. the final bell. For the second year in a row, Penn Engineering’s The last bout went the distance. The fevered crowd no lone pugilist notched a convincing win. doubt wanted more. So when the referee raised The Lethal And just like that, it was time for what Donal McElwee had Leprechaun’s right hand in victory, bringing Fight Night V to promised would be the spectacle of the night. “It’s the main a close, everyone in the Blue Horizon had a question to face: event,” he’d declared at the outset. Who’s ready to start training for next year?◆

THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MAY | JUNE 2009 45