WASHINGTON — Determination, family and failure — two midshipmen who competed in Naval Academy’s 75th annual Brigade Boxing Championships are talking about the value of all three.
“I went up into the gym one day and I thought, ‘Man, this looks cool.’ I saw all the plaques and I thought that was amazing,” says senior Danny O’Neill. “I just tried it the first day and fell in love and never looked back.”
How did junior Stephanie Simon get involved in boxing?
“I used to wrestle in high school. I was an All-American and a state champion. I really like physical activity and fighting, grappling, all that kind of stuff. I came to the academy and they didn’t have it for females. So I said, ‘Well shoot, I guess I’ll do track, but I kind of want to validate boxing and get it over with.'”
She says when she won a fight and people screamed her name and lifted her onto their shoulders, she knew she was going to be a boxer.
“This is my thing. I love it,” she says.
At the championship on Feb. 26 at Alumni Hall, O’Neill won the Tony Rubino Four-Time Brigade Champion award, which only 19 other midshipmen have won since the award was first handed out in 1970.
He received the trophy in the boxing ring, but carried it up into the stands.
“I ran to my mom and I gave it to her because she’s the one who deserves it. She’s always been my stone, my rock. She’s always been there for me. She’s always been my support. Her, my dad, my family.”
O’Neill says sometimes things have been rough.
“There’s been times where I thought about quitting, and I’m not going to pretend that I haven’t. My family and friends have always been there and pushed me and helped me when I’ve been in the down times when training’s been rough. I’ve never quit on myself and they’ve never quit on me.”
Another senior, Sam Glaeser, had a shot at winning the same award at the Championships, but Simon defeated her.
“Unreal. Unbelievable,” Simon says. “I came in here as a plebe with little to no experience. I came in with two weeks of sparring maybe when I was a plebe, and I sparred her. And everyone’s like, ‘Oh she’s a badass. She’s Brigade Champion, (an) unbelievable boxer.’ (I) came in plebe year just scared as hell.”
Simon has lost to Glaeser at two previous Brigade Boxing Championships, both times by split decision.
“I got up and said ‘I’m not going to quit. I’m going to come back at it for the third time, and I’m going to win it.’ And that’s how you have to do everything in life. You can’t let life kick you down. You have to get right back up and you have to keep going even when failure’s right in front of you. It’s scary but you have to do it. And it’s made me so much stronger, and I feel like I can do anything. I’m ready for the fleet in 18 months. I’m ready to go out there.”
But Simon says her ultimate goal is to become a Marine.
“Marine Corps 100 percent,” she says.
