From Janitor to World

TURNING BOXING INTO A WOMEN’S WORLD

Reese Scott’s Journey from Gym Janitor to the Owner of a Women’s Boxing Club

BY PIERA VAN DE WIEL

Move over, men! Reese Scott is here to prove that fitness is a woman’s world! Raised in New Jersey’s suburbs, Scott, is a registered amateur fighter and licensed USA boxing coach. Previously a heavyweight champ, boxing trainer and on-set boxing consultant, the 47-year-old has trained over 1,000 women and girls in her mission to open New York’s first “real deal” women’s boxing gym.

In 2007, Scott’s dream became a reality when she founded the Women’s World of Boxing Club. The club is based in New York City’s East Harlem and provides annual boxing programs for teen girls while offering women and girls a safe, comfortable, uplifting and empowering space to train at both competitive and non-competitive levels.

CLAIMING HER SPACE Scott initially took up boxing while she was battling depression. Boxing was a special hobby that made her feel stronger and livelier. Pleased with the outcome of adopting the pastime, she decided to leave her career in publishing and build a new brand for herself as a boxing coach.

While the pro boxer’s road to becoming the success that she is today may appear to have been smooth, it certainly came with its challenges. Because boxing is a male-dominated profession, there would never be any women in the gym while Scott was training, which often left her fighting for her right to be there. She recalled a time when a man attempted to use her bag even though there were ten empty bags in the gym— something she felt was a chauvinistic rouse to oust her. “The men just wanted to use my bag,” Scott said.

However, the female boxer felt that she needed to claim her spot in the predominately male industry. “I was there for me, [so] I can do anything I want,” she asserted. Upon this realization, Scott knew that she wanted to share her mindset and skillset with other women. She began teaching a pro bono boxing class and, slowly but surely, it developed into a business. To learn more about the world of boxing, she decided to become a janitor at the gym. She would clean the gym, answer the phone and get water for the guys. “I wanted to learn more about the culture,” she said.

As she would complete her janitorial duties, she couldn’t help but notice the women's bathroom. It was only a storage closet with a hole in the roof above the toilet. Confused, she curiously asked management why the bathroom had been left in such awful condition, and they simply replied, “women don’t box, we had to figure out where to put them.”

Now that she has her own space, she is reciprocating the same attitude by joking with the men that come to her facility that “there is no men’s bathroom — it’s a storage closet!”

HELPING THOSE WITH PARKINSON’S DISEASE Recently, Scott was approached by a neurologist who wanted her to work with his clients who suffer from Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s disease is a condition that affects your nervous system by deteriorating your body’s muscles and sometimes causing your body to involuntarily shake. Determined to help those in need, Scott committed to helping the neurologist by offering a 2-hour session once a week to those with the disease. She said that the participants “have such excitement, joy and pride when training.”

According to Brain and Life, “while you can't say boxing improves Parkinson's, you perhaps could say that the training regimens boxers use might improve symptoms of the disease." Boxing can test balance, agility and hand-eye coordination. When Scott calls out “1, 2, 1,” during a class to correlate with different punches, her students are able to focus on the different combinations and increase their focus. “It really seems to help with their motor skills and balance,” she said. For her clients, mastering the skill of boxing is all about being able to coordinate their hands and feet — even in slow motion. Learning to be present and aware, they feel, will take them far in the field. According to Scott, “they make the best and most natural born fighters.” She said that age is not much of a factor when it comes to someone’s potential success in boxing. Rather, it’s all about increasing your confidence and learning how to make decisions — increasing confidence being especially helpful for younger fighters. One of Scott’s young students has been experiencing bullying at school, which is why Scott’s training is helpful. Learning to box is helping the student find her strength and her voice, and Scott even said “she can throw combos smoother than I do.” This boxing community in East Harlem is meant to be a safe haven where people of all ages can build confidence, learn to speak up for themselves, work on their agility and balance, realize their ability to make decisions and understand that they have options in life. Scott is fighting for what she wants and believes in and knows that everyone else has the ability to do the same. She is doing exactly what she intended to do for other women — sharing her realization that women can do anything that we set our minds to. Reese Scott teaching a boxing student at her studio.

FROM 8 YEARS OLD TO 84 YEARS OLD Boxers of all ages are also welcome to Scott’s gym, whether they be children or seniors. Many seniors who were always told that they were not allowed to box, come into the gym. Women's World of Boxing Club

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