LEXINGTON (WSLS 10 SPORTS) - Boxing. The sport that thrived on names like Lewis, Ali and Tyson is alive and well in Lexington. In a small room on the campus of VMI, champions are built from the ground up. Literally, as VMI, a school of about 1700 students--took down the best of the best in college boxing to win the U.S. Intercollegiate Boxing championship in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
"There are a lot of large schools there with big boxing programs. You know, we are small Virginia Military Institute, and yea I don't think a lot of people expected it. We are a school of around 1700 students so to pull this off was a major victory for us, "explains VMI Boxing coach Larry Hinojosa.
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"Words can't express. This is all new to us too. It is big. And we are here to defend it too. I mean that is how big it gets and we don't want to let it go," says Joe Shafer, VMI Assistant Boxing Coach.
G.K. Chesterton said "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what's behind him." And that holds true with VMI's group of champs. They do it for their teammates.
"You know I don't box for myself or anything. I fight for my family, for god. Its just like a weird thing. Fighting and getting in the ring with another guy knowing that you have done all that work and its going to be put out there one on one. It's an incredible feeling, and then getting your hand raised at the end of the fight. There is nothing else like it. That is why I keep coming back for more and working even harder," explains Armando Herrera, VMI Jr. fighter.
"Boxing attracts passionate people just because you have to have that passion just to make it through the rounds, " says VMI senior LIam Healy. "You have to have that passion to get up and come to practice. If your not passionate about it, if you are not a passionate person in general you usual don't see those people stick around," continued Healy.