December 6, 2024 // Diocese

‘Blessings’ Come from Women’s Boxing Club at Notre Dame

Clare Hildebrandt

Reporter

Anna Prest, a senior at the University of Notre Dame, said that the most invigorating and intimidating aspect of boxing is the presence of another person waiting for you in the ring.

Prest is the president of Baraka Bouts, the women’s boxing club at Notre Dame, where young women train, spar, and compete in the sport of boxing.

Baraka in Swahili means “blessings,” and that’s exactly what the club provides both to those engaging in what is known as the sweet science and others around the world. Proceeds from Baraka Bouts tournaments go to Holy Cross Missions and the organization’s work in constructing and supporting secondary schools in East Africa.

As the largest all-female club at Notre Dame, Baraka Bouts offers the opportunity for dozens of female athletes to train in the sport of boxing.

On Monday, November 18, the club held its tournament semifinals in the Duncan Student Center, an opportunity for the young boxers to show off their skills. Hundreds of Notre Dame students and faculty were in attendance cheering on their favorite boxers.

Prest has been participating in the club for four years. As its president, she told Today’s Catholic that she enjoys seeing the women grow and flourish in the sport.

“Boxing is a sport that builds confidence and gives you the life skill of self-defense,” Prest said.

Most athletes are new to boxing, so those who serve as coaches for the club spend much time teaching form and technique.

“We have the actual boxing training aspect, where we have women attending practices at least three to five times a week to develop their boxing skills,” Prest said. “We usually do a high intensity training workout for the first half, and then we’ll transition more into the actual boxing technique.”

The club came about in the late 1990s as the counterpart to men’s boxing club, Bengal Bouts. Prior to 1972, only men were admitted as undergraduates to the university, so the women’s club began “much later than the boys’ group,” Prest said.

Layann Wardeh, practice captain for the club and a junior at the university, competed in the semifinal competition, winning her bout by unanimous decision. Throwing multiple uppercuts, she performed skills learned in training.

Joining Baraka Bouts was not a difficult decision for Wardeh, who competed in another contact sport, taekwondo, in high school.

“I had initially planned to join the martial arts club because I played taekwondo throughout middle school and high school. Then I saw the boxing club and thought, ‘This looks interesting.’ I saw they fundraise for the missions in Uganda, and once I learned more about the club, I was immediately hooked,” Wardeh told Today’s Catholic.

She found the transition to boxing, though, to be more challenging than she originally thought.

“In taekwondo, 98 percent of the time, you use your legs to kick. You can throw a singular punch, but even then, the placement of your feet is so different. The coaches would always keep telling me, ‘Don’t pull your head back,’ because that’s how you defend in taekwondo, and whenever I did, I’d get hit every time.”

Regular practices and sparring with friends during her freshman and sophomore years helped Wardeh develop her skills.

As she became more involved in the club, she was given the opportunity to visit one of the Holy Cross secondary schools in Uganda, where she saw the proceeds from Baraka Bouts and other donors help provide the school with new science labs. 

She spent eight weeks serving at St. Joseph’s Hill secondary school, which is staffed by priests and brothers of the Congregation of Holy Cross, the religious order that sponsors the University of Notre Dame.

“I went to one of the two schools we fundraise for, and it was so enriching to see how our club has a direct impact there. I saw the lab we helped build and also sat in on classes,” Wardeh said.

“We were teaching mathematics at the school, so I had the role of teacher to the kids,” Wardeh continued. “Many of the students were close to my age, though, so I also built friendships when I was there. We were not just mentors and teachers to the students. … They wanted to talk to us.”

Wardeh said the students in Uganda were very curious about life in the United States.

“They call America ‘the other side.’ So, they’d be like, ‘How is it there on the other side? What foods do you eat?’ They had a lot of questions for us.”

Wardeh saw firsthand how her experience in boxing helps those in need, and it profoundly affected her.

“As a culture, they are very full of life, and [the experience] reminded me to enjoy it. They care so much about everyone and were so kind and welcoming from the first moment we stepped on to their campus,” Wardeh said.

It made her reflect on her own childhood.

“In the States and across developed countries, we often grow up focusing on things we want. We say, ‘I want this or that thing.’ The kids in Uganda did not have much economically but still wanted to share. Even without having much, they would offer what they had.”

And that, members of Baraka Bouts believe, is worth fighting for.

Clare Hildebrandt is staff writer for Today’s Catholic newspaper.