Prelude to the Waiting Time

The Waiting Time, WT, that interval between a boxer being "matched" or "paired" with an opponent and the start of the stair climb to enter the ring, moves with the lightning pace of a snail. It is part of the inexorable march towards the competition.

For Jack, the prelude to WT started early. He didn’t train the prior afternoon, after his coach had order him to "stay home and rest." He couldn’t watch some TV. Homework was out of the question. After all, it is Friday night. But the usual Friday night boxing lineup or what passes for it did not seem interesting, be it ESPN Friday Night Fights; Thunderbox, the latest entry in "sports entertainment" that combines the worst features of professional boxing and wresting into a single event; or the Toughman competition where guys who don’t have the discipline to train get to slug their way through three, one minute rounds.

To pass the time, Jack checked the contents of the gear bag, for the third time that night. The bag, a present for his 13^th birthday a few weeks earlier, looks cool. It tells all who see it, "the kid who owns this is a boxer" albeit a novice judging from the still new condition of the bag. He unzipped the main compartment. "Trunks..."check", "socks"..."check", "tank top"..."check", "shoes"..."check", "mouthpiece"..."check", "passbook"...." "where is the passbook!?!" he exclaimed as panic set in.

The passbook defined his existence as a boxer. Its pages contained all the vital information-- registration number, photo, and record of fights. Only, he don’t have any fights in the book yet. But win or lose, by this time tomorrow that first row is filled in. That is, unless he didn’t find the book because, as coach warned, "no book, no box." The book is to boxing what a passport is to international travel. Only more important. Getting into a foreign country without a passport may be easier than competing in a show without a passbook, except the border guards will be more flexible than the boxing official. Then he remembered. The book is safely stashed in its own zippered waterproof compartment on the gear bag. The panic subsided. Jack relaxed, but he checked the gear bag’s contents again just to be sure he wasn’t forgetting anything.

Frustrated with the slow passing of time, lights out came early. Quick sleep proved elusive. "Why," he wondered, "on the night before my first competition, can’t I sleep? It was like he wrestled all night with the bedding, and the bedding won. A fitfully tentative sleep only comes just before its time to be awake. After what seems like an instant and an eternity, his father yelled "get up or you’ll be late" through the partially closed bedroom door. he pulled on some sweats and headed to the kitchen. The normally much-to-sweet-just-how-you-like-it cereal tasted like cardboard.

Time to go. He completed the gear check again. After all, some of the items may have sneaked out during the night. He shuffled toward the parking lot of the nearby Boys and Girls Club where the van waited to travel to the venue for today’s show, a boxing club on the other side of town. Coach waited at the van, his right hand clutching the coffee cup with a death grip lest some caffeine-deprived morning commuter rip the container from his hands. "Morning," Jack mumbled as he took the seat at the back of the van.

"Yes coach," came the response with a nod. He checked the bag again for the umpteenth time to make sure that the items didn’t escape during the short walk to the club. He could feel the passbook in its compartment.

During the van ride to the venue, his team mates joked around. Talk hopped from topic to topic. Boxing, school, girls, girls, sports, girls. Every so often the coach growls when the conversation strayed in the wrong direction. But Jack isn’t paying too much attention to the banter or the fossil rock the coach listens to on these trips. Lost in thought, he wonders "how am I gonna do?" I’m not afraid of taking a punch, I’ve trained for that. What’s gonna happen? Win or lose, please don’t let me choke." Yet, not having competed before today, that’s what the boy feared the most.

The train of doubt is mercifully derailed by the braking of the van as it exits the freeway. The community center that is today’s venue is only a few block away.

The boys exit the van not sure what to do. They hang close to the more experienced boxers in your group, which today are the guys who have had three or four fights. Jack followed them, trying to look like he knows exactly what to do, even though he hadn’t a clue. The locker room housed a milling crowd of young boxers of every age and size. For one moment he concluded, "with this many boxers, the matches will last all afternoon." Quickly, he realize that not all these contestants will be matched. For a minute he hoped he would be and for a second a prayed he wouldn’t get matched. But, he didn’t train so hard and come all this way today to sit in the bleachers and watch his buddies compete.

All the boxers in the region have had their name put on a tag that hangs from a tote board in the locker room, one for girls and one for boys. Jack found his tag and presented it and his passbook to the clerk.

"Step on the scale, son" the clerk directed.

Jack hoped the clerk doesn’t notice that the book has no entries. The clerk checked the book making surer the name, age, and number of previous matches on the tag was correct.

After weigh-in the clerk jots the weight on the strip and posts it on the board with all of the other boxers in that weight division. The coaches begin to scan the strips looking for someone to match with their boxers by weigh, size, experience, age and the "feel" they get by sizing up a prospect. Sometimes a coach won’t consider a pairing based on this feeling even though the boxers appear evenly matched.

Jack noticed his coach discussing a possible match with the coach from the club hosting the show. Jack saw the opposing coach giving him a quick "once over." The host club traditionally has first choice when it came to pairings. The coaches agree that its a good match. With the amateur competitions, the clock starts when the pairing is approved. Prior to the match being made, the names of the boxers who showed up a couple of hours earlier for the weigh in names are taken off the board of eligibles, the boxer knows something is going to happen. The eventuality is creeping toward the certainty. When the name goes on the red or blue match board, corresponding to the color of the corner, it is a certainty