Most people have probably seen boxing on television or have heard of the famous boxer Mohammed Ali, but very few people know that one of the school’s very own is a rising boxer. Senior Rollin Whitley started boxing only six months ago, but he is now one of the highest ranked in Western Mass and in New England for the category of Junior Novice Super Lightweight. His brother and cousins, however, along with the rest of his family, especially his dad, were his influence to start boxing at age 16.

“They just started signing me up for fights,” said Whitley. “I like it because it’s a family thing. We all do it. Everybody else believes in me more than I believe in myself. That’s why they encourage me to fight so much.”

Whitley’s family owns the gym Whitley’s Fitness Center in Holyoke, which is where Whitley trains on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, on an off week, and every day when there is an upcoming fight.

“We train for three hours. The first hour we do aerobics and cardio to stay in shape, to make sure we can breathe. The other two hours, we do the physical parts,” said Whitley. “We actually hit and spar each other, and we fight our uncles because they’re professional fighters. Whenever we don’t fight our uncles, we match up with people in our weight who train with us. I hurt a lot of people when I train with them.”

Though hurting people is unintentional, most people think that the goal of boxing is to knock out the opponent. On the contrary, judges on each side of the ring count the number of punches laid on the opponent. The boxer himself must be careful to use defense tactics as well as focusing on playing the offense, so he does not to get hurt.

“Before I took boxing seriously, I got in the ring, and I sparred somebody, and I got a concussion,” said Whitley.

Even though there is a high risk of getting injured, Whitley is not terrified to get into the ring before a fight.

“I’m not scared [when I go into a fight],” said Whitley, “I’m just nervous, hesitant.”

Whitley’s anxiety comes out the most when he goes into a fight with an opponent who has more experience than he does. He credits his father for pushing him to fight harder fights against better opponents.

“I think he tries to throw me in too far too soon. He’s the reason I had to fight somebody with 100 fights,” said Whitley. When he fought that opponent, Whitley had only participated in seven fights of his own, but he won the fight nonetheless despite having obviously less experience than his opponent who had 100 fights under his belt.

Whitley prepares for the fights mentally by turning to his family for support.

“I’m mentally there when I have my whole family come to the fights. My uncles, who are twins, Derek and Darren [Whitley], amp me up,” he said. “They talk to me and just tell me everything. The thing they always say that gets me the most amped is ‘this person’s trying to come and take my belt.’”

His uncles’ words have helped him greatly, especially at a fight called the Gold Gloves.

“That’s like the first show I actually did fight in alongside my [older] brother and that’s how we both became ranked number one in Western Mass,” said Whitley.

In return for his uncles’ support, Whitley is there to cheer on his uncles at their fights.

“My uncle [Derek] is fighting in Germany, so I’m supposed to go all the way to Germany with him, and if I don’t fight with him and if I don’t go with him, I’ll have my own fight on the seventeenth of May,” said Whitley.

Like his uncles, Whitley dreams of becoming a professional fighter and has ambitious goals for the future.

“I picture myself being the next Floyd Mayweather, thinking that I can actually unify the Professional Boxing Division by the age of 30,” he said. “I’ll keep [training] at my gym and if I have to travel, then I will take my gym with me. I plan on going to college too. I’m going to [study] business management. I’m going to try to put my gym nationwide, so it’s not just in Holyoke. I’m going to try to have locations all over the place.”

For those who would like to give boxing a try, Whitley definitely recommends it.