[July 28, 2024] I think it’s a requirement for boys in high school PE to participate in boxing. It’s one of those ‘expand your horizons’ classes that is supposed to make us better. That first day, we were given the rules – no hitting below the belt – and a fast lesson in technique – hit fast and as hard as you can. That’s it. While boxing is not a popular sport, it does have a positive side.
Like many teenagers, I learned that any boxing strategy to avoid getting hurt went out the window after the first blow landed. That day, I saw several bloodied noses, a slashed check (lots of blood), one broken finger, and some black eyes. My friends saw these injuries as their “red badge of courage,” and they were right. High school girls flocked to those with injuries.
In that PE class, there was always the possibility of getting beat up by an older, larger, faster boy with boxing experience. I watched as the PE class teacher paired up two boys at a time. Then I was next, one of the younger and skinnier kids. Our coach must’ve had a bad morning because he paired me with the biggest dude in the class. “Okay, Mr. Satterfield, show us what you got,” just as the hulk descended upon me with arms flying.
I stepped to one side just as the kid jabbed the air where I’d just stood, not a split second before. That made him mad, and now I was scared. His face was beet red, looking like he was about to explode. Just his face alone scared me. I heard him say that he was going to beat me to a pulp. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the coach with a big grin on his face. Damn!
But I’d been in fistfights before and knew that my speed was better than the strength of my right hook. “Stop running and fight,” the coach said. It flashed through my head that the coach wanted this big kid to smash me to bits. I landed a few punches on the big kid’s body to no detectable effect. Then, just as I got a few good jabs to this kid’s kidney, the coach whistled to end the round.
Lessons from my short high school boxing career:
- Don’t fear the fight. Be the man in the arena and stay in the arena. You can never be the winner if you don’t play the game.
- Boys who take boxing – involved in sports – are less likely to be bullied. They show greater confidence, walk taller, and learn to control their bodies.
- Girls are attracted to boys in competitive sports. This fact offers an advantage to those boys and girls.
- Learn not to overestimate your opponent. If you do, you might defeat yourself before the competition begins. Conversely, don’t underestimate your opponent. That is a path to a quick and humiliating defeat.
- Don’t be a quitter. And you can learn from a bad coach.
My boxing career was short. That week, I won all five matches not because of my strength but because I refused to quit when I was losing. I outlasted my opponents.
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Please read my books:
My boxing career was short. That week, I won all five matches not because of my strength but because I refused to quit when I was losing. I outlasted my opponents.
Life lesson for any challenges in life us never quit. Quitter never win and winners never quit
Gen. Satterfield, I found lesson number 2, not to be an individual lesson but a lesson for our academic institutions. Looking at both this article and our letters to your granddaughter, I find an interesting link. In your letters, you note about the fights you had with bullies (winning some and losing some) and the fact that you stood up to them, meant the bullies were less likely to mess with you regardless of winning or losing a fight. Bullies don’t want a fight, they want dominance. Today, we ENCOURAGE BULLYING in schools because we stop the very solution to the problem – solving it at the kid level and put the responsibility on adults where it will never be solved without implementing draconian measures. This is typical leftist solutions that do not work and will not work.
Indeed, a great comment The Kid. We do encourage bullying. Funny how liberal/progressive/leftist educators are actually admitting that bullying is on the rise but their solutions are being doubled down on. They can’t see that their “solution” is making the problem worse, not better. They cannot see the failure of their own making.
Bravo Bravo Bravo
“Don’t be a quitter,” my dad told me that over and over. And that lesson stuck.
Most High Schools have eliminated physical sports like the one you had, Gen. Satterfield. In their place they now are more likely to teach gender equality classes in a room, and not in the gym. When you have this lesson #2 “Boys who take boxing – involved in sports – are less likely to be bullied. They show greater confidence, walk taller, and learn to control their bodies,” it brought back to me the failure of today’s schools to stop bullying. In my day, ha ha ha, I’m old, a boy learned to defend himself and all the bullies knew it, so if they picked on another boy, they knew they had a fight on their hands, and thus were much less likely to bully other boys in the school. Less bullying in schools in those days. More bullying today. Why? Modern schools deemphasize physical contact and encourage weakness.
Wow, TJ you have a powerful criticism of today’s schools and I can believe it. My kid told me the way they want you to overcome bullying is to report the bully. But that makes you a “snitch” or a “rat” (kids actually use those old slang terminologies) and thus it makes you MORE likely you will get beat up after or before school, thus not decreasing bullying but increasing it.
What I liked most about this article is not the lessons learned (altho they are important) but the fact that Gen. Satterfield as a boy admits that he was not strong or necessarily book smart, but that he knew how to leverage his strength in speed. Sometimes that can overcome physical strength. The lesson here is that there are different kinds of knowledge and there is the ability to think analytically. The latter can be leveraged to overcome knowledge if applied correctly and smartly. Good lessons, Gen. S. Thanks.
And someone can start at the bottom of any social/economic hierarchy and reach the top with discipline and courage.
Well said, Hiratio.
A very short boxing “career.” 🤣 I too had a week in school where each week, we participated in a different sport. I don’t think high schools do that anymore. 🤼 BOXING ….. but like you sir I did learn a few lessons and that is I got better the more fights I was in. 👀 At the time, I didn’t think that. 😜 Keep these great articles with lessons coming our way and I’ll keep reading them.
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Just gotta love this leadership forum and Gen. Satterfield’s article.s
1. Don’t fear the fight. Be the man in the arena and stay in the arena. You can never be the winner if you don’t play the game. – Gen. Doug Satterfield’s main lesson is here.
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“The Man in the Arena”
https://www.theleadermaker.com/the-man-in-the-arena/
One of my favorite articles from a few years ago. I highly recommend it for those new to this website.
A quote from the first paragraph is most relevant.
“One hundred-one years ago, in April 1910, Theodore Roosevelt spoke about citizenry in a Republic. His speech in Sorbonne Paris is popularly known as ‘The Man in the Arena.‘ An oft-repeated theme of my leadership blog deals with individual responsibility, and Roosevelt won great acclaim for his emphasis on personal duty and accountability.” – Gen. Doug Satterfield.
This is one of the reasons I read these comments. You can find out about things that otherwise I might not catch. Great job making this connection, Wild Bill and Kerry. 👍👍👍
I’m sure these lesson did not come to you right away, Gen. Satterfield, and that is okay. I would think you figured out these lessons over the years and hopefully before you entered the US army. Well done and thank you, sir, for an entertaining (and also informative) article today. See you in church! 🙏
I would think so too. Indeed, see you all at church services later today.