Boxing has taught ‘Big George’ Chamberlain life lessons

George Chamberlain is a bit of an enigma.

The 52-year-old from Iowa City talks like an educator, which he kind of is. He’s called “Big George” because, well, “I’m big.”

He likes to fight — or liked to fight in his younger days. He once made the finals of a Toughman Contest in Cedar Rapids, which spurred him into an amateur and professional boxing career.

“I wanted to be good at it.”

Yet, he said, “I believe might isn’t right.”

While he likes all combat sports, boxing is his passion, not because he likes seeing someone punished but because he thinks the sport provides a great life lesson.

“Life is like in the ring,” he said in a recent telephone conversation. “... there’s a hitter and a hittee ... you want to put yourself in a position to be the hitter.”

You want to be “proactive,” he said, and not take a back seat in tough situations. In any situation.

“I try to teach that in the gym.”

That’s why he loves the sport so much. And, like he said, that’s what he tries to teach at Big George’s Boxing Club and as coach of the Hawkeye Boxing Club.

“I’ve always loved it,” he said. “It gives me what, I think, is a valuable purpose.”

Chamberlain grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, until he was around 20 years old.

“I was always a physical kid,” he said. “I was an ADD kid before they knew what ADD is.

“I liked wrestling, too.”

As a matter of fact, he wrestled in high school for former Iowa and Cedar Rapids Prairie standout Lennie Zalseky.

“I think I’m a much better coach because of guys like him,” Chamberlain said.

His teams have had a lot of success recently. He had six champions at the recent Iowa Golden Gloves state tournament in Iowa City — Luciano Cardozo-Torres and Josh Gallman from Big George’s Boxing Club and Jasmin Mendoza, Yohanan Negrete, Maddi Pecaitis and Benjamin Stimson from the Hawkeye Boxing Club.

Negrete won the Outstanding Boxer award and Big George’s was awarded the novice team title.

At the National Collegiate Boxing Championships last weekend in Charlotte, N.C., Negrete, Michael Conefrey and Stimson won bronze medals.

Mixed Martial Arts has become the go-to combat sport for many, but boxing, “by far,” is Chamberlain’s favorite sport.

“Boxing is a very fine point of martial arts” he said, with the “most constrictive set of rules.”

You have to be “fast enough, strong enough” and smart enough to anticipate where your opponent is going to go.

“It’s actually kind of the safest” of the combat sports because of all the rules.

And MMA isn’t what “put the nail in the coffin” of the “sweet science.” That was the X Games, Chamerlain said.

All those athletes crashing on skateboards and in other extreme sports, and getting back up.

“Those guys would have made great little boxers,” Chamberlain said.

He thinks the sport is making a bit of comeback, but admitted it might just be because that’s where he spends most of his time.

“I think there still is a need that people want to find, to stand up,” he said.

He learned to “stand up” through boxing, for himself and for others.

“I thought I was an OK fighter,” he said. “I beat some of them up. Some of them beat me up.”

No matter who was in front of him, though, he never backed down.

“I still had the guts to get in there,” he said..

And that, he said, may be the biggest lesson he’s taken from the sport. Don’t be afraid to stand up for what you think is right and be willing to take a punch, get knocked down, if needed.

Just get back up, dust yourself off and try again.

Isn’t that what life is all about?

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