The Chicago Golden Gloves was solely for men for decades. Then women entered the ring in 1994 and made history.

When Leatitia Robinson, a six-time Chicago Golden Gloves champion, smiles, her braced teeth are what stand out. That and her strong voice that commands the gym. When she speaks, people listen.

The 42-year-old Lake Meadows resident dons plenty of protective gear but manages to remain nimble while sparring as she trains boxing enthusiasts (from ages 5 to adults) at Simons Park. Robinson is currently the only female boxing instructor with the Chicago Park District.

On an overcast evening, she greeted Zaniya Hampton, 7, with a “How’s it going champ?” Zaniya’s father, Devyn Hampton, was dropping off his only daughter to train. Three weeks in, he said he knew his daughter was committed when she started crying the one day they couldn’t make the hourlong commute from their East Side residence.

“That’s when I knew she wanted to do it,” said the father of four. “I’m a boxing fan, but I didn’t expect her to fall into it. I didn’t want my daughter to box, but I’m not going to deprive her of something and not allow her to make up her own mind either.”

Zaniya could barely contain her enthusiasm as she taped her hands solo, a skill she picked up the first time Robinson (aka Coach T, a reference to her childhood nickname Tish) showed her how to do it.

Robinson, who said her position as coach at the Humboldt Park gym is her legacy, gets misty talking about her students.

“Being right here in this gym with these kids and them looking at me, trying to make me the best and them wanting me to make them the best they can, that for me is my best moment because I’m able to give them something, something in me,” she said.

Robinson has been head coach since December and already has a following.

Devonte Edwards, 28, said while he’s been boxing for years, he hasn’t seen a lot of coaches that really put in the effort of being a teacher. Robinson does.

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“The plan is to get them ready for the world,” Robinson said. “This is not just boxing. This deals with life. Growing up in Cabrini-Green, I fought for more. I started boxing around 10, I started fighting when I was 8 and I got jumped on when I was 7 because my hair was braided to the back. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. You’re gonna get hit. You might bleed. It might hurt, but what are you gonna do about it? Do you answer defeat sitting down or standing up? That’s how I look at everything in life.”

Robinson’s words ring true with a number of women who paid their dues in the Chicago Golden Gloves (the longest-running and largest nonnational amateur boxing event in America).

USA Boxing sanctioned women’s amateur boxing in 1993 after a lawsuit. Women stepped into the Chicago Golden Gloves ring in 1994, the first boxing tournament in the country to host a division for women, and entered the National Golden Gloves Tournament in 2000. In 2012, the Olympics featured women’s boxing for the first time.

This year, 40 women entered the Chicago Golden Gloves, according to Chicago Golden Gloves spokesperson Trayce Zimmerman. It’s a number lower than last year, but on the national level, the number of women boxers has increased. Now there are 4,487 female boxers registered nationwide, according to USA Boxing, a national governing body for amateur boxers, compared with 2,764 in 2019. Of those boxers, 138 are from Illinois, up from 126 in 2019.

As the finals for the tournament start Thursday, the Tribune looks at the mark women like Robinson have left on the local competition, which turns 100 this year.

Sarah Lahalih stepped into the ring as a quiet, 17-year-old Lane Tech High School senior in 1994 to compete in the Chicago Golden Gloves Tournament. Looking back, Lahalih laughs a little when saying, “I don’t know that any of us really knew what we were getting into. I think my first fight, I was wearing gym shorts from my high school. I didn’t have my own boxing equipment.” In those early years, it was hard to find women competitors in her weight class, so sometimes she had to travel to fight.

Now 47, the California resident and motorcycle enthusiast always has a boxing gym membership wherever she goes. She’s helped start, run and sold a Rock Steady Boxing franchise in Los Angeles (a nonprofit that uses noncontact boxing training to combat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease).

Lahalih has a “feisty” daughter of her own who she will share her boxing memorabilia with when she feels like diving into it. The life lessons the sport offers, like humility and dedication, are why she said it’s great for kids.

“The confidence that comes from the sport is by far the greatest byproduct,” Lahalih said. “There’s nothing else like it.”

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Kristin Gearhart-Pearse, 34, is focusing on motherhood full time in San Diego with a soon-to-be 2-year-old, but before that, she took home five Chicago Golden Glove Open Championship wins, from 2009-13. Her boxing career began at age 16 with Sam Colonna as her coach.

“Boxing shaped my personality and shaped who I am physically, mentally. How I talk, who I talk to, how I handle life situations — it’s everything … I can’t imagine my life without it,” Gearhart-Pearse said. “Boxing is ‘a love of the game’ sport. You don’t do it for much else other than the fact that you love it with all of your core.”

When Gearhart-Pearse looks back at boxing, she mentions Rita Figueroa, a three-time Chicago Golden Gloves Open champion, frequently and reverently as mentor, coach and sparring partner. Figueroa, who now goes by her married name, Rita Gassman, had career-ending brain surgery to stop a bleed following a bout in 2009. Gearhart-Pearse, then 19, was at the hospital with her.

“I looked up to her and did everything she did, wanted to be everything she was and that was really cool because I don’t think a lot of women have that. Or had it back then. But she walked so the women’s sport could run and she still does everything for everyone.”

Gassman healed with plates in her head and turned into a coach/trainer. Currently living in Wisconsin, her boxing family is a large one that she compares to the motorcycle community — one where members can talk about each other, but nobody outside the family better talk about them.

“People always say ‘Why do you want to go in there and beat up on people?’ I don’t look at boxing like that at all. In my mind, it’s like playing chess with your hands. You’re just trying to outsmart somebody. I don’t dislike the person that I’m fighting. It’s just a competition,” Gassman said.

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It’s a competition that is growing per Tiffany Perez, a 4-foot-11-inch Highland, Indiana, cop. Perez started boxing in middle school and boxed competitively until she was 22. Her accolades include winning the Junior Olympics in 2005, winning the Chicago Golden Gloves Open competition in 2007-10 and going to China for the Olympic trials (via the Puerto Rican national team) in 2012. Compared with when she was coming up the ranks, she said seeing women in the preliminaries of the Chicago Golden Gloves rather than just going straight to semifinals and finals is “huge,” since that means more women have taken an interest in boxing and the numbers are there for each round of competition.

“Now you see female boxing being main events at Madison Square Garden and on TV and their talent being showcased, it’s really awesome to see,” Perez said. “Christy Martin, Laila Ali, Ann Wolfe, even Melissa Hernández, I respect them because those fighters are what helped me and the girls in my era when I started to be on the mat. Everyone had their role to play. I feel I’m a part of women’s history for the Olympics and I have to thank those fighters because they’re the ones that stepped into the ring way before us and introduced women’s boxing and put it on the map. Us little girls remember that. Will women’s boxing ever be where men’s boxing is? Who knows, but it’s definitely on the map now.”

Erica Rodriguez, 31, wants to see that growth continue. As a 2016 Chicago Golden Gloves champion, she is working as a program manager at the boxing nonprofit The Bloc. The Irving Park resident coaches West Side youth in the ring and helps with their social and emotional development.

Rodriguez, who found boxing while attending Northwestern University, recently hosted a girls’ boxing day event at The Bloc for Women’s History Month, where the 2022 Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano fight was shown.

“Taylor versus Serrano was the best boxing fight I’ve ever seen,” said the Ohio native. “To see that level of representation, achievement and compensation for women in the sport, who are working much harder than a lot of their male counterparts, is encouraging. I think young girls seeing that changes the way they see themselves stepping into a boxing gym, and what is possible for them.”

Kim Carlson, a three-time Chicago Golden Gloves Open champion, is now a boxing referee in Chicago, the sole female one in Illinois, according to Zimmerman. She officiated during the semifinals of this year’s competition and she’s hoping to do so in the finals as well. That same adrenaline she had as a fighter is still there, now she’s using it to keep boxers safe within the ring.

“It’s been interesting because the way I move as a referee, it’s certainly different from how I moved as a fighter,” she said. “I think when I boxed, I had a little awareness of how close I could be without getting hit. I still think I have that intuition, but I’m not afraid of getting hit. I’ve sparred with lots of men, so I’m comfortable with getting in there and breaking them up, if I have to. I think certainly being a fighter gives you that experience.”

Carlson started boxing at 32 in 2012. She hung up her gloves in 2019, but she has participated in events like Rodriguez’s, where she empowers girls and shows them there is a space for them. It’s a way for Carlson to give back and stay active in boxing, and she thinks more exposure can bring more girls into the sport.

“Seminars or things where I can show girls, women (the beauty of boxing) that’s kind of the way I’m coaching,” Carlson, a statistician/researcher, said. “Almost universally when you put gloves on someone and they get to hit the mitts or hit a bag, they’re smiling. It’s just fun.”

Amber Gideon, four-time Chicago Golden Gloves Open champion and 2001 Golden Gloves women’s national amateur champion, was a 27-year-old, single mom, working two jobs when she started boxing. The Elmhurst resident retired from the sport in 2006 as a pro. She can now be seen in Chicagoland driving a Ready Mix truck.

At the Chicago Golden Gloves finals this year, she’s looking forward to seeing the new kids on the boxing block and how those in the women’s division have increased skills in comparison to her skill back in the day.

“In the years I was boxing, we were called the pioneers,” Gideon said. “We were the beginners but our skill increased. As I boxed, I saw the younger generation having more skill as they had more time in the gym and more experience and more help … Now I’m super excited to see how far that skill has come since I was there on the stage at Chicago Golden Gloves.”

Samantha Terry, a 5-foot Little Village resident had her first fight during the Chicago Golden Gloves semifinals on March 25. She lost on a split decision to opponent Jennifer Perez.

The 34-year-old native Philadelphian said the fight won’t be her last. She said her time in the ring has made her a better person, adding that it centers her and gives her a place to work out life’s challenges.

“This is the first time in my life that I can be called an athlete and I enjoy it,” she said. “I’ve earned it and even if I don’t compete, I like the consistency of it and I like being able to work on things and get better.”

Her advice to other women thinking about boxing as an option: “Just do it.” “It’s like jumping in a pool — the first moment may be shocking but after that, you’re going to have fun,” Terry said.

Catharine Aiura, 32, opted to go professional in February after winning the Chicago Golden Gloves Open women’s division in 2017 and 2018. Having a 15-month-old daughter has her looking for more monetary opportunities. She’s now training with Tiffany Griffin, an engineer and entrepreneur, out of the Ada Park Boxing Gym.

When speaking about the art of boxing, she attests that the sport lets one learn their body in a whole different way.

“I feel women, the way we categorize ourselves as valuable or not valuable, is based on more of the decorative aspect we add to the world and it’s really hard to get away from that because it’s battered into you,” Aiura said. “But having this whole new world where this relationship with your body is one of strength, functionality and mastery is so empowering.”

“These women just want to fight, they just want to be good and they just want to be respected,” Griffin said. She is optimistic about women and the next 100 years of the Chicago Golden Gloves.

Women boxing pioneers will be recognized in a “Salute to the Women’s Division” during championship bouts on April 15 as part of the Chicago Golden Gloves centennial celebration. Tickets are $25, $35 and $50 at chicagogoldengloves.org

drockett@chicagotribune.com