When the first female boxers showed up at Al Mitchell's gym in northern Michigan several years ago, the U.S. Olympic Education Center's head coach had no interest in teaching women how to fight."They didn't impress me," Mitchell said. "They were sloppy, and they were wild. I wouldn't train any of them."

Basheer Abdullah had much the same reaction to the first women who stepped through the glass ropes at his Army gyms a decade ago, while Tom Mustin didn't even see women in his Tacoma Boxing Club for nearly a decade after a Washington teenager's landmark lawsuit against USA Boxing allowed female fighters into its events in 1993. Mustin figured his coaching style was tougher than a woman could handle.

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