Club boxing team set to join UNLV roster

      Feet straddling the free-throw line in a converted basketball gym, Ismael Lopez and Manny Libatique practice a catch-and-shoot drill.
      Libatique, a UNLV sophomore majoring in management information systems, catches and shoots, then repeats the exercise nine more times. Lopez, a senior marketing major, also drills 10 times.
      Score: 0-0.
      There are no basketballs in sight.
      Libatique and Lopez are part of UNLV's inaugural club boxing team. For weeks, the duo, and 31 others, have been training to join a team that will compete against 24 universities in the National Collegiate Boxing Association-sanctioned sport.
      Skip Kelp said UNLV and boxing are a perfect match.
      "Las Vegas is the boxing capital of the world, with regards to the professional ranks," said Kelp, who created and coaches the UNLV Boxing Club. "Las Vegas is fertile ground for amateurs and Golden Gloves (boxing) too. So we thought the idea could fly here."
      It's flown nationally. About 24 schools including Penn State, Santa Clara, the Citadel and the University of Arizona have teams, with six more showing interest.
      The 27-year-old Kelp amassed a 100-14 amateur record, winning the national Golden Gloves welterweight championship in 1987-88 and the Olympic Sports Festival in 1989. Once the nation's second-rated amateur in his weight class, he often represented the United States in international competition.
      He and Bruce Kobrin, vice president and general manager for Coors of Las Vegas, brainstormed on a UNLV boxing club after watching the NCBA national championships several years ago.
      "Club boxing has been around for about 30 years but it died a little since it wasn't a NCAA-sanctioned sport offering scholarships," Kelp said, adding that UNLV's club is privately sponsored. "Bruce and I figured UNLV was a great place to revive it."
      Kelp said part of the sport's attraction is that it's treated like other collegiate sports. Athletes must be full-time students and maintain a certain grade point average. Another bonus, Kelp said, is the NCBA rule saying athletes must have fought fewer than five times since turning 16.
      "This way, we don't have all-world fighters beating up on beginners," Kelp said. There are four skill levels and 12 weight classes.
      Kelp's three assistants include two former amateur boxers and a strength coach. The first classes focused on conditioning and shoring up technical weaknesses. Many of the athletes came in with two left feet, two left hands, two left everything, Kelp said.
      "Boxing looks easy on TV," said Lopez, who admires boxer Oscar De La Hoya, but acknowledges he's not eager to follow in his footsteps.
      "This is a challenge," senior business major Dustin Moore said. "Boxing requires 10 times as much mind-body coordination and concentration that you would expect."
      John O'Connor, a three-sport athlete in high school, said boxing workouts are taxing.
      "We actually look forward to coming here," the senior accounting major said of UNLV where the club practices Thursdays and Fridays. Monday through Wednesday practices at Nevada Partners, 710 W. Lake Mead Blvd., are tortuous, he said. "I'm using muscles I never thought existed and I'm hurting in places I never knew I had."
      Breaking from a read-react drill, Scott Hale-Byron, a freshman criminal justice major, and Marco Tapia, a junior accounting-finance major, said boxing's simplicity is what makes it complicated. Getting the mind and body on the same page can be tough, they said.