Fight of his life
There are many turning points in every life, but few are as obvious as the day New Glarus resident Clayton Strang walked into the doctor’s office and heard these words: “You need to do something or you’re going to die.”
As it turned out, Strang had more fight in him, both metaphorically and literally, than anyone realized at the time. Spurred on by his love for his family, he did “do something.” He took up boxing.
This middle-aged funeral director shed 100 pounds, forged close bonds with new friends and mentors, and found a new way to bond with his daughter. At 45-years-old today, he’s the healthiest he’s ever been, and he recently returned from a trip to Oklahoma with Wisconsin’s Golden Gloves team, which has become like a second family to him.
“I am a reasonably recent boxer,” Strang said. “I came late in the game.”
“I was pretty unhealthy,” he continued. “I had a whole host of medical issues and problems that were, to some extent, debilitating. Obesity, heart disease, pre-diabetic, all kinds of things.” His triglycerides were so high the lab had trouble even getting an accurate count.
When Strang went in for that physical, he was in his early 40s but merely three or four years from the age when his mother had her first stroke.
He went home and told his wife about the grim reality he faced. She bought him a heavy bag, and that simple act changed the trajectory of his life forever.
“I’m not a sports guy,” Strang said. “I’m not that guy. But I did grow up camping and backpacking a lot.”
Yet there was something about boxing that drew him in. Strang Googled, “Where can I learn to box?”
“I chose Ford’s gym [in Madison] because it was the only place with Google reviews not written by either the owner or someone with the same last name as the owner,” he laughed.
Walking into a gym, especially one filled with weightlifters and fighters, can be daunting for anyone, especially someone who has never boxed and feels woefully out of shape. Nevertheless, Strang summoned the courage to step into the ring. But first, he had to walk through the front door. He spoke with the gym’s owner and namesake, Ford Sheridan, who genially informed him that anyone who bullied him would be kicked out and banned. Ford’s was for everyone, from beginners to experienced athletes, he said.
Strang breathed a sigh of relief and began taking intro to boxing classes with his 15-year-old daughter, Gwen. Side-by-side, they learned the fundamentals of the sweet science. They learned how to throw jabs, how to keep up their guard, how to move their feet.
Gwen loved it, and so did Clayton, but they didn’t realize just how far their new hobby would take them.
“At the beginning I think it was simply a means to an end,” he explained. Initially, he liked boxing because it was a sport you can practice on your own. But over the ensuing three years, he was surprised how many friendships he forged in the ring and in the gym.
“I ended up connecting with so many people,” he explained. “That, too, was perhaps part of the holistic way of getting healthy.”
One of Strang’s primary guides on the journey was Andrea Nelson, a former professional boxer, current boxing coach, author, mentor and much, much more.
Nelson has taught the sport for decades and in 2014 took over the reins of the renowned Bob Lynch Boxing Foundation. Nelson first came to boxing after six years of training, teaching and competing in martial arts during the 1990s, winning multiple state championships and four full contact fights in kickboxing. She holds a second-degree black belt in Okinawan Shorin Ryu and a black belt in Okinawan weaponry. Nelson began competing as an amateur boxer in 1998 under Lynch’s guidance, then quickly moved on to her professional career. After retiring, she transitioned to teaching. She is renowned in Wisconsin for her ability to combine toughness and tenderness, sometimes simultaneously, and she is the driving force behind the state’s amateur boxing program.
“I’ve never met anyone like Andrea,” Strang marveled. “She’s both immensely intimidating and incredibly comforting at the exact same time.”
As a mentor, she employed “an incredible mix of carrot and stick,” he said.
“She’s someone I feel really, really safe learning from,” he said. “With her, there is just never any sense of affectation.”
Obviously, safety is a relative term in the world of combat sports. Boxing isn’t all about safety or comfort. Strang learned one reality early on: “You are going to get hit and it’s going to hurt.”
In that way, the inside of the ring is very much like the outside world.
“Life is discomfort,” Strang mused. “If I want to be a better dad, if I want to be a better husband, I need to feel some discomfort.”
First, he started shedding weight and building muscle. In time, Strang was even able to stop taking many of the medications he had thought he would be on for life.
He got better, both physically and mentally. He spent time with his daughter, and with his friends, serving as driver, cook and all-around helper for the Wisconsin Golden Gloves team’s trip to the championships in Tulsa earlier this year.
Strang has been a professional funeral director for the past 20 years, so he is no stranger to big questions about life and death.
“You see all the worst things a human can do to another human and to themselves,” he said. “And you see what natural processes can do to us.” There are reasons people call it “the dismal trade.”
But with those realities about the brevity of each person’s time here come important questions worth mulling...
“Where do we come from?” he asked. “Where are we going?”
For Strang, he knows where he’s been, and he knows he is headed somewhere better. He knows life will throw some punches as he travels this path, and the ones he doesn’t block or slip will inevitably hurt. He knows he can take them, and even give some back.
It’s made him a better husband, a better father, a better friend and a better boxer. It’s made him a better person.
