Once a semester Ali Easley, the head coach of Crown Boxing, teaches volunteering Michigan State fraternity brothers to box and compete in officiated fights to raise money for the “Help A Willing Kid” foundation through Greek Fight Night.
The event takes place, once a semester, with money being raised through tables being sold to other brothers of the participating fraternities. Participation in the event works on a sign up basis: brothers volunteer to train and fight in the event for free.
“A lot of them tell me it’s like a rite of passage,” Easley said. “They go up there in front of all their friends, the crowd and get to represent their organization.”
MSU’s Greek fight nights have been a campus tradition dating back to the early `90s, when the university had little to no involvement in the event. Brothers of fraternities would volunteer to box each other in unofficial bouts, most of the time hardly any experience.
The grungy, disorganized “fight club” of the 90’s eventually dissipated, until about a decade ago when Easley was approached with the prospect of helping bring it back. After a small period of gauging student interest, Easley decided to help bring back the event, but this time in a different way.
Today’s charity event is a stark difference, as it is held once a semester, under supervision of boxing coaches, trainers and referees.
“Back then it was more underground, not a lot of people knew about it and it didn’t involve the university very much,” Easley said. “Now it’s moved more towards including all MSU personnel. We have the MSU musicians, the dance team, ROTC, even Sparty’s there sometimes,”
Greek Fight Night returned with more than the help of Easley, thanks to volunteers of his “Help A Willing Kid” foundation. HAWK became the natural recipient of Fight Night proceeds.
The foundation has operated out of Crown Boxing gym’s facilities for over 15 years, providing underprivileged children in the Lansing area with tutoring services, sports opportunities, food, clothes and more. Allowing HAWK to help turn around underprivileged children’s lives in the same space Easley has turned boxers into champions.
“People ask us for a boxing success story of someone who won a championship or was on TV… and yeah we have a handful of stories… But we have thousands and thousands of stories of kids who graduated high school that probably wouldn’t have, have never gotten arrested, have never gotten anyone pregnant because of these programs,” Easley said.
And Easley doesn’t only play a role in the charity aspect of the event. Easley trains and matches brothers with their opponents. It is a challenging endeavor, due to the varying experience and commitment levels.
“It’s definitely challenging reeling them in. They come in and do some crazy stuff because they’ve never been in a gym before,” Easley said. “We take a couple of months to train them and get them in shape and then they spar at the gym and we can evaluate where they are at.”
But with commitment levels varying from people showing up every night, to once every two weeks, matchmaking can be concerning for Easley.
“It’s not about embarrassing somebody, we want to have the matches as even as possible so people can successfully get through the rounds and the event and take pride in what they’ve accomplished,” he said.
Which makes it that much more important to Easley’s that he not only properly equips these beginners to box but also maintains an excessive level of safety for them. Referees are encouraged to be extremely mindful of the fighters safety when they fight and act on a “better safe than sorry” basis.
“Something as simple as a bloody nose, the doctor (will) check him out and may not allow him to continue. They fight shorter rounds, wear heavier gloves and headgear,” Easley said. “We know they’re not boxing on a serious note, this is just something they’re trying to do to fulfill a desire to compete and represent their organization,”
And it’s that fulfillment, wherever they get it from that truly draws these fraternity brothers to step into the ring. MSU alum Jacob Wilson fought in the 2023 spring semester Fight Night, even though he knew nothing about HAWK.
He went on to raise over $700 with the help of his fraternity brothers.
“I just knew it was for a good cause and that was good enough for me,” Wilson said.
He never intended to fight. Instead, it was an initial instinctive “no” that drew him to face his fear and step in the ring.
The recent graduate was approached by another member of his fraternity about the prospect of participating and originally strayed from the idea out of fear.
“(Saying no) stood out to me,” Wilson said. “Why did I say no? I said no because I was scared and I wasn’t willing to let a fear prohibit me from living so I had to do it because it scared the s*** out of me.”
And when he won his bout by first round TKO, the Alpha Epsilon Pi brother knew he had completed his own rite of passage.
“(It’s something) I’m never going to forget and it’s something that kind of opened my eyes, that I could do anything I put my mind to,” Wilson said.
Junior Eric Kolar participated in the 2023 fall semester. Kolar had never boxed before his fight, but attended the fight night the semester before as a spectator, sparking his initial interest.
“I had no experience boxing at all. If I was going to do this, I wanted to have as much experience as possible with boxing,” Kolar said.
With the intentions of doing this the right way the criminal justice and packaging major spent his summer taking boxing classes to become as familiar with the sport as possible. Kolar returned to Michigan State on a regimented schedule as he prepared for his fight. He’d train before his classes and then after class, would go on an afternoon run for endurance.
So when it came time for Kolar to step into the ring, the Farmhouse brother delivered, winning his bout by technical knockout with 40 seconds left in the final round.
“When the fight was over, I was having the adrenaline rush of a lifetime. I went from being in the crowds watching, thinking there’d be no way in hell I could ever do something like this (to winning),” Kolar said. “From the very beginning, I was striving for a certain, without (a) doubt win. I didn’t want a close call… The effort was months in the making, and it finally paid off right then and there.”
