Courage & Conditioning Empower Kern’s UNC Boxing Journey

Michelle Kern is good with gloves. She stepped into the boxing ring at UNC for the first time ever as a freshman. Now graduating in May, she’ll be leaving Chapel Hill a two-time national champion.

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“The first time, I was kind of stunned a little bit. I was like ‘Whoa! I got punched.’ That’s never happened to me before – somebody punching me in the head. At first I was stunned, but after that it didn’t faze me,” Kern says.

Kern sports a 10-1 career boxing record. Fiercely competitive and not lacking in drive, the UNC senior says she’d rather hit than be hit.

UNC boxing head coach Josh Sokal recalls the first time he put Michelle in the ring.

“Michelle was due to box somebody she didn’t know – another woman around her weight but much more experienced. I was a little concerned and spoke to the other woman and her coach. I said, ‘Michelle’s new and never done any open sparring before so take it nice and easy,’ Coach Sokal says. “I got kind of embarrassed because Michelle kind of beat this poor girl. I had to explain why I brought a ringer out there.”

Void of all fear and armed with bountiful courage, Michelle continued to improve her craft on campus.

Perhaps she took after her coach in that regard. Coach Sokal says when the club president approached him around 2007, he feared the worst. After all, he wasn’t even supposed to technically be there.

“I heard UNC had a club. I figured I’d jump in there and get some extra work in. I showed up and after a couple practices, the club president approached me. I thought he was going to kick me out for not being a student, but he told me they needed a coach. That kind of got the ball rolling. I took over the following season,” Coach Sokal says.

In 2002, Paul Kropp, a UNC chemistry professor, began teaching students the basics of boxing with informal workouts held weekly on the racquetball courts.

Then in the fall of 2004, a student working out with Professor Kropp, registered the group as an official student organization. But soon, students wanted more – they were interested in boxing competitively and in turn, transformed the low-key workouts into a nationally-competing team.

The rest, as they say, is history. Coach Sokal and Kern are now leading UNC boxing to uncharted territory. With around 150 dues-paying members, the sport is thriving in Chapel Hill, however under-the-radar it may be.

Coach Sokal says the grueling practices, made of up demanding conditioning, are not for the faint-hearted.

“We do a lot of interval runs, mitt-work, shadow boxing, push-ups, sit-ups, frog jumps – you name it, we do it. All that fun stuff. That’s twice a week. The folks on the competition team do some strength training and other runs on their own,” Coach Sokal says.

Michelle, who identifies conditioning as her greatest asset in the sport, has enjoyed every minute of her time on the competition team.

She says a lot of that has to do with Coach Sokal’s dedication to the club – without pay.

“He puts in a lot of work, if not more than us, to make sure we’re doing the best we can and that we’re able to push ourselves. He’s providing all the resources we need to be able to do that. I can speak enough about how lucky we are to have him,” Kern says.

Kern says she’s not sure exactly what she’ll be doing a few months from now job-wise, but knows in her spare time, boxing will stay a part of her life.

“UNC boxing, over the last three years, has become a really important part of my life. It’s given me such a unique experience that most people can’t relate to. I’ve put in so much work and met so many great people,” Kern says.

Yes, Michelle will be leaving the Eddie Smith Field House for good soon, but Coach Sokal and company will keep the beat rolling this summer with workouts each week and a continual commitment to the three pillars of UNC boxing: Coachability. Courage. Conditioning.