Luis Arias walks around Marquette University’s campus toting books, pens and other materials every day, dreaming about the opportunity to become a professional boxer.
The19-year-old Milwaukee native, who has won more than 100 amateur bouts, picking up five national titles, could have stepped into the ring as a professional months ago but he has repeatedly turned down offers from boxing promoters to fight professionally.
He chooses to continue his college education, keeping a promise he made as an adolescent to his mother. “It’s just something I have to do.”
“When I won my first national title and I kept winning and getting professional offers it got tough [to say ‘no’],” he said. “But I made a promise to my mother. I want to make her proud and be the first one with a college degree. When I graduate, my degree is going to her.
His Nicaragua-born mother, Blanca, worked long hours to pay for Arias’ private high school education. While Arias’ brother and Cuban-born father, Luis Arias Sr., a former Wisconsin Golden Gloves champion, earned high school diplomas, neither his mother nor his sister finished high school.
“That’s why education is a priority to my mother,” said Arias, a sophomore who is contemplating majoring in business or communications at Marquette. “She always preached about getting a good education.”
At age 7, Arias wondered into a gym at a local community center in Milwaukee and was quickly enamored by what he saw: Gloves popped against punching bags. Sweat dripped on the floor and in the ring. Coaches yelled instructions to up-and-coming boxers to “jab,” “bob-and-weave” and “upper-cut.”
