Ring One Boxers Come Home As Champs

When Nephateria Miller slacked off on her runs through the Hill, her tough-love coach started following after her on a bicycle. The regimen helped her stay strong through a national competition and return to New Haven with a championship belt.

The tough love came from her coach, Brian Clark (at left in photo), who runs the not-for-profit Congress Avenue gym Ring One. Clark returned this week to Ring One with three of his fighters who competed in last week’s National PAL Championships in San Antonio, Texas.

Two Ring One fighters, 17-year-old Miller (at right in photo) and 16-year-old Georgie Naclerio, came home with national championship belts.

Miller won the Open Women’s title in the bantamweight category. She credited her first national championship in part to a new emphasis on running, enforced by coach Clark, whom she said she hates at least three days a week.

Naclerio (at left in photo) defeated four fighters to take home a medal and a belt in the 15- to 16-year-olds division. Miller claimed the women’s open division title by taking out a San Antonio native, Patricia Cuevas, 17 – 1. Miller’s two tournament opponents landed only two punches on her in six rounds.

A third Ring One boxer, Tremaine ​“Midget” Williams (center in photo above), fought but was forced to withdraw with an injury.

In an interview at Ring One, the laconic Miller took a break from her workout to share a few words about the tournament, interspersed with effusive praise and cajoling encouragement from her coach.

It’s rare to find a fighter like Miller, Clark said. Some have power, some have speed, some have height. But you almost never see all those qualities in one boxer, like you do in Miller, Clark said.

“These girls at the nationals, they couldn’t lay a glove on her,” Clark said.

But Miller wasn’t always able to win her fights so easily. Not long ago, she lost four bouts in a row. ​“She was always getting tired,” Clark said. Halfway through a fight, Miller would be running on fumes while her opponents were still going strong, Clark said.

Clark told her, ​“You have to run.” He set up a regimen: she would run from her house, one mile away, knock on the door to Ring One, so Clark could make sure she was doing it, then run back. But then Clark began to suspect she wasn’t running all the way.

“I was running half way back,” Miller confessed. ​“I was just being lazy because I was by myself.”

So Clark joined her. He started hopping on his bike and pedaling along with her as she ran.

Miller said she recognizes she needed some external motivation. She gets that from Clark, sometimes in the form of anger.

“I hate him at least three days a week,” Miller said. ​“A couple weeks ago, I hated him like every day.”

“We argue all the time. We’re mad at each other all the time,” Clark said happily.

Clark got Miller running. Her stamina improved. She won her next fight, and she was ready for Texas.

Miller’s opponents often underestimate Miller, who’s rail-thin. ​“You see this look on the [opposing] girl’s face,” Clark said. They see a ​“skinny” girl and start to feel overconfident, he said. ​“Then Nephie lands a left hand. Bam!” Clark pounded his fist into his palm. ​“The look changes.”

That’s what happened in San Antonio.

Miller said she was ​“little bit nervous” before her first fight in Texas. ​“I just went in there and told myself, ​‘Have fun. Stay of the ropes. Punch. And win.’ And I did.” Easily, by a score of 9 – 1. After the fight, thanks to her running regimen, she wasn’t even tired, she said.

The second fight was even easier; she faced a smaller opponent than on the first day. ​“She was real small,” Miller said. ​“I just kept her away, just pounded her. It was fun.”

Miller left with her first national title. Before the tournament, she was ranked eighth in the country. Clark said he expects her to move up to number four or five after her victory.

She’ll head higher still, he predicted. ​“She’s still in third gear. She’s got two more gears to go.”

Naclerio (at left in photo), meanwhile, is ranked number one nationally. The win in Texas is his second national championship in five months.

He had to get through four fighters to collect his belt. The first fight was the hardest. Naclerio found himself down 1 – 0 after the first round. He fought back to victory, and took out three more boxers after that, including five-time national champion Lamont Roach.

Naclerio has been boxing for seven years, ever since he and his brother Nick saw the Rocky movies when he was nine. He and Nick started coming to Ring One from East Haven. It changed his life, and he never wants to stop boxing, Naclerio said.

“That’s one thing I would never, ever give up,” he said. ​“It’s my whole life.”

Naclerio said he was ​“a little brat” when he first started coming to Ring One. He didn’t get along with Clark, and he envied Midget, who was becoming a successful fighter at a young age. Now, things have changed. Naclerio said he sees Clark as ​“a second father” and he roots hard for Midget to win.

With nine national championships, Midget (at left in photo) has had significant success.

Things started out fine in Texas. Midget won his first bout handily, 10 – 2.

“It was beautiful,” Clark said. Midget had been away from competition for a year, and everywhere he went, people were buzzing about his return and anticipating a match-up between Midget and Rau’shee Warren, a two-time Olympian, Clark said.

The next morning, Midget noticed some swelling on his palm, below his left middle finger.

When he went to the weigh-in for his second bout, the doctor told him to make a fist. The middle finger on his left hand wouldn’t curl up properly. The doctor told him he couldn’t fight.

“The thing about Midget is he’s a hypochondriac,” said Clark. He pointed out a photo on the wall, of Midget with a bandage on his foot. There was nothing wrong with his foot, Clark said. One time, he came in with a band-aid on his face. He said he got cut. Clark pulled aside the band-aid and found nothing there, he said.

So when Midget told Clark he couldn’t fight because of a sore hand, ​“I went downstairs and told the tournament directors, I said, ​‘The kid’s a hypochondriac!’” Clark said. But the fact remained, Midget couldn’t make a fist and had to drop out.

“I didn’t want to pull out,” Midget said. He took two hours and went for a walk by the river in San Antonio. ​“I was a little mad.”

Back in Ring One, however, Midget seemed unbothered by his fate in San Antonio. He’s got his eyes on the next bout, and qualifying for the Olympic trials.