“It’s all about showtime and I can’t wait until it’s on,” said Carole Steinhauser, amateur female boxer and student at UM.
Steinhauser, 22, recently entered the sphere of female boxing, after a quest for “something more intense and challenging.”
She began her sports career as a talented young tennis star from Luxembourg, but at 16, retreated from the strenuous effort of contests and practices.
“Many people tell me I have a great future in female boxing because of my skills, my looks, and my charisma,” Steinhauser said.
What Steinhauser forgot to mention, was her drive.
Because of the complexity of the sport, extreme and proper conditioning is imperative, Steinhauser said. She trains for four hours a day.
“I run a lot,” she said. “I run about 10 miles a week, in the sand.”
“You need strength, so I do light weight training and push ups, sit-ups and exercises where I use my own body weight to build up my strength,” Steinhauser said.
“You also need speed, that is why I jump rope, sprint. And then of course, I box. My trainer holds the mix, I use heavy bags, crazy balls, speed balls and have at least one sparring a week, 90 percent of the time with men.”
In addition to her mental and physical commitments to a rigid practice strategy, Steinhauser is a full-time UM student, majoring in advertising and French.
She also presides as a vice-president of a beach condo association, which she acknowledged as “actually pretty outstanding for such a young age.”
“Usually old and retired people do these kinds of honorary volunteer jobs,” she said.
Steinhauser has been a sportswoman since the age of 3, specializing in swimming and tennis.
Her parents, wary of all the chauffeuring, forced Steinhauser to choose between the two and she decided on tennis.
“I hated swimming and getting into that water,” she said.
Steinhauser traveled for her country to play tennis.
“By the age of 14, I had seen all of Europe, the Caribbean and some of the U.S. I was real good for my age,” she said.
The small size of her nation led to sponsorship difficulties. That, combined with wrist and knee injuries and steady parental pressures, led Steinhauser to make some weighty decisions.
“There was not enough money for me to leave my country, give up school entirely and take a major risk. So I decided to get my education first.”
Steinhauser retired from sports at 16, for an extended rest. But only two years later she began practicing karate at the Dojo to get fit.
Karate, however, “did not motivate me all the way,” she said.
After moving to Miami, and visiting a boxing gym, Steinhauser, under the instruction of trainer Jorge Manzanarez, began her training in boxing.
She said she pledged to give much hard work and patience to practice the “very complete sport.”
Steinhauser anticipates becoming a professional female boxer, but will wait until she graduates.
Her trainer is currently organizing an amateur match for the end of March. Steinhauser, who turns 23 in March, will minor in Marketing, and speaks “Luxembourgish, German, French, Italian, English, Spanish, and a little Portuguese and little Dutch.”
The advertising major is interested in the latest trends in advertising and consumer behavior but right now, she said, it’s all about “sports, especially fight sports.”