Champion for Charity Kim Dawson knows not to embrace the ref in the boxing ring
By Jeff Hicks
WATERLOO —
Kim Dawson figured the referee deserved a hug.
After all, she had just been walloped on the left temple in a Salmon Arm ring.
A standing eight-count was just the breather the Wilfrid Laurier University Professor of Sports Psychology needed to avoid taking a British Columbia beatdown and regain her legs.
She truly thought he was just being concerned about her well-being.
“I hung onto him,” Dawson recalled of her close encounter of the referee kind. “I put my arm around him and looked him square in the eye. ‘That’s very nice of you. Thank you so much.’ ”
Of course, her coach Mandy Bujold — Dawson’s former client — had a different reaction.
“Hands off the ref!” barked the two-time Olympian, not wanting Dawson to be disqualified.
Dawson had no idea hugging, even touching, the referee was a no-no in the squared circle.
“Pardon?” she responded. “But he’s being so kind.”
That was back in May of 2022. Really, it was a fight Dawson dominated. Her foe had so many standing eight counts, she should have been the one hugging the referee.
With a decisive final round, Dawson secured a victory over her opponent.
So Dawson goes into her second first boxing fight with the main avoid-a-DQ lesson of her only sweet science session at the Salmon Arm Recreation Centre firmly embedded in her strategy.
No hugging the referee. Not allowed.
She’s one of Bujold’s Champions for Charity now, trading blows with her opponent and keeping hugs to herself to help raise funds for McMaster Children’s Hospital Foundation.
To take another swing at her first boxing bout at Cambridge’s Tapestry Hall on April 12th is a golden gloves opportunity for the ultra-competitive Dawson.
A second chance to make things perfectly right, two years later.
“It was a major hit,” Dawson recalled of the powerful over-the-top punch that left her stunned after she stepped back into her taller foe’s range in Salmon Arm.
“It was my fault. That’s why I’d like to do it again differently.”
Until then, the former University of Waterloo volleyballer will get massages from her husband and pickle ball-partner Lance, a massage therapist whose worked with elite athletes too.
She’ll plan an Adventure Race excursion — paddling, running, mountain biking — with son Gray. Both her 20-something sons, Gray and Ben, are proud of her boxing for such a worthy charity as McMaster Children’s Hospital.
“This is something much bigger than we are,” Dawson said of being a Champion for Charity.
“It feels so good to be working so hard to be making a change in people’s lives. That’s the real exciting part of it.”
The rest of it is hard work. Dawson, who has worked with elite boxers over the years, has learned this well.
“I have great respect for the boxers,” she said. “The cardio, the strength, the mental fortitude — it’s all necessary to be successful in this sport.”
Now, it’s time for Dawson to advise herself as she fights for charity for the first time.
“Keep a steady stride,” she tells herself. “Don’t go too high. Don’t go too low.”
And, don’t hug the referee.
To Support Kim and make a donation to McMaster Children’s Hospital Foundation – Click HERE
