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."
"I was just too excited. I told my mom right then and there I wanted to box," Arias said.
His boxing passion intensified after Arias saw his coach, Israel Acosta, on television as an assistant coach on the 2000 U.S. Olympic boxing team. He earned his first national title at age 15, "but my mother made sure I got an education." In October, Arias won the 165-pound title at the National PAL Championship.
