"This ain't Bally's," he says of the second-floor, walk-up gym filled with battered equipment and lively music from a boom box. "This is where men and women are made."
As part of his nonprofit operation, the two-time state welterweight champion and seven-time South Atlantic Boxing Association champion began a program called "No Hooks Before Books" that teaches kids boxing, but only if they take tutoring and homework sessions. In 2002, two of his boxers won national Silver Glove championships.
When D'Andrea met McDowell, he saw "someone who really wanted to learn the sport. I like people who are serious, because I'm serious about the sport."
The coach got her in the best shape of her life, each day a regimen of running, jumping rope and four rounds each of bag work, shadow boxing and sparring. He made her spar with men bigger and more experienced.
"Some kids have more talent in their spit than I have in my two arms and they just disappear," she says. "It's not that I'm a natural talent in anything. I'm just really good at work."
And sometimes that has meant taking bouts against less-than-stellar competition. "You just get in there with anything with a pulse," she says. "You put to the test what you know."
Women's boxing is moving away from the spectacle that allowed disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding to get in the ring. But progress is slow. Promoters need attractions like Laila Ali, daughter of boxing legend Muhammad Ali.
So each day after a full shift at the restaurant, D'Andrea switches to her gym clothes. After stretching and wrapping her hands in protective cloth, she hops up on a wooden platform to draw a bead on the speed bag.
With a few practiced snaps of her gloved hands, the leather bag whips violently back and forth, the rhythmic sound rising above the din. Then it's into the ring, where McDowell waits with sparring gloves ready.
He calls out punches and combinations and picks them off as D'Andrea lets fly, the sound of her gloves smacking his with the authority of a 90-mph fastball.
"Ah, ah. ah, ah, ah," she puffs with each combination.
After four rounds, both are breathing heavily, sweat running in little streams down their faces and necks.
With her short reach, D'Andrea must work her way inside.
"That's the object of it. Hit and don't get hit," she says. "If you think you're going to catch one but you can get inside and inflict some damage, you do it."
Her record is 12-4. Turning pro is a dream.
"I've put a lot of work in this, so I want to do this right," she says, catching her breath. "It's not my time yet. But it will be."
candy.thomson@baltsun.com
ONLINE
See a video of Gina D'Andrea at baltimoresun.com/outdoors
