Waterford — There are moments when real life gets in the way of all the “breaking barriers,” “silencing stereotypes” and “you can be anything you want to be” bromides.

Real life requires real work to accomplish real results.

And this is where we begin with Leigha Griswold, a high school sophomore from Waterford, who aspires to be a women’s professional boxer. She’s not merely talking the talk, but punching the punch.

“I started boxing when I was 10,” Griswold was saying one day last week from her dining room table, maybe an hour before her daily four-hour workout at the Whaling City Athletic Club. “I still remember my first sparring session. I got hit with a jab and I was like, ‘Oh, cool.’ It's addictive.”

Griswold is a high honors student at Waterford High. Her sister, Taylor, also a high honors student, is a varsity cheerleader. An otherwise typical household in the 06385, except there’s at least one inhabitant whose visage may appear innocent enough, but whose right hook can cue “Enter Sandman.”

“I started playing football when I was eight years old, an 8-year-old on a football team with all 10-year-old boys, playing for (former Waterford youth football coaches) Chris Muckle and Jerry Sullivan,” Griswold said. “They all thought I was going to quit the first week and go back to cheer. I played football for five more years.”

It was during football that Griswold’s dad, Eric, connected his daughter with a coworker with a boxing background. And then this 10-year-old found her happy place, the Whaling City Athletic Club, the region’s home office for the sweet science and other physically demanding endeavors.

“I got to know all the guys, Kent Ward, Jay Jodoin, Dean Festa. By the time I got to high school, everyone was telling me ‘You're too good at boxing to do football.’ Just focus on your boxing,” Griswold said. “I had my first fight in eighth grade. And I won that. And then I continued to fight, which I then fought in June of the next year, and I won by knockout against someone who was 23. I won my first championship belt (in the summer of 2020).”

Griswold’s most recent bout came in the USA Boxing-sanctioned National Silver Gloves Tournament in Independence, Missouri. She fought in the 132-pound division and made it to the semifinals. She’s still nursing a broken right hand.

“I haven't been able to really connect with it and know how to move past it,” Griswold said. “A part of me was left there. I can definitely say that for sure. I felt left in the middle of nowhere in that ring. But as far as being motivated, it's definitely motivated me to be better. And it just taught me that. It's OK. It wasn't anybody else's fault except mine.”

Among boxing’s best byproducts, aside from the discipline of eating well and consistent physical regimens, is the absence of the blame game.

“It's definitely taught me how to take accountability for my actions, but also the ability to get over a mistake,” Griswold said. “It also taught me how to be an individual person because you're alone in there. Between my second and third year of boxing, I would do my own thing and not talk to anybody. But eventually, I've learned to open up and communicate with people, especially because I'm going to all these new places I need to meet people. It’s taught me to grow up and form who I am as a person.”

Imagine, though, watching your little girl pursue her passion by actually wanting to get hit in a boxing ring.

“It may sound bad but I was more nervous when she was playing football,” Eric Griswold said. “I remember some of the years we didn't have enough kids for senior teams. She'd stay on the sidelines for a Senior Game at 10 years old and there are 14-year-olds going into high school next year playing. She wanted to go in.”

Leigha Griswold said: “I literally said, ‘I want to go in. It’s OK if I get hurt. It's football. I'm supposed to.’ Or I was sparring (one night last week) but I didn't have headgear on against a grown man. I always spar with grown men. It's the only way to get better. He was just jabbing. I said, ‘It’s OK, you can hit me.’”

And with that, Griswold exited the dining room to get ready for her daily dose.

“My real friends are proud of me, but they’re upset I can't hang out with them. I'm at the gym for four or five hours every day,” she said. “But people overall in school, they’re like, ‘You're not a real boxer.’ ‘Go fight a real boxer.’ Some people want to fight me.

“Boxing has definitely made me a more confident person. You just learn about yourself and you learn how to take care of yourself and what you need to do in order to stay healthy, fit and mentally well. Some people my age are ‘student-athletes.’ I’m an ‘athlete-student.’”

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro