Becky Zerlentis – The first female boxer to die fighting in the United States

April 3, 2005. 02:00 Washington time.

Stefan Weiler woke up to a “terrifying call”. A voice said, “Is Becky Zerlentis your wife?”

“I said ‘yes,’ and the administrator from Denver Health Medical Center and Hospital told me I needed to get to the airport as quickly as possible. Her condition was deteriorating.”

Until that day, no female boxer in the United States had ever died in a legal fight.

In surrendering that devastating blow, Zerlentes – who three years ago had won the regional boxing title – rewrote history.

While tales of fighters such as Johnny Owen and Jimmy Doyle, external She is preserved in history, but the impact of Zerlentes’ death on the community in Denver and on those who loved her remains special.

Zerlentes’ love affair with combat sports has defined her life, with a rush of excitement every time she steps inside the confines of a boxing ring or an MMA cage.

Like most amateur fighters, the 34-year-old Zerlentes has embraced a career away from the ropes, working as a geography and economics teacher at the Larimer County campus of Front Range Community College, earning master’s and doctoral degrees.

The buzz she enjoyed in the classroom was complemented by her love of sports, especially fighting.

On that combative night, Weiler continued his three-year residency at the Federal Reserve Bank, the country’s central banking system.

Zerlentes kept asking him to return to Fort Collins, the former military outpost nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and promised he would do so soon.

Facing Heather Schmitz, Zerlentes was participating in the Colorado Senior Women’s Boxing Championships at the Denver Coliseum in Colorado, a venue that was packed with more than 10,000 people when the Rolling Stones or Rage Against the Machine were in town. Both women wore protective headgear.

Zerlentes worked over two rounds, trading punches with Schmitz until the third.

With a blow to her head, just above her left eye, Zerlentes staggered forward, hit the canvas and fell unconscious—a state she remained in until her death the next morning.

“The doctor in the ring said her pupils were fixed and dilated when he first saw her, and there was indeed a possibility of brain damage,” said Wheeler, now a professor.

By 06:30 Weiler was on a flight to Denver and immediately went to the hospital. There he saw Zerlentes.

“The extent of the damage to Becky’s brain was notable given that it was a fairly glancing blow,” he said.

“The blow was not strong…but the brain was so bruised that it could no longer function.”

As the life support machine put on Zerlentes began to fail, “she probably actually died in the ring clinically,” Weiler recalls.

And then he had to choose.

“At around noon that morning, the decision was made. Knowing that her condition was deteriorating, I chose that time was right, because I knew that the window for organ donation, which Becky had so strongly supported, was closing,” he said.

The reaction to her death was immediate.

Tributes poured in all over Denver. Colleagues, students and others who knew Zerlentes described the warmth and tenacity of a pillar of the college and community.