Bellbrook graduation 2012
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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > July > 13 > Entry
Beauty and The Beast
If “Beauty and the Beast” — the old French fairy tale and more recent Disney movie — were being remade here in Dayton this summer and was given a sports twist, you’d have the story of Marie Rosche and Rocky Phillips.
It’s doubtful two more unlikely people have pared up here for a singular athletic pursuit.
Marie — a 6-foot-2 forward for the University of Dayton women’s basketball team the last four years and a Flyers captain this past season — has both drawn interest as a model and, in February, was awarded the NCAA Ethnic Minority and Women’s Enhancement Scholarship that now has her in grad school at UD.
Rocky — with his bulldog build and heavy punch — is the roustabout Dayton tough guy who once was muscle for hire around town and since 1987 has had an on-again, off-again pro boxing career that’s included a second-round knockout of former heavyweight champ Michael Dokes, who came into the fight out of shape and left with a broken jaw.
For the past three weeks, beauty and beast have been together at Neo Limits Fitness on Airway Road. That’s where Rocky is teaching Marie — wearing basketball shoes and pink Everlast mitts — to box. It’s made for quite a fistic show.
“She’s picking this up naturally and man, does this girl have power,” Rocky said. “To me, she’s at the level of someone who’s been doing this a year. I really think she could be a champ.
“And after she learns a little more, I think other girls would be intimidated when they got in the ring with her. She’d be taller than about anyone she fights, she’s got real muscles and there’s all that power. I’ll tell you, she’d be a tough one to deal with.”
Like a beast?
Rocky laughed: “Yeah, just make me the bucket man working her corner. She can play both parts — beauty and the beast.”
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