Family Promotes One-Two Punch

Boxing has had its share of father-daughter ring combinations lately. The daughters of Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman and Roberto Duran have all followed their famous fathers into the ring.

But Allison Englebrecht passed when her father, Roy, a boxing promoter in Orange County, asked if she wanted to join the crowd.

“I said, ‘You want to see me come home with bruises and cuts all over my face?’ said Allison, 25, a former college and professional volleyball player who is now a teacher. “I didn’t take him up on it and I don’t think my mom would have gone for it anyway.”

But when her father floated another idea her way--this one about becoming a boxing manager--Allison jumped at it.

Roy Englebrecht, who promotes fight cards at the Irvine Marriott and the Arrowhead Pond, had been looking for a way to expand his business and keep his top prospects in the area.

“We didn’t want to just invest in fighters, pay their purses and then have them move on to parts unknown with other promoters,” he said.

Englebrecht would have been able to keep his fighters away from other promoters had he been able to serve as a promoter and manager. However, an unwritten but a closely adhered-to state athletic commission rule prevented him from doing that.

Then on Jan. 1, the unwritten state law became the Muhammad Ali federal law. The bill, crafted by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was aimed at freeing boxers from the grips of unscrupulous managers and promoters. Part of it stipulated that promoters can not serve as managers.

But Englebrecht figured he could get around the new law if he could convince someone in his family to become a manager. So he proposed the idea to his wife, Nancy, a real estate agent in Newport Beach. But she laughed at the suggestion she become involved in a sport she has never liked. Englebrecht’s son Drew, who is in a rock band, was not an option either.

Enter Allison, who played volleyball in college at Portland University and on the professional level in Switzerland for a year. Allison also had some boxing experience. She helped her dad sell season tickets and she had worked as an usher at the Irvine Marriott.

“I’ve always been interested in boxing and I wanted to find a way to stay involved in sports,” she said. “My mom was OK with it. She said, ‘Better you than me.’ ”

Last week, Allison’s new company, Big Wave Boxing LLC, signed its first two fighters--brothers Librado Andrade and Enrique Ornelas of La Habra--to three-year contracts. Andrade, 22, is a super middleweight with a 6-0 record and four knockouts. Ornelas, 20, who uses his mother’s maiden name, is a middleweight with a 7-0 record and four knockouts.

Jerry Bilderrain, Englebrecht’s matchmaker who will be a scout and consultant for Big Wave Boxing, said Andrade and Ornelas could make the Englebrechts a lot of money someday.

“They’re both going to be light-heavyweights and that is not a deep division,” Bilderrain said. “Their style looks good on TV. . . . Maybe the best thing about them is they’re both decent kids.”

As part of their contracts, Andrade and Ornelas will enroll in beginning computer classes. All Big Wave Boxing contracts include three provisions: each fighter who has not graduated from high school must begin work toward a general equivalency diploma; each fighter not fairly fluent in English must enroll in an English as second language class; and any fighter not computer literate must enroll in a computer class. Only the last term pertained to Andrade and Ornelas.

Allison, who works with grade school children in a federally funded literacy program at Oakview School in Huntington Beach, said it is important that her boxers are educated.

“No one is doing anything like this in boxing,” she said. “No one seems to care about the future of any boxer after they are finished fighting.”

Dean Lohuis, the California commission’s chief inspector who witnessed the signing, said his organization is reviewing the contracts.

“It is unusual to have a father [and] daughter as a promoter and manager,” Lohuis said. “It’s not official yet, but I don’t anticipate any problems.”