Growing up in Elmore Square in the Hill District and hanging with the North Side’s Wilson Avenue Gangstas instead of attending class at Perry Traditional Academy, at 17, Tika Hemingway was well on her way to becoming another waste of potential.

But a chance meeting unleashed some of that potential in the form of championship boxing skills she has honed for four years. To hear her tell it though, this is just the tip of the iceberg. She wants to serve as an example to urban youths everywhere by showing them “you don’t have to be a product of your environment.”

CORNERED—Trainer “Philly” Turner retreats from Tika Hemingway’s onslaught during a practice session in Clairton.

“Someone once told me to look around, most people you see will wind up dead or in jail. And I laughed,” said Hemingway. “But now, it’s true. All the girls I grew up with have kids and the ’hood mentality—smoke weed all day, drink all day and see how many guys they can get. When they see me coming back from the gym or school, they say I’ll never succeed. But I’m the type of person, when I set my mind to something, I do it.”

“I think it was God that got me into boxing.” Tika Hemingway

So far, all the 21-year-old has done is win 15 of 16 amateur bouts, two national championships, a gold medal at the 2006 Pan-American Games and a silver medal at the 2006 World Games.

“That one loss was to a Russian in New Delhi, India,” she said. “When I walked out of the hotel at 7 a.m., it was 98 degrees and I see this girl punching a tree. I thought, she’s going to knock someone out, and my coach said, ‘that’s your opponent.’ She was the toughest I ever fought, and I spar with guys. I only lost by three points—she knocked out everyone else. I found out later she was a five-time world champ.”

None of that would have happened if she hadn’t run into fatigue-clad street preacher Sheldon Stoudemire on the North Side one day.

“My friend and I were going to get some blunts and I see this guy and start joking about how he looks until my friend said he was a trainer,” Hemingway recalled. “I walked up and said ‘train me.’ He said I wasn’t serious. But I stood there for 45 minutes until he opened it up the gym. I’ve been in the gym ever since. He’s been like a father to me.”

Hemingway said she later realized she had prayed just days before for God to change her life.

“I think it was God that got me into boxing,” she said.

Stoudemire, now living and preaching in Clairton where Hemingway trains, said he is working to arrange her first professional bout, but there are few women in her light-heavyweight class, and they all know of her outstanding amateur record.

“Nobody wants to fight her,” he said. “She’s a champ. When we met I didn’t think she was serious. She was just representing her hood. A year later she was representing the United States. She was the first female boxer from western Pa. to ever win a national title.”

Hemingway, who also works as a day care instructor at the Hill House Association while attending college, said she is privileged to work for another of her role models Evan Frazier.

“I got to write one of the acknowledgements for his book,” she said. “I don’t think a lot of folks have the role models I’ve had. One lady told me she wasn’t doing anything because the white man set it up for us to fail. That made me so mad. I want young people to know they can do anything. Just write your goal down every day—and go do it.”

Frazier said he is honored to be associated with Hemingway’s success in any small way.

“She’s such a natural, a success inside the ring and out,” he said. She has the ability, attitude and vision to achieve anything. Tika can serve as a role model for many.”

Hemingway plans to transfer to Point Park University in the fall where she will continue her criminal justice studies. Her goal is to be a homicide detective.

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