The weekend Greek students at UT most look forward to each spring is Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s Boxing Weekend. We’ve talked about boxing weekend a little bit in The Odyssey over the past couple of weeks, but here I have put together a full breakdown of the event itself and the good that comes out of the weekend.

This will be the 34th year the boxing tournament has been held at UT. A man named Ace Miller who was a boxing legend helped found the tournament in its early years. Two years ago that legend unfortunately passed away just before the beginning of the tournament. To honor Ace’s memory, the brothers of SAE decided to rename the tournament officially to the “Ace Miller Memorial Boxing Tournament."

he tournament is spread over three days: February 27th, 28th and March 1st, which is a Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Thursday and Friday the fights start at “bell time”, which is 7:30 p.m. Saturday night bell time is 8:00 p.m. The location for the tournament is at the Jacobs Center at 3301 East Magnolia Ave. Knoxville, TN 37914.

Admission for the event closed last week with tickets at $20 a night or $40 for a weekend pass. Merchandise such as hats and shirts were also offered and will be for sale at the arena.

Last year the event drew over 3,000 people from UT and other colleges as well. Over $100,000 was raised during the weekend, which helped fund the various activities of the Golden Gloves Gym charity here in Knoxville. With ages ranging from 8-34, the gym currently has roughly 60 boxers who come in weekly to train. A majority of the money raised goes towards sending some fighters from the gym to the yearly national boxing competition.

Each fraternity at UT usually has at least one representative at the tournament, which totals to about 50 boxers. There are 10 different weight classes each boxer can choose from. A series of brackets narrows down the winners of a belt for each weight class over the three days, and the fraternity who has the most belts is awarded the team trophy signifying an overall tournament win. Each boxer trains anywhere from three to six months for the tournament.

Trent Bibee, a sophomore boxer representing Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity says what he most enjoys about training is “keeping myself in good shape and seeing how far I can push myself to get better."

An after party on Saturday night will also be part of the entertainment. Waka Flocka and Tech N9ne will be performing at Blackstock event center to cap off the fun weekend. For tickets and information check out the facebook event "Waka Flocka &Tech N9ne UT BOXING WEEKEND."

For more information and updates on the tournament, you can find the tournament on Twitter, Facebook and also on their website http://acemillerboxing.com/