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LOS ANGELES -- Mikaela Mayer knew she was better than the high school burnout that she was in danger of becoming.She had attended four schools in three years, repeatedly getting in trouble for fighting and bad grades. She was a 17-year-old occasional model with the self-awareness to realize she had no clear direction or future outside the San Fernando Valley.All I cared about was my friends, and going out and partying, and being a young, cool teenager, Mayer said. I was looking for something, but I had no idea what.One summer day, she realized something was calling her to the humble storefront kickboxing gym in an unassuming strip mall down the street from her divorced dads apartment. Instead of driving past it again, Mayer and a friend went inside.The first thing she asked the trainer was: Do you think Im too old to start competing?I was hungry for success in something at that time, because I wasnt doing well at anything, Mayer said. I was like, `I want to be good at something. Its always been inside me. Ive always had that fire. I didnt have anywhere to direct it.Almost nine years to the day after that wild child learned how to throw her first punch, Mayer will fight at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, joining gold medalist Claressa Shields as the only U.S. women boxers in Brazil.Mayer still doesnt know exactly why she first decided to punch people after a youth spent participating in everything from soccer to motocross to snowboarding. Nobody in her self-described family of hippies had been anywhere near a boxing gym.After her first workout, she knew three different ways to throw a proper punch. And she liked it.I poured all my energy into it, Mayer said. It wasnt ever just a part-time thing for me. From the day I walked into this gym, within two months, all I thought was, `I want to be the best female fighter in the world.Mayer took lessons in muay thai and kickboxing, but she dedicated herself to boxing after a back injury temporarily stopped her from throwing kicks. She became a Golden Gloves champion just a few years later -- and when the Olympics added a womens tournament in 2010, Mayer and her father, Mark, decided to chase medals.They heard about a boxing scholarship program at Northern Michigan University under revered amateur coach Al Mitchell, who has taught three U.S. Olympic teams. Before she had time to think, the LA native had been accepted to the program on Michigans Upper Peninsula.So I quit my job, said, `Later, to my boyfriend at the time, and hopped on a plane, Mayer said. I had never been to Michigan, let alone the U.P., which is a `nother thing on its own. I remember flying in there and seeing all the pine trees and 10 feet of snow and just thinking, `Where the hell am I?Mayer warmed to her cold new home, and Mitchell developed his first female pupil into a world-class fighter. Her bond with Mitchell and his fiancee became so tight that she had Mitchells initials tattooed on her right hand.The thing that makes Mikaela different is her commitment, Mitchell said. When she walked in here, I broke her down and rebuilt her. She never believed it was too hard, and she never gave up. She has toughness that got her this far, and now its getting her all the way to the Olympics. Its an incredible thing to do in that amount of time.A year after moving to Northern Michigan, Mayer fell just short of a spot on the first U.S. womens team, losing a decision to Queen Underwood at the 2012 trials. She only became more determined to catch the next wave in the evolution of her sport.Mayer made the Rio team last fall only after fending off a ferocious challenge over three qualifying fights from teenage prodigy Jajaira Gonzalez, a fellow LA-area native with a wealth of junior titles.The competition is so much tougher now than it was when I started, Mayer said. Back in 2009, if you went to a tournament and even got to have two fights, it was worth the money.With an artfully bent nose from boxing, she still takes occasional modeling work, particularly for a handbag company that sponsors her. Although she still lives in Michigan, Mayer returned to her original Valley gym last month, joyfully greeting her first coach -- and Coconut, the adorable dog she gave up when she moved.She wants an Olympic medal out of her journey, but she also wants her success to bring more attention to womens boxing. Although she has thought about turning pro, good money is scarce for female fighters outside the octagon -- but that only makes Mayer more determined to succeed in Rio.Ive always believed Id be here, but I also knew that the chances of being here were going to be slim, Mayer said. This was my dream before I knew it was possible. Mike Quick Eagles Jersey . -- Yogi Ferrell orchestrates pretty much everything in Indianas offence. Seth Joyner Eagles Jersey . 8 Kansas to a 64-63 win over Texas Tech on Tuesday night. The freshman from Vaughan, Ont. https://www.eaglessportsgoods.com/Womens-Brian-Dawkins-Inverted-Jersey/ .S. hockey team after paying his dues as an NHL general manager for more than three decades and giving up a lot of his free time to help USA Hockey. Dallas Goedert Jersey . Batiste, who briefly signed with the Eskimos in 2006, has spent time with several NFL teams including the Pittsburgh Steelers and Washington Redskins. Wes Hopkins Jersey .ca NHL Power Rankings for the second straight week, ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Colorado Avalanche. The only known surviving competitor of the 1928 summer Olympics in Amsterdam is Clara Marangoni, an Italian gymnast who won a silver medal when she was only 12. She is now 100 years old.Perhaps I got the short straw when it came to the five greatest moments of Indian sport, because this event occurred before my father was born, when Queen Elizabeths grandfather was Emperor of India and Lord Irwin was Viceroy. What could an India-born Australian citizen, now in his mid-50s, contribute to in recalling an event that no one currently alive witnessed or could recall?Perhaps being an Anglo-Indian, this topic was right up my street, because a majority of players in the 1928 team were Anglo-Indian, names my grandfather, father and his friends would talk about - Richard Allen, Michael Gateley, Leslie Hammond, Rex Norris, Broome Pinniger, Frederic Seaman, William Goodsir-Cullen, George Marthins, Michael Rocque (nine of the 14-member squad).Much has been written about the contribution of Anglo-Indians to Indian hockey and the expansion of their services and expertise to other countries, especially Australia. So I decided that the aim of this piece should be twofold. Firstly to look back at that first sporting win on the world stage for a nation still under colonial rule, and the impact it had on India; secondly, draw some kind of tangible connection between this victory 88 years ago and modern Indian sport.***India was still very much under the yoke of the British Empire. The Simon Commission, a group of seven British Members of Parliament, had been dispatched to India in 1928 to suggest constitutional reform. Ironically, one of its members was Clement Attlee, who went on to become the British Prime Minister and eventually oversaw the granting of independence to India in 1947.The Indian Olympic Association (IOA), the body responsible for sending Indian teams to the Olympics, was formed only a year before the 1928 games. It was only the third time that India was participating in the Olympics. India took part in the 1920 games, sending six competitors (three athletes, two wrestlers and a tennis player). Prior to that, only one Indian had competed at the Olympics, Norman Pritchard in 1900, winning two silvers (200m and 200m hurdles). Research by Olympic historians has shown that Pritchard, an Anglo-Indian, was indeed chosen to represent Great Britain after competing in the British AAA championship. However, the IOC still regards Pritchard as having competed for India and his two medals are credited to India.***The year 1928 was the first time that India took part in the hockey competition, after the game had been taken to India by British servicemen. The first clubs were formed in Calcutta in 1885. The Beighton Cup was held ten years later, followed by the Aga Khan Tournament a year later.In Amsterdam, India won all five of their games, scoring 29 goals without conceding any. They then went on to win gold in succeeding events until 1956, and then in 1964 and 1980. Any hockey aficionado can rattle off those statistics. But the point of this piece is to look at the impact this had on India, not only on Indian sport but on the Indian psyche.Strange are the events that define a nation. My adopted country, Australia, is defined by perhaps the greatest military loss of all time, on the beaches of Gallipoli during World War I. It is deep in the psyche of every Australian, the 25th day of April 1915.Could the hockey gold in 1928 have had any kind of national impact on the collective Indian mind?The records show that India played under the flag of British India - an unofficial or semi-official flag used to represent British India at international events. It involved a red backdrop, with the Union Jack at top left and the Star of India in the middle.It was under this flag that the Indian contingent of 21 competitors (seven athletes and a hockey team of 14) marched. It was the first time that the parade of nations started with Greece and ended with the host country, a tradition that continues today.After India won the gold-medal game, beating hosts Netherlands 3-0, there was no medals ceremony or national anthem; nor did the Indian team climb on a winners podium. Those patriotic Olympic traditions were introduced at later games.So in reality there were no real, tangible opportunities for nation-building with this win. Yet it must have had a huge impact in Britains most important colonial dependency.Take these facts into consideration. Hockey had previously only featured twice at the Olympics - in 1908 and in 1920, and both titles were won by Great Britain. So how did the defending hockey gold medallists fare at the 1928 games? Well, Great Britain did not field a team. Which raises the questions: Did they feel that India was representing the Empire? Or were they afraid of being humiliated by a colony they had taught to play the game? Take your pick, because either answer provides a glimpse of the potential impact the 1928 win must have had on the Indian people.Its worth noting that Mahatma Gandhi refused to get involved in raising money for the Indian hockey team to defend their title at the next Olympics. What is hockey? he supposedly asked. That may have been a case of the great man foreseeing the future and setting a lesson for the nations politicians to not get involved in sport. A lesson India has not learnt very well, of course!There is a limit to how much statistics and records can provide. One had to dig deeper. I had to speak to someone who had some knowledge of what it was like to be a part of the Indian hockey gold medal-winning era. The only one who came to mind and who is still with us is Keshav Dutt, member of the winning teams at the 1948 and 1952 games. The nonagenarian confirmed what I had suspected all along. Itt wasnt the 1928 win per se that had a great impact, Dutt said from his home in Kolkata.dddddddddddd It was the fact that 1928 began an era of invincibility which put us on the map of world sport.He then reminded me of this statistic: 11 hockey medals in 12 Olympics between 1928 and 1980. Ill say it was hockey which was responsible for putting India on the world map, he added. The world was in awe that we had mastered the game so quickly and dominated it so thoroughly.He was right. The invincibility has worn off now, but the name India still resonates, and is still feared around the hockey world. It has been 36 years since the Moscow Olympic gold, but mention Olympic hockey to anyone in the world and the first country that comes to mind is India, because of the teams historical dominance at the Olympics.Australias 1988 Olympic womens gold medal-winning goalkeeper Kath Partridge is a colleague of mine, a principal of a large school in Perth. She is still involved in coaching the Australian mens and womens hockey teams. When the Kookaburras (Australian mens team) played India, she would tell me, Tough game today Andy, the Indians. We never know what magic they will come up with.It is this magic and wizardry that Dutt described to me in relation to the 1928 gold. Dutt recalled the shy, very quiet chap, Dhyan Chand, who he had the honour of playing with in the 1940s, towards the end of the latters playing days. Dutt rattled off stories about Chand. How the referees would stop play to check that the Indian did not have glue on his stick; how Adolf Hitler had asked Chand to stay on in Germany after seeing him play at the 1936 Olympics; what Don Bradman said after seeing him play: He scores goals like we score runs. All of these are a part of the folklore of India as a sporting nation. And it began in 1928.I then asked him my almost rhetorical question: Do you think Dhyan Chand was the first superstar of Indian sport? The Sachin Tendulkar of Indian hockey?His answer surprised me: Arre baba, he was the Bradman of world hockey. For the India of those days he was Sachin and Virat Kohli rolled into one!Dutt had provided me the connection between the 1928 hockey gold and modern Indian sport. He then reminded me of the difference between the first superstar of Indian sport and todays superstars. It is said that Chand himself was disappointed at what he got in return for his stupendous service to the nation. His son Ashok Kumar, also a national hockey player, once said: Babuji was against me playing hockey, and scolded me often for that. Imagine a father discouraging his son from playing a game that had brought him so much glory and fame - but little else, I suspect, because often India tends not to treat all its champion sportspersons with equal dignity.To make a further connection between Indian fathers encouraging their sons in sport, and create a link between Indias first major sporting triumph and modern Indian sport, the logical path would be to look at Indias latest victory on the world stage. Leander Paes had just won his 18th Grand Slam title, at the French Open in Paris. His father, Dr Vece Paes, a 1972 hockey Olympian, is respected across sporting generations as a player, mentor, sports doctor and sports thinker.Many of us took up hockey deliberately because we knew it was the only game in which we had any hope of winning an Olympic medal, Paes senior told me a day after Leander won the French Open mixed doubles and was potentially on track to compete in his seventh straight Olympic Games in Rio later this year.So why did Vece not get Leander to play hockey with the aim of winning an Olympic gold?His answer perhaps summarised where India has come as a sporting nation since the glory days of hockey have come to an end.I couldnt sell the Olympic hockey dream to the young Leander. What a telling statement from the father of the man who went on to break Indias 44-year Olympic medal drought when he won the tennis bronze at the 1996 Atlanta Games.In reality that is a sentiment many Indian parents probably share with Vece when it comes to convincing their children to play hockey, or perhaps any sport other than cricket. Shades of what the great Chand told his son Kumar.Clearly the golden days of India hockey, which began in 1928, have passed. Yet strangely, many Indians still seem to think a repeat of the glorious era between 1928 and 1956 is just around the corner. One game away. One tournament away.Thats because hockey is in our blood, in our soul, says Vece Paes. We caught on to it very quickly. By 1928 we were world-beaters. It suited our temperament, our style and our mindset. It gave us glory. That is why we are emotional about it.Despite the doom and gloom, like every other Indian, Vece is still hopeful about Indian hockey. He explains to me in detail how the Hockey India League and other measures will make India the financial capital of world hockey.Just as India is the financial capital of world cricket? I ask, reminding him that the Board of Control for Cricket in India was formed in 1928, the year of that great Olympic triumph.He laughs and says, Ah, thats really ironical. But of course thats a different ball game altogether.Indeed it is, in more ways than one. Indian sport has come a long way since the legacy of the 1928 group of 14 amateur world-beaters who scrounged for funds to travel to defend their title at the next Olympics. Or has it?Andy OBriens investigation of world hockey, Hockey walking the tightrope after the Karachi World Cup in 1986, won him the inaugural All India Sports Journalist Award.?He currently lives in Perth and works for the Department of Education. ' ' '