Steve Christilaw: Former Spokane boxer Andrea Kallas passing on love of sport to youngsters in Washington, D.C.

You have to watch those kids from down the block.

Not that I come from a tough neighborhood. In my corner of Millwood, you didn’t dare leave your car window down over the summer. Vandals would strike, leaving you several large, green zucchini. The horror!

On my block there were twin girls who would come by to visit their yiayia. It wasn’t until years later that I learned that yiayia is Greek for “grandma” and not some strange sisterhood from down South.

They were sweet kids. Always had big smiles and waved as they darted past.

I could never tell them apart, but I took note of their exploits.

Andrea and Angela Kallas were excellent basketball players. Both started out at Central Valley, but Angela eventually transferred to West Valley. They have the distinction of both playing for their respective teams in state championship games on the same day. Andrea and CV lost their title game that day while Angela and the Eagles won a state title.

I didn’t see much of the twins for a while, having moved to the other side of the state. After I moved back and began to write about boxing, Spokane Eagles coaches Dan Vassar and Ray Kerwick began telling me about a young woman preparing for her first amateur bout.

I was mildly interested. If nothing else, it would make a good feature story.

They each mentioned her again a few weeks later. Only this time, they dropped her name. “You might know her,” they said. “She played basketball at CV. Andrea Kallas.”

“Little Andrea?” I asked, remembering the little girl running down the street past my house. Or was that Angela?

I wrote that story.

That was the beginning of a long-standing friendship. Andrea talked candidly about the fiery drive that she had trouble harnessing after her basketball days ended. She talked about her battles with an eating disorder that stemmed from that competitive fire and how taking up boxing had helped her get it all under control.

She was successful in her debut and then built on that success with a couple of Golden Gloves titles. By the end of her first year in the sport she had won seven of her first nine bouts and reached the 119-pound quarterfinals of the U.S. National Women’s Boxing Championships.

She worked hard at the sport. She soaked up everything her coaches gave her and put it to good use in the ring.

And there was that time she took a few swings at Miss Washington, too.

Inside joke. Allison Porter, the reigning Miss Washington, was an amateur boxer, too, and the two squared off twice. Porter won their bout in the championship round of the Tacoma Golden Gloves. Kallas won in a regional qualifier tournament in Yakima in a tough bout.

She was good, although it was a little tough on her mom, Carlotta. I empathized with her – she flinched each time Andrea took a punch. Thankfully, her defense was pretty good and those times were rare.

I would occasionally see an update on what Andrea was up to on Facebook, like when she changed her last name to Kalochristianikis – the last name of her pappous (grandpa). It was shortened to Kallas by a poor-spelling clerk and it’s his granddaughter’s way of strengthening her Greek roots.

A couple of weeks ago I saw that she had started a boxing school at the parochial grade school where she teaches P.E., St. Raphael’s School in Rockville, Maryland.

There, they call her Coach K.

“This has been such an unexpected blessing,” she said when I called. “This isn’t what I expected to be doing. But I’ve got good people around me. Right now, with the little kids, it’s what I needed. I’m running it out of the school. They found out about my background and asked me if I was interested in running a club.”

Her Facebook page is filled with youngsters with determined looks on their faces while they learn how to punch a heavy bag.

It seems that boxing is once again helping her make a transition.

“I’ve been living in Washington, D.C., now for eight years, and it’s been six years since I got hurt,” Coach K explained. “I became a federal Air Marshal, and I got hurt really bad. All those years playing sports, and I was never injured.”

It’s a painful memory, and to deal with it she’s reached back to a more meaningful set of remembrances.

Her boxing coaches, Vassar and Kerwick, left a lasting imprint on Andrea.

“I can’t tell you how much they inspired me,” she said. “It wasn’t so much that they were coaching you as they were preparing you. They were teaching what to do when you’re on the ropes, in a bout or in life. They were very confident and cool. They were silent encouragers. You wanted to do your best for them.”

Passing on those lessons to a new generation has rekindled some of the fire that went out when she got hurt.

“I’m enjoying this right now,” she said. “The looks on these kids’ faces is priceless. I love teaching them. But I think I want to do more. I want to get more adults involved and I’m hoping I can move to the high school next year.

“Now I’m thinking that what I ultimately want to do is open my own gym somewhere in D.C.”

A recent article in the Washington Post sparked the idea. It pointed out that boxing gyms going upscale in the District are going through something of a rebirth. Gone are most of the old-style boxing gyms, replaced by upscale, boutique gyms catering more to women.

“I want to open my own, old-style gym where I can teach women how to really box,” she said. “I want to teach them how to box the way I learned how.”

I’ve seen what happens when a fighter gets Andrea Kalochristianikis up against the ropes. I’ve seen what happens when the hard knocks of life get her backed into a corner.

When she’s against the ropes, she knows how to cover up and protect herself so she can counterpunch her way off. Same when she gets caught in the corner.

Doesn’t matter who she’s fighting, I would never bet against the little girl from down the block. I told her that if she needed someone to come be in her corner, to just give me a call.

I offered to tell Coach K’s young boxing team just how tough their coach was back in the day, but she laughed off that offer.

They already know.