Police Sergeant Rules Squared-Circle

Sergeant Jean Martin trains in a dank Long Island gym so small the fighters are forced to skip rope in the parking lot.

Instead of the adoring moniker that Clint Eastwood showered Hillary Swank with in the Oscar-winning film "Million Dollar Baby" - "ItalMo Cuishle," Gaelic for "my darling, my sweet" - her fellow police officers in the Queens transit precinct call their sergeant "Chuckles."

"It's because of my laugh and my smile, I guess," Sergeant Martin said yesterday with a giggle.

As the six-time winner of the Golden Gloves amateur boxing tournament and former undercover narcotics detective, Sergeant Martin - who is 34 and started boxing at 28 - last night faced her most challenging opponent to date.

At the Theatre at Madison Square Garden, fighting in the 154-pound weight class, Sergeant Martin took on a public-school arts teacher with a distinguished literary pedigree.

Geneve Brossard, 28, says she learned about the intricacies of boxing from her father, Chandler Brossard, journalist, playwright, author, and longtime contributor to the New Yorker magazine who used to lace up gloves and dabble in the amateur ranks of the fistic arts. In the Brossard home, talk of jabs and hooks was about as common as discussion of existentialism and turn-of-the-century French poetry.

More than 10 years after her father's death, Ms. Brossard - who teaches art to students at different schools in Brooklyn - racked up one Golden Glove championship in the 154-pound weight class in 2003. This year, she was out to add to her belt collection.

Her trainer at Gleason's Gym, Bobby Beckles, said, "Jean Martin's nothing but a bruiser. My girl's a bruiser, too. I say, out with the old bruiser, in with the new bruiser."

Style makes fights, boxing purists say. Last night's Martin v. Brossard fight wasn't pretty, and it wasn't clean, but it was close. In the early rounds, Sergeant Martin was more accurate and far more effective. She cut Ms. Brossard's face, and then her nose began to bleed. But by round three, tired and sucking air through her mouthpiece, Sergeant Martin began to fade. Ms. Brossard took advantage and landed good flurries to the sergeant's face. At the closing bell, the crowd was on its feet, treated to an exciting bout. Three of the five judges gave the victory to Ms. Brossard by slim margins. The New York Sun, joining the hodge-podge that is amateur boxing scoring, had the fight in favor of Sergeant Martin.

Amateur scoring, it should be noted, has the judges looking for number of punches landed, not the effectiveness of the punches. Overall, Sergeant Martin did more damage.

Asked about her most dangerous punch, Sergeant Martin said, "The straight right. Every time." Asked the same question, Ms. Brossard said, "Straight left."

In 40 amateur fights, the sergeant has lost only five, all on points, including last night's questionable defeat at the hands of Ms. Brossard.

Ms. Brossard wasn't fazed. She's been boxing for four years, nearly as long as Sergeant Martin, and in heavier weight classes.

"The fight is mine to win," she said before the bout. Indeed it was. After the fight, Ms. Brossard told the Sun: "I could feel her getting weaker, I could just feel it. I gave it everything."