She has played volleyball, basketball and softball. Why boxing, she was asked.
"Honestly, it's a real interesting sport because it's an individual sport - not a whole other team," Di Vasto said. "My trainer tells me no one else is going to back you up."
Everybody tells her she's going to get hit, that her pretty face might be a pleasant memory after a few bouts.
She doesn't care, either to hear that or think about that. The kid is confident, to be sure, bordering on cocky.
Why not try an individual sport like golf? Nobody hits you there, unless you cheat.
Outside, another RRHS senior, Lucas Galle, was working out.
She didn't need an introduction to the rising star. "Lucas Galle's hit me a couple times; I think I broke my pinkie a couple days ago," she said of a sparring session with Galle. "I've known Lucas a long time - he was actually my homecoming date in ninth grade. He's only been boxing a year now; he's a good mentor."
It hasn't always been easy, she has learned. There was a time when she wanted to quit.
"Richie (Baldomar) told me as many times as you want to take off your gloves and quit, throw them inside the ring ... it can get frustrating," she recalled. "One day I got really mad and threw my gloves off."
That probably won't happen again; Di Vasto found a way to motivate herself: "I write, right above where I can see it, 'Don't quit, keep fighting.' It's written on my gloves every time."
Di Vasto doesn't have to look far to see another teen working hard in the sport. A new student at Independence High School, Diana Torres, who has a 5-2 record in the ring and said she turned to the sport to help keep her out of trouble on the streets.
Torres, who sounds like an angry pit bull as she pounds the heavy bag, seems meek when asked what she thought of the new female fighter at the RRBC. "She seems like a nice person," she replied.
The weight drop isn't just from boxing; she works a four hours three nights each week at Heaven Dragon, and somehow finds time in her schedule, which includes attending classes and sleeping, for a plethora of activities.
Small wonder, she admits, her mom told her, "I'm not so sure about this."
At RRHS, where she carries a 4.0 GPA and is among the top 18 percent in her senior class, she's taking physics and transitions to college math; at TVI, she's enrolled in auto mechanics. "It's instruction to engines; we're taking apart a '67 Corvette engine and putting it back together."
She serves on the New Mexico Youth Alliance for Gov. Bill Richardson - "It's a two-year term; I'm the district representative to the governor and lieutenant governor. We have four meetings a year with the governor, monthly meetings with (state Rep.) Tom Swisstack," she said. "Most importantly, the DWI and the alcohol abuse; we see a lot in HS ... really make it from a teen point of view because now it's coming from adults."
Di Vasto is also in the International Club, Key Club, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, the Community Advisory Panel for Intel, La Familia ("I'm half-Hispanic, half-Italian," she said), is a peer educator for TUPAC (Tobacco Use Prevention And Control), is a National Honor Society hopeful, and spends time as a youth minister at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church.
Next year, it'll be off to college. "I've applied to a few universities; I'm looking for a reason to stay here," she said. "I'm always looking for new things to do."
This summer, she backpacked through Europe for two weeks, visiting Italy, Germany, and England; saying she thoroughly enjoyed seeing the village of "Assisi; it's where St. Francis was born, and all the churches, dancing, looking at the countryside - a castle lined with torches. It's what (you see) if you can imagine Italy in your head."
What does Brooklyn-born Pat Di Vasto, an assistant principal at RRHS, think of her daughter's penchant for pugilism?
"I would never stop her from doing anything she wants to do - as long as it's legal," Pat Di Vasto said. "She always makes good choices; sometimes I think she does too much. As her mother, I don't think she gets enough sleep at night.
"(But), she's bound and determined - she's not going to listen to me anyway," she continued. "She needs to fulfill her spiritual obligations - that's as important to us as the academics. As long as the grades are first; as long as the grades are good, everything else can happen for her - it's not a problem."
"Until I make my debut, I'm not going to go around and say I'm a boxer," she said. "I would like to turn professional eventually, then go to college while I box."
Di Vasto, you see, isn't your typical, garden- variety teen. Indeed, she says she has her life planned out for at least the next 10 years.
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