By Cynthia Marone
Everybody, at some point, has taken great care in choosing what they wear to work. Flashy and fashionable or just plain functional, the right outfit is the thin line between comfort and chaos. When Carol B. Polis went to her job, she always took great pains to pick the right attire. It made the flying blood less noticeable, she said. “I always wore dark colors when I judged because they could bleed on you—and it did on me as well as my scorecard,” the Southampton resident said. “I mean, nobody looks forward to that, but that’s just part of the whole picture.”
“The whole picture,” as Carol puts it, is the world of professional boxing and Carol holds an esteemed position in it. In 1973, when then-Gov. Milton Shapp named her the first female professional boxing judge in Pennsylvania, she automatically became the first woman in the world who would sit ringside, scorecard in hand, and professionally judge a fight. She would ultimately judge countless professional matches, including 27 title bouts in nine different countries.
In the decades that followed Carol’s appointment, there would be accolades, TV and movie appearances, a book and, most recently, paid speaking engagements, but her initial encounter with the sport hardly indicated it would go the distance. “When I first started going, I thought it was very barbaric and cruel, and I couldn’t understand why there was bleeding, why they didn’t stop the fight,” the 2020 inductee of both the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame as well as the World Boxing Association Official of the Year runner-up in the 1980s said. “Now I’ve learned through osmosis — I’ve learned something new at every fight I’ve ever judged—they do not stop the fight unless the blood is interfering with the vision. I didn’t like it, but he was a referee, dragged me to the fight, so I went.”
“He” was Bob Polis, Carol’s husband at the time, who was a part-time boxing referee. Carol would sit in the stands at his fights and, after a few visits, he gave her a quick tutorial that became her ringside on-ramp. “One night when he was a referee at the Spectrum, he taught me how to keep score on the back of a program, but it was only a 20-second lesson,” Carol, who lived in Cape Coral, Fla., prior to her move to Bucks County, said. “After the fights ended, Bob said he wanted to turn my scores in to the commissioner, Zack Clayton. I begged him not to do it as I didn’t want to make a fool of myself—but he did it anyway. Zack said he liked my scores better than the men and told me to keep doing it. He sent me a small but super thick book, which I studied for one and a half years. Long story short, what evolved after that is I continued going to the fights and turning in my scores plus Zack always asked me questions.”
Carol’s first official title bout was at the Spectrum a mere 18 days after her appointment where she judged heavyweight world title contenders Jimmy Young and Earnie Shavers. Though her talents took her to countries throughout Europe, South and Central America and Asia, she also judged in Delaware, New York and her home state of Pennsylvania. She would come from her Montgomery County home for fights in Philadelphia, including at The Blue Horizon.
Carol has judged nontitle bouts with boxers Mike Tyson and Larry Holmes and personally made history once again in 1984 at Madison Square Garden. That event marked the first time a title bout was professionally judged by two women, Carol and her fellow judge Carol Castellano. For all of her skill, there were those that doubted her and some who could barely hide their disdain, but Carol knew her pioneering role was important. “You have to develop a tough skin. By that I mean, they announce your score. They use your last name — Polis — and give the score. Then you hear these characters in the audience say something like, ‘Polis, what fight were you watching?’ or ‘Did you know that was a jab?’ Different things like that, but I never got a tough enough skin. I never liked that,” Carol, whose favorite fighter is Roberto Durán, said. “From the beginning, I heard, ‘She should be home baking.’ Well, I’d rather dig dirt than cook. I had to really fight my way through everything. And being the first, you have to set a good example. I tried to do that as well.”
Carol got a dose of how critical her role then has become to women today when she was the keynote speaker at a Cape Coral Chamber of Commerce gathering. Her audience was predominantly women. It was a first for her, as she mostly spoke to men’s groups with a few women in attendance. “When I was done, I would say half of the 80 women lined up. They all wanted to hug me,” Carol, who attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she earned an associate degree in philosophy, said. “One girl was crying, saying ‘if only my dad was still alive. He loved boxing. He would’ve loved to have heard you speak.’ They all said, ‘You broke the glass ceiling. You did this and that. This is great.’ I was surprised. I really was surprised.”
Speaking engagements have not been the only time Carol has been in the public eye. When she was growing up in Jenkintown, she dreamed of various futures, including being an actress, a veterinarian, a ballerina and a French interpreter for the United Nations. One of these became a reality when she was cast in “Rocky V.”
“When one of the ‘Rockys’ was coming through, I thought, ‘Gee, I’d love to be in this movie.’ I just wanted to be an extra. Someone said, ‘Oh, there’s the assistant director.’ I introduced myself, gave him my card, and I said, ‘I would really love to eventually sit in the judge’s seat because that’s what I do in real life.’ ‘Oh sure,’ he said, and kind of whisked me away, and I thought, ‘Well, that’s that,” Carol, who has four children, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, said. “I went up to the nosebleed section. I wasn’t there five minutes when I heard over the loudspeaker, ‘Would the lady boxing judge, please report to ringside.’ Well, you would’ve thought I had wings. I flew. And I sat in that seat for two full days, having to go to the bathroom, hungry as could be, but wasn’t really allowed to get out of my seat. It was just a great experience in every way.”
Carol’s many extraordinary experiences, from asking Muhammad Ali if he was ever afraid when he entered the ring to meeting artist LeRoy Neiman on the set of “Rocky V,” where he played a fight announcer, to appearing on the TV game shows “What’s My Line?” and “To Tell the Truth,” could fill a book — and they did when Carol wrote “The Lady is a Champ” with Rich Herschlag. Published in 2012, it chronicles her career as well as her battle with breast cancer.
Today, Carol B. Polis’s focus is on her speaking engagements that have the theme “With Courage, Anything is Possible” and enjoying her days combing garage sales and thrift stores for finds from books that satisfy her voracious reading habit to costume jewelry and singing karaoke, which always includes her go-to song “Mr. Sandman.” Whether behind the podium inspiring others or perched on a stool with her eyes cast on the squared circle, there hasn’t been a moment when Carol wasn’t a contender. “I’ve been thrown in the deep water a lot, and I’ve had to survive. I’m not crazy about that, to put it mildly. I did the best I could, and I always got the respect of the people once they understood I was just one of the guys,” Carol B. Polis said, “so it’s all been fine. I made a lot of friends all over the world.”
For more information on Carol B. Polis and her paid speaking engagements, contact www.carolpolis.com, apricot4631@yahoo.com or 610-804-9379. Her book, “The Lady is a Champ,” is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and various other outlets.
Cynthia Marone is a freelance writer from Philadelphia.