Leading up to the Iowa Golden Gloves in March 2006, Chris Meyers occasionally felt pain.

However, no one knew anything was seriously wrong with Meyers. Coaches, teammates and friends never had any idea what was going on.

The pain didn’t matter. The Golden Gloves championship was approaching, and there was only one thing on his mind: winning a championship for his coach, Terry Dowd, in the prestigious amateur boxing competition.

And on the day of the fight, nothing else mattered. As Chris Meyers was declared champion of the 178-pound weight class, he pointed at his coach, a man who has been through his share of trauma, and in that moment they shared a bond.

Chris had just fulfilled his goal and made his coach ecstatic. And all Chris wanted to do was relive the moment over and over.

“We filmed it down there and he probably watched it 50 times that night at least,” said Chris’ roommate and close friend Andrew Goodall, senior in civil engineering from DeWitt. “It was special to him, you could tell, even though he’d never be the kind of guy to say anything about it at all.”

Nearly three years later, Chris, senior in civil engineering from South St. Paul, Minn., takes a different role with the ISU Boxing Club, out of necessity — one of team captain and leader — but not of competitive boxer. Taking punches is too risky after having his colon removed, because of colitis, in the summer after winning Golden Gloves.

Not long after starting his freshman year in fall 2004, Chris found out he had colitis, a disease characterized by inflammation of the colon.

As the year went on, he had increasingly bad stomach pains, made worse, he said, by the mounting stress of college.

Chris joined the ISU Boxing Club to get back into shape and to find a release from the stress that was making his disease worse.

Always an athlete, he played hockey in high school and always had a love for soccer as well. He had never boxed. But after going to boxing practice, he found a lifelong friend and motivator in coach Dowd.

“He’s more like a son than he is just a student,” Dowd said. “He always has been.”

The combination of training for Golden Gloves and working as a landscaper during the following summer took a toll on Chris’ body, as he got dehydrated during a hot July day and went to the hospital.

His colon had taken all it could handle.

Chris had surgery to have it removed, and missed the fall semester of what would have been his third year at Iowa State to have two additional surgeries.

Upon coming back to school in the spring, Dowd encouraged him to come back to the club to work out. He did, with a new outlook.

“After I had the surgery, just laying in bed every night all by myself, I just started thinking ‘man, how much have I taken for granted just going to class and just doing homework at night,’” he said.

“You just take life for granted, always, and I think it gave me a big wake-up call not to take anything for granted, because the next day or hour or minute something could change, and everything could just turn around.”

Disease proved a life-altering experience

After coming back to Iowa State, Chris’ friends made sure he felt at home.

Close friend Ben Ebeling, senior in civil engineering from Eden Prarie, Minn., had Chris play on his fraternity’s intramural hockey, softball and dodgeball teams. Ebeling also helped him with homework.

“That’s kind of one way he likes to deal with it, get his mind off of having been sick and everything he went through,” Ebeling said.

“I could see he enjoyed playing with us. He kept playing lots of intramurals with us, and homework, too, kind of got him away from all the things he was going through at the time.”

How much did the experience change Chris?

“I can definitely tell there’s a difference. I know it’s changed him, that’s for sure,” Ebeling said.

“I guess it’s more of an appreciation for the little things that a lot of people take for granted.”

Chris said the surgery helped him put things into perspective, and Ebeling said he could tell Chris was more laid back than before the surgery.

Goodall said while he could see differences, he didn’t see a big change in Chris, due, in part, to a humble attitude.

“He’s not one of those people that says, ‘I’ve made it through colitis, now I want everybody to know that,’” Goodall said. “It’s a life-changing experience. He’s the same person, but it gives him strength, knowing he can make it through stuff like that and he can make it through anything.”

Back to boxing

It also helped to get back into the ring — or at least back to practice.

“When he even got OK’d to do any kind of work at all, coach was telling him, ‘Do some arm work, get some arm circles going, do something, stay physical. Whatever you can do to be physical, do it,’” said Dowd’s wife, Marge, who assists in coaching the team. “Coach kept encouraging him to keep on going.”

Chris didn’t mind.

“I couldn’t have been more happy to get back to practice and start working out, because that’s kind of where I started rebuilding,” Chris said.

Chris was a Golden Glove winner, but found himself unable to compete. Instead, he found himself in a position to help others.

“He’s almost a coaching adviser — not in a coaching capacity, but as an adviser,” Marge Dowd said.

“I think some of the guys kind of like the idea that they can talk to somebody that’s on their own level.”

Friends say Chris is helpful by nature, and that translated to his new role with the club.

“He appreciates more things in life now, and that urges him to give a helping hand,” Ebeling said.

“He can’t box competitively, but he’s down there all the time helping out some of the younger kids… He’s definitely not shy to help anybody out.”

Teammate and recent ISU graduate Brett Welling said Chris would come and help him train for Golden Gloves by coming to the gym and working out as much as he could. Chris said having Welling to lean on was monumental in getting back on his feet.

“Chris is pretty inspirational,” Welling said. “He’s dedicated, he’s a hard worker — he’s gone through a lot of stuff — but he’s dedicated.”

Through boxing, Chris got his life back in order.

He also strengthened a friendship.

Like father, like son

Chris fought through pain to win Golden Gloves for coach Dowd. When he got sick, Dowd would call him in Minneapolis from Ames.

When Chris got back to Ames, it was Dowd who pushed for Chris to get back into the club.

From there, the relationship escalated from a coach and athlete to a friendship.

“He’s more like a son than he is just a student,” Dowd said.

Dowd suffered a stroke the summer after Chris returned to school. Dowd helped Chris through colitis.

Now it was Chris’ turn to return the favor.

“When I needed surgery, I said, ‘I can’t afford it,’ and he said, ‘My dad can,’” Dowd said. “I said, ‘No, you don’t have to do that.’

‘He says, ‘Yeah, if you need that we’ll get it.’”

Dowd didn’t end up getting financial help, but said the situation showed him exactly how helpful Chris was. Chris still drove from his home, in South St. Paul, to Ames to make day trips to visit Dowd in the hospital and would call every day. In another circumstance, Chris let the Dowds borrow his car for a week when their vehicle broke down.

“He’s just that kind of kid. If you need something and he’s got it, it’s yours,” Marge said.

Both Chris and his coach have been through bad health.

That, more than anything, has brought them closer together.

“They can more empathize with each other … and they talk about everything,” Marge Dowd said.

“We got details about Chris’ surgery and what was going on that I don’t think a lot of other people have probably heard, just because Coach is a lot closer to him than a lot of people are. And in a lot of ways Chris thinks of him as another dad.”

The coach said he is closer to Chris than any other boxer on the team.

The bond is deeper, though. Both coach and athlete say they would do anything for each other.

“If he asks me for anything, he’s got it. No matter what,” Dowd said. “Both of us would run through walls for each other.”

The future:

In May, Chris plans to graduate from Iowa State with a degree in civil engineering. From there, he said would like to move back to Minnesota and work for a structural or transportation engineering firm. Someday, he would like to start his own company.

He said his time in the boxing club has helped prepare him for the future.

For one thing, he knows if he surrounds himself with smart people, it will make him better. For another, boxing, he said, has made him a more professional person.

For now, however, Chris is going to keep coming to boxing practice, hoping he can help the next young talent become a Golden Glove champion for coach Dowd. 

But most importantly to Chris, he will help out his coach as long as he needs it, whether Dowd is in the hospital or just coaching boxing practice.

The pain is gone since Chris’ colon was removed, but he still knows how quickly life can change.

His and his mentor’s lives are living examples.

Not all change is bad, though. Like the time Chris Meyers went from someone who had never boxed before, to a Golden Glove champion, setting off a chain of events that would change his life.