By: Katie Walkley, Peak Associate
The greatest athletes don’t just excel in their sport — they use their sport to make a difference.
Mary Spencer is an Ojibwe boxer from the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation. She started her athletic journey in 2002, then went on to build an impressive career, winning eight national, five Pan-American, and three world competitions. Her most recent win in the 2025 World Boxing Association championship showed her expert levels of control in the ring against the skilled two-time world champion, Ogleidis Suárez.
Her impressive performance in the ring earned her the Boxer of the Year title four times. She was also a pioneer in women’s boxing, having participated in the first ever women’s boxing event in the Olympics in 2012 (modern Olympic male boxing debuted in 1904). Additionally, as a model for Cover Girl, she showed that boxers can still be feminine, proving that athleticism, strength, and femininity can coexist.
Her boxing career is defined by her constant strive for improvement. In a Team Canada video leading up to the Olympics, she says, “It doesn’t matter how many championships I’ve won. I’m not the best that I could be yet.”
This determination has made her a powerful role model, especially for Indigenous youth. In the early stages of her career, she made monthly visits to the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation reserve (Neyaashiinigmiing Indian Reserve No. 27) to mentor and provide boxing gear for Indigenous youth hoping to start a boxing club.
Her endeavours continued into 2017, when she started up a boxing ring along with weights and cardio equipment in the Cree First Nation in Kashechewan. Its impact was felt by the community’s high school counselor who spoke to how beforehand, there were hardly any spaces for people to take care of their health.
Athletes like Spencer help address the obstacles to Indigenous youth pursuing sports. There are still many barriers to sports accessibility, such as poverty, generational trauma, and the moral difficulties involved with representing a country that continues to cause injustice towards Indigenous Peoples. Spencer acknowledges that if she hadn’t left her reserve and moved to the city of Windsor she wouldn’t have had the opportunities to explore sports and eventually develop a passion for boxing. During her visits to the reserves, she found that common gym class activities, such as basketball and soccer, were unfamiliar to the kids. By introducing sports to the community, she helped Indigenous youth build life-changing confidence and created a space where they could dream bigger, pushing themselves beyond what they thought was possible.
Overcoming athletic challenges lets you prove to yourself that what you thought was unattainable can be reached with perseverance.
Under the coaching of Spencer, who seems to live off of this mindset, the youth extended this lesson into their real lives, such as Abbagayle Jones, who claims that her move to the city was thanks to the tenacity that Spencer taught. Her impact on these children shows the powerful ripple effect of how representation in sports can create more opportunities for holistic success.
