It is every athlete’s dream to be the last man standing, but that is not usually the case for an athlete who picked up a sport only a year earlier. But for Josue Lopez, that’s how the script was written.

Lopez, a UMass junior studying legal studies and political science, won the National Tournament of the National Collegiate Boxing Association in April. If that feat is not enough, he has only been receiving professional instruction for two years. Lopez and coach “Rocky” Snow started the UMass Boxing club together last year.

In Lopez’s second season, he found success in the ring as he finished the year 7-1 and won first place at the Eastern Regional tournament to earn a bid to nationals. He topped off winning nationals by earning All-American status.

Lopez says that going into nationals, he knew failure was not an option, but even winning nationals once could not quench his thirst for greatness.

“I was thinking about it before and I just put in so much work to get to where I was, and I was like, ‘I really need to win this,’” said Lopez. “It felt really good and then I was like, ‘Well, I am a junior so I have one more year so that means I need to repeat.’”

His first season was no let down either. Lopez notched a 4-1 record and won the Eastern Regional tournament for the first time. However, in his first trip to Nationals, he came in third place, but still received All-American honors.

But two years ago, none of this would have been possible for Lopez. It was not until he met Snow at Westover Air Force base in Chicopee, Mass. that the idea of collegiate boxing at UMass became a real possibility.

Lopez heard about Snow from a friend of his who knew he was interested in boxing. Snow told Lopez about collegiate boxing and informed him that he was a coach at Western New England College in the 1990s. Later, Snow told Lopez his intentions to start a program with him at UMass, and the rest is history.

Lopez says that even at age 61, Snow is incredibly dedicated to the program.

“Coach is one of the best guys I have ever met,” said Lopez. “He will give us his blood, his sweat, his tears; everything for this sport.”

Not only is Snow dedicated, but Lopez says that he still has the ability to put his pupils in their place.

“He is 61 years old and will still put on headgear and beat the piss out of 20-year-olds,” said Lopez.

The two of them have built a pretty strong program together. Even though they’re just a student club, they fight against all of the large military schools and other big schools, like Maryland and Penn State.

Facing steep competition, Lopez was the only male representative from UMass able to fight against the high-level collegiate boxers. There are other boxers on the team, but they simply lack the experience and skill needed to fight at the collegiate level this year. Lopez says that the goal for next season is to accumulate a bigger and better squad.

“Next year, hopefully [we] get a bigger team, get a stronger team and maybe take a team title,” said Lopez.

With all of his goals for his collegiate boxing career, Lopez says that it is hard to balance school and boxing. One wouldn’t know it looking at his grades, as he boasts a 3.9 grade point average to date.

He also says that it is nearly impossible to add a social life into the equation.

“It’s like coach says, ‘If you want to drink, if you want to hang out with girls, if you want to smoke and have a good time, then that’s fine, but you are not going to be doing that and boxing,’” said Lopez. “You just have to kind of put aside everything else and just focus on school and boxing.”

Although boxing is commonly spoken about as a “dead sport,” Lopez does not pay any attention to that talk and says that boxing is here to stay.

“With the rise of [Mixed Martial Arts] and different full-contact sports, it is losing its popularity in the lower levels, so the lower professionals don’t get as much hype as they used to,” said Lopez, “but everyone still hears about the big fights between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, so boxing is not going anywhere.”

Matt Levine can be reached at [email protected].