Diedre Hamaguchi…a history first and fascinating story

Hamaguchi was the first woman to enter the 1994 Daily News Golden Gloves in New York, NY.  To keep them from knowing that she was a female, Diedre mailed in her application using only a first initial “D” Hamaguchi, so as to not give away her gender.  to enter the 1994 Daily News Golden Gloves in New York, NY.  To keep them from knowing that she was a female, Diedre mailed in her application using only a first initial “D” Hamaguchi, so as to not give away her gender.

As the Daily News quoted in an article called, “Ladies night with a punch,”  dated April 7, 1995, a year after she made history, “Dee Hamaguchi, who is the reason why women were here at the Daily News Golden Gloves in the first place. It had never happened in the 68 years of the country’s oldest and largest amateur boxing competition.

Last year an  application was submitted with the name D. Hamaguchi.  Nobody knew D. was Dee, and that Dee was a woman from Harlem.  Even though she didn’t end up competing last year, the seed was in the ground, and it started growing, so there we were last night looking at Jill Matthews’ mascara and at the Golden Gloves dangling from Christine Bruno SanGallo’s neck.”  Dee Hamaguchi would have had her chance to compete in 1994, except that the Daily News sent her schedule to get her physical exam too late in the mail!