Affected by Passing of Her Brother, Ohio’s Morelle McCane Opens Up About Her Struggles to Overcome Trauma Ahead of Paris Olympics 2024

The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris is knocking at the doors. There is less than a week left, and the US Boxing team is preparing hard to bring back gold medals for their country. Jake Paul is serving as the team’s mental health coach and even trained with them recently at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Paul even brought his therapist Suzi Landolphi to help the team members work through their difficulties and build their self-esteem before they go on a mission to prove themselves on the world’s biggest stage. In a YouTube episode named, “I’m Going To The Olympics”, Paul showcased the struggles of every boxer who is going to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics. One of the inspiring stories is that of a female boxer who is from Paul’s native home – Cleveland, Ohio.

Morelle McCane is the second female boxer from the state of Ohio to participate in this year’s Olympics. The 29-year-old boxer will represent Team USA Boxing in the 66 kg (145.5 lb) weight class. She is also the fifth straight boxer and the first female to qualify for the Olympic Games from Cleveland. Last year, she won a gold medal at the 2023 Gee Bee International Tournament. Furthermore, McCane won silver medals at the 2023 Santiago Pan American Games and the 2023 Czech Republic Grand Prix. Finishing second at the Pan American Games secured McCane’s place in this year’s Olympics. In a candid interview for Paul’s video documentation of the Olympic team, Morelle McCane talked about her past trauma and the inspiration that led her to boxing.

The 29-year-old Cleveland native revealed that watching her niece train in a boxing gym got her hooked on the ‘sweet science’. “My niece was actually doing it first. I remember, one day, she was complaining about like going to practice. I’m like, ‘I’ll just go with her’. I was just like – this is fun,” she recalled. McCane signed up for boxing classes at age sixteen (a bit late compared to most professional boxers) during her senior year of high school and thrived under Push Davis’ tutelage at the Bob Davis Boxing Club.

Once Morelle McCane caught the boxing bug, she never looked back. Wrestling with her brothers during her childhood also helped McCane become “super strong”. However, a tragedy reinvigorated her purpose in the sport. Her younger brother Gregory passed away after her first amateur fight, and she had to take time away from the ring to process her grief.

“Life has been like up and down. I think the biggest thing that affected my life would be the passing of my little brother. I just remember, at my first fight, my brother was like so happy, he wore the belt in the neighborhood. I was like, ‘Take it off, it is so annoying’ and then like now I think back on those moments and I’m just like, I’m so happy like we had that moment. I wish he was here to see it now. He’ll be watching, but it’s nothing like a physical appearance,” she revealed as emotions overwhelmed her.

To honor her brother’s memory, Morelle McCane kept on pushing. And that is exactly why she will be hungry to get the gold medal for her country. She acknowledged that facing life’s traumatic events head-on rather than ignoring them is paramount. “We hold ourselves back the most cuz we’re afraid of the trauma that we faced or just not believing in ourselves. You definitely need to get it in your mind. That’s where it starts. First is mental,” she asserted with confidence.

Nonetheless, the tragic moments in her life are also interspersed with moments of hilarity. An embarrassing but funny incident caused by her mother, made Morelle McCane think twice about bringing her to her fights.

Morelle McCane’s mom once prayed alongside her daughter’s opponent

McCane recounted how her mother becomes very emotional during her fights. In one such instance, she recalled how her mother prayed with McCane’s opponent in the bathroom before one of her fights.

“Last time she had the girl in the bathroom praying with her. And the girl was my opponent. She didn’t know that was my mom,” she revealed through fits of laughter in an interview with a local media channel. In fact, her praying caused a lot of disturbance in the crowd in several instances. “Even if I put her at the back of the bleachers, you’ll still hear it,” she recounted.

Anyhow, Morelle McCane will be needing all the prayers and well-wishes from her parents, as well as her nine siblings while she makes her way to this year’s Olympics. Hopefully, Mama McCane will keep the decibel level of her praying low as the boxer from Cleveland does her work inside the ring in Paris.

Will you be watching Morelle McCane at the Olympics? Let us know in the comment section below.