It’s always boxing day for Leigha Griswold

Leigha Griswold, left, a sophomore at Waterford High School and a boxer at Whaling City Athletic Club, competed recently at the National Silver Gloves Tournament in Independence, Missouri, finishing as a semifinalist in the 132-pound division. Griswold has been boxing since she was 10. (Photo courtesy of Eric Griswold)

Leigha Griswold is a sophomore at Waterford High School, a high honors student and aspiring professional boxer. “I started boxing when I was 10,” Griswold said recently. “I still remember my first sparring session. I got hit with a jab and I was like, ‘Oh, cool.’ It’s addictive.” (Photo courtesy of Eric Griswold)

Waterford — There are moments when real life gets in the way of all the “breaking barriers,” “silencing stereotypes” and “you can be anything you want to be” bromides.

Real life requires real work to accomplish real results.

And this is where we begin with Leigha Griswold, a high school sophomore from Waterford, who aspires to be a women’s professional boxer. She’s not merely talking the talk, but punching the punch.

“I started boxing when I was 10,” Griswold was saying one day last week from her dining room table, maybe an hour before her daily four-hour workout at the Whaling City Athletic Club. “I still remember my first sparring session. I got hit with a jab and I was like, ‘Oh, cool.’ It’s addictive.”

Griswold is a high honors student at Waterford High. Her sister, Taylor, also a high honors student, is a varsity cheerleader. An otherwise typical household in the 06385, except there’s at least one inhabitant whose visage may appear innocent enough, but whose right hook can cue “Enter Sandman.”

“I started playing football when I was eight years old, an 8-year-old on a football team with all 10-year-old boys, playing for (former Waterford youth football coaches) Chris Muckle and Jerry Sullivan,” Griswold said. “They all thought I was going to quit the first week and go back to cheer. I played football for five more years.”

It was during football that Griswold’s dad, Eric, connected his daughter with a coworker with a boxing background. And then this 10-year-old found her happy place, the Whaling City Athletic Club, the region’s home office for the sweet science and other physically demanding endeavors.

“I got to know all the guys, Kent Ward, Jay Jodoin, Dean Festa. By the time I got to high school, everyone was telling me ‘You’re too good at boxing to do football.’ Just focus on your boxing,” Griswold said. “I had my first fight in eighth grade. And I won that. And then I continued to fight, which I then fought in June of the next year, and I won by knockout against someone who was 23. I won my first championship belt (in…