From the canvas to a contender — the story of Marissa Williamson-Pohlman
From on the brink of homelessness to booking a ticket to the Olympics, Marissa Williamson-Pohlman has had to fight tooth and nail for everything she has.
It's December 2023, and Marissa Williamson-Pohlman is seated across from me in front of a ceiling-high Christmas tree at her house in inner Naarm/Melbourne.
Packed to the brim with decorations, and with presents lining the floor beneath it, the tree is hard to miss.
"We take Christmas very seriously in this weird, blended family," Williamson-Pohlman says.
"Mum goes hammer and tong for it."
"I think it's important," Williamson-Pohlman's adoptive mother says.
"It reflects the values of this family. Abject poverty? Don't know her anymore. This six foot Christmas tree won't do."
By Williamson-Pohlman's own admission, the last three years have signalled a dramatic turnaround in both their personal and boxing life.
(Williamson-Pohlman, who identifies as a queer Blak woman, uses she/they pronouns, and asks me to mix them up throughout the article).
In November last year, she became the first Aboriginal woman to qualify for the Australian Olympic boxing team, due to compete in Paris in July.
Earlier in 2023, the Ngarrindjeri woman made history again as the first to win the coveted Arthur Tunstall trophy for Australia's best amateur boxer.
After a tumultuous upbringing, and years of mental health struggles, Williamson-Pohlman can scarcely believe how far they've come.
This is the story of how a period of much-needed stability turned her life around.
'Hey, I'm going to be homeless'
Marissa Williamson (without the Pohlman) was born one of six kids, and describes her biological mother as "mentally unwell".
"She was self-medicating with drugs and extremely violent," they say.
By age 13, Williamson-Pohlman was fully ensconced in the foster system.
Over a five-year period, she went through 16 placements, before becoming homeless during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the time, Williamson-Pohlman was training out of a gym in Hoppers Crossing, and ended up living above it.
But without a job, they couldn't afford to pay rent, or eat. Williamson-Pohlman, who normally fights at 66kg, weighed just 57kg.
The gym, which had shut down because of lockdowns, was also getting broken into on multiple occasions.
"[The gym] was an awful place to be," she recalls.
"There's a massive Muslim community in Hoppers Crossing, and families were just leaving me food or putting money in my shoes.
"I was stuck in a hard place. I was like, 'I've got literally no contacts, no immediate family, no friends. I'm legitimately f***ed.'"
It was then Williamson-Pohlman picked up the phone to call the person they now call Mum.
The two women had met through the Victorian Aboriginal Child Protection Agency, and later re-connected on social media.
"She took my call straight away," Willimson-Pohlman says.
"I was like, 'hey, I'm gonna be homeless'.
"I had like $14 worth of coins, and I just put them into my car and drove to her house. She took me in, and I sort of never left."
It was then 'Riss' decided to take the surname Pohlman, in honour of their adoptive Mum.
"That was three years ago, and the rest is history."
'I'd get into fights about literally anything'
Williamson-Pohlman never aspired to be a boxer, which is not to say she wasn't accustomed to fighting.
They grew up on Wadawurrung country, near Geelong, but due to the ever-changing nature of foster placements, was forced to swap schools regularly.
One particular move, from Manor Lakes to Lara, separated Williamson-Pohlman from a number of good friends.
She begged the school principal to let her come back, but he was reluctant, citing her history of getting into fights.
"I remember him saying 'I don't want a violent person in the school,'" Williamson-Pohlman recalls.
He agreed to let Williamson-Pohlman return on a behavioural contract with two conditions: they were to maintain perfect attendance, and not get into any more fights.
Asked what the fights were about, Williamson-Pohlman laughs, before replying: "literally anything".
The principal also suggested she take up football, as a way to let off some steam, which led to her training with the Geelong Falcons, before being accepted into the state squad.
"I just threw myself into sport and study, because it kept me out of the house and out of trouble, when I easily could've dabbled in something else," they say.
Boxing came into Williamson-Pohlman's life around the same time. She qualified for a state title, but got into trouble at school in the lead-up, with the principal pulling her out of the fight as a result.
Realising how much they wanted to box, Williamson-Pohlman committed to "staying on track", accepting an offer to join a boxing tour in New Zealand/Aotearoa, and quitting football.
Getting pulled out of the state title, she says, "taught me life skills".
"I really had to pull my head in … so I hung up the boots and never looked back," she says.
Getting their life on track wasn't a simple case of discipline, however.
"In boxing, you're not fighting," she explains.
"It's about training yourself to stay calm. You're in a pressure cooker and someone's trying to knock your head off.
"Your opponent knows how to fight, so you can't just bully them.
"I was really surprised by the art of it."
They also found it was impossible to separate boxing from life outside the ring.
"I would run out of adrenaline after the first round of a fight," she says.
"Basically you're having a trauma response in the ring, and you really wanna knock your opponent out, but you have to stay really calm.
"I had to learn to train my fight, flight or freeze response."
Mastering her trauma response, she says, has been a combination of finding the right coach and "tonnes of therapy".
"I've seen a psychologist for almost four years now," they say.
"And now I'm a massive mental health advocate. I honestly wouldn't be able to be the person I am today without doing all the work I have, and also being medicated."
Williamson-Pohlman's coach, Kel Bryant, has been pivotal in her most recent successes.
Bryant's first encounter with Williamson-Pohlman came when he attended a day of competition boxing with one of his fighters.
As Bryant went to leave, a coachless Williamson-Pohlman entered the ring to face a much older and more experienced opponent.
"This girl came rushing past me at the doorway to the gym and nearly knocked me over," he recalls.
"There was just something about her. A bit of an energy there."
Bryant decided to stay and watch the fight. Despite Williamson-Pohlman getting "badly beaten", he turned to his assistant coach and declared that he would like to coach them.
"He said, 'what for?' She just lost," Bryant says.
"I said, 'Yeah but she never gave in. She doesn't know how to fight; wouldn't have a clue. But she kept going. I reckon I could make a champion out of her.'"
As it happens, Bryant, who served in the military for 44 years (including 24 years as a physical trainer) has a knack for producing champions.
His gym — the not-for-profit Collingwood Youth Boxing Club — boasts 17 national titles, more than any other gym in Australia.
It's an incredible feat given the space, when Bryant first encountered it, was decrepit, and due to be demolished.
"The floorboards were rotten," he says.
"The ring was on a slant, the walls had been kicked in, and there were syringes everywhere. I thought, 'it's better than nothing.'"
As Bryant tells it, a couple of drug addicts were using the side entrance to inject. He moved them on, but invited them to come back and box once he'd cleaned the place up.
Bryant, who grew up in commission housing in Sydney, says he wanted it to be a place for "anybody".
"I mostly trained people from the high rise [commission houses]. People from Richmond and Collingwood. Lots of African and Vietnamese kids," he says.
The gym, as he puts it, gave both him and his charges a sense of belonging.
"The army saved me [from] going down the wrong road," he says.
"A lot of my friends, it was the same old story, they'd all gone down a bad road and died of drug overdoses.
"Boxing then gave me a way to inject myself back into the civilian world."
'He never gave up on me'
Several weeks after watching Williamson-Pohlman get beaten in the ring, Bryant received a call about a boxer looking for a coach. The caller thought he'd be a good fit.
Hoping to retire from coaching, he says he accepted against his better judgement, not realising the boxer was Riss.
As Williamson-Pohlman tells it, many had warned Bryant not to take them on.
"People were calling him up being like, 'don't take her, she's trouble.' And I was," they say.
"But he's a stubborn arsehole. He was basically like, you're telling me not to [coach her], so I'm gonna."
According to Bryant, the two hit it off immediately, which is not to say it was all smooth sailing.
"To be honest we've had a couple of blues where she's probably been a bit of a bitch," he says.
One of those incidents led to Bryant temporarily kicking Williamson-Pohlman out of the gym, before eventually welcoming her back.
Asked how they make it work, Bryant says he can relate.
"I was probably a bit like that myself," he says.
"I was probably worse than her, actually."
"I think he understood me on a deeper level", Williamson-Pohlman says.
"And he never gave up on me."
Indeed, Bryant has been by Williamson-Pohlman's side during the most gruelling periods.
This includes rushing to her aid after a "really bad" suicide attempt during COVID-19 lockdowns.
Williamson-Pohlman says they attempted suicide every year from age 13-19, and were in a particularly bad headspace after the end of an abusive relationship.
"The person I called to pick me up was Kel [Bryant]," she says.
"I've never seen anyone look so scared. He was like: 'something's got to change.'"
Bryant suggested Williamson-Pohlman, who was staying on their adoptive Mum's couch at the time, move out on their own.
She cites it as a game-changer.
"It was so peaceful," they reflect.
"I just felt like I had a space where I could think through everything, unpack and evolve.
"The solitude that you gain from being by yourself for the first time in your life, and having a really safe environment that's yours [is massive]."
Conveniently, the apartment was situated close to Bryant's gym in Collingwood. At first, he didn't ask Williamson-Pohlman to set any boxing goals.
"It was just our goal to meet every day for coffee," she says.
"So we did. And we developed this really strong bond. He's like a father to me."
It's a sentiment Bryant reciprocates.
"It was a real flourishing point," he says.
"We'd talk about anything and everything. Not just boxing. And we became closer and closer.
"She's like a daughter to me. I worry about her. She's had more friction than a second hand dart board."
'The biggest 'f*** you'
While living alone was an important step for Williamson-Pohlman, they have since moved back into their adoptive Mum's house.
It's the first time since age nine that she has lived with family.
"It's just been a wonderful year, learning how to be a daughter," they say.
During this period, she has returned to spend time on Ngarrindjeri country, and built strong ties with Yidinji (through their adoptive Mum) and Quandamooka mob, through Auntie LJ, one of her "favourite people in the world".
Williamson-Pohlman has also taken on a role in the Department of Premier and Cabinet, in heritage policy at First Peoples State Relations.
"It's hard work being an Aboriginal person in government right now," they say, reflecting on the result of the 2023 Voice referendum.
"I had mixed emotions about [the referendum]. Like, it never should have been done without consent in the first place, but obviously it sucks knowing most of the 'no' votes are racist."
In the lead-up to the referendum, Williamson-Pohlman was simultaneously battling systemic racism in her chosen sport.
One of their crowning achievements, becoming the first woman to win the Arthur Tunstall award, was marred by Tunstall's history of racism and sexism.
In 2000, as chef de mission of the Australian team, Tunstall reprimanded Cathy Freeman for choosing to carry the Aboriginal flag on her victory lap at the Sydney Olympics.
He was also 'totally opposed' to women's boxing, famously stating that 'a woman is a petite person, not to be knocked about'.
When asked how she felt about receiving the award, Williamson-Pohlman smiles wryly.
"To be the first one to win it, to be queer, be Blackfella, and a woman, it's actually the biggest f*** you," they say.
She says she wrote to Boxing Australia to ask them to change the name of the award, but had the request knocked back.
"I didn't realise how deeply embedded the sport was in misogyny," they reflect.
"So it just depends on what lens you take. It's quite satisfying at the same time.
"I'm that bitch too. I love pissing people off, and I just know he'd be mad."
"Tunstall would be rolling in his grave right now," adds Bryant, smiling.
"I'm very proud."
'I thought my Olympic dream was over'
Williamson-Pohlman qualified for the Olympics by defeating Cara Wharerau in the final of the Pacific Games in November 2023.
Bryant, watching ringside, remembers being 'covered in goosebumps'.
"As a coach, when you get those big wins, you're quite emotional," he says.
"There's nothing better than that feeling."
The feat was all the more impressive given Williamson-Pohlman had dislocated her knee just weeks earlier, and faced a nervous wait for medical clearance.
"It was terrifying, I thought my Olympic dream was over," they say.
"My kneecap moved about 12mm, hit the femur bone, bounced and shaved off all the cartilage in my leg and damaged the ligaments."
What Williamson-Pohlman didn't realise was that she had an existing MCL (medial cruciate ligament) strain, which caused the dislocation.
Competing at the Pacific Games required a number of platelet-rich plasma injections (where the athlete's own blood cells are injected into an area requiring healing), as well as a leap of faith from Williamson-Pohlman and their treating team.
She blames the injury on the sport being amateur, which means working full-time to support her athletic career.
Over a month ago, they made the decision to step away from work, living off their savings and sponsorship money until Paris.
Previously, they had worked Monday to Friday, heading straight from work to the gym in Collingwood, training six days a week.
In Australia, boxers don't receive funding when they qualify for the Olympics.
"It's not like I have [biological] parents giving me a hand," she says.
Williamson-Pohlman, however, is up for the fight.
Elsewhere they have credited their resilience to being a "staunch Blak woman", as well as their Aboriginal heritage.
"I don't give up," she says.
"I'm headstrong. If I want something, I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna work my arse off for it. And that's every single Blackfella that I know."
As inspirations, they cite "black matriarchs" including Lidia Thorpe, and other "strong, powerful Blak women" like their adoptive Mum.
"They've had to overcome so much to just get what others get handed to them," Williamson-Pohlman says.
"So I'm like, [the Olympics] is nothing in comparison to what they do."