A fighter's heart: Mother of three dominates in the ring

At home in Mount Olive, Valerie Coolbaugh is Mom, sharing a snack of turkey sandwiches and ice cream cake with her three kids.

At Zion Lutheran School in Staunton, she's Miss Valerie, telling stories to 20 children in the school's summer program and fastening pirate hats on their heads.

But when she steps into the cage, she turns into "Vicious Val," a kicking, punching, grappling 130-pound fighting machine.

"When my music gets cued up and I walk into the cage, I'm the biggest ball of nerves," said Coolbaugh, a mixed martial arts fighter. "Once those doors close and you hear that clang, you know it's on."

The 35-year-old Belleville native was definitely on as she walked out to the pounding beat of Disturbed's "The Game" at a tournament last January in Evansville, Ind.

The referee checked the fighters for illegal jewelry and long fingernails, made sure they were wearing the proper protective gear -- mouthpieces and fingerless gloves, then let them go at it.The rivals stalked each other, barefoot on a thin mat offering little protection from bumps and bruises.At one point in the match, Coolbaugh gasped for breath through her opponent's triangle hold and almost "tapped out," or asked the referee to end the fight.

"I don't like to tap, I don't like to give up," she said. "I always think there's a way I can get out."

In the third round, however, Coolbaugh pinned her opponent underneath her and won the match by punching her repeatedly with the bottom of clenched fists, in what's known as a "hammer-fist ground and pound." The crowd broke into uproarious cheers.

After all the bouts that night, Coolbaugh and the other fighters went for drinks. No hard feelings.

So, Val, what's it like to fight in the cage?

"It's an adrenaline rush and an orgasm all at the same time."

A ball of energy

Coolbaugh, who graduated from Belleville West High School, is a substitute teacher at Zion Lutheran and coordinates the after-school homework program there. She also DJs locally and nationally at weddings, cheerleading competitions and clubs, and coaches cheerleading in Wood River. She works out before and after her job and trains in fight gyms in Wood River, Mount Olive or Arnold, Mo., most evenings.

Carla Manka, the director of the daycare at the school, hired Coolbaugh before she knew about her fighting career.

"I admired her spunk," Manka said. "She's got a lot of it."

Manka and several others from the school are going to Coolbaugh's Aug. 1 fight in Bethalto. The fight with North Carolina's Linda Cunningham will be Coolbaugh's first local bout in two years.

After school on a recent Tuesday, Coolbaugh spent some time cuddling on the couch with her children: Kaila Pratt, 17; Christian Pratt, 15; and Tim Coolbaugh, 9. The kids talked about how proud she makes them -- win or lose.

"As long as she tries and has fun, that's all that matters to her," Christian said. "I'm so proud of my mom, no matter what."

Christian wants to be a mixed martial arts fighter like Mom. Coolbaugh, who for years was his wrestling coach, said she'll support him if he learns to take instruction and not argue about it.

"Your safety is crucial," she said. "You can get your face rearranged, or knocked out cold."

Coolbaugh should know. She has endured a broken nose, broken ribs, a dislocated elbow, a torn medial collateral ligament, bruises, fat lips and black eyes. Strangers, mistaking her injuries for spousal abuse, have encouraged her to "get out of that relationship." She assures the children she works with and their parents that the bruises are OK. She even shows them off to people who ask about them.

Her 42-year-old husband, Mike Coolbaugh, a financial aid tech specialist at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, enjoys watching her fights, although he thinks her headstrong nature has gotten her into trouble. He recalled that a dislocated elbow was the result of her holding out too long in a fight. She argues there were only eight seconds left, and she thought she had a chance.

"I worry about her stubbornness," Mike Coolbaugh said. "She doesn't like to give up."

One tough little girl

Coolbaugh's parents signed her up for ballet lessons when she was a child.

"My dad said I have the grace of a water buffalo in heat," she said.

But she has always been scrappy.

Kids picked on Coolbaugh, a petite girl growing up in the west end of Belleville, for not having a lot of money. She wore her aunt's hand-me-down clothing. Most of her friends were boys.

She would never start a fight, but she would definitely punch back.

When she was 14 years old, she fell off her bike after a neighbor girl threw a stick at her. The girl started throwing punches, so Coolbaugh "bloodied her up," she recalled.

She accepted that kids didn't like her, and she threw herself into running and other sports.

"It made me peaceful, I guess," she said.

But life didn't get any easier for Coolbaugh.

A single mother at 17 years old, she had to put on permanent hold her plans for a college sports scholarship and hopes of joining the U.S. Navy.

She worked as a food industry regional supervisor, a bartender and a construction worker for her dad's company before making it to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. While raising three children, she completed a bachelor's degree in kinesiology in 2004.

That same year, Kenneth Pratt, the father of her oldest two children, died unexpectedly after falling into a diabetic coma. She still struggles with the loss. She said Christian is looking more like him every day.

Now, her mother, Suzie Marino, of Belleville, is ill. What started as bladder cancer has spread throughout her body.

Coolbaugh tries to visit Marino at least once a week and to help with the house and yard work. She also helped her mother pick out a wig when she was losing her hair.

But Coolbaugh doesn't view herself as a victim of a hard life.

"You just have to make the best of it and work with what you've got," she said. "Crawling up in bed and going to sleep is not going to fix it."

The urge to fight

In 2005, Coolbaugh took Muay Thai kickboxing lessons and got the urge to fight. She competed as an amateur for three years before turning professional last summer. Her amateur record was 10-2, and her professional record is 2-2.

One of the things Coolbaugh likes most about her sport is the unpredictability of a fight. One fighter might be good on her feet, while the other is better on the ground.

Whatever the case, Coolbaugh said, "I can still climb into that cage going, 'I still have a chance.'"

She wants to see more women become fighters. She has to spar with male fighters at the gym, and she doesn't get to compete as much as she would like. When she was an amateur, one of her fights was canceled because her opponent refused to take the ring out of her recently pierced naval.

"A lot of girls like punching but don't like getting hit," Coolbaugh said. "For them to take us seriously, we have to prove we're serious about the sport."

Her fighting career doesn't pay the bills, though since turning professional she has been able to use money from one fight to replace the air mattress she was sleeping on with a real mattress. Another fight paid for her 17-year-old daughter Kaila's 1993 Pontiac Grand Am. Coolbaugh hopes the next fight will cover the cost of a computer for her youngest child, 9-year-old Tim Coolbaugh.

In her most recent fight in June at Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Coolbaugh fought Rosi Sexton, of Manchester, England.

A mixed martial arts Web site remarked that Coolbaugh was "glowing" when she walked out to fight. She lost in the first round when trapped in her opponent's armbar, a move that bends the elbow in an unnatural direction. Coolbaugh tapped Sexton's body to end the fight and avoid injury.

Afterward, Coolbaugh and Sexton traded stories about their children, and Coolbaugh gave Sexton a book of bedtime stories for her young son.

Boyd Ballard, Coolbaugh's trainer, said of Coolbaugh: "Her heart's the biggest thing that she's got, definitely."

Ballard said getting a "little pissed off" before a fight can help a fighter, but "it's not in her personality to be that, so she kind of struggles with it a little bit."

Coolbaugh said she just can't get mad at her opponents because it's their job to fight her. "I'm going to go out there grinning ear-to-ear."