Boxing
- Title:
- Head Coach
- Email:
- blake.baldi@afacademy.af.edu
- Phone:
- 719-333-2766
Former Wing Open and NCBA champion Blake Baldi is in his ninth season as the head coach of the Air Force boxing program. Baldi, a 2005 Academy graduate who also spent four seasons as an assistant coach with the team, is just the third head coach in the NCBA-era history of the Air Force boxing program.
Under his direction, the men have finished among the nation’s top two at every NCBA Championship meet – a stretch highlighted by the men’s team title in 2023. Baldi has seen his boxers account for 51 NCBA All-America awards, including 16 individual national championships. He has also expanded the Falcons’ boxing program to include a women’s team, integrating the original women’s club team into full-time members of the intercollegiate squad. Since its inception, the women have finished as high as third at the NCBA Championships and claimed 20 medals.
Baldi returned to the Academy in May 2015, after a stint at USA Boxing, where he had served as a high performance associate and national team manager. He was responsible for strategic level athlete development and preparation for the 2015 World Championships and 2016 Olympic Games. In addition, he managed team travel and coordinated athlete preparation for over 30 boxers competing in 14 different competitions in eight countries.
He also worked with elite male and female boxers at USA Boxing. He was the manager of the USA Knockouts, a World Series of Boxing team which qualified six men for the 2015 Pan American Games. In addition, Baldi earned an International Boxing Association 1-Star coaching certification, which allows coaching at international events.
Baldi, a native of Peoria, Ill., spent four years as an assistant boxing coach and physical education instructor at Air Force from 2008-12. During his first stint at the Academy, Baldi helped lead the Falcons to a National Collegiate Boxing Association (NCBA) team title in 2012, while coaching 11 individual national champions and 40 NCBA All-Americans. Also serving as the deputy chief of intramurals and an executive officer, Baldi was named the Outstanding Academy Educator for the athletic department in 2010.
His military career began at Charleston AFB, S.C., in 2005, where he was the officer-in-charge of the combat camera element. Following his first stint at the Academy (2008-12), Baldi was assigned to the Eighth Communications Squadron, Eighth Fighter Wing at Kansan Air Base, in the Republic of Korea, where he served as the commander of the operations flight from August 2012-13. During that time, he was responsible for directing operations and providing air traffic control and landing system capabilities to the wing. Baldi was named Company Grade Officer of the Quarter while stationed at Kansan.
As a cadet, Baldi claimed the Wing Open and NCBA titles in the 147-pound weight division, while helping Air Force to a runner-up finish at the 2005 NCBA Championships. In addition to his bachelor’s degree in management from the Academy, Baldi earned a Master of Education degree, with distinction, from DePaul in 2014.
