Thousand Dollar Baby: By day Jamie O'Hare studies for a master's in social work. Her night job is anything but.

Typically a chatterbox, by early afternoon the Florissant native is not up for much conversation. "My mouth is bone-dry," she moans, having filled a twelve-ounce cup with saliva.

O'Hare will graduate from Saint Louis University in May with a master's degree in social work. A graduate assistant in the School of Public Health there, she also interns as a victims' advocate for sexual-assault and robbery cases at the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office. Six days a week of boxing training complete her hectic schedule but do little to dampen her vivaciousness.

"Jamie has what I call infectious charisma," observes Malika Poindexter, O'Hare's boss at the prosecutor's office. "Sometimes I get tired just hearing about her day, and I think: 'How do you fit all that in, and still stay so bouncy?'"

O'Hare is the kind of girl who likes to stretch and hydrate before an alcohol-free Saturday night of club dancing and then be one of the first to arrive at church the following morning. She is a collector of Norman Rockwell prints, and a germaphobe with a weak stomach. When her boxing sponsors, former St. Louis Blues hockey enforcer Reed Low and his wife, Dena, recently regaled O'Hare's family and friends with a gory story of Low's recuperation from a broken jaw, she had to walk away.

Hazelwood Central High School students will remember her as the Class of 2000's homecoming queen. These days, with her steely green eyes, buoyant mahogany mane and freckles, O'Hare looks to have stepped off a page of Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue circa Kathy Ireland.

"I get so sick of hearing, 'Oh God, you're dating a boxer! Does she kick your ass all the time?'" reports O'Hare's boyfriend, Dave Grieshaber. (No slouch himself, Grieshaber once modeled in Cosmopolitan.) "No, she doesn't," he adds. "She's a really sweet person with a huge heart."

In sum: not exactly someone most of us would picture enjoying a good noggin clobbering.

But from ringside O'Hare has the look of a natural. At five-ten, she's taller and longer-limbed than many of her opponents. And ripped. She'll have nothing to do with the baby-pink gloves that are all the rage among women fighters — which might have something to do with the fact that she trains with a team full of men.

When her turn came for the team's rite of passage, known as "The Shoe," O'Hare stepped right up and chugged a repulsive mix of grass, dirt, wine and tequila from a line cook's old black boot.

"It's hard to gain respect being a female fighter, and Jamie goes about it the right way, with hard work," notes Jesse Finney, proprietor of Finney's Championship Kickboxing & Mixed Martial Arts in Crestwood and O'Hare's longtime coach. "She's got the most potential of any girl I've trained."

Armed with national and international title belts in kickboxing, plus a Golden Gloves belt in amateur boxing, O'Hare went pro in boxing last summer. Her career is just getting underway, and she shows no signs of slowing down. Going into the March 8 contest, she was undefeated in twenty-plus matchups spanning every fighting genre she'd attempted.

No doubt, the hardest part of training for O'Hare is cutting weight. She "walks around," as they say, between 165 and 172 pounds. She has tried dropping vast amounts of weight just before fight time: noshing on nothing but Jolly Ranchers and sour gum for days before the match, and spitting. But the yellow eyes and cramps were unbearable. "Turning pro," she says, "I decided I have to get rid of it as cleanly as possible."

In the week leading up to her March fight, O'Hare is down to egg whites for breakfast and four ounces of chicken for lunch and dinner. One morning she sucks a whole lemon.

The vision of a ten-inch ice-cream cake from Dairy Queen — a post-weigh-in ritual — keeps her going. Especially on March 7.

The scales at Finney's are off this morning. The first has her at 152 — five pounds over. She tries a different scale: 149. After two hours of biking in the sauna, O'Hare is at 147.2. Still not good enough.

Then a state official shows up with the actual weigh-in scale. The official verdict: 149.8.

Back to the sauna she goes, with spit cup.

Amid the hubbub, O'Hare's 37-year-old opponent arrives from Atlanta. Weary and bleary-eyed, O'Hare takes one look at the dark-complected Carrine Hamlett and thinks she's staring at Lucia Rijker, the two-time world champion — undefeated in 54 fights — who trained Hilary Swank for her Academy Award–winning role in Million Dollar Baby.

Like O'Hare, Hamlett, who works in the accounting department of an export company, went pro last year. But she's 0-1. Though her close-shaved scalp conveys an air of toughness, Hamlett's slow drawl and laidback gait make her seem smaller than she is.

The tournament scale doesn't agree with her either.

In the end the boxers' managers agree to change the contract so the women can weigh in at "under 150." O'Hare proceeds to ask Hamlett a question she's never heard before: "Would you mind meeting my mom at weigh-ins?"

"No problem," Hamlett replies. "Save me a piece of cake."

Jamie O'Hare's typical training day is set to the sounds of Mexican hip-hop. "One, two...one, two, three, four," purrs soft-spoken trainer Jose Ponce. "Money shot...atta girl! She takes that one, you're gonna fuck her up."

Four days before the bout, however, O'Hare is up against a different foe. "Come on, give me a glare," begs Lance Tilford, a commercial photographer. "Don't look like you're posing for your prom picture.

"Work it...lean...lay into it. "Good!" enthuses Tilford. "Now that's hot!"

It has been decided that some sexy photographs would ramp up O'Hare's image, making a nice gift for sponsors and perhaps opening the door to a sports modeling contract. Tilford and his wife, makeup artist and model Tamara Tungate, have never shot a female boxer; O'Hare, for that matter, has never been made over at a department store cosmetics counter, let alone sampled a sliver of the products in Tungate's triple-decker makeup kit.

The boxer clears the gym of her male sparring partners, refusing to let them watch the couple at work with her. She looks downright bashful feigning a pummel of a heavy bag while wearing a short black dress.

"You must become a completely different person in the ring," Tungate remarks after O'Hare finally squelches a spell of giggles.

O'Hare's pro debut last July at the Scottrade Center ended in roughly 70 seconds. Her opponent's corner man tossed in the towel after O'Hare pulled off three swift knockdowns. "I was glad they called it off, because I'm not out there to really hurt anyone," the fighter says in retrospect. "You want to hurt them an inch more than they hurt you, just so you can win."

The bout was a disappointment for having concluded so soon, and this time around O'Hare is hoping for more action. The stakes seem higher, too.

For one thing, O'Hare says, she readied herself for last year's fight pretty much on her own. This time, her manager Finney, who's also a fighter, turned her over to the 32-year-old Ponce, an LA native who now owns Pound 4 Pound Gym, located inside SWEAT St. Louis in Clayton. Squat, with spiky hair and a jiggly belly that O'Hare attacks with rapid-fire jabs, Ponce has spent about 150 hours in the ring with his first female trainee.

Last month he recruited his friends Reed and Dena Low and their south-county salon, Upper Cuts, to become O'Hare's sponsor — her first. Ponce also helped arrange the commercial photo shoot and embraced the various reporters who came calling. "Jamie can go wherever she wants to in boxing," says Ponce. "She's got the whole package."

Finney had a tough time stomaching some of the changes. He is the first to admit that releasing O'Hare, his "baby," to Ponce was like "watching your kid go off to college." Finney especially pooh-poohs the media fluffing and marketing efforts. "Quote me on this," he says. "I don't like it at all. If she doesn't stay focused on family, friends and fighting, she'll be yesterday's news."