Working out of the backyard of the legendary boxing coach Alex Askenette on the Menominee Indian reservation, Lew Boyd started his amateur boxing career as a 112 lb. flyweight in 1965. From 1966 to 1970, Lew won his first open division Wisconsin Golden Gloves boxing championship in the featherweight (126 lb.) division, later in the junior welterweight (139 lb.) division and 147 lb. division earning trips to respective national tournaments. In 1970 he won the International Boxing League box-off in the 147 lb. division.

In 1973, Lew Boyd retired from boxing competition with a 76-6 record and began training youth for competition.

In 1984, Lew landed a spot on the U.S. State Department’s seven-man African coaching delegation. Under the auspices of the U.S. Information Agency, Boyd was chosen to assist six other U.S. coaches and boxing planners to establish coaches/training camps in Lagos, Nigeria and Nairobi, Kenya. With their sights on the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, California the seven man U.S. coach’s delegation trained 32 African nations for the 1984 Games. A break in games coverage saw Howard Cosell narrate a special segment on the African coaches/training camps held earlier that year.

Upon his return from the African tour, Lew signed contracts with the United States Sports Academy out of Mobile, Alabama for 1984 and 1985. The Island of Borneo in Southeast Asia was Boyd’s first destination and he began training members of the Brunei Darussalam boxing squad. Honored to meet and shake hands with the Sultan of Brunei, Lew was later selected as head coach of the Brunei Olympic Boxing Team. Within six months, Boyd would become a member of the Nation of Brunei Olympic Committee.

With assistance by the Nation of Brunei military, Brunei boxers won one silver medal and one bronze in the 1985 Southeast Asian Independence Games. Upon conclusion of the games, Lew Boyd would be voted by Brunei coaching peers as one of two coaches to receive the Brunei Cannon Award as the Most Promising Coach Award. In 1985, Lew also participated in Operation Gold training camps in Baguio, Philippines and assisted in training amateur boxers in Bangkok, Thailand and Jakarta, Indonesia.