08/20/2026
MY ROOTS. 🥊
This is the gym where I trained with my coach and many talented boxers he produced.
After our original gym closed down, we built this place together as a team in Dittmer, Missouri. Nothing fancy, just a real boxing gym built by our team and a few people who loved the sport.
My coach trained me alongside some incredibly talented fighters who qualified for the Olympic Trials, won national titles, and went on to fight professionally. The knowledge he passed down came through generations of fighters and great coaches before him. He taught me the art, the mindset behind being a skilled fighter, and what I believe is becoming the lost art of boxing.
I’m proud of where I come from, and I’m grateful that I now get to pass those same lessons on to young boxers and students of my own.
I dedicated most of my life to this sport and stepped into the ring more than 200 times. Even now, getting the opportunity to come back here, train, and spar with some of the young fighters my coach has accepted into the gym, it still feels like a privilege.
The sweat.
The sound of the timer.
Coach yelling at somebody to “PUT YOUR HANDS UP!”
The pop of the bags.
The tap of the jump rope against the ring canvas.
The stories and gym talk after training.
Two decades after I first experienced it in our original gym, somehow it still feels just as new to me.
These are my roots. 🥊
