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IUZO IUOO 114V JZJUMankato Preacher GivesBoxing Lessons to KidsRv f.YNN Cl OS WAYWMankato Free PressMANKATO, Minn (AP)-The Kev. Don Walker, associate pastor of the Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Mankato, can deliver a powerful right cross to the jaw in the boxing ring, with sincerity and love.Pastor Walker. 40, works out with the gloves several times a week. He used to be a sparring partner for Busther Mathis, once a top-rated heavyweight.“Naturally a lot of people think there is a real conflict of interest here,” the pastor said, “with my being a minister and teaching boxing at the same time. The purpose of boxing is definitely not to knock the block off the other guy.”The Kev.. Mr. Walker made that point in his opening remark to 10 small boys who have begun boxing lessons in Mankato.“We're not going to go out and be toughies in the street,” said the pastor, a former Northwestern University football player. “We’re going to teach you to become a better person.” Pastor Walker stresses sportsmanship because “you have to deal with a heck of a lot of losing. It’s strange but boxing teaches a real respect for other people—and you end up loving somehow.”The pastor got to know Mathis when a Rhinebeck, N.Y., church sponsored a boxing camp.Mathis and Cus D’Amato, who also managed former champion Floyd Patterson, noticed the reverend working out and askedhinr to cHmH In the ring. From that day, the 235-pound pastor served as sparring partner.We rapped about sportsmanship, about getting along with the other guy and about caring,” the Rev. Mr. Walker said. “Buster was good to me. He could have flattened me in the ring if he had wanted to.”The day Pastor Walker left to accept a post in the Midwest, Mathis approached him.“Pastor, I really hate to see you go,” Mathis told him.“And that’s when I knew it was somehow all worth it,” the pastor said.He began taking interest in boxing as a small child in grade school in the Chicago arena, boxed in high school and took part in several exhibition matches in college.“It was my high school boxing coach who really went to bat for me,” said Pastor Walker, “and helped me get on the football team at Northwestern.”%The pastor considers boxing a class sport.“Boxing should be every bit as classy as fencing is thought to be,” he said. “When boxing gets misrepresented it is only because promoters exploit it as a money deal.”Now, he wants to teach the kids about boxing.“U a kid finds out what it’s all about and takes some abuse himself—he finds out that he is not the only king-pin in the world,” the pastor said.tnepiorintoFniglcanonethethei()Sov goa od | siar nigl lam od. woi | |Coa“Tltheplasiai to I nighavTwit2-1droplaAcorrie:haninThlt;val1botAC/maspiCoterI
Newspaper Details
Bemidji Daily Pioneer
Bemidji, Minnesota, US
Thu, Apr 01, 1971
Page 7
Full Page
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USA 05 Apr 2020
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