Difference Makers: Danny Rees uses boxing to ‘live out’ his faith in God

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By his own admission, Danny Rees was a frustrated young man.

In grade school, other kids called him “dumb” so often that he believed them.

“I was the kid that made terrible grades and went to all the special classes,” he said.

Sometimes he would channel his frustration by hitting things, a trait that would eventually lead him to boxing.

It wasn’t until he was a freshman at Jackson High School before anyone recognized his potential.

“It was my ninth-grade teacher, Mrs. (Marilyn) Proffer, who looked at me one day in class and said ‘Danny, you’re not dumb. Let’s figure out what’s going on,’” Danny said.

Proffer arranged for an IQ test that proved Danny smarter than he thought.

“I don’t know why it took so long, but she believed in me and knowing for the first time in my life I wasn’t dumb put me in a different state of mind,” he said.

By the time he was 16, Danny was working as an apprentice plumber, a vocation he continued the rest of his career, much of it in the facility management department at Southeast Missouri State University.

Throughout his life, Danny said boxing has helped him learn self-control.

“I had a demon inside of me for a long time and that demon was a really bad anger problem,” he said. “I learned to control that demon through boxing and through God. He has taken 99% of that demon away.”

It was around 1997 when he started teaching a boxing class at Jackson’s Main Street Fitness. One thing led to another, and soon he found himself talking to groups about what God and boxing have done in his life.

“I was a guy who loved sports, loved physical activities, loved hitting people and loved people hitting me,” he said. “And that opened up the opportunity for me to talk about God in a way some people had never heard before.”

Danny retired in 2013, but instead of slowing down, he started the Christian Boxing Academy in a small workout facility on the corner of William Street and South Park Avenue in Cape Girardeau. There he not only teaches young men in the sixth through 12th grades how to box but also serves as a mentor and male role model.

“You can come down here any day of the week and find a variety of age groups, ethnic groups, economic groups,” Danny explained, “and none of that matters because the blood in the (boxing) ring was bled by human beings. Not by Black human beings, poor human beings, rich human beings or whatever. Boxing gives a whole different aspect to what it looks like to be graceful.”

The program is Danny’s way of honoring God by giving back to the community.

“But for me to say I do this to show my faith, it’s not,” he said. “I do this to live out my faith. There’s a big difference.”

Hundreds of youth have participated in the program since it began eight years ago, and during that time it has also been a springboard for several other ministries including one that helps people with Parkinson’s manage the effects of their disease through exercise and boxing training.

Danny, now 60, wants to expand the Christian Boxing Academy and its affiliated programs, but needs more volunteers to do so and to assure it continues well into the future.

“I plan on doing this three more years, but in those years I’m going to try to add a paid position so when I leave it doesn’t fall on its face,” he said.