The Fighter In Me

I felt my life was getting smaller. Would Parkinson’s take away everything? Would I let it?

- Emmett Diggs

“THIS IS EMMETT DIGGS,” MY voice mail greeting said. “Re-tired minister, active tennis player and happy man.” Not anymore. Not after what I’d had to do that morning.

I drove home and didn’t get out of the car right away. I sat there, wanting to pound on the steering wheel. I was so angry. Besides my wife, Patty, I had two loves in my life—boxing and tennis. And I’d been forced to give both up. I’d just told the Big Dogs, the buddies I’d played tennis with for the past 12 years, that it was time for me to quit the game.

A bitter loss at age 75. As bitter as quitting boxing at age 20.

All my life, I’d been active, athletic, competitive. My dad had been an amateur boxer, and he fixed up a gym for me in our barn. We stuffed old burlap sacks with chicken feed and sand and used them as punching bags. I competed in Golden Gloves tournaments. Never lost a fight. I loved boxing. If you got me in a corner, I liked to fight my way out. I even liked getting hit. I won the Virginia Golden Gloves welterweight championship in 1961.

I was in college at the time, serving as an intern minister. One day, the vice president of the college summoned me into his office. “I’ve gotten calls from your congregation,” he said. “Folks don’t like the fact that you’re fighting.”

The bumps and lace burns on my face must have given me away.

“You’ve got to decide,” he said. “Do you want to be a fighter or a preacher?”

I hung up my gloves. Ministry was my calling, no doubt about it. Still, I had lingering regrets about giving up boxing so young. I always wondered what I could have done in the ring. And I wondered why the Lord made me that good at something only to have it taken away.