“He was taking his nap in the nursery and on the wall I had a crucifix, which looked a little bit like a sword, the way the cross came down,” she said. “And little boys, being very physical beings, like to play with swords. But I’d always tried to tell him how the crucifix had been on my grandpa’s casket and that he should leave it up on the wall.
“Well, back then the Jehovah’s Witnesses used to come to our door — sometimes the Mormons, too — and I’d always talk with them. I wanted our kids to understand you never turned people away. We were Catholic, with a little c, and I wanted them to get that. I wanted them to know that we all were one — the whole Apostolic thing.”
Ann said she stressed other life lessons, as well: “When to fight for something, when to defend, that sort of thing … and always that you choose your battles carefully.”
And, on this particular afternoon some two decades ago — as her little boy supposedly was sleeping in the nursery — Ann said she was talking to some Jehovah’s Witnesses at the front of the house.
“Next thing I know, here comes Seth around the house to the front,” Ann chuckled. “We lived in a ranch style house and he had crawled out of a low window in his nursery. He was holding the crucifix just like a sword and he came up and said:
“ ‘Fight for right!… Fight for right!’
“I was very embarrassed, but actually that was very symbolic of him. He has a passion for trying to do the right thing. Even as a little boy he was trying to put it all together.”
And today, at 24, Seth may be a little closer to that task.
A couple of mornings ago, he wasn’t waving a sword, he was hammering two padded mitts into one of the heavy bags that hangs in Drake’s Downtown Gym, which earlier this year relocated to the old Greyhound bus station on E. Fifth Street.
Since graduating from Carroll High School, Seth has competed in two Toughman contests, has had a pair of amateur boxing matches, one at the Ohio State Fair and one at the Arnold Classic in Columbus, and next month he may headline the outdoor amateur show John Drake is putting on next to his gym.
More importantly, he will join the U.S. Navy in three months.
He took his oath in June and will report in October. He hopes to be accepted into the elite Navy SEALs. That’s one reason he’s training regularly at Drake’s and also going through strenuous SEAL workouts with Navy personnel at the Huber Heights YMCA each week.
“I’m really proud of him,” Drake said.
Ann is too, and as she talked about her boy, her voice filled with emotion:
“Every mother wants the best for her kids and the Navy has a reputation of excellence. My dad, Seth’s grandfather (Donald Stalter), was in the Navy, too. My husband and I are proud that Seth would make such a choice. It makes me a little teary-eyed just talking about it. It’s really pretty touching.”
Toughman success
Seth wrestled his first years at Carroll High and played football all the way through.
“He was the center and he was one of the scrawniest centers you’d ever see,” Ann said of her 175-pound son. “But I’m telling you he and the quarterback led those guys.”
At age 17, she said he told her he wanted to join the Navy. She convinced him to go to college with the chance of becoming an officer when he finished school.
“I went to Wright State on and off and Sinclair, too,” Seth said. “I probably had enough credits to become a doctor, but I tried several different things and nothing was really sticking.”
He now works at the Oregon Express on Fifth Street.
In recent years he and some of his friends began attending the Toughman contest at Hara Arena each January. Finally, he decided to enter and “give my buddies somebody to watch, somebody to root for.”
At first, it didn’t turn out the way he hoped.
“That first year I got my butt kicked,” he said with a laugh. “After that I came to Drake’s and said I wanted to learn to box competitively. I know he hears that from a lot of guys who walk in and he always says, ‘OK, come to the classes and let’s see what you’re made of. Let’s see how much you want it.’
“It’s a lot of sweat and work and the hard knocks. But there’s something about taking some punches and standing your ground. To me it’s the measure of a man.”
As Drake walked past, he added a detail Seth had omitted:
“Did he tell you the next year he went back to the Toughman and won it?”
Seth shrugged: “I knocked the first two guys out and went all three rounds and won the last fight. This time I did give the guys something to see.”
Finding his path
“After he’d quit school and was doing his boxing thing, we began to get a little concerned,” Ann said. “It wasn’t just my husband (Mark Justice) and me, it was the grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles. They all were kind of like, ‘OK, what’s the plan here?’
“His grandma said, ‘OK Seth, you’ve got do something with your life.’
“I was just being a smart aleck and I said, ‘Well, I think Seth has a great life. He’s picking his battles and he doesn’t have to be in a hurry to serve anybody but his own self and God.”
“And that’s when he said, ‘Well, I can serve my country, too.’
“Nobody said any more about it, but later that week he texted me that he was joining the Navy.”
Seth now laughs about that moment: “That same morning I told her I was on my way to go skydiving, too. I don’t know what had her worried the most.
“But I felt this would be something challenging and it would give me a career path. Down the way it will put me in a position that I can go back to college, too. And I can also be a part of something really special. The SEALs are no joke. It’s one of the toughest things you can do in the military.
“But I’m not going to go on and on about that, because I feel like I haven’t done anything yet. I haven’t shown anybody anything yet.”
That’s not quite true.
Ann said Seth’s initial foray into the fight game made her and her husband “worry that he’d been watching too many Rocky movies.”
Now she sees it differently: “It’s helped him with his focus, his confidence and his realization what he can be.”
Seth agreed:
“Coming to the gym, getting into boxing, has changed my life. The dedication, the work, it’s taken me in a different direction. I’d never have thought of the military if I wasn’t in the shape I’m in now.
“This has helped me realize that I really do have a chance to do something special. If you become a SEAL, you really can make a difference.”
He sounds almost like that toddler who once proclaimed he would “Fight for right!”
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