BUTLER — Laying in a hospital bed 25 years ago, his neck in traction, Steve Six made a promise.

The amateur boxer had unknowingly competed twice with a shattered disk in his neck.

“I just thought I was sore and was trying to fight through it,” Six said. “Next thing I knew, I was in traction for 12 days.

“Everything I had was gone. I’d always relied on physical strength to get by in life. Now I couldn’t even get out of bed on my own.”

Growing up in Karns City, the 54-year-old described himself as a “street thug” in his younger days.

“I learned how to box from a book written in the 1940s,” he said. “I still have that book at home. I took boxing lessons at the YMCA for eight weeks with Rich Gregory in 1975.

“He sent me up to the Cubs hall and I’ve been there ever since.”

Six fought about 20 amateur fights before injuring his neck.

“While I was in traction, the doctor told me my boxing career was over,” Six said. “I was scared to death. I was brought up with the idea that men don’t cry. My stepdad used to say, ‘Go ahead and cry, and I’ll give you something to cry about.’

“I remember thinking, ‘Lord, get me through this and I’ll do anything you want.’”

Three months later, Six was medically cleared to return to boxing.

“I wasn’t allowed out of the house for a month after leaving the hospital,” he said. “I went back to the doctor after that and he said my neck was perfect.

“I asked him if he thought God had something to do with it. He said God must have fixed it, because he didn’t.”

Religion has played a major role in Six’s life since.

He returned to the Cubs hall and had two more amateur fights, but began working with younger kids. Five years later — 1986 — he began the boxing outreach program there.

Six works with kids who come in off the street, court-referred kids and young adults. He also does more than just boxing. He’s served as a chaplain for Butler County prison inmates and does biblical counseling and marriage counseling.

He works well with troubled youths because he was a troubled youth himself.

“I know what it’s like to fight the odds,” Six said. “When I boxed, I used to run seven miles a day, from Petrolia to Kaylor, to spar in an old barn against Elmer Albee.

“Elmer was the only other fighter around who was available to spar with. He was 6-foot-3, 240 pounds; I was 5-9, 158. We fought inside a 10-foot squared ring, so I couldn’t exactly run away from him.”

When the boxing outreach program began, Six worked with 20 to 25 kids per year. He works with 500 to 1,000 kids per year today.

The boxing outreach program was reincorporated in 1992 and became the Specialty Outreach Program. Six has been its only executive director.

“We counsel kids, give them direction, show them we care about them,” Six said. “Our impact is so much more than just training boxers, but boxing is still our drawing card.

“Of the 500 kids who first come through these doors, 400 come for the boxing.”

Don Spinetti has been one of the boxing trainers at the Butler Cubs hall for years, dating back to when Six was a boxer there.

“If it wasn’t for Don, I wouldn’t be here,” Six said. “He showed me what it was like to care for a kid.

“Back in the ’70s, he would take two or three carloads of kids to amateur boxing shows. On the way back, we’d stop for dinner or a snack and Don would pay for everyone out of his own pocket.

“I’d never experienced anything like that. And I’ve never forgotten it.”