Just before dawn, in the semi-dark, empty parking lot of Linden-McKinley High School, L.B. Towns and most of his 16 children gasp for air as they finish an onslaught of push-ups. Sweat drips onto the asphalt as they start their humid, September morning run, one sister helping another up as she stumbles, another sibling running behind his brother to make sure he keeps pace with the others.
“Five days a week, every week,” L.B. Towns said in a booming voice. “COME ON NOW,” he shouts to a couple of stragglers in the group.
For the Towns family, this is the discipline that motivates them to do great things. This is the love that pushes them to be better each day.
Family. Faith. Fortitude.
There are many words that characterize the core values instilled in the Towns children. But every value they have are built upon one foundation — community.
L.B. Towns, a Columbus raised street preacher, former Ohio University boxing champ and devoted father, raises his 16 children alongside his wife Christinia with the same principles he was raised with.
Towns shows his children what self discipline can offer them and their future.
“They can do great things if they want to do them,” Towns said. He makes sure his children understand that they aren’t owed anything in life but that they can have anything if they want it bad enough and are willing to work hard enough for it.
There is no transgression that goes unaddressed in the Towns home. There is no tear that goes uncomforted between them. Each sibling looks after one another and they push each other to excel, whether it be on the field, on the chess board, dancing and playing at home or on their morning runs. They function as a unit.
It is this familial unit that holds them together during these uncertain times. A pandemic undoubtedly impacts every aspect of daily life to some degree, but for the Towns, it changes little about how they function together.
Whatever tomorrow brings us is up to god, Towns says emphatically. His faith assures him of that. Regardless of what tomorrow has in store, the Towns family will take it on together, one push-up at a time.