The Big Fight

by Sugar Ray Leonard

  “Momma, we just had a baby boy!” I shouted into the receiver. “A boy!”

  I was wrong. There was no excitement at the other end. She muttered a cold reply and promptly hung up. I couldn’t believe it. My happiness turned immediately into anger.

  To this day, when I reflect back on that conversation, I become hurt and confused. I don’t understand why she couldn’t have shown the slightest joy on such a glorious occasion for Juanita and me, the birth of our first child. She couldn’t accept Juanita, and she wasn’t the only one in the family who was mean to her. So was Roger. If he was on the porch when she came over to the house, he would call her a bitch or a motherfucker, and warn her to never show her face there again. Saddest of all was my own unforgivable role. When Juanita told me what Roger said to her, I never asked him to stop. I avoided confrontations. That’s who I was. Juanita went out of her way to break down the barrier between her and Momma, but when Getha Leonard made up her mind, there wasn’t a thing anybody could do.

  I’d like to say I was a model father, paying regular visits to be there for Juanita and Ray Jr. in every way, but that was not the case, then or ever. Even during Juanita’s pregnancy I was absent, sometimes for weeks.

  Perhaps the responsibility was too great. Or perhaps I resented the possibility of anyone holding me back from my quest to win the gold. Whatever my reasoning, I was gone, physically and mentally, too busy in the gym and in the sack. I fooled around quite a bit, including with Dave Jacobs’s two teenage daughters. My father went berserk when he found out about this particular fling, dragging me out of the Jacobs daughters’ place one morning at five o’clock and forcing me to run fifteen laps across the street from our house. I couldn’t be sure whether Pops was more upset that I was cheating on Juanita or that I wasn’t training hard enough for my upcoming duel with Dale Staley. In any case, I got back to work, and after I beat Staley, I resumed my affair with the Jacobs sisters and the other women in my life.

  To cheat on my girl, the mother of our child, who dropped out of high school to care for Ray Jr. and, for two years, gave me half of the forty dollars a week she earned at the gas station while I trained for the Olympics, was shameless beyond belief. At the time, I didn’t confess a thing to Juanita, but she knew. She always knew. After every extended absence, I would come back to see our son and renew our romance. That she knew as well. I wish I could admit that I harbored deep regrets about my conduct, but that, too, wouldn’t be the truth. I felt I was entitled to do anything I pleased in those days, from destroying other men to bedding other women, and nobody would dare try to stop me.

  Yet during these times of great promise, I was also feeling great pain, and it’s difficult to know where to begin. I will simply tell two stories, both similar, both equally disturbing, then and forever.

  The first has to do with a prominent Olympic boxing coach. I got to know the man, who was in his late forties, when he accompanied me and another fighter to an amateur boxing event in Utica, New York, in 1971. One night, he had the two of us take a bath in a tub of hot water and Epsom salts while he sat on the other side of the bathroom. We sensed that there was something a bit inappropriate about a grown man watching two teenagers in a tub, but because he was a male authority figure, we did not question him and eventually forgot about it.

  A few years later, I was sitting in the man’s car one night in the deserted parking lot across the street from the rec center when he started to tell me how important the Olympics could be to my future and how I stood an excellent chance of winning. To hear a major force in amateur boxing offer such high praise was a huge ego boost, which was maybe why it took me forever to see the real reason he had me in his car. Before I knew it, he had unzipped my pants and put his hand, then mouth, on an area that has haunted me for life. I didn’t scream. I didn’t look at him. I just opened the door and ran. I ran as fast as I could. He was lucky I didn’t have a gun or a knife because I would have killed the man and simply accepted the consequences. By the time I got to my house, which was only a few minutes away, I was drenched in sweat. I hurried to my room and stayed there for the rest of the evening. I did not want anyone to see my tears.

  When I first decided to share that incident in these pages, I didn’t tell the entire story. I couldn’t. It was too painful. Instead, I told a version in which the abuser stopped just as he reached my crotch. That was painful enough. But last year, after watching the actor Todd Bridges bare his soul on Oprah’s show about how he was sexually abused as a kid, I realized I would never be free unless I revealed the whole truth, no matter how much it hurt.

  In the years following the incident, whenever I saw the man around the neighborhood, I didn’t say a thing and neither did he. I looked at him and he looked at me. We both knew.

  Not long afterward, maybe five or six months later, it happened again, and again with someone I trusted.

  He was a short, bald elderly white gentleman with huge lips whom I became friendly with in Hillcrest. A respectable member of the community, he always wore a tie and sport coat. On about a dozen occasions, he handed me a wad of cash. The total was probably close to five hundred dollars, which was a lot of money in the early 1970s.

  I didn’t ask why. I didn’t care why. I didn’t wonder for a second if he was setting me up. All I knew was that the cash he gave me was, besides the twenty dollars a week I received from Juanita, the only spare change I would have, with every other penny going toward my boxing expenses. It took money to go to the amateur tournaments around the country, tons of it, and the only reason I went was due to the extra funds raised through bake sales and donations from folks in Palmer Park. I was grateful to him, and didn’t tell a soul.

  Every visit was during the day, when others weren’t far away. Then, for the first time, I went to see him after dark. In his upstairs office, between puffs of a cigarette, he gave me a pep talk about my boxing prospects.

  “It’s going to be okay, son,” he said. “Your credentials are going to be off the charts. You are going to be one of the greatest fighters of all time.”

  I loved to hear the praise. It was one thing to hear it from my parents, and quite another from a white man. I was also excited, as I knew more cash would shortly be in my possession. Except the man had something else in mind. He touched me on the shoulder, then moved toward my crotch.

  The nightmare was back.

  I wanted to scream, but didn’t. I wanted to kick his ass, but didn’t. Fortunately, my body grew so tense that he stopped in time, but barely. I ran out of his office. Once I was safely in my car, I started to shake uncontrollably. I don’t know how I made it home without getting in an accident.

  I never confronted the man, just as I had never confronted the first abuser, both of whom passed away decades ago. What would have been the point? The damage was done. As life went on inside and outside the ropes, I buried these memories as deeply as I could, as if nothing ever happened. There were too many good ones to put in their place.

  Except something did happen, something horrible, something words can never describe. For years, flashbacks to these two attacks disturbed me greatly, especially when I had too much to drink, which was quite often. The defenses I worked hard to construct would come crashing down, and I would not be able to stop the tears. I’d ask myself what every victim of abuse does: Did I do anything wrong to cause these men to take advantage of me? Each time I arrived at the same conclusion: absolutely not. If I experienced any guilt at all, it was that I didn’t destroy them right then and there.

  I began to wonder whether the fury I sometimes displayed in the ring, which was most uncharacteristic of my true nature, might be traced to these incidents as much as the fighting between my parents.

  I do not know. I am not a psychologist.

  I do know that I was in a lot of pain as I chased my dream of winning the gold.

  Yet chase it I did.

  2

  “My Journey Has Ended”

  Beating Bobby Magruder and
the other top fighters in the hotly competitive D.C. region was not easy. Beating the Russians and the Poles and the Cubans would be even tougher.

  I would first have to deal with the throbbing pain in my hands, which started around 1973 and became worse as the months dragged on. Every time I fought, especially the long, rigorous sparring sessions, the pain, caused by calcium deposits around my knuckles, was awful, and it sometimes took me hours to fall asleep. I felt as if someone had shot me with a jolt of electricity. My trainers and I tried every possible remedy, from rubbing alcohol to Epsom salts to Ben-Gay. Nothing solved the problem. I realized the pain would be a regular companion throughout my quest for the gold, and if I wasn’t prepared to accept this reality, I might as well give up before wasting more time and money. While that thought did occur to me, as it does to every boxer, I never came close to quitting. It is remarkable what one is willing to tolerate if the goal means that much.

  The one remedy that did have a positive effect was winning. My hands did not seem to hurt quite as badly after I knocked someone out or earned a decision. Even when I did lose, my confidence continued to soar. Such as the time I took on Anatoli Kamnev, a talented Russian fighter, in Moscow. Not surprisingly, just as in Cincinnati, I was robbed by the judges, who awarded the decision to one of their own. To his credit, Kamnev promptly walked across the ring and handed me the trophy. In another unforgettable fight, I sent Poland’s Kazimier Szczerba to the canvas three times during the final round, the last one a certain knockout. But the referee decided the punch came after the bell, which it didn’t, and awarded the victory to Szczerba. I don’t think he enjoyed it too much, however, as he needed to be propped up to take part in the postfight ceremony. And I thought figure skating was rigged.

  Going abroad to take on fighters from other countries was the ideal preparation for the Olympics, and for my personal development. I knew very little about the world outside Palmer Park, Maryland, and without boxing, I probably would have remained sheltered forever. One day, walking by myself in Rome, I came upon a girl no older than eight or nine who stared at me for the longest time. She took off, but then returned with a handful of other kids, each with the same puzzled expression. What was wrong with me? I wondered. Had they never seen a black person before? As a matter of fact, I believe they had not, and soon there were a few dozen gathered in a circle around me. I felt like I was on exhibit at the zoo. They weren’t bashful, either, touching my hair and my skin. It occurred to them that while I was different, I was a human being just like them. No one spoke to me, but I felt their love.

  Going abroad was not always an enjoyable experience. In Moscow, the food was terrible. I wouldn’t eat much of anything but ice cream. It became obvious that the Russians were also staring because I was black. Only, I did not feel their love. Being away from home for several weeks, the longest stretch of my life, the loneliness got to me like never before. I became depressed, asking my roommate to kneel down and pray with me on the floor by my bed, and I was not the religious type. About a year later, when I was out of town preparing for the 1975 Pan American Games in Mexico City, I called Dave Jacobs to tell him I could no longer take the isolation and wanted to come home. He talked me out of it. He said I’d come too far and was too close to winning the gold in Mexico. He was right. The victory at the Pan Am Games gave me a profound boost of confidence heading into 1976, and it wouldn’t have happened without Jake’s persistence. I got through a lot of lonely nights with the love letters I received from Juanita. I wrote her whenever I left the United States for a long period, and could not wait to hear back.

  It was around this time when a new member joined my team—well, not officially, as his checks were signed by ABC Sports, but it sure felt as if Howard Cosell were on my side.

  With Muhammad Ali approaching the end of his brilliant career, Howard was searching for his next sidekick. In me, he saw someone who could not only win his fights but also appeal to the nonboxing fans, which meant good ratings and advertising dollars for ABC. Howard covered a few of my amateur fights, setting the stage for the Games in Montreal. He and I never established the magical rapport he enjoyed with Ali, but I can’t imagine how my career would have progressed without him, and where I would be today. With Howard as the announcer, ABC carried each of my fights in the Olympics, and perhaps more significant were the interviews, bringing out the best of my personality to fans all over America. I was careful, however, not to let the inevitable comparisons to Ali get to my head. The attention would vanish as fast as it emerged if I didn’t perform where it mattered most, between the ropes.

  I could never be Ali outside the ropes. Nobody could. As unpredictable as he was in public, that was nothing compared to the Ali I observed in private. I got to see that side of him during our first meeting in early 1976, when I was invited by the Touchdown Club in D.C. to present him with an award. I was never as self-conscious of my poor upbringing. When I pulled up in a little blue Chevy Nova and saw a parking lot filled with one limousine after another, I made a U-turn and parked on the street a few blocks away.

  At the dinner table, Ali sat on my left. Leave it to him to ease any tension.

  “How long do you stop having pussy before a fight?” he said, with the same delivery as if he were asking me to pass the mashed potatoes.

  I almost choked on my food.

  “About two days,” I answered, once I composed myself.

  “Two days?” he said without looking up. “You a baaaaad nigger.”

  In the late spring of ’76, I went back to Cincinnati for the Olympic Trials. As Sarge Johnson had predicted, the lessons I learned four years earlier made me a much better fighter. In my first qualifying match, I won a decision vs. Ronnie Shields. Next up was Sam Bonds, a tall, skinny southpaw. It did not take me long to figure him out. I hit him with a jab to the body, another jab, and a right. It was over in forty-two seconds.

  In the final, I squared off against Bruce Curry, the Golden Gloves state champion from Texas.

  Getting by Curry was far from automatic. He was an outstanding boxer, a future junior welterweight champ, but that wasn’t my major problem. It was my right hand, which hurt terribly, forcing me to throw one left after another, and he knew it. He became more aggressive in round two. Unless I showed Curry a different look, he might take control of the fight. I couldn’t let that happen. Late in the second, I landed a combination. The pain was intense but I had no choice. In the third, I scored repeatedly with my left, again sparing the right as much as possible. The decision was mine.

  Shortly afterward, Curry and I met again at the team’s training camp in Vermont for what was known as a box off. If he were to prevail, we’d face each other in a third, and final, match with an Olympic berth in the light welterweight division on the line. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that, as I beat Curry once more. I was going to Montreal. I owed an extraordinary amount to Dave Jacobs, Pepe Correa, and Janks Morton for getting me this far. They never stopped believing in me, and their faith was paying off. Now it would be up to U.S. Olympic boxing coaches Pat Nappi and Sarge Johnson to help me win the gold.

  As the Games approached, the pressure was intense, and not just on me. In 1972, only one American boxer, light welterweight Sugar Ray Seales, captured the gold medal in Munich. We could live with the fact that other countries poured millions into their amateur programs, but we were the United States of America, producing such outstanding Olympic champions as Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, and George Foreman, in 1960, 1964, and 1968, respectively. Winning only one gold was something we could not live with.

  There were plenty of reasons to believe we wouldn’t suffer a similar fate in Montreal. In addition to me, the squad included the two Spinks brothers, Michael (middleweight) and Leon (light heavyweight), Howard Davis (lightweight), and Leo Randolph (flyweight). Another positive was the experience we had gained in taking on the best boxers from other nations, often on unfriendly soil. We were familiar with their styles and strengths, primarily the Europ
eans. Nonetheless, the experts didn’t expect us to dominate. There were too many other good fighters.

  In Vermont, we learned how to be a team, not a collection of gifted individuals out for their own glory. As usual, I was shy in any group setting, although the earlier overseas trips, as well as the Cosell interviews, loosened me up to the point that I was selected as captain.

  Of course, being young and immature, our egos collided. Howard Davis and I were sparring innocently when, as a CBS TV crew filmed us, he went after me hard, giving me a black eye. I didn’t retaliate at the time, but that night I complained to teammate Louis Curtis. My pride was definitely on the line.

  “He’s trying to overshadow me,” I told Louis.

  “Just show him, Ray,” he said.

  I did just that. In our next sparring session a few days later in Montreal, after he threw a lazy jab, I dropped him with a right hand. My pride was just fine.

  In general, everyone got along superbly. We laughed together—the tap dancing by Chuck Walker, the lone white boxer, was a source of constant amusement—and we cried together, rallying around Howard after his mother died suddenly of a heart attack. He thought about giving up his bid but we assured him that she would want her son to bring home the gold. Everyone shared the same goal of turning pro after the Games, earning as much money as possible before our bodies gave out. Everyone except me. I didn’t waver for a minute: My dream would end in Montreal. That was the promise I made to my mother, Juanita, and myself.