Boxing was a path to the future. Boxing was not the future.
On July 17, 1976, along with more than six thousand athletes from ninety-two countries, I walked into a scene unlike any other I’ve ever witnessed—the opening ceremony of what was known officially as the Games of the XXI Olympiad. Starting with Greece, the delegations from each nation paraded into Olympic Stadium, their flags raised, their hopes even higher. Queen Elizabeth II, in respect to the people of Quebec, gave the welcoming address in French. Moments later, thousands of pigeons were released to signify the opening of the Games. It’s too bad that I remember very little. My mind was busy on the task ahead. With the endorsements I was likely to receive if I was successful, I’d be set financially, and free to pursue my next goal of being the first in my family to earn a college degree. The classroom would be no easier than the ring.
Each night, as I stayed in the Olympic Village, protected by hundreds of armed security guards and numerous iron gates—it was only four years since the devastating attack on the Israeli athletes in Munich—I went to sleep thinking about my next fight, and about Juanita. She didn’t go to Canada with me. Girlfriends weren’t allowed in the Village, and besides, she and I were in one of our frequent cooling-off periods, dating back a few months. I can’t recall what broke us up on that occasion, but it’s safe to assume I was to blame, another episode of womanizing the likely cause. Yet while I kept messing around, first with a girl in Vermont and then one in Montreal, Juanita was the only one I truly loved. I wrote poems to her every week and taped her picture on my sock for the whole world to see. Not for one moment did I imagine she and I were done for good, so deep were my feelings for her, even if I had a strange way of expressing them. It was clear to everybody around me that I needed her there for moral support.
Dave Jacobs seized the initiative, persuading a reluctant Juanita, who left behind little Ray and an offer to become the assistant manager at a clothing store to join about a dozen others in a borrowed camper to make the all-night trek from Palmer Park. The trip turned out to be about a hundred miles longer than necessary after they took a wrong turn and were headed toward Toronto before realizing their error. Daddy was perhaps the most excited of everyone, going on the long journey despite the fact that his boss men warned him that he would lose his job if he went. He didn’t care. Nothing was going to prevent this navy vet from watching a son of his represent his beloved country. After they arrived in Montreal midway through the competition, the camper parked only about four blocks from the Village, I went to visit them every chance I got. One thing you could safely say about the Leonards: They weren’t very interested in keeping a low profile. Pictures of me were plastered on the windows, signs proclaiming: RAY LEONARD FAN CLUB, PALMER PARK, MD. I was a bit embarrassed, but loved it. Having them around after being on my own for two months was a source of great comfort. The men slept in the camper while the women shared a room in a motel.
In my opening bout, I faced Sweden’s Ulf Carlsson. I knew very little about him except that he was a typical European fighter, always coming forward, displaying almost no lateral movement. I was patient, scoring repeatedly with the left jab. In round two, I landed a series of combinations and thought the Swede might go down, but he hung on. The decision was never in doubt. Next came southpaw Valery Limasov from the Soviet Union, quicker than Carlsson and one of the favorites for the gold. Early on, he gave me trouble with an effective right lead, and I couldn’t get inside. I finally did in the second, connecting with hard rights and lefts, and rallied late in the third to advance. I then defeated England’s Clinton McKenzie, finishing strong again, causing a standing eight-count with about forty seconds left in the third round.
In the quarterfinals against East Germany’s Ulrich Beyer, I was aggressive from the start and controlled the opening round, though I didn’t land any real heavy blows. In the second, Beyer held his own, but I connected late in the round with a powerful right uppercut that pushed his head back. I then kept up the pressure in the third and coasted to victory. In the semis, I faced Kazimier Szczerba, the fighter from Poland whom I lost to when the referee ruled that my knockout punch came after the bell. I was intent on leaving no room for human error in our rematch, and I couldn’t waste any time. That was perhaps the most critical difference between the amateurs and the pros. With only three rounds to make an impression, every second counted.
With about a minute left in the first round, after carefully measuring him, I started to get through his defenses on a consistent basis. In the second, I scored with my left over and over. Szczerba didn’t come close to going down, but I dictated the tempo and secured the decision. There was nothing the judges could do this time.
Finally, the day arrived, Saturday, July 31. After 149 fights, which included 144 victories, there was only one left and it would be the most important of all.
I didn’t get much sleep the night before and was up early, around seven o’clock, three or four hours before the weigh-in. After I made weight, I spent the early afternoon walking around the grounds with my family.
Around three or four o’clock, someone suggested I go back to my room and get a little rest. It wasn’t that simple. For four years, I had dreamed of this moment and sacrificed everything. Now it was almost here.
There were still two major obstacles standing in my path.
One was the condition of my hands, which hurt more than ever, the result of five fights in twelve days. The pain was so bad in my right hand that I could barely make a fist. The other was Andres Aldama, the fierce Cuban fighter I would face in the final.
There was little I could do about my hands. I soaked them in ice for hours to bring down the swelling, but knew the first punch I threw would bring the pain right back.
Aldama was another matter. He was so dominant in the semis against the Bulgarian Vladimir Kolev—the poor guy was taken out of the ring on a stretcher after he was knocked unconscious—that as I watched a tape of the fight in a screening room at the Village, I overheard another athlete say, “Oh, shit, this is the guy fighting Sugar Ray next? He is going to destroy him.” I snuck out the back of the room.
I could understand the sentiment. Yet I was not deterred. I was never deterred. Not in the ring.
The strategy against Aldama was to take advantage of my superior lateral movement and hand speed. If I failed to maintain a safe distance, Aldama would discover his range, deliver his shots, and I might be the one leaving on a stretcher.
My mind wandered a lot during those final hours as I lay on my bed. I dozed off, eventually.
It was time to leave for the arena. The team boarded the bus for the short trip. I didn’t say a word. I don’t think anybody did. What was there to say? We knew what we had to do.
In the locker room, Sarge Johnson, speaking in his familiar deep voice, led us in prayer.
Our dreams began to come true. Leo Randolph took home the gold and Howard Davis did the same. His mom would have been proud. Now it was my turn to keep the streak going. Four years of hard work were about to come down to nine minutes. It almost seemed unfair.
I bowed to the fans in each corner of the stadium, which I did before every fight.
The bell rang.
In the first round, my plan worked beautifully, as Aldama, referred to as “the Cuban” by Cosell and analyst George Foreman, did not come close to inflicting any serious damage, while I scored with a few solid left hooks. Still, I didn’t do anything foolish, as I found out real fast how hard Aldama could hit. Nobody had ever hit me that hard. I also figured that Aldama would tire himself out, which was exactly what happened. I closed strong with a series of stinging combinations, giving him something to think about during the one-minute break between rounds. He wasn’t sending me away on a stretcher.
In round two, I showed more movement, darting to Aldama’s right to avoid his left. Then it happened, a sudden left landing right where I was aiming—Aldama’s head—catching him, Cosell, and the crowd in Montreal by surpris
e. Aldama stood for a split second, then went down on one knee. He was not badly hurt, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that I seized a sizable lead and needed only to stay on my feet in the final round to win the fight—and the gold. This was no time for heroics.
Requiring a knockout to win, Aldama came after me more aggressively, but his desperate attack made him more vulnerable. So much for being conservative. I landed five straight punches, which eliminated any possibility of a last-ditch comeback.
The seconds couldn’t go by fast enough. Finally, the bell rang, and there was no need to wait for the official verdict (5–0). The stadium went crazy. My supporters went crazy. I went crazy. The gold medal was mine, one of five the U.S. boxing team won in Montreal, only one less than the entire track squad, along with a silver and a bronze. Howard Davis was chosen as the Games’ most outstanding fighter. I didn’t care. The shame of 1972 was avenged at last. No boxing team to represent America in the Olympics has surpassed our success, and that includes the 1952 group that featured future world heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson.
Nonetheless, I made it clear again that I was done with boxing. The exact words were: “My journey has ended. My dream is fulfilled.” And I meant it.
During the ceremony when they played the national anthems for the three medal winners, one might assume I was euphoric, able to let go of the emotions bottled up for years. That’s not what happened. No doubt I was filled with great satisfaction, the kind that can come only after investing every ounce of one’s being in a difficult mission. I was proud, as well, for those who believed in me—my coaches, friends, family, and fans. It was their triumph as much as mine.
Yet I felt as empty as I’d ever felt. It dawned on me that my career in boxing, which had changed me forever, was over. So focused was I during the last days in Montreal, I didn’t stop for a second to absorb it all, and it was probably a good thing, as I needed to put my energy completely toward beating my opponents. Any mental lapse might have been disastrous.
Now reality was sinking in and I wasn’t ready for it, the end of a life that gave me more than I could ever imagine, more than a medal and fame. Boxing was an escape from the places I dared not enter. How would I find peace now?
As I surveyed the fans, decked in red, white, and blue, waving American flags, I decided I would cry to show them how much capturing the gold meant to me. Strange, isn’t it, that I felt the need to create a reaction instead of being comfortable with the one that came to me naturally? It said a lot, I believe, about who I really was behind the mask of smiles and sweetness. I was sad and lonely, always searching for approval and a way to protect myself. If I assumed command of my emotions, no one could hurt me. If I let myself be vulnerable, the pain would be unbearable.
After the ceremony wrapped up, I headed for the exit. Now that I owned the gold, there was little to do except go back to Palmer Park. Still wearing my trunks and sweat suit, the medal hanging from my neck, I waited in the camper by myself while my parents and friends searched everywhere, until Jake figured out where I was. It felt like hours, but it probably was no longer than thirty minutes. I must have downed five sodas. I kept touching the medal to see if it was real.
“Let’s leave now,” I said after everyone climbed excitedly on board. “I’m ready to go home.”
“Ray, what are you talking about?” they said, referring to the possessions I left behind in my room, which included trunks, shoes, and T-shirts.
I didn’t care. After two months on the road, I couldn’t wait to be back in my own bed, and although I owned a plane ticket for the next day, and might have arrived home before the camper—it was a fourteenhour drive to Palmer Park—I needed, for my own peace of mind, to leave Montreal right away. We were soon on the highway, my head cradled in Juanita’s loving arms. It wasn’t very long before I received the first indication of my new celebrity status. At the border crossing between the United States and Canada, one of the guards, noticing the SUGAR RAY signs on the windows, asked to see the medal, kissed it, and then let us proceed. The hours went by in a hurry, everybody talking about the fight with the Cuban, and the fights before. The only downer during the ride was the condition of my hands. They hurt so badly that we went to a hospital about an hour from Palmer Park to have them X-rayed. We then stopped at a gas station a few miles from home. I combed my hair and was ready for my close-up.
When the camper arrived in Landover, we were given a police escort for the final stretch. I could not believe it. Police escorts were for presidents not fighters. In no time, we were at the shopping mall, where a welcoming ceremony had been planned. I saw the proud faces of the men and women who had given their time and energy to make my dream possible.
Over the next few days, I received mail from fans throughout the world, and our phone rang off the hook, many callers claiming to be “friends” when the truth was that I barely knew them. Strangers rode by the house hoping to get a peek at the local boy who had been on TV. Chalk it up as my first lesson in the Price of Fame 101.
Some lessons were harder to learn than others, such as the one that began with an article in the Washington Star a few days after we returned from Canada.
The headline said it all: COUNTY STUNS SUGAR RAY WITH A SURPRISE BLOW.
It was a surprise blow, all right, the sobering news that the Prince George’s State’s Attorney’s Office had filed a paternity suit against me in court as part of a general crackdown against welfare cheaters all over the country. I was informed that the filing was standard procedure because Juanita had applied for public assistance, requiring authorities to verify the identity of the father and determine if he could provide financial support. Without the suit, a woman would not be eligible to receive the help she needed for herself and her child.
The assurance meant nothing. People would still believe I was no better than other members of the supposedly lazy black race, eager to shirk my responsibility at any cost. I found the timing of the story—a low-level county bureaucrat must have leaked the suit to the press—bizarre, to say the least, and then it made perfect sense: a deliberate reminder from the ruling white class that, gold medal or not, I still was, and always would be, a nigger. To be treated with such disrespect after helping U.S. boxing recapture the prestige it lost in the 1972 Olympics was inexcusable. Plus, I never tried to hide the fact that I was the father of a two-year-old boy. I was proud of Ray Jr., and everyone knew it.
As usual, I kept these feelings of betrayal to myself. I was not an Ali or a Jesse Jackson, who confronted racism whenever they saw it. Just because, thanks to Pepe, I knew many of the words of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, didn’t mean they resonated deeply in my soul. I may have been articulate, but I was still wary of confrontation. The feelings did not go away. They helped me understand the barriers I would need to overcome in whatever career path I chose.
Other reminders of my place in the world followed in the weeks ahead, especially in the singular issue that has long epitomized the wide gap between the two races, the almighty dollar.
Thanks to Janks Morton, a meeting was arranged with the two of us and Mike Trainer, an attorney who worked out of a small secondstory office in the D.C. suburb of Silver Spring. Janks knew Mike from playing on the same recreational softball team. He asked him to help me explore options for how to earn money after Montreal. Mike, who ran a general practice, wasted little time. He was extremely serious, which automatically made me uncomfortable. It took me years to realize this was how business was conducted. I hardly spoke during the entire meeting.
Mike gave Janks a bewildered look, as if asking, What the heck is wrong with this guy? Does he know how to talk?
“Don’t worry,” Janks said. “I’ll call you later.”
Thanks to Mike, who knew somebody high up at the school, I was awarded a nonathletic scholarship to the University of Maryland, where I planned to pursue a degree in business administration. I also wanted to help kids just as I was helped.
The
first day of classes was weeks away. In the meantime, I’d cash in on my new fame just as swimmer Mark Spitz did in 1972, perhaps appearing on the front of the Wheaties box. To help me sift through the offers, we contacted public relations specialist Charlie Brotman. Charlie knew everyone in town, working wonders with the Washington Whips, the soccer franchise, and the Tapers, the professional basketball squad. If Charlie could generate awareness for these rather obscure outfits, he would make a fortune for an Olympic gold medalist and TV star.
I waited for a letter in the mail or a knock at the front door from somebody offering me $1 million, and it couldn’t happen fast enough. I thought back to the night early in my courtship with Juanita when I asked her to the movies. I went to Kenny and my mother to borrow a car. They turned me down. With nobody else to approach, I had to tell Juanita we couldn’t go. I was ashamed and determined.
“Juanita,” I said, “one day, I promise you, I’ll have enough money that I won’t have to ask anybody for anything. They’re going to have to come to us for money.”
In the aftermath of Montreal, that day had arrived.
Or so I assumed. As the summer wore on, the glow from the gold fading by the hour, it became evident that Madison Avenue did not picture me as the right person to promote its products to Middle America.
“We loved watching Ray in the Olympics,” was the standard response, according to Charlie, “and we know he has a great future ahead of him, but . . .” The “but” had to do with the paternity suit. As I feared, they didn’t bother to check the facts.
In their view, there was no room in a family company for a black spokesman—a difficult sell to begin with—who had a child out of wedlock and didn’t fulfill his obligations as a father. It didn’t help that fighters had never been seen as ideal role models. Poor, uneducated, inarticulate, they would not appeal to average, hardworking Americans. Instead, the only offers I got were for appearances at local businesses, with the payoff very little—a few hundred dollars, tops—or, at times, none at all. I went anyway. I accepted every free dinner I could. That’s what growing up the way I did will do to you.
The Big Fight Page 6