Shortly thereafter the Saints top running back and former Heisman Trophy winner, George Rogers, told a federal grand jury in New Orleans that he had spent $10,000 on cocaine since joining the league in 1981. Saints running back Chuck Muncie told a New Orleans newspaper that he had bought cocaine from former Saints running back Michael Strachan, who was under indictment for distribution.
In the summer of 1982 the Justice Department began a drug probe on Capitol Hill that targeted congressmen and top aides. It would last 18 months and cost the government $2 million before it quietly fizzled, with only the convictions of six tour guides and elevator operators.
After the 1982 baseball season Montreal Expos outfielder Tim Raines checked into a 30-day detox program at a California treatment center. After completing it, Raines confessed publicly that he had spent $40,000 on cocaine in the first nine months of 1982, and that he had snorted between innings in the bathroom behind the dugout, and before games in the parking lot outside the stadium. Raines had hidden little gram bottles of cocaine in his batting glove or pocket, and when he carried the bottles in his pocket he would be sure to slide into a base head first, to protect his investment,
By 1983 executives in the NFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball routinely inquired about potential "chemical imbalance" before they obtained a player. Dodgers reliever Steve Howe became the first known "second-offender" in any major sport, and four Kansas City Royals - former Cy Young winner Vida Blue, Willie Wilson, Willie Mays Aikens, and Jerry Martin - were sentenced to three months in prison for cocaine possession.
Leonard turned to cocaine, he later claimed, after his eye injury drove him from the ring. As Rick Reilly wrote in Sports Illustrated, Leonard had left the ring "for a world of HBO stand-ups and life as a human cummerbund." Most elite athletes disengage gradually. With Leonard it happened virtually overnight, at a relatively young age, 26, and left a vacuum. He claimed that cocaine and alcohol helped him cope with what he described as depression.
"I used it when I felt bad...when I missed competing...during periods of great depression," Leonard said.
Juanita also believed depression was a factor in Leonard's use of cocaine and alcohol.
"Commentating just was not enough," Juanita recounted. "He was the kind of fighter that did it, and that being taken away from him, I think devastated him more than any negative event in his life."
1983: "You beat him"
Hagler loaded his family into a 36-foot recreational vehicle and drove west in late summer of 1983. Escorted in a separate car by photographer Angie Carlino and a friend, Jack Hurley, Hagler covered 36 states and 11,000 miles, staying at KOA campgrounds, with stops at Mt. Rushmore and at a dude ranch in Wyoming. Hagler rode horses and ate exotic foods such as alligator and buffalo steak.
By now, Hagler knew to trade his celebrity for drinks, meals, accommodations, and souvenirs. "He learned how to play," Carlino recalled. Though comfortably wealthy, Hagler's frugality was deeply ingrained. He complained that disclosure of his purses set him up as a mark for scams, and asked Arum to keep the figures private. He kept a short rein on Brockton accountant Peter Mareb, who handled his finances. Hagler met once a month with Mareb and was active in investment decisions. He insisted on a conservative portfolio heavy on bonds, which stood him in good stead when the stock market nosedived in 1987. To Arum, Hagler had become a "classic New England Yankee" who lived below his means and abjured ostentation. In this, Hagler channeled Marciano, a legendary penny-pincher, but was distinct from many free-spending champions who had come to financial ruin.
In small towns Hagler stopped at local gyms and chatted with fighters. Everywhere, admirers lavished him with warmth and respect. In Hollywood Hagler was a guest on the sets of two TV shows, "M*A*S*H" and "Dynasty," and one film, Johnny Dangerously. The making of entertainment fascinated Hagler; he sat for hours watching the oft-tedious work and never seemed bored or impatient. To actress Joan Collins, the star of "Dynasty," he offered a Marvelous Marvin t-shirt. She graciously accepted but declined to wear it.
If Hagler was in an unusually good mood on vacation there was a reason. A multi-million dollar payday had materialized with the most unexpected opponent - Roberto Duran. A little more than 21/2 years after his "No Mas" disgrace, Duran had climbed off the scrap heap and won a junior middleweight title. When Duran knocked out Davey Moore in 8 rounds, in June 1983, among the audience at Madison Square Garden were Hagler and his oldest son, Gentry. Duran's resurrection occurred shortly after Hagler, bored by his recent opponents (Tony Sibson, TKO 6; Wilford Scypion, KO 4) and worn down by his harsh training regimen, had hinted at retirement. "How long can you keep beating your head against a wall?" Hagler asked. "How long can you keep psyching yourself? How long can you keep getting your body in shape?"
Now thoughts of retirement receded as an ebullient Hagler told reporters, "I would like to have seen (Duran) get out of the game, but I guess this proves that if you hang around long enough you get what's coming to you." Arum immediately declared a Hagler-Duran bout to be "the fight everyone wants to see" and pegged Hagler's purse at $5 million plus a percentage of the closed-circuit revenues. By the time Hagler finished his vacation 21/2 months later the bout was set.
(c) Angie Carlino
Roberto Duran, left, and Marvelous Marvin Hagler before their 1983 bout at Caesars Palace.
The bout, on November 10, 1983, at Caesars Palace, was Hagler's first Big Fight, namely, one that transcended boxing and captured a general sports audience. The best part of it, from Hagler's perspective, was that he was a supporting character to Duran's lead. The marketing hook was Duran's bid to redeem himself after the humiliation of No Mas. "The glory, the fall, and the redemption," was how Luis Spada, Duran's new trainer-manager, described it.
The worst part of it, from Hagler's perspective, was that he respected and liked Duran. Hagler had been a fan of Duran's, and had watched his bouts on TV, throughout the 1970s. Just a few months earlier Hagler and Duran had been guests of comedian Bob Hope on a TV special. The two had warmed to one another, though Hagler backed off when he sensed Duran had sized him up for the ring.
Duran was long past being the best pound-for-pound boxer he had been a decade earlier at 135 pounds. At 1561/2 pounds he no longer was as fast, and his punch did not numb larger opponents. But he still was clever, and experienced, and he understood the Fight Game as well as anybody. He knew, for instance, that Hagler was conflicted, unable to objectify him, as he had other opponents. Indeed, at the New York press conference announcing the bout, Duran held out his hand, and after a brief hesitation, Hagler shook it - perhaps the only time in his career he shook an opponent's hand before a bout.
Leonard, for HBO, covered a press conference attended by both fighters two days before the bout. Arum, the promoter, accorded Leonard a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment.
"Guys who are contenders start hanging around, and this guy really wants to fight the winner," Arum said. "He's a contender...a fairly decent fighter...Sugar Ray Leonard."
Leonard smiled good-naturedly, palms up in surrender. His reaction was not persuasive. Later that day, he told Post columnist Dave Kindred that he had no intention of fighting again. In the next breath, however, he said that life was "unpredictable" and that he missed the challenge, the competition, and "the threat" of boxing.
Though a 4-1 favorite, Hagler nearly lost the fight. Duran chose to box, feint, move at angles, and induce Hagler to miss. Hagler fought without urgency or fire, and repeatedly walked into Duran's sneaky right hand counter. When Hagler hurt Duran in the 6th round, inexplicably, he failed to follow up.
Though a difficult bout to score, after 13 rounds two judges had Duran ahead by one point and the third judge had it even. Hagler won the last two rounds, solidly, to salvage an uninspired performance. At the final bell, Duran leaned through the ropes, and said to Leonard, "You beat him."
Leonard turned to Dunlap and said, "He picks up his foot first - I can tap him every time he picks it up."
Sour reviews preceded an angry accounting of revenues. Bill Nack, in Sports Illustrated, wrote of Hagler, "He's a stalker, conservative and cautious, almost insecure, whose ring presence can be likened to that of a mechanic in a garage - speak softly and carry a big wrench."
Hagler expected to bank his $5 million guarantee plus a percentage of closed-circuit TV revenues, but he was infuriated to learn that his "upside" never kicked in despite a $30 million gross. Wainwright, the Brockton attorney who had pulled political strings to advance Hagler's career, was blamed and fired.
Three months later Leonard invited HBO broadcaster Barry Tompkins, in Miami for a telecast, to lunch on a chartered boat. As they sat on the bow, Leonard brought up Hagler.
"He said, 'You want to know how to beat Marvin Hagler?'" Tompkins recalled. "'I'll tell you how. You've got to fight for 10 seconds, or 15 seconds, three times every round, and the last 15 seconds, particularly. That's how you beat Marvin Hagler.'"
Chapter 10
1984: Down the Toilet
One night, in the latter half of 1984, Leonard returned to his turreted stone mansion in an agitated state. At a glance Juanita saw that he was strung out, and erratic. She watched him rummage through a drawer, then wheel on her.
"Where is it?"
"Down the toilet. Where it belongs."
In a fury, he pulled Juanita from their bed, slapped her, and flung her like a rag doll across the spacious master bedroom. She tumbled across the floor and rolled up against a chest of drawers, ears ringing, half-dazed. Juanita slowly rose to her feet and gathered her dignity as Leonard screamed profanities and waved his gun in the air.
"I'm going to kill myself," he said.
She stared.
"You don't believe me, do you?"
Juanita did not reply. She knew that whatever she said he would turn it against her. But her silence was inflammatory, too, in his deranged state. He threw a lamp against the wall, smashing it into tiny pieces of metal and wood. Now his bloodshot eyes glowed a demonic hue. He kicked a mirror and watched its jagged shards drop onto the carpet.
She tried to walk away, to get out of the bedroom, but he stalked her with mounting rage. She turned to face him just in time to see his fist whistling through the air, just in time to duck. The blow glanced against her forehead, and his ring opened a cut. As she felt the damp warm blood with her fingers, Juanita drew herself up and calmly walked out of the bedroom. Leonard, suddenly overcome with horror and shame, trailed behind.
"I'm sorry," he shouted. "Please."
She knew what she had to do. She pulled the two terrified boys from their bedrooms, carrying the baby, and hurried toward the front door. She intended to leave - and never come back. But when they scuttled across the gleaming front foyer she saw he had gotten there first - blocking the door. The gun was gone. Now Leonard held a can of kerosene.
"We're leaving."
"No."
"We're leaving. I'm afraid of you."
Leonard lifted up the can, unscrewed the cap and matter-of-factly poured kerosene on the wooden floor.
"If you leave," he said, "I'll burn this house down before I let you get it. Or anything else in it."
Juanita stiffened. He wasn't holding a match - not yet, anyway. No time for negotiating. No time for good-byes. She shielded Little Ray with her body, and pushed him out the front door. Cradling the baby, she followed into the brisk night air, and as she fingered her car keys, Leonard ranted in the foyer.
Leonard's cocaine habit and domestic violence, as described in Juanita's divorce deposition in 1990, reached their apex in the year after the Hagler-Duran bout.
Though Juanita testified that it occurred as late as 1987, Leonard said he used cocaine only between 1983 and 1986, and associates said it became most problematic late in 1984.
After the bout, in late 1983, Leonard had returned to the gym. He ran and exercised, and every two or three days he jumped rope and hit the bags. "I've been drinking and need to sweat it off," he told associates.
But there was more to it. The longer Leonard was out of the ring the more his celebrity dimmed. He still worked as a commentator and had a few endorsements, and he was in a commercial with Little Ray for a hot cocoa mix, but in general, ovations were quieter and autograph requests fewer. To Leonard, the relative silence was deafening.
"It was cruel and unusual punishment," Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray wrote later. "He had to sit there and ooh and aah and gush and exclaim over a fighter he knew wouldn't give him much more trouble than a heavy bag or his shadow."
The antidote, Leonard concluded, was a comeback. "The man inside of me is saying: 'I have to come out,'" Leonard explained. His alter ego, Sugar Ray, had spoken.
Assured by physicians that his surgically repaired left eye was sound, he chose as an opponent journeyman Kevin Howard, whose record was 20-4-1. Leonard-Howard took place on May 11, 1984, in Worcester, Mass. The choice of location, in Hagler's backyard, foreshadowed Leonard's obvious intention. Hagler, who had knocked out Juan Roldan in March, was at ringside with his wife, Bertha. Tentative plans for a bout, worth $10 million to each fighter, were to be announced the following day. Hagler told a reporter, "If he's foolish enough to step in the ring with me, I'm foolish enough to rip his eye out."
But Leonard had underestimated his physical attrition. Though he had gone "clean" to prepare for Howard, his body was thin and relatively frail at 149 pounds. Shockingly, in the 4th round a straight right by Howard sent Leonard to the canvas for the first time in his pro career. His face registered indignation as he clambered to his feet. He continued, though every round was a struggle and he was in pain. Leonard managed to stop Howard in the 9th round.
Minutes later, in the dressing room, he asked himself, "If this guy can do this to me, what could Hagler do?"
Then he told Juanita, who was eight months' pregnant, "This is it, I'm giving it up."
"You can't retire," Juanita said. "People will think Kevin Howard made you retire."
"Sweetheart, he did."
To the media Leonard said, "There's no sense trying to fool myself or anyone else - I just don't have it anymore," he said.
Word of Leonard's decision reached Hagler at ringside as he watched another fight. "It's the story of my life," Hagler said.
Leonard soon fell back into his self-destructive habits. The birth of his second son, Jarrel, in June barely interrupted his routine, and his mood gradually became uneven and volatile, according to Juanita's testimony. Some days were better than others. On the good days Leonard got high, shot pool with his buddies, usually Joe Broddie and Julius "Juice" Gatling, and spent the night with a girlfriend. Juanita had long ago accepted his infidelity as an occupational hazard. When Leonard stayed out, at least she and the children were out of the line of fire.
On the bad days, Juanita feared for herself, Little Ray, and the baby.
Juanita later said that while she received counseling during this period, Leonard refused it.
"He was in denial - he didn't think he had a problem," Juanita recounted. "He didn't think it was a problem in doing drugs and alcohol, and the drugs and alcohol turned him into a person that he really wasn't. It turned him into a kind of a monster."
Years later, Leonard blamed his behavior on his hangers-on.
"My wife said, 'The drugs are killing you, you shouldn't hang with those guys.' But then I'd be with my guys, so who do you listen to, the guys or your wife? I listened to the guys."
Leonard's problems were largely concealed from Washington Post reporter William Gildea in March 1985, when Gildea visited Leonard's Potomac mansion. Gildea's feature for the Post's Sunday magazine depicted domestic serenity and marital harmony, with Leonard and Juanita describing one another as "best friends." Leonard told Gildea he had accepted his retirement and had no urge to fight again.
"I could sense this palpable emptiness in his life at the time I wrote that piece," Gildea recalled. "He hadn't done what he wanted to do."
&n
bsp; 1984: Two Locomotives - One Track
Hagler knocked out Mustafa Hamsho in three rounds at Madison Square Garden in October 1984. When it ended, Thomas Hearns climbed into the ring. As the Hagler family, seated at ringside, chanted, "We want Hearns, we want Hearns," he smiled and beckoned the clan to chant louder.
Hagler's relatives weren't the only ones. More than 16,000 had come to the Garden, not because they expected much from Hamsho, but because they could see Hagler and Hearns converge like two locomotives from opposite ends of the same track.
After Leonard's fourth retirement, the largest payday available to Hagler and Hearns was each other. Since his loss to Leonard, Hearns had captured a 154-pound title and won eight straight, including a devastating 2nd-round knockout of Duran in June.
(c) Angie Carlino
Thomas Hearns wearing his WBC 154-pound championship belt, early 1985.
Hagler beat the drums with classic victim-speak. "I missed my glory when I won my title in London," he said. "I thought I could get it with Leonard. Now I hope it will come with Hearns."
Hagler-Hearns was made for April 15, 1985, to be held in the parking lot stadium behind Caesars. Hagler was guaranteed $5.3 million, and Hearns $5.2 million, with additional closed-circuit theater percentages. The only hurdle had been the number of rounds. Hearns, who had wilted after the 12th in his loss to Leonard, insisted on 12 rounds. Hagler resisted, but gave in, convinced that Hearns would walk away otherwise. It was a concession Leonard would remember, two years hence.
(c) Angie Carlino
Thomas Hearns, left, and Marvelous Marvin Hagler, before their 1985 bout.
Hagler and Hearns got on one another's nerves, in near-comical fashion, long before they climbed into the ring. In February 1985, the two fighters, in separate private jets, embarked on a 21-city 12-day promotional tour that included two press conferences a day, and a cocktail party at night. Hearns complained that Hagler's jet had an electronic "Pac-Man" game while his did not, and that Hagler wasn't spending enough time at the cocktail parties for high-rolling customers of Caesars Palace. Hagler complained that Hearns had commandeered a limousine that was supposed to be his, and that Hearns was stealing his best lines at press conferences. When Hagler voiced impatience with the tour, Hearns pulled him aside and said, "What's wrong with you, man? We've got to do this to sell the fight. We're putting money in our pockets." Hagler replied, "Don't worry about me - worry about yourself."
Sorcery at Caesars: Sugar Ray's Marvelous Fight Page 9