On The Ranch With Roy Jones Jr - light heavyweight boxer - Brief Article

Ebony, Feb, 2001 by Kevin Chappell

Champ's love for the ring is only equalled by his love for animals

HE's pound-for-pound the best boxer in the world, and has often been referred to as "the best thing for boxing since Muhammad Ali." He has packed arenas from New York City to Las Vegas--and everywhere in-between--with a style of boxing that reflects the power of a heavyweight with the quickness of a lightweight.

But even with all of the accolades, Roy Jones Jr. doesn't consider himself a star. In fact, to a certain extent, the 32-year-old undisputed light heavyweight champion shuns his celebrity status altogether. On any given day, Jones is more likely to be found holed-up on his 200-some-odd-acre Pensacola, Fla., ranch than mingling with admirers at the latest celebrity hot spot.

Oh sure, he can hang with the best of them. Cars? He has a Rolls. Clothes? He wears only top designers. Heck, he's even about to drop a rap CD for those who still don't want to give him his props. But hang out a bit with Jones, and you quickly come to realize that he is just as much in his element riding his horses and reeling in fish as he is signing autographs and posing for pictures.

Named the "best fighter of the '90s" by the National Writing Association of America, Jones has dominated the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions for most of the past decade and has defeated every fighter he has faced (with the exception of a loss on a technicality in 1997). His talent is so much greater than his opponents' that finding formidable challengers has been more difficult for Jones than the fights themselves. In fact, in the eight years Jones has fought professionally, he has rarely lost a round, much less a fight.

But while the ring is where he earns his living, surrounded by thousands of screaming fans, Jones spends much of his off-time in virtual isolation, surrounded by only nature and his animals. To Jones, boxing, perhaps more than anything else, has allowed him to pursue his other passion--becoming one with the great outdoors. From fishing and hunting to raising gamecocks and bulldogs, Jones says he's happiest when he's able to spend endless hours caring for his 1,200 birds, 12 pigs, 7 horses, 5 cows and 35 dogs.

Having grown up in Pensacola, Jones describes his childhood as "tough." He says strained relations with his father, and his desire to please his father, helped guide him to boxing. As a child, Jones remembers the excitement on his father's face when he watched the Ali and Joe Frazier fights. "My dad was so interested in boxing that I figured I could get his attention if I boxed too," Jones says.

Jones admits that there are parts of his childhood that he continues to struggle with today, but believes everything happens for a reason. He believes there was a reason he took to constructive things like boxing and caring for animals instead of the mischief and delinquency that many of the other neighborhood kids were involved in. "I grew up with roosters and chickens and dogs," he says. "Caring for them took all of my time, so I didn't have energy to get into any trouble."

He has carried his childhood passion with him into adulthood. "Now all of my childhood dreams are magnified," he says of his boxing career and his ranch. "I can take them as far as I want."

To Jones, that means taking his love of animals to a level most people would consider obsessive, if not downright eccentric. He often spends all day with his animals, feeding the roosters, riding his horses, playing with his pitbulls, sitting on his rickety wooden peer catching fish and crabs from sunup to sundown.

Several times a year, he even loads up a handful of his toughest gamecocks, and drives across the border to Louisiana to take part in the state's notorious (but legal) cock fights. Sometimes his birds win. Sometimes they lose. Sometimes they die. But whatever the outcome, Jones says that, contrary to the misconceptions people have about the brutal sport, he has given his birds the opportunity to do what they love. "Anyone who raises cocks for fighting are true animal lovers," he says. "In order to win, you have to take care of your birds better than some people take care of their kids. It's in their nature to fight. God gave them that trait. They are not happy unless they are allowed to defend their territory. I know because I'm a fighter, and I have that same attitude every time I step into the ring."

While Jones always looks to win against his opponents in the ring, he has been described as a boxer with a conscious, someone who beats challengers in a humane way, if that is possible. He goes into a fight, not trying to slaughter his opponent, only to tag him across the head enough to prompt the ref to stop the fight or the judges to rule in his favor.

Frank Cornacchione, Jones' former college professor, describes Jones as "a genius in his field. He's in a brutal sport, but he's very compassionate. He has reached the level of total self-awareness in who he is and what he does for a living."