Home on the range with George Foreman

Ebony, July, 1995 by Hans J. Massaquoi

Dressed in farmer's overalls and clunky athletic boots, George Foreman hammers away at the heavy bag that hangs suspended in front of his ranch-style home on his 300-acre spread near Marshall, Texas. Gone is the impish smile which TV watchers have become accustomed to see and adore during commercial breaks. In its place is a grim scowl that leaves no doubt that its owner is dead serious about the business at hand - getting ready to defend his title against any challengers.

At the shrill sound of an automatic timer, the champ slips off his gloves and takes refuge from the oppressive heat in the shade of his open porch where he plunks his sweat-dripping 250-pound, 6-foot-2 frame on a chair. Once physically removed from the paraphernalia of his profession, he again becomes the amicable Big George everybody - black and White, old and young - adores. "I never talk more than one hour," he warns, signalling that he's ready for a one-on-one interview with Ebony and to reflect on his second lease on fame as the oldest man in the history of boxing to regain the heavyweight crown.

When last November, 45-year-old Foreman demolished 26-year-old, heavyweight champion Michael Moorer in the 10th round with one nuclear-powered right to the jaw, he did more than regain the title he had lost 20 years earlier to "rope-a-dope" magician Muhammad Ali. He also dealt a crashing blow to conventional wisdom which insisted that middle-aged men had no business pursuing world heavyweight championships and instead ought to play with their grandchildren or take up golf

While Foreman's transformation from a has-been fighter to one who once again figures prominently in the boxing industry's dreams of future mega paydays is nothing short of astounding, the most amazing transformation has been his change of persona, from a hostile, bushy-haired, iron-muscled, lean -and-mean fighting machine to a tubby, smiling, cuddly-as-a-teddybear and bald-as-a-billiard-ball Black "Mr. Clean" look-alike.

Foreman wipes the sweat from his glistening pate while pondering what caused him to reinvent himself. "My children!" he finally responds, referring to his nine offspring from five marriages - five girls, Michi, 22, Freeda George, 20, Georgetta, 17, Natalie, 15, and Leola, 8, and four boys, ages 21, 12, 7, and 5, respectively, all named George Edward like their dad.

"I had to set an example," he explains. "I remembered all of the things that got me in trouble as a kid-fighting school, trying to concentrate on who was the toughest, anything but the academics. And I figured that I was going to make sure my kids wouldn't fall into the same bad habits I fell into. So early in the morning I would tell them, `Put a smile on your face because the world is not against you.' And I started preaching it so much, selling the product, I started using it myself. I knew my kids were watching me on television and if they ever caught me frowning or looking mean, they would say, `You lied, Dad.' So I had not only to keep smiling for the sake of what was right, but at the same time I had to do it for my kids who are watching everything I do."

Asked what gave him the idea to name all his boys after himself, Foreman offers an elaborate explanation that seems as novel as the idea itself. "I wanted my boys to have something that nobody could ever take from them," he says, "and I figured, give them a name that they could run into whenever they had problems or if they ever got lost, their children's children's children could always run back to that name and have something to fall back on so that they wouldn't get lost.

"I didn't find out who my real father was and didn't even know it until 1976," he continues. "After I lost the title to muhammad, I found out I had another father other than the one that I thought was my father. I looked him up and was friends with him until he died in 1978. So I made sure that my boys were going to have something to know one another."

After Mary Foreman, his St. Lucia-born, 30-year-old fifth wife whom he married 10 years ago, interrupts briefly to serve her husband a cold drink, Foreman continues to reflect on his past. He says that it was a profound religious experience that in 1977 at age 28 caused him to walk away from boxing and millions in potential earnings and vowing never to return. After losing a decision to crafty Jimmy Young in a gruelling 12-rounder in sweltering San Juan, Puerto Rico, he explains, he "died in the dressing room" but came back to life after he - a confirmed nonbeliever - professed to believe in God. Although he had not been cut during the fight, he says, there was blood oozing from his forehead, hands and feet. Screaming, "Jesus is coming alive in me!" he says, he heeded the call and became a born-again Christian. Eventually, he cofounded and pastored the small nondenominational Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in an impoverished section of Houston and travelled the country as an evangelist to "spread the word of the Lord."

"I didn't want to have anything to do with boxing anymore," he recalls, "I cut all of my hair off. I would go down the street, just a big guy, and people would be talking about boxing as though I wasn't there. Once I went to see a basketball game and a guy looked at me. `I know who you are,' he said. `You are Refrigerator Perry.' So you see, I had disappeared. I had become just a regular guy in the crowd."