Foreman family still in the ring

Two nights before the fight, George Foreman was feeling a little nervous.

After all, there's nothing he can do once his son, George Foreman III, enters the ring at the Coeur d'Alene Casino Thursday night, the latest fight in his one-year old boxing career.

"It's easy for me to sit here and do all the talking. He's the boxer. I don't have to climb into the ring," the former heavyweight champion said Tuesday night, glancing with a broad smile to where his 27-year-old son sat beside him in the casino lounge area.

But George Sr. had still been all smiles an hour earlier, eager to talk up his son's skills as the pair mingled with Coeur d'Alene tribal youth for a special meet and greet.

"I'm just glad to be a part of what he's doing," George Sr. said. "So many dads, their kids don't want them to bother them."

It's been a long road for George Foreman Sr., scraping his way to Heavyweight Champion of the World two times, the second as the oldest ever to hold the crown.

But it doesn't compare to the pride of watching his son take the first steps down the same road, which he says his son is doing better, getting his college degree first.

"A lot of times people paint themselves into a corner and have only one way out. But he's got all these corners he can crawl into," George Sr. said. "Because he has knowledge, he can handle himself in the world. I wasn't like that. I was drowning in ignorance."

Yet there's no doubting he made himself a role model for his children, regardless.

George Sr., 61, still shakes his head when he reflects on his troubled youth in Marshall, Texas, growing up a juvenile delinquent and leaving for California after dropping out of high school.

He learned vocational skills by joining Job Corps, he said, and started boxing on the side as a hobby to stave off homesickness and stay out of trouble.

But his manager recognized his potential.

"My manager told me, 'If you apply yourself, you can get to be an Olympic champion,'" he remembered. "And it was something I had done just to keep off the streets."

He said the next three and a half years, those leading up to his gold medal in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, were spent living and breathing the sport. He boasted that no one could stand up to him because of his pure drive.

"I had a good manager and trainer, Dick Sadler. He was relentless. We never stopped boxing," he said. "While other athletes were doing regular things, I was thinking about boxing, chopping wood and hitting punching bags. Most guys, they obtain a certain amount of success and devotion goes out the window. While they were losing their ambition, I picked up what they were throwing out the window."

The gold medal was followed by one of the most pivotal wins of his career in 1973, when he defeated Joe Frazier and took the title of Heavyweight Champion of the World.

The victory was all the more mammoth because Frazier had previously defeated boxing legend Muhammed Ali.

"He (Frazier) was one of the best fighters of all time. There was a lot of fear," George Sr. admitted of when he entered the ring in '73. "But after knocking him down six times, impossibly, it happened. I remember thinking 'I'm Heavyweight Champion of the World,' and names like Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Jack Johnson, ran through my brain. I realized 'Now I'm part of that legacy.'"

It was followed with losing the title next year, however, to Ali himself.

George Sr. doesn't regret the loss now that he can appreciate the kind of opponent he had danced with, he said.

"Muhammad Ali, he was a pure boxer. He always used his brains, he thought all the time," George Sr. said. "Little did I know I would lose because I was complacent. I'd beaten guys who'd beaten him."

George Sr. created a different kind of legacy for himself soon afterward, diverging dramatically from his fighting career to a path of spirituality.

After losing a fight to Jimmy Young in Puerto Rico in 1977, he said he felt a calling to religion when he experienced a revelation in his dressing room.

"I was dead, and then alive again," he said. "In the dressing room, I saw blood on my hands and forehead, and felt Jesus surging through me. Seeing that Jesus was alive in me, my life has never since been the same."

He followed that calling for several years, foregoing his boxing career to become an ordained minister and start various charities, including the George Foreman Youth and Community Center for troubled kids.

"For 10 years, I never once made a fist," he said, looking down at his hands. "Then something devastating happened. Something profound. I was broke."

Sustaining his many charities had slowly drained him, he said. And to his surprise, he had to go back to work.

He only knew one trade, he said.

Of course, returning to boxing late in life had its challenges.

"I'm a middle aged man. Everybody in the ring is younger than me. I feel just like Rip Van Winkle, the guy who woke up an old man," George Sr. remembered. "I was a bigger guy, I had to learn to do things with my body differently."

It all started coming back after a few fights, though, he said with a grin. He snagged the Heavyweight title again in 1994, the oldest to win the crown at 44.

All of that set him up for his current success in business, he said.

George Sr. said it was an easy step after retiring from boxing in 1999 to launch his George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine on top of endorsing myriad products, from mufflers to KFC.

"A lot of people don't know, but boxing has a lot to do with selling - more than anything in the world," he said. "Being 45 years old and telling people you'll be Heavyweight Champion ... If you can't sell that, you'll be out of business. I'm a salesman. Boxing taught me that."

Now it's George III's turn.

One of George Sr.'s 10 children, George III said his father always had an unspoken rule that his offspring should earn their degrees before they attempted professional athletics, which George Sr. regretted never doing himself.

Boxing was always on the youth's mind, though.

"I was always in my father's training camps, I was always right behind him when he was commentating for HBO," George III said. "It's in the blood, a little."

Currently with a 5-0 record, he has quite a legacy to shoulder, he acknowledged.

"Of course stepping into the boxing ring when your dad is George Foreman, there's a little added pressure," he said with a smile. "But that's nothing compared to fighting a grown man in front of your family and friends."

George Sr. said he is proud that his son, who speaks of perfecting his skill like Sugar Ray Leonard and Joe Louis, knows his goals so early in life, which George Sr. didn't.

"And he can read a book too," George said with a grin. "He's got it made."