By George:: The Autobiography of George Foreman

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The
Autobiography
of George Foreman

GEORGE
FOREMAN
and Joel Engel

VILLARD BOOKS
NEW YORK
1995
 Copyright © 1995 by George Foreman

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright

Conventions. Published in the United States by Villard Books, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by
Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Villard Books is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

A leatherbound, signed first edition of this book

has been published by the Easton Press.

Grateful acknowledgment made to Dwarf Music for permission

is

to reprint four lines fi-om "Rainy Day Women 12 and 35" by Bob Dylan.
Copyright © 1966 by Dwarf Music. Reprinted by permission.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Foreman, George
By George : the autobiography of George Foreman /
by George Foreman and Joel Engel.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-679-44394-0 (alk. paper)
1. Foreman, George — Biography. 2. Boxers (Sports) —United
States — Biography. I. Engel, Joel. II. Tide.
GVI132.F65A3 1995
796.8'3'092—<lc20
[B] 95-7693

Manufactured in the United States of America on acid-free paper

24689753

FIRST TRADE EDITION

Book desi£in by Carole Lowenstein

-%
9? Koreman
Foreman, George, 1949
By George
6/95

To my wife, Joan, who was the answer to my prayers.

She came alon^ when I needed her
and£iave me the best reason of all to live —and to love life.

— George Foreman

To my father-in-law, Joe Blindman,

who on November 5 celebrated his first birthday away from us
by cheering from a ringside seat in heaven.

—Joel Engel
 Acknowledgments

Sincere thanks to the following people, whose invaluable assistance made

this book possible:

Mar\' Ellen Strote, for her keen insights and excellent taste.
Mort Sharnik, for generously sharing his encyclopedic knowledge.
Ilene Arenberg, for her helphil transcriptions.

Pat Rizzo, for finding the shortest distance between two points.
Catherine Peck, for knowing whom to call and how to get there.

Fran and Maggie Engel, for their endless patience.

David Rosenthal, for his grace under fire.

Henry Holmes, for at least thirty-five reasons —which is why I gave him
the glov^e that knocked out Michael Mooter and regained for me the

hean^eight championship.
Harve Bennett, for being the catalyst this book needed.

And to the following people, my deepest gratitude for helping to make me

who I am today:
Jim Brown, who was the first to tell me that I could get a second chance.
Seldom does a hero on the field also turn out to be a hero in real life. Many
thanks, Jimmy, for being that hero.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, who went beyond politics to
the politician
compassion. His creation of the Job Corps rescued me from the gutter. I
was, and always will be, proud to wear my LB J Stetson in his honor.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Charles "Doc" Broadus, who saw something in me that no one else

could see. for having faith in me
Thank you —
even when I didn't and for —
helping so many others.
Larry King, whose radio show kept me in touch with the world during
the years when I didn't have a television. Thank you for the voice of one

crying in the wilderness.

My sister Willie Mae, who, year after year, does the hard work of a family.
Thank you for being what I couldn't be. Thank you on behalf of all our
family.

Barney Oldfield, for a lifetime of friendship, devotion, counsel, and wis-

dom. The world would be a far better place if everyone were lucky enough
to have a friend like you.

And, oh yeah. Thank you, Jesus.

 Introduction

Before reading this boot:, you should know a few facts

about me.
One: I never use foul language. As a young man I could swear
with the best of them. But I left that behind long ago. I've since
found other words to express my thoughts. When necessary in
these pages, I like to substitute "blankety-blank" for words that
aren't in my family dictionary.
Two: I never make references to a human
being's color. As I
did with bad language, I've eliminated from my vocabulary
words that distinguish between people. They're irrelevant to me,
and their use only divides us from each other. I know from my
own life that the issue of prejudice is much broader than the
frame into which people usually try to squeeze it. What separates
us is not color but behavior. I once came across some words by
Victor Frankl, a man who'd survived terrible atrocities in a Nazi
concentration camp at the hands of men who, after all, were the
same color as he: "There are only two races of people in the
world, the decent and the indecent." So when reading this book,
if you wondering about one person or
find yourself guessing or
another's color, please ask yourself why you need to know.
Three: I have a good memory and have written the events de-
scribed here just as they happened. But my life has taken shape
 INTRODUCTION

along its own course, and it's not a course anyone else I know
has followed. So some of the terrain may look unfamiliar, and
some of the decisions I've made probably wouldn't be the ones
you would have made in my shoes. As the guy who wore those
size 14s, even I can't always explain reasons for this or that. All I

can do is tell my story, and hope it makes sense to you.

And I pray you take away something important from the
reading.
m mmsi
y^ Chapter One

not much of a sleeper. Haven't been since I was a kid

I'm
and needed to keep one eye open all night to shoo away the
rats and mice. Now, after reading into the wee hours, I doze off at
five or six. Then I sleep late, so I'm usually not any help getting
the kids ready for school.
One morning in 1984, I was awakened shortly after falling
asleep by the angry voice of my oldest son, George
— "Little

George," we call him —who was ten. "No," he screamed. "I'm

not going to wear those. I don't want to look poor."
This sounded interesting. On my way to investigate, I heard
my wife arguing with him. "There's nothing wrong with those
pants," Joan said. "They're clean, they're pressed, and you're
going to wear them."
Neither Joan nor Little George noticed me standing in the
doorway to Little George's room. On the bed was the item in
dispute, a pair of faded blue jeans thatJoan had chosen to go
with the checked he already had on. "What's wrong here?"
shirt
I asked. But I already knew: Living in a nice house in a good

neighborhood (Humble, a suburb of Houston), going to a fine

school, my boy had no idea what poor really meant (he'd even
pronounced the word "poor" instead of "po' "); I'd never both-
ered to explain to him where I'd come from.
 —

GEORGE FOREMAN

That night, I took Little George for a ride through Houston's

Fifth Ward, an area cursed by poverty and despair. Nothing in his
experience jibed with what he saw there. He'd never known
these mean streets — let alone believed they existed a few miles
from home. And he'd certainly not suspected that his own father
had grown up there. He sat in silence as I pointed out my life's

landmarks. For a time, I think, he had to decide whether he even

considered himself my kin.
I understood his reaction. At his age, I couldn't imagine life

outside my little neighborhood. The places I saw on television

and movies seemed imaginary. Watching how people lived on
in
film was my version of an opium den.
Almost from the time I was born, on January 10, 1949, anger
and hunger shaped my youth. There was always more than
enough fury in my house and never enough food. My mom, the
former Nancy Ree Nelson, had given birth to seven mouths
—
mine, the fifth, being the biggest more than she could feed well
on her income as a cook, even holding two jobs and working
seven days a week. She had grown up on a sharecropping farm
outside of Marshall, Texas, one of nine sisters and a brother. Peo-
ple would come from miles away to see those girls, rags on their
heads, working the plow mules, digging stumps, and picking cot-
ton. Her dad relied on everybody to pull their weight. And when
her only brother got in trouble with the law and had to leave
town, the sisters pulled his weight, too. Mom could only dream
of going to school.
She moved the family to Houston soon after having me, a baby
who didn't look much like his four older brothers and sisters:

Robert, Willie Mae, Gloria, and MaryThe reason she

Alice.
moved was both to avoid gossip about my father and to
improve
her economic chances. Houston was to be our shot at big wages
and indoor toilets. That the move didn't work out as planned had
little to do with Mom's abilities or perseverance. She was a pow-

erful lady, and a leader by example. We didn't know we were

poor, because in our house you just didn't hear that sort of talk.
I was aware that some people had more to eat and different

clothes to wear every day, and I could see that others treated
 BY GEORGE
5

them better. But I never measured what they had against what I

didn't. The haves inspired me to believe that we, too, would one
day have enough.
The optimism came from my mother. Our dad, J. D. Foreman,
was absent much more than he was there. Mom couldn't count
on him for anything. Unless she found him early on a Friday
night, he drank away most of his railroad worker's salary. We
lived mainly on the nickels and dimes she made. When I think of
the pain Mom had to overcome in order to put on a happy face,
and when I imagine being in her position and having to do the
same, I cry in gratitude and admiration. What does it feel like to
know that you're doing everything you can, and still your kids
are hungry? (Is it possible that only I was feeling hungry all the
time?)
Though I loved them all. Aunt Leola was my favorite of Mom's
sisters,and I think I was hers. A bit older than my mother and
with two girls and no boys, she treated me like her own. That
carried over to her daughters, from whom I usually got more
affection than from my own sisters. When Leola invited me for
dinner, I'd eat all of mine, then start acting sad. "You want
some?" my cousin Linda would ask. I'd nod my head and she'd
give me the rest of hers. Her sister Alma would say, "Uh-uh, I'm
eating my food."
Linda would say, "Well, you know he's going to get that sad
face, so give it to him before he starts." And she would.
My sisters weren't as easy. They'd warn, "Don't you start

snatching anyone's food now. Mama, he's getting ready to

snatch food."
Between the seven of us, there was never enough for me. A
good breakfast was bowl of cornflakes, some evaporated milk
a
diluted with water, and a little sugar. By the time I went back for
a second bowl, only crumbs would remain. I'd dilute the remain-
ing drops of milk, then hopelessly shake the sugar bowl to get out
a few more grains.
Every other Sunday Mom made pancakes or what passed for —
pancakes, given that she didn't have baking powder to make
—
them rise and bacon. Each of us got one strip. As much as I
 GEORGE FOREMAN

loved to inhale it, the smell of the bacon made that lonely piece
into a tease. After finishing mine, I'd look longingly at Mom's
ration. "Sure, baby," she'd say. "Come on over here and get you
some."
Though she was expected to cook hundreds of meals a day at
the O.S.T. Cafe, my mom was seldom permitted to eat the food
they served there. She often bought inexpensive cans of sardines
to take to work for her lunch or dinner. (Naturally, if I was in the
kitchen early, staring at them, she would offer them to me.) On
Fridays, she'd bring home a single hamburger and break it into
eight pieces. Everybody got a taste. I remember thinking. Boy,

that's rich man's food, a hamburger. That mustard's tang is still in

my mouth.
Most of my friends weren't quite as strapped. Even so, if I
dropped by as lunchtime approached, it usually meant being in-
vited to "run along home now" while they ate. Once in a while,
they'd just usher me into another room. Smelling their food and
hearing the tinkle of forks was torture. On some nights, I stood in
the dark on neighbors' porches, looking into their kitchens,
amazed that families (most with fewer than seven kids, I guess)
had leftovers at each meal, even pieces of meat. I always hoped
they would find me and ask me in.
For school lunches. Mom sometimes came up with a paper-
thin slice of luncheon meat; more often, I got a mayonnaise
sandwich. When I had nothing at all, I pretended to carry a big
lunch by blowing up a brown paper sack to make it look full.
Sometimes I'd rub the bag in grease and crumple it to make it
look used. Since I would never ask for any food outside the fam-
ily, my pride made me pretend that I wasn't hungry. I spent a lot
of time fantasizing about those little cartons of milk that cost six
cents.
Somehow, though, my mother kept us from starving. She was
an artist, turning a few skimpy ingredients into a masterwork.
And oh, what magic she could perform on a hambone. The bone
came from a hog that my aunts would buy together from a farm
outside town and have butchered. The only one of the sisters
with more than two mouths to feed, my mother was naturally
 BY GEORGE
7

the poorest. Once or twice she had enough to buy the intestines,
which became chitlins. But usually she'd get only the bones. Ne-
cessity being my mother's best friend, she didn't waste an inch.
Working it and working it, she could extract enough fat to make
hot-water corn bread that tasted especially good because it had

been fried to taste like pork. She also scraped the bones for tiny
meat she added to
flecks of —
beans a meal by itself. And when
therewas nothing left to do to the bone, she'd roast it until the
marrow was soft and delicious. To this day, I love houses small
enough to smell from every room just what's cooking in the
kitchen.

It was Aunt Leola who named me George Edward. And besides a

name, she gave me my first dose of confidence. When I was little
she'd tell me, "Go up there and screw in that lightbulb for your
Aunt Leola. You're so tall. You are such a big little man." I'd get
down off that ladder thinking I was a giant. I loved her so much,
not least because in her house my anger didn't burn so brightly.
At home, I usually had a bad case of mean temper. My older
brother and sisters teased me terribly, calling me "Mo-head." I
didn't know what "Mo-head" meant or where that nickname
came from (and wouldn't for many years), only that I didn't like
it. Even as a tiny boy, I'd warn them to get away and I'd hit back.

Sometimes they said, "You're not really our brother." And

though I never considered the words anything other than a
mean joke, I hated that tease most of all. "I am too your brother,"
I'd say, trying to beat on them as punishment. "I am your

brother."
They thought that was funny, this little kid refusing to be bul-
lied. I'd pop anyone in the eye. To them I was the puppy who by

nature is more belligerent than the others in the litter. You pet
him in the wrong spot, and he growls. For fun, you might even
pick that spot on purpose, just to get a reaction.
Once my brothers and sisters found my hot buttons and —
—
there were rows of them they kept pushing. I fought them and
fought them and fought them. No matter how much bigger they
were, or how badly they were beating me, I kept fighting. I never
 GEORGE FOREMAN
8

quit. Eventually they'd get too tired to keep at it, but I never did.
Even before I outgrew them, which I did at an early age, they
learned that the fun of teasing me wasn't worth the conse-
quences. Once they'd turned up my
fire, nobody could turn it

down. So instead of "Mo-head," which earned instant retalia-

tion, they began just calling me "Monk," for monkey. This, I felt,
wasn't a slur but a term of endearment. (It stayed with me for
years and got passed along to my second son.)
What I didn't learn until much later was that my siblings
blamed me for the trouble between my parents that drove my
father out of the house. After I was born and they'd moved to
Houston, Dad began his worst drinking, and my parents es-
calated their ferocious fights. Now they're back together; now
they're broken up again.
Whatever problems my folks had together, it didn't affect my
father's faith in me. He believed from the time I was an infant
that I was going to be a champion. He loved me. He'd never seen
my kind of fire in any kid. Like the others, he pushed my buttons
just to get a rise. Sure enough, I'd go off, popping him in the eye.
"Heavyweight champion of the world," he'd shout, raising my
arm after I'd tried to beat up someone four times my size.
"Stronger than Jack Johnson. Hits like Jack Dempsey." I didn't
recognize those names, didn't even understand what heavy-
weight champion of the world was. But I enjoyed his pleasure in
my antics.
My mother wanted me to stay away from athletics. Recogniz-
ing that I was more hot-headed than her other children, she
worried that a terrible fate awaited me, especially if I played
some competitive game and lost my temper. In those days in
Fifth Ward, most boys who had fire and no fear died. The
"Bloody Fifth," we called it. Every weekend someone got killed
in a knife fight. And if your enemies didn't get you, the police
would. They didn't bother the good, law-abiding people, but
would make examples of the bad element, most of whom hung
out at the ice house, where the ice trucks brought their ice to
load into iceboxes. The aim of the police was to tame you, to
break your spirit: to turn a wild stallion into a stable horse. I
 —

BY GEORGE

remember one courageous boy, filled with too much liquor and
the boxing skills he'd learned in prison, standing up to the police.
After he opened mouth a little too loud, they got him down
his
and delivered so many savage kicks that doctors had to recon-
struct his torso without some of the tendons and ribs. Another
boy was beat so badly that he never talked again before dying in
his twenties. Sooner or later, all the tough guys got beaten by the
police.
Mom knew that would never cry mercy to the police or any-
I

— —
one, that they or someone else would have to kill me to stop
me or shut me up. That's why she beat on me, often and hard
crucial beatings, strategic and tactical, administered completely
out of love and concern. She was not trying to instill the fear of
God, but the fear of her. She wanted me more afraid of what she
would do to me if I disobeyed her than of any trouble I might get
into in the streets. "I'm going to kill you," her voice would
boom.
One day, while she was at work, I snuck off to a local swim-
ming pool that she'd warned me time and again to stay away
from. It was a place where the lifeguards didn't have to pass a
swimming test; they may not even have been able to swim. Kids
drowned there. But I wanted to swim and figured I'd get away
with it because I'd get home and dried off long before she came
back from her job. I didn't count on someone spying me at the
pool and tattling, nor on the distinctive smell of chlorine soaked
into my skin. I'll never forget the fury in her eyes: I was in for a
whipping. She took a belt and began lashing my chest and head.
I backed away from her, trying to protect myself from the blows.

It was no use to call for my brothers and sisters, so I screamed

bloody murder to the neighbors: "Help. She's killing me." When

no one came, I grabbed the belt away from her. Now what was
she going to do? Cursing my disobedience, she climbed on me
like a wrestler and pounded me with her fists.
Mom's technique worked. Being more afraid of her than of
drowning, I never went to that pool again. Nothing else would
have kept me away.
I was thirteen when she struck me for the last time. I'd come
 GEORGE FOREMAN
1

home one Saturday just as my sister finished washing the last of

the dinner dishes, and having missed the meal, I was hungry. I

checked the refrigerator and saw a rare sight: food. I grabbed the
leftovers and started to make a big sandwich. My sister pointed
out that the kitchen had closed, and she didn't want any more
mess to clean up.
"Get out of here," she said.
"Get out of here yourself," I yelled.
"You get out of here," she insisted.
When I wouldn't, she began yelling for Mom, who came in
carrying a full head of steam.
"I'm not bothering her," I explained. "I'm just making some-
thing to eat."
"You better get out of here," Mom said.
"I told you, I'm hungry and I want something to eat. I'm not
bothering her."
"I mean young man, you get out of here right now. And
it,

don't you talk back to me. You hear?"

That's when she picked up her sturdy shoe.
I felt she was being unreasonable —
taking my sister's side in an
argument that didn't need to be an argument. I was a hungry
kid. What more mattered? You bet I was going to leave, and not
just the kitchen. As I stormed past her, she took a swing at me
with the shoe, landing a blow on my back. Just as it hit, I bumped
against her by accident. By that age, I already towered over my
mother, and the impact sent her reeling against the counter. I
walked out of the house and went to Aunt Leola's, intending
never to come back. Mom and Leola discussed the situation, and
after a couple of cooling-off days, I went home. To my way of
thinking, this had been blown out of proportion; I didn't need to
apologize.
Mom played She warned me, "If you live in this
it right.

house, you have to obey." She meant that she couldn't control
me any longer, but still demanded respect. Unsaid was some-
thing we both already knew, that she wouldn't fight me any-
more; she was done using force.
By then, she didn't have to. Whether I knew it or not, I'd got-
ten her point.