God in my Corner – A Spiritual Memoir – George Foreman

 

EVERYONE NEEDS A SECOND CHANCE, EVEN IF YOUR NAME IS George Foreman. You might know me as the guy on television who advertises the George Foreman grills, Meineke Car Care, or Casual Male Big &. Tall clothes. If you follow sports, you may know me as the world's heavy-weight boxing champion who lost to Muhammad Ali and then came back twenty years later to win the heavyweight title again at forty-five years of age. But what few people know is that something incredibly strange happened to me on the evening of March 17, 1977. That supernatural experience defined my life so dramatically that it divided my identity into two Georges. The old George lived prior to that day, which I’ll refer to as "my first time around." Ever since then, I've been the new George. God gave me another chance at life, and I've been determined to do it right this time. When we start out in life, we often travel down some wrong roads, hurting ourselves and others along the way. Most of us have to hit bottom before the lightbulb turns on and we realize that we've blown it. It's at that critical moment that we must seize the opportunity and change directions. We must start traveling down a different road, leading to a new destination. My second chance arrived unexpectedly in a Puerto Rican dressing room after a heavyweight boxing match. What happened to me in that room is so incredibly bizarre, it’s unlikely you've ever before read anything like it. Simply stated, I died and went to the other side. The experience impacted me so profoundly that three decades later I can’t go a single day without thinking about it.

God in my Corner – A Spiritual Memoir – George Foreman

I knew first hand what it was like to live in poverty. My alcoholic father, J. D. Foreman, worked on the railroad and didn't live at home most of the time, leaving my mom to provide for her seven children. Her salary of $26 per week didn’t stretch far when eight mouths wanted food.

 

I was a big boy, so I was always hungry. It wasn’t till years later, after I started boxing, that I could remember my stomach feeling full after a meal. Mom sometimes brought home a single hamburger for her kids and herself to divide. It was such a luxury; I grew up believing hamburgers were only for rich people. She would tear it into eight pieces, and we all got one bite. I savored the few seconds it stayed in my mouth, dreaming of the day when I might get to eat an entire hamburger by myself. Every other Sunday: she made us pancakes and allotted one small piece of bacon to each child. Breakfast usually consisted of a bowl of cornflakes covered with watered-down milk. Hardly the breakfast of champions. School lunches weren’t any better. Most of the time I carried a mayonnaise sandwich to school with me. Every now and then, my mother would slip in a thin piece of luncheon meat. I drank water with it, wishing I could afford one of those little cartons of milk that cost six cents. Sometimes, when I was playing with the neighborhood kids, their parents would call them home to eat lunch. I had no lunch waiting for me, so I would peek through the windows and watch my friends eat. My mouth watered as I'd see them tear the crust off their bread. Then they’d pull the chicken skins off their drumsticks because they didn't want them. I thought, I would love to eat what they don't want. I wished they would have asked me to take their scraps out to the dogs so I could get a bite to eat too.

God in my Corner – A Spiritual Memoir – George Foreman

The social services representative contacted a wonderful woman by the name of Bonner to help look after me. Ms. Bonner lived way out of town, but she came into the city looking for me, hoping to spend some time with me. She took an interest in me and tried to help me stay out of trouble while my mom was in the hospital.

 

One day Ms. Bonner told me, "George, I'm going to come over on the weekend, and I’d like you to come back home with me to cut my grass. I'll pay you for working."
"Can I have a couple of my friends come along, too?" I asked. "Sure you can," Ms. Bonner answered. That weekend, Ms. Bonner picked up two of my friends and me and drove us out of town to her place. She took us to the shed and showed us the lawn mower. "Okay, George, you can mow the grass. You other fellows can do the trim and follow behind him to rake up the cuttings."
"Well, Ms. Bonner, my buddy here," I said, pointing to one of my friends, "his dad has a lawn mower. He knows how to do it better than I would. Maybe I should let him mow the grass."
"No, George," she said, "I want you to do it."
"Really?"
"That's right. You are in charge, George."
"But his dad has a . . ."
"You!" I looked at Ms. Bonner, then at my buddies. I said, "Okay, guys; let's get going." We worked at Ms. Bonner's all day long, and I felt so good when she handed me some money as payment. More importantly, I felt good about myself. I didn’t realize it fully at the time, but looking back on that experience, I now understand that Ms. Bonner was allowing me to be somebody. For the first time in my life, a non-family member was telling me, "You can do it, George. I believe in you!" To this day, my life is indebted to Ms. Bonner. That little dash of self-esteem she helped to foster in me is still with me today. Ms. Bonner made me feel so good about myself, and part of the reason I am who I am today is because of Ms. Bonner.

God in my Corner – A Spiritual Memoir – George Foreman

By the time I was sixteen years of age, I was a vicious, savage teenager, picking fights in school or wherever I went. Not surprisingly, I dropped out of school in ninth grade and started looking for a job. But not too many people want to hire a ninth-grade dropout. Eventually, I took a job washing dishes in a restaurant. I figured that my only way out of poverty was to use my fists and fight my way out. Sometimes I beat up two or three people a day. I was brutal, too. One time I walked up to a guy who hadn’t done anything to me, and without warning, I punched him right in the face, just to be nasty. He hit the dirt like a rock. I walked away with him still laid out semi-conscious on the ground. Because my conscience was so encrusted with hate, it didn't bother me to see people bleeding or knocked out cold. Many times, I mugged people just to get some drinking money. I was really good at beating up people, although it never dawned on me at the time that one day people would pay to watch me fight.

God in my Corner – A Spiritual Memoir – George Foreman

I first saw Charles Broadus while I was standing in line my first day at the Pleasanton center. A stocky, muscular man, "Doc," as everyone called him, was head of security for the center. He was also in charge of the facility’s sports activities. I walked up to him, introduced myself, and said, "I want to be a boxer. Do you think I can?” Doc Broadus looked me up and down and said, "You're big enough." He paused and looked at me some more. "And you’re ugly enough. Come on down to the gym."

 

Doc became a mentor to me. He taught me the difference between mere fighting and boxing. He told me, "If you will stay out of trouble, you can be a champion; you can win an Olympic gold medal." Doc genuinely cared about me and treated me as a son. He had a lot of other young men to look after, many of whom were much better athletes than I was, but for some reason, Doc Broadus believed in me, and he helped me to believe in myself.
Thanks to Doc, I felt that I could actually accomplish something in my life. It was through the Job Corps that I first learned how to box. I knew how to hit people with my fists growing up in a tough neighbourhood, but boxing was a whole new game. Although I had size and skills, I didn’t know how to correctly throw punches and defend myself………….
Doc Broadus used his own paycheck- much to his wife's chagrin-to purchase me a one-way ticket to Oakland. By the time I got there, he already had a job lined up for me at the Job Corps in Pleasanton, where I could earn some money mopping floors and doing dishes while training in the gym during my free time. And did we ever train! Doc worked me hard, and I was a willing student. Eventually, I went on to the Olympic trials, where I earned the right to be the United States' heavyweight boxing representative in the 1968 Olympic Games. In Mexico City I defeated a Russian heavyweight named Jonas Čepulis to win the Olympic gold medal. Many people still remember me as the guy who proudly strutted around the ring afterward, waving a miniature United States flag. I wanted the whole world to know that an American had won that medal.

God in my Corner – A Spiritual Memoir – George Foreman

With my reputation as a fierce boxer firmly established, sometimes I didn’t have to work too hard for a knockout. I had to fight a young kid before I could fight Joe Frazier. The kid was a contender, but it was clear from the beginning of the fight that he was scared to death. I swung at the fellow and missed by six inches, but the fellow went reeling as though I had caught him with the full force of my fist. I swung again with all my might and missed him by two inches. Boom! The guy hit the mat and didn't get up.
“Get up!” l yelled at him. The fellow didn’t move. The referee called a technical knockout (TKO) and declared me the winner. I should have been happy, but I wasn't. I was mad! Later, after the fight, I saw the boxer again.
He said, "You were really upset that I went down, weren’t you?"
I said, "Yes, I was."
 "You wanted me to get up, didn't you?"
"Yes!" I said emphatically.
“'And you wanted to kill me."
 "Yes!" I bellowed.
 "That's why I didn’t get up."
 I worked my way up the rankings, never losing a fight. On January 22, 1973, with a record of 37 wins and no losses, I met undefeated Smokin Joe Frazier for the heavyweight title of the world. Frazier was a formidable champion who had fought twenty-nine opponents and had knocked out twenty-five of them. He wasn't called "Smokin' Joe" for nothing. Nevertheless, the bout didn’t last long. I knocked Frazier down five times before finishing him off in the second round. From my humble beginnings in Houston, I now reigned as the heavyweight champ of the world.

God in my Corner – A Spiritual Memoir – George Foreman

It's been three decades since my experience in that Puerto Rican dressing room, but it's just as real to me today as the day it happened. I don’t remember many of the details about my fight in Zaire with Ali. It's pretty much out of my mind. Even though I regained the heavyweight boxing title in 1994, I can’t remember much about it. But I'll never forget what happened in that dressing room in 1977. Every detail remains vivid to me. I've been trying to live in that moment for the last thirty years. I'll never forget it. But those men in the dressing room who witnessed my conversion-it's the oddest thing-they never talk about it. Over the years, whenever I've tried discussing it with them, they quickly change the subject. To me, it's strange that they aren’t curious about it and don’t want to know more. One thing they can't deny is that I've been a different man ever since that day. Round one, the first twenty-eight years of my life, was a charade. That was behind me. Now, I was ready to begin round two-my second chance at life.