Kerry Daigle
Keep Punching

Personal Development, Promotional, and Sales Training

Recently I was invited to visit Angola State Penitentiary by Bobby Dupre to listen to the former Heavyweight Champion of the World, George Foreman speak to a private group of invited attendees. Attending this special function with us was two of Bobby’s friends, Edward “Lefty” Vallien and Howard Thibodeaux.

George Foreman was more than accommodating, as was his friend, the great NFL running back and star in dozens of movies, Jim Brown, who was also in attendance. On the way to Angola I called my good friend, Roy Foreman, George’s brother, to introduce him to Bobby, Edward, and Howard who were all riding with me in my car to the event. Roy let everyone know how courteous George was going to be and he was right. George went out of his way to greet us and give us special attention.

As I listened to George speak I thought of a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” That is what George Foreman is all about. George’s true belief in himself when others did not believe in him……what it meant to ‘not quit’……to defy the odds because of a dream. George was an underdog in ‘life’ but accomplished much more than just being an amazing athlete. He became an American hero. I don’t know of an athlete in any sport that captured the hearts of Americans the way George Foreman did from waving the American flag at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City after winning the Heavyweight Gold Medal during trying times in the Olympics to destroying the myth of Joe Frazier when Frazier just beat the great Muhammad Ali for recognition as the true heavyweight champion of the world. I remember George bouncing Frazier off the mat with his incredible power taking the Heavyweight Championship for the first time.

Then came a couple of title defenses and a match with Muhammad Ali in 1974 in Zaire, South Africa for George’s title. Muhammad Ali took George’s title than faithful night in October and George’s career took a tailspin leading him into retirement and the ministry. His ministry was where his heart was but he couldn’t bring in enough money to give back to the ‘needy’ kids in his neighborhood of Houston, Texas therefore coming back into boxing after 10 years of retirement at the age of 37. He attempted to eventually wrest the crown from the head of the current titleholder, Evander Holyfield, only to lose a unanimous decision. Still George kept fighting on chasing his dream to win the Heavyweight Championship of the World again. Then in November of 1994 at the age of 45, he was given another opportunity to fight for the world championship against Michael Moorer who had upset Evander Holyfield for the championship. That night in November, George was beaten every round by the younger and quicker Moorer until Moorer became brave and started slugging with the power punching Foreman only to find himself on the canvas and knocked out by a Foreman right hand as he became the oldest man in the history of boxing to win the Heavyweight Championship of the world at the age of 45.

George’s message was simple. Life can begin at your mid forties, athlete or not. He truly was an inspiration for many athletes in all sports to make comebacks and that age didn’t matter. The oldest man before George to win the championship of the world was Jersey Joe Walcott at the age of 37. Today because of George Foreman we find 37 to be a common age to fight making that seeming impossibility a reality. He gave so many people faith that age didn’t matter.
Listening to George speak about his challenges from the Job Corps to his defeats and how they became only “lessons in life” to make him a better person. George claimed you need to learn from your mistakes and capitalize on them. He commented on life from his troubled childhood to the anger that fueled him through his early athletic career, his communion with God, and how today he is perceived as a ‘big cuddly teddy bear’ selling everything from George Foreman figurines to grills while working as a commentator on the sport of boxing with HBO.

That is the George Foreman story. Triumph against adversity. Challenges to overcome even after reaching fame as an Olympic Champion. Getting beat in the ring and listening to the critics saying he needed to retire because he was too old became a normal thing to hear. George writes in his autobiography, By George, “Some people would say that my returning to professional boxing at age 37 after ten years away was a foolish as believing that Elvis was still alive. They said that I could never hope to get back in fighting shape as I weighed 315 pounds, about a hundred pounds heavier than when I won the title from Joe Frazier fourteen years before. The critics mentioned that the muscle memory I needed to throw a professional punch was lost forever and that what I aimed to do couldn’t be done because, well, ‘it hadn’t been done’.

Theodore Roosevelt wrote, “It’s not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man has stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust, sweat, and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms and the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be among those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

That is what I took home that day from George Foreman. A man who believed in his dreams and not the foolish cries of his critics.

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