BONECRUSHER : SMITH : Gentleman Jim’s Educated Guess Is That He Will Give Tyson a Fight

The white house is about 100 yards back from a two-lane country road that winds through the North Carolina woods.

Inside, in an office, is the man who on Saturday night will box Mike Tyson in Las Vegas, in a heavyweight fight that will unify the World Boxing Council and World Boxing Assn. heavyweight championships.

At a large desk, James (Bonecrusher) Smith, who holds the WBA version of the title, sits in front of a large adding machine. Beating Tyson, he says, will enable him to crank out some big numbers on that adding machine. He will earn roughly $1 million Saturday, Tyson $2 million.

“There’s big money available out there, but the key to the whole thing is winning,” says Smith, leaning back in his executive chair. “You keep winning in this sport, and there’s almost no limit to what you can make. That’s why I’m going to beat him.”

Smith is pretty good with numbers and he’s the only heavyweight champion ever to have earned a college degree. He graduated with a business degree from Raleigh’s Shaw College in 1975.

From any view, Bonecrusher--his friends call him Bone--isn’t your typical professional boxer. There is no gold, no glitter. The car in the driveway is a 1984 Oldsmobile. The watch is a Timex. He wears shirts and ties--even in Lillington--and favors tweedy sport coats. He says “thank you” a lot, rarely uses profanity and doesn’t mix metaphors or use double negatives.

Where did this guy come from? How does he ever hope to succeed in boxing, talking like a school teacher, which he has been? And couldn’t he at least borrow a gold chain?

More to the point, is Bonecrusher Smith for real?

He is, according to one old friend. Doug Tanner was a prison guard with Smith in the late 1970s.

“Bone has made a lot of money and bought a nice big house in the last few years, but he’s really never changed,” Tanner said. “Basically, he’s a friendly, gentle, good-hearted man. And he’s very loyal. He’d dig ditches tomorrow without complaining if he thought something good would happen to his family for it.

“He’s extremely loyal to his wife, Reba. He knows Reba has always been on his bandwagon, even back when he was making $400 a fight and working as a prison guard at the same time. That means a lot to him.

“Reba, though, she gets on his case sometimes. See, Bone’s the type of guy who’ll get a call at midnight, someone wanting him to speak the next morning to a group of kids a hundred miles away, and he’ll drive half the night to get there on time. He has a hard time saying no.”

He had to say no once, though, to his boyhood dream. Smith always wanted to be a pro athlete, but he wasn’t counting on becoming a boxer.

“I spent most of my boyhood laboring under the fantasy that one day I’d be a star in the NBA,” he said. “I figured that was over when I stopped growing at 6-4. Then I went out for football and played one year at defensive tackle, but I wasn’t much good. I never put on a pair of boxing gloves until I was in the Army.”

In the Army, Smith, a personnel officer, was stationed in Wurzburg, West Germany. He’d won an amateur boxing tournament at Ft. Jackson, S.C., and continued to box in Army tournaments in West Germany.

“That’s when I picked up the nickname Bonecrusher, beating up guys in the Army,” he said. “I cracked a few ribs. But a lot of people told me I had some ability, so I decided I’d give pro boxing a chance when I got out. I was discharged at Ft. Dix, N.J., in 1978 and went to Joe Frazier’s gym in Philadelphia to train. I learned a lot, real fast. I got beat up every day, and had two black eyes all the time.

“At that time Joe’s son, Marvis, was the No. 1 amateur heavyweight in the country, and Joe was spending a lot of time working with him. I didn’t feel I had a future in that situation, so I came home. Besides, I was afraid I’d burn myself out at Frazier’s gym. When you get into a ring in a Philadelphia gym to spar, every round is like a world title fight.”

His old friend, Tanner, said Smith had some doubts about a pro boxing career--until he watched a few television bouts.

“When Bone started seeing guys he’d beaten up in the Army making good money in TV fights, he decided to go for it,” Tanner said.

He worked as a prison guard at Burgaw, N.C., where he read high school equivalency courses to convicts for the North Carolina Department of Corrections until he established himself. He also taught math and social studies.

Now, life has handed Smith a golden opportunity. He’ll be something like a 7-1 underdog at the opening bell against Tyson but just his getting the fight is surprising.

Back in December, promoter Don King was having trouble getting WBA champion Tim Witherspoon and Tony Tubbs into a Madison Square Garden ring for one of his heavyweight tournament bouts to unify the heavyweight championship. Tubbs pulled out, claiming an injury. King said he was holding out for more money. Seven days before the fight, King called Smith.

“He called me at home here one night and said, ‘Are you interested in fighting Witherspoon?’ and I said ‘Sure!’ ”

There it was, the big break.

Retelling it, Smith leans back in his executive chair and enjoys a long, hearty laugh, recalling how he had beaten Witherspoon that night as if Witherspoon had stolen something. The first punch of the fight, a long right hand, landed on the side of Witherspoon’s head, and staggered him. Smith knocked him down three times.

When the fight was stopped, the 33-year-old Smith was the WBA champion, having taken the title from a man who had beaten him soundly in 1985.

“At his best, Witherspoon is a real good fighter,” he says. “He beat me badly in ’85. (Larry) Holmes beat me, too. But against Holmes I always had a feeling I was one punch away from turning the fight around. Witherspoon beat me in every round. He dominated me. But in the second fight, I got in that first punch and I was in charge immediately.”

Smith suggests that those picking Tyson might do well to examine the record.

“Three of the hardest punchers in the division are Witherspoon, (Mike) Weaver and (Frank) Bruno, and I’ve knocked all of them out,” he says. “Why? Because big hitters like that are made for my style. If they come after me, I’m at my best. Tyson, I think he carries too much weight for his frame. I’ll take him into the eighth, ninth rounds and then watch him slow down.”

Then, alluding to Tyson’s preference for wearing no socks in the ring, Smith adds: “I’ll beat him, but I’m not going to tell you exactly how. We’re gonna do it. When he wakes up, he’ll know this is 1987 and that he oughta be wearin’ socks.”

Outside, on the pine-studded lawn in front of his home, Smith talks about his boxing earnings. He points to the front of his house, which might fit right in as a modest, half-million-dollar home in Beverly Hills.

“I bought this place in 1983 for $110,000,” he says. “I negotiated a long time for it. It’s got 2,800 square feet, four bedrooms and four baths.

“I’m buying real estate. I’ve got two other houses and some apartments in Magnolia, Lillington and Broadway.”

Smith grew up in a tiny house in Magnolia, with five brothers and sisters. His parents were sharecroppers.

“We grew tobacco and a lot of vegetables,” he says. “Dad owned 40 acres, and we worked other plots of land that we shared with other sharecroppers.

“Now, you can’t do it on that basis anymore. The cost of fertilizers, farm equipment, hired help--you need at least a hundred acres outright to make it today, and even then you’ve gotta be a real good farmer.

“You know how a lot of city fighters like to chop wood in training camp? Hey, we had to do that around here, just to stay warm.”

Earlier, in his living room, Smith introduced his visitor to one of the loves of his life, Jamie, his 4-year-old daughter. His wife, Reba, a seventh-grade schoolteacher, was at school, as was his 16-year-old stepson, Raymond. Lovingly, he cuddled Jamie in his lap and talked softly and slowly to her. She wore two hearing aids.

“She was 2 or 3 when we figured out she had a hearing problem,” he said.

When he introduced the grinning little girl, she buried her face in his chest, embarrassed. Her father leaned back enjoyed another long, deep laugh and Jamie lifted her head, watched him . . . then she laughed, too.

Smith drives into Fayetteville, 30 minutes away, for lunch before his mid-afternoon training session at Ft. Bragg. At the restaurant, he builds a tall salad and orders a large iced tea. It appears that half the patrons know who he is.

As he begins to eat, a young man wearing a baseball cap walks up and says: “Mr. Smith, would you sign my hat? You’re the greatest. Good luck in that fight, but you’re a champ, win or lose.”

Smith thanks him, signs the cap, and, as the young man walks away, has another hearty laugh. “He didn’t sound too confident, did he? When I beat Witherspoon, there were 150 at the airport here to greet me. I’ll have to remember to see if he’s in the crowd, when everyone shows up at the airport after I beat Tyson.”

The Ft. Bragg boxing gym, Callahan Boxing Arena, is a relic, possibly of World War II vintage. A sign on the wall reads: “Boxing----the toughest nine minutes in amateur athletics”

Year after year, Ft. Bragg produces one of the strongest amateur boxing teams in the U.S. military. It’s a no-nonsense gym.

Some Army boxers are jumping rope when Smith emerges from a locker room in blue T-shirt and shorts. His Fayetteville trainer, David Henry, guides him through a 12-station weight machine workout, a practice not commonly associated with boxing training.

Forty minutes later, Smith towels himself off and talks about strength . . . and fear.

“Tyson is a powerful man, real strong, and that’s no bull,” he says. “I want to beef up a little. I lifted weights for Witherspoon and Weaver, but I’ll do a little more for Tyson. I feel I need a little edge in strength to handle him inside.”

Tyson said on a TV interview show not long ago that “fear is in my corner.” Smith concurs, saying that fear is what drives a man in a ring.

“A lot of people never stop to think that boxers have fragile feelings, just like anyone else,” he says.

“Well, how would you like to be beaten up by someone, knocked down and cut up, made to look foolish, in front of millions of people? It’s humiliating, so you work hard in training, you prepare as best you can. You want the other guy to experience that.”