Faith Healer

America looks at a Mike Tyson, a Dennis Rodman, an Albert Belle and wrings its collective hands.

Where are the role models to captivate and inspire the youngsters of this country and point them down the straight and narrow path?

So along comes a heavyweight champion who confines his violent tendencies to the ring, who preaches the gospel rather than talk trash, a champion who has never been in a prison cell, a drug-rehab center or alcoholics anonymous.

One might think such a champion would be America’s favorite son. One would be wrong.

It’s not that Evander Holyfield is kept at arm’s length by this country’s sports fans. It’s just that he is not universally embraced.

Ticket sales for Saturday’s heavyweight unification bout between Holyfield and Michael Moorer at the Thomas & Mack Center have been slow. Interest has been limited.

Some complain that Holyfield is boring, that his bland image doesn’t generate the excitement and electricity of a Tyson, whose appeal is the sense of danger caused by his unpredictable behavior and his uncontrollable rage.

And some are put off by Holyfield’s continual references to his spirituality, seeing that as a sign he considers himself morally superior to others.

“I believe in God,” Moorer said. “Evander Holyfield makes his faith so public so everyone will praise him. Does he think no one else prays to God? God loves everybody. He doesn’t just love Evander Holyfield.”

Jim Thomas, an Atlanta lawyer who serves as Holyfield’s manager, says his client has been misunderstood.

“As long as history has been recorded,” Thomas said, “there have been people who have been accused of having a holier-than-thou attitude. When you talk about your love of God, it makes some people insecure. People get uncomfortable with others who claim to be connected to God.

“Evander’s faith has been twisted into something where people believe it is an attempt to elevate himself above others.

“He has never suggested that. People don’t listen to what he is saying. People think he is claiming that God favors him over somebody else. That is not what he is saying. This is not an exclusive thing, a competitive thing. He is saying he draws his strength from his spirituality, and he encourages Michael Moorer to do the same thing.”

Holyfield is not about to apologize for his faith.

He said he had heard that a religious person “finishes last” in boxing.

“You can’t be good and be first,” Holyfield said. “I have proven to you that that is wrong. . . . I have love and compassion for the game of boxing. I train that way. I live that way. It shows in my performance.”

Thomas, who has been with Holyfield for seven years, says his own faith has been strengthened by his association with the World Boxing Assn., heavyweight champion.

And never more so than the November night a year ago in the tension-filled minutes before Holyfield faced Tyson for the first time.

“To me, the idea that faith can move mountains was just words,” Thomas said. “But with Evander, I have seen firsthand the power of faith. In the half-hour before the fight, I saw Evander so absorbed in the connection to his higher power that any remaining doubt I had in the power of faith was completely gone.

“When he walked out to go into the ring, he had no doubt whatsoever about what the outcome was going to be. I wouldn’t say that he was in a trance, but he was at a level of calm, he had reached an inner peace that makes you think of what Gandhi went through. Many people never reach that. Evander was there. He felt something. He was singing and dancing.”

Those who have known Holyfield over the years say he has not changed, that the fame and adulation haven’t altered his priorities, his values or his loyalty to long-time friends.

“He’s still a country boy,” said television executive Jay Larkin, a Holyfield friend for a dozen years.

Larkin still remembers the day in the late 1980s when Holyfield, then the undisputed cruiserweight champion, was asked to do a cover shot for a boxing magazine.

Holyfield first stopped by Larkin’s New York office and the two set off through downtown Manhattan to the magazine office.

Holyfield was carrying two bags, one in each of his large hands.

“What do you have in there?” Larkin asked.

“In here,” replied Holyfield, pointing to one bag, “is my trunks. And here in the other one is my iron.”

Iron? Larkin couldn’t imagine what kind of iron the champion would be carrying. When they got the magazine, he found out.

To the amazement of the television executive and magazine people, the man, a world boxing champion, proceeded to lay out the trunks he would wear for the photo shoot and then iron out the wrinkles.

Larkin also remembers the night in 1992 he was hospitalized in Las Vegas for exhaustion, the same night Holyfield lost to Riddick Bowe in the first of their three bouts.

About 3 a.m., a nurse came into Larkin’s room to tell him Evander Holyfield was there.

“He can’t be,” Larkin said. “He just had a fight tonight.”

But it was indeed Holyfield.

“He walked into my room with his face still all puffy and swollen,” Larkin recalled. “He just wanted to see if I was alive. Once he was assured that I was all right, he left.

“I consider him one of my dearest friends.”

If anything was going to rattle Holyfield, to upset his inner calm, it was the night of his second fight with Tyson, the night a chunk of his right ear was bitten off by Tyson.

Holyfield insists to this day that he holds no animosity for Tyson.

“It’s not like I’ve been perfect all my life,” Holyfield said, “so there is no reason to hold anything against him. I still have respect for him and all the things he has accomplished. We all fall short. If people held everything done by others against them, we couldn’t all come together.”

Holyfield, say those close to him, didn’t even lose his composure when he learned that the piece of his ear chewed off by Tyson had been stolen.

The bloodied piece had been retrieved from the ring, placed in ice and rushed to the nearby hospital where Holyfield was being treated. But when attendants opened the ice chest in which it had been placed to sew it back on, the tattered bit of flesh was gone.

Thomas said he later learned the thief had spread the word that he had this bizarre piece of fistic history and would be willing to sell it.

Undoubtedly, the thief found a buyer.

Boxing seems to attract the kind of lowlifes that only a Gandhi could excuse.

Or a Holyfield.

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Tale of the Tape

The tale of the tape for the heavyweight championship fight between WBA champion Evander Holyfield and IBF champion Michael Moorer to be held Saturday in Las Vegas: *--*

Category Holyfield Moorer Weight 214 223 Height 6-2 1/2 6-2 Age 34 29 Reach 77 1/2 78 Chest (normal) 43 42 1/2 Chest (ex.) 45 44 Biceps 16 17 Forearm 12 1/2 14 Waist 32 34 Thigh 22 26 1/2 Calf 13 17 Neck 19 1/2 20 Wrist 7 1/2 8 Fist 12 1/2 12

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