When returning from a work rotation one day, I spotted who appeared to be Evander Holyfield. He was sitting a few rows up from me and he had disappeared by the time I made it off of the airplane. As chance would have it, he was waiting in the airport lobby for the same flight I was taking. I was given an conversation opportunity when he asked me to keep an eye on his things for a minute. Once he returned, and in between requests for signatures and photos, I had a conversation with “The Real Deal”.
During our conversation, I feel that I learned a small amount about what makes Evander the person that he is. He informed me that he was in town to train for his upcoming fight. When I asked him why he traveled to another town to train, I received a little taste of what it is like to be a celebrity athlete. He told me that he has to get away from home to focus on his training. When he is at home, he is constantly harassed by the business side of his profession. He feels that the people around him do not understand the importance of his physical training. He said that they tell him that he does not need to focus on training so much because he is a natural athlete. Mr. Holyfield feels that they cannot comprehend that the reason he has excelled in is field is the hard work he has put into his training. He thinks that they are too busy trying to figure out how to get their pound of flesh from him to care about nurturing his talent.
The conversation then moved to his experience of coming from a poor community and achieving the level of notoriety that he has. I got the impression that his mother played an important role in the development of Evander’s work ethic and the nurturing of his natural physical ability. In high school, he played all sports, but he feels that he only excelled at football. However, he had no passion for football. He completed the season but did not return the next year so that he could focus his energy and passion on boxing. His mother always supported him and told him that she did not expect him to play football if he did not want to.
Evander pointed out to me that when he was first getting noticed for his boxing ability, everyone was very supportive. He had nothing, so no one tried to to get anything from him. The people that he dealt with were simply admirers of his boxing. Once he started making money, it was difficult for him to know what to do with it. He did not receive any financial training from his parents as they never had enough money to worry about. He quickly realized that he did not have the skills to manage the amount of income he was generating. He also knew that he would have a problem finding people that he could trust to not take advantage of him. Evander has been taken advantage of by lawyers and financial advisers in his past and was disappointed by the lack of legal recourse he found when seeking justice. He said that he had questioned Senator John McCain about this when visiting the White House one day. He made the argument to Mr. McCain that a lawyer’s ability with words and the laws of the land were the same as his own abilities with his fists. Both he and the lawyer spend their lives developing there skills to achieve an advantage over others. The difference, in Evander’s experiences, is that if one man hits another with his fists, he will be legally prosecuted whereas if a man uses his knowledge of the law to exploit another man, there is little chance of recourse. When posed this question, McCain replied that the problem was that the people that are knowledgeable about law are the ones that write the laws by which they could be prosecuted.
Evander is somewhat worried that the wealth that he has provided for his family has effected the work ethic of his children. He thinks that they will not have the same problems of being taken advantage of financially that he had, however, he can see that they do not have the same drive to follow their passion like he did. I got the feeling that he thinks that wealth can cause the children of wealthy parents to lack focus when making choices about their careers. He feels that they are prone to just go through the motions of school, choosing their degree by the “path of least resistance” method instead of following their passion.
At this point, the flight started boarding so, after some tool gave him a business card, I told him that it was a pleasure to meet him and wished him a good Thanksgiving. The impression I got from our short conversation is that Mr. Holyfield is an athlete with the desire to be the best in his field. The money, notoriety and wealth come from a combination natural ability, strong work ethic, focus, passion, and luck.
On a side note, you can still see where Tyson bit his ear off.
