Becoming Holyfield by Evander Holyfield

I felt good about that, because I saw that I’d come from pretty solid stock. I knew I got a lot of my spirit from Mama, but now I saw that my work ethic and physical attributes, and maybe some of my reserve, came from Isom.
    I didn’t ever sit down and talk with him on that trip but it was Father’s Day when we left so I called my sister Eloise and said, “I want to buy Isom a truck” and would she do that for me. She asked me why I just didn’t do it myself and I said I didn’t want Mama to know about it. I knew it would make her mad, that she would say he didn’t deserve it because he wasn’t around for me. Four years later—on Father’s Day again—I had a house built for him in place of that trailer on his property. Again I had Eloise arrange it but this time Mama found out because of all of Isom’s bragging about his son building him a house. Just like I thought, she got all upset. “He doesn’t deserve it!” she insisted. “He never did anything for you!” But it wasn’t a question of deserving it or not. My own thing is, who was to say that I deserved all that I now had? God just saw fit to give it to me, and I saw fit to give Isom a new truck and a new house and that’s what I did.
    I also reminded her that she’d told me to pray for him. As much as I loved her I knew she had her bad points so I assumed Isom had his good ones. As far as him not being with us, it may have been for the best, because I don’t think he and Mama would have lasted if they’d lived together. Mama was high-spirited and strong-minded and Isom was easygoing and serene, the kind of man who was tough as nails but never got into trouble. They would have been like gasoline and matches.
    Over the years, Isom and I found some common ground. The Bible teaches that a good tree can’t bear bad fruit, and I assumed Isom was a good person because I felt that I was a good person. We started talking, a little at first and then more and more. My kids got to know him, too, and slowly grew to love him. I started bringing him to my fights around the time I became undisputed world champion and he came to every one right up until he passed in January 2007.

PART II
The Pro Ranks

CHAPTER 7
Going Pro
    I f I thought things were busy before the Olympics, it was nothing compared to afterward. Winning a bronze instead of a gold didn’t seem to put much of a dent in my commercial appeal, probably because the people who really knew boxing understood that coming in third had nothing to do with my skills. It wasn’t the medal they cared about. All they wanted to know was if I had championship potential.
    I had a lot of offers, but the decision about who to sign up with eventually boiled down to two possibilities. The first was Josephine Abercrombie, the lady who gave me the $2,000 I used to buy that Buick from Ken Sanders. Ken was with me when she sat me down and said, “If you sign with me, I’ll write you a check for half a million dollars before the ink even dries on your signature. For your first fight you’ll get another $400,000.”
    While I tried to keep from falling over, Ken just nodded thoughtfully and said, “That’s a very generous offer.”
    Generous? That $2,000 she’d given me after the Golden Gloves was the most money I’d every seen at one time in my whole life. I was making $8,000 a year working forty hours a week at Epps Aviation. Here she was telling me I’d have $900,000 after my first fight, so it wasn’t generous, it was colossal, and I only hoped I could hold the pen steady when I signed the contract.
    But I couldn’t sign, because before the meeting Ken made me swear that I wouldn’t jump at an offer even if a truck full of money was sitting in the driveway with my name on it. “Listen to all the offers first,” he said, “and then make a decision, because it isn’t going to be