LEONARD, Ray Charles ("Sugar Ray")

(b. 17 May 1956 in Wilmington, North Carolina), boxing champion who held world titles in the welterweight, middleweight, super middle-weight, and light heavyweight classes.

Leonard was the fifth of seven children of Cicero Leonard and Getha Leonard. If his mother had had her way, Leonard would have become a singer, like the legendary Ray Charles for whom he was named, but fate had other plans for him. Leonard and his family moved to suburban Washington, D.C., when he was a young boy. He grew up in Palmer Park, Maryland, a community once described by Sports Illustrated as "a poor, mixed neighborhood with more than enough trouble to go around." A quiet kid who avoided trouble, Leonard behaved himself in school and sang with his sisters in the church choir. He attended and graduated from Palmer Park High School. His father, in a Washington Post interview, described his son as "a funny sort of kid" who "always hung back." His son's apparent lack of interest in much of anything worried the elder Leonard. "All my other boys were always into something, but Ray … not until boxing."

Leonard discovered boxing when he was fourteen. At Palmer Park's Oakcrest Community Center, he was tutored by volunteer boxing coaches Dave Jacobs and Janks Morton, both of whom demanded strict discipline from their pupil both in and out of the ring. Their efforts paid off, for Leonard compiled an impressive amateur record of 145 wins and only 5 defeats. He won gold medals at both the 1975 Pan American Games in Mexico City and the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

Shortly after winning the Olympic gold by defeating Andres Aldama of Cuba, Leonard stunned the boxing world with an announcement that his gold medal match would be his last. Explaining that he wanted to return to the Washington area to study at the University of Maryland, he said, "My decision is final. My journey is ended, my dream fulfilled." This was but the first of a number of retirement decisions by Leonard that eventually were reversed. When product endorsements failed to materialize after he was married on 19 January 1980 to Juanita Wilkinson, the mother of a son he fathered out of wedlock (the couple later had another son), Leonard decided that he would go into professional boxing after all. Instead of seeking a boxing promoter, he put his fledgling professional career in the hands of attorney Mike Trainer.

Trainer, together with a group of several investors, incorporated Leonard and turned all shares in the newly formed corporation over to Leonard himself. Working hard to promote the boxer's best interests, Trainer brought in Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali's former trainer, to work with Leonard. Drawing on the wave of publicity unleashed in the wake of his gold medal win in the Olympics, Leonard kept himself in the public spotlight, adopting the nickname "Sugar Ray" after former boxing great Sugar Ray Robinson. Slowly but surely Leonard began to accumulate an impressive record of wins, most by technical knockout (TKO), the termination of a fight when a boxer is either unable or is declared unable to continue by a referee. With the guidance of Trainer and Dundee, Leonard faced a series of opponents who were good enough to challenge, but not to turn the tables on him.

Leonard's road to the top was not without potholes. He experienced severe pain in his hands for several days after most fights, and Dundee's training program was grueling. However, only two years after turning professional, Leonard faced Wilfredo Benitez on 30 November 1979 in the World Boxing Council (WBC) welterweight title fight in Las Vegas, the first fight ever in this weight class to pay each participant more than $1 million. Leonard took the title by TKO in the fifteenth round. Two fights later, defending his WBC title, Leonard suffered a defeat at the hands of the Panamanian Roberto Duran and surrendered the welterweight crown. However, he was well prepared to counter Duran's battering style when the two met again in a rematch in November 1980. Duran fled the ring during the eighth round, saying "no mas, no mas" (no more, no more) and claiming he was suffering stomach pains. In 1981 Leonard defeated the World Boxing Association welterweight champion Thomas Hearns to become the undisputed world champion in the welterweight class.

While training in 1982 Leonard experienced a sharp pain in his left eye that turned out to be a detached retina, an injury that could have cost him his vision in that eye. Surgery repaired the retina, but Leonard decided once again to abandon boxing after doctors warned that punches to the head could easily cause a recurrence. Explaining the reasons for his retirement, Leonard told Sports Illustrated, "There isn't enough money in the world for me to risk my eyesight. You can't put a price tag on that." Leonard got a job with HBO as a color commentator at boxing matches covered by the cable network, and the product endorsements he had hoped for after his Olympics win finally began to come his way.

Leonard made a brief return to boxing in 1984, when he met unranked Kevin Howard in what was supposed to be a warmup for an eventual faceoff with middleweight champion Marvin Hagler, high on Leonard's list of targets. Howard was no pushover, knocking Leonard to the canvas in the fourth round. Although Leonard won the fight on a TKO in the ninth round, he realized he was not yet ready for bigger challenges. He retired again and was out of the ring for just over two years. In the fall of 1986 Leonard returned to training with a vengeance and soon challenged Hagler to a match. Although most critics doubted he could pull it off, Leonard easily bested the older Hagler in a twelve-round match in the spring of 1987. In November 1988 Leonard picked up two more WBC titles by defeating Donny Lalonde, who was champion of both super middle-weight and light heavyweight classes.

Leonard's June 1989 rematch with Hearns ended in a disappointing draw. He stayed away from the ring for more than a year before announcing plans to challenge the WBC junior middleweight champ Terry Norris for the title. The much younger Norris handily defeated Leonard in February 1991, prompting another retirement announcement.

This time it looked as though the retirement would stick. Leonard put his career in the hands of Los Angeles–based talent agency International Creative Management, released an exercise video, and settled down in an expensive new home in exclusive Pacific Palisades, California. Having divorced his first wife in 1990, Leonard married model Bernadette Robi on 20 August 1993.

Just a few months before his induction into the Boxing Hall of Fame on 15 June 1997, Leonard once again returned to the ring to fight Hector "Macho" Camacho in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Camacho easily defeated the aging Leonard with a TKO in the fifth round, prompting yet another retirement announcement. Although he hinted that he might fight again, Leonard has since limited his involvement in boxing to matters outside the ring. He works widely as a commentator, having appeared on the American Broadcasting System (ABC), the National Broadcasting System (NBC), ESPN, and HBO, and in mid-2001 announced the formation of Sugar Ray Leonard Boxing, Inc., a boxing promotional company. In a joint venture with ESPN, the company, of which Leonard is chairman, produces boxing events that air on the cable network. Leonard has served for many years as the international chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Walk for a Cure. He also actively participates in a number of national and international causes benefiting needy children.

Leonard's love of boxing is so great that time and again he has found himself pulled back into the ring, sometimes against the counsel of his closest advisers. Others may question his motives, but Leonard's reasons are clear: "Some people look down on boxing as barbaric, but it's a wonderful sport. It has enabled me to have an incredible life, not just materialistically, but because I've been exposed to so much and I've been able to give back. The gratitude I get back from helping people, kids in particular, is worth more than everything I've done. I'm truly happy."

James S. Haskins, Sugar Ray Leonard (1982), provides an excellent overview of Leonard's life and early amateur and professional career. Younger readers may enjoy the brief biography Sugar Ray Leonard: The Baby-Faced Boxer (1982), by Bert Rosenthal. Other books covering Leonard's life and career include Sue H. Burchard, Sports Star: Sugar Ray Leonard (1983), which focuses on Leonard's Olympic triumph; and Sam Toperoff, Sugar Ray Leonard and Other Noble Warriors (1986). To learn more about Leonard and his career, see Jack Friedman, "Jocks: Can Sugar Ray Leonard Make a Comeback," People, and Rick Reilly, "Bonus Piece: One Will Be Made Whole," Sports Illustrated (both 30 Mar. 1987). See also Pat Putnam, "Sugar Ray Leonard Demanded Only One Thing: Let Him Choose the Date," Sports Illustrated (18 Feb. 1991).

Don Amerman