Sugar Sure Is Sweet

"Hey, Jake, your time's up," Dunlap would say.

"I just got here!" Jacobs would complain.

Leonard was by then a celebrity in Palmer Park. If he needed money to travel to a tournament, residents often offered small donations, $2 or less, to help him meet his expenses. Or there would be bake sales to support his important excursions to other cities. Jacobs' wife would buy a gross of ham hocks, 30 pounds of collard greens and a case each of chicken and ribs. "She'd spend Wednesday, Thursday and Friday cooking and Saturday and Sunday selling," Dunlap says.

Leonard had always shown a penchant for throwing himself into things with unrestrained and single-minded passion, and he approached the Olympic Games with particular intensity. "I was determined to get there," he says. "I went through a lot. My hands were pretty bad. One guy, not Dave, wrapped my hands all wrong, and I hit an opponent in the head. I used all sorts of remedies. Epsom salts, rubbing alcohol, some Ben-Gay. I couldn't work out like I wanted to. But I fought every chance I got. I loved to fight." And in Montreal, in the 150th and final amateur fight of his career, his 145th victory against five losses, he won the Olympic gold.

A police escort picked up the Leonard camper in Land-over, Md., and led it home to nearby Palmer Park, where the people turned out in numbers for a celebration. Ray was touched. "I still have the love of home," he says. "As much as I've traveled—the places I've seen and the places I've been, and I've been all over the world—there's nothing like this I could call home."

The transition from fighter to celebrity was not an easy one for Leonard. For four years he had devoted himself to boxing, and he was determined not to fight again. And now back home he was unwinding like an old clock. He lived with his parents on Barlowe Road and visited schools and made personal appearances gratis. He also spent a lot of time with his longtime fiancée, Juanita Wilkinson, and their son, Ray Jr., who's now six. He had hired Maryland attorney Mike Trainer, a friend of Morton's, to handle legal work, and Charles Brotman, a PR man, to help screen requests for his time and to find him a job.

"I don't plan on boxing again," Leonard told Brotman.

"O.K.," said Brotman. "What do you want to do?"

"I want to go to the University of Maryland, and I want to work with kids," said Leonard. He gave Brotman pieces of torn napkins and matchbook covers on which he had jotted down job offers and appointments. There were 50 or 60 of these, and Brotman sat down one day to look over the commitments Leonard had made. He found chaos. Several times Leonard had committed himself to being in three places at once.

"I understand that you indicated an interest in working with Ray," Brotman told a man whose name Leonard had jotted down.