Former Champion Joe Frazier Is Battling Some Tough Times

WILLIAMSTOWN, N.J. - The after-lunch crowd was thin at the New Geets diner as Smokin' Joe Frazier gulped snapper soup and talked about boxing and life.

"I guess you could say I was just about always the underdog," said the former world heavyweight champion.

"But all that just makes me work harder," he said. "It makes me love harder."

This year hasn't been the best of times for Frazier, who grew up on a South Carolina farm, moved to Philadelphia as a teen-ager and rode a trademark left hook to Olympic gold and a 32-4-1 pro record that included 27 knockouts and two world heavyweight titles.

You never heard bad talk about Smokin' Joe - until recently. He was arrested in April on drunken driving charges by a cop who said Frazier's white 1989 Jaguar was swerving and running traffic signals in North Philadelphia. Frazier beat the charges, but is still so upset he's laid the groundwork for a possible lawsuit against the city.

No sooner had Frazier left the courtroom than he landed in the headlines again - this time for scaring the bejeebers out of hundreds of Bucks County homeowners with a notification that he's suing to reclaim the land their homes are built on. Frazier claims he was bilked out of 140 acres he bought in the late 1970s.

Meanwhile, Frazier, 54, helped bury four older brothers and an uncle this year. The most recent death was that of his brother, Andrew, who died Dec. 11. Now, he feels slandered by the city he loves and cheated by businessmen he trusted. He's not going to let bad feelings rule his life and he still loves Philadelphia. But he can't shake the sensation that he's been done wrong.

Between the funerals and court appearances, the champ stays upbeat and busy with his self-named gym in North Philadelphia, where he dispenses his boxing savvy, training tips and fatherly advice to both amateurs and pros.

He's on the trade-show circuit, makes personal appearances and continues working on book deals, doing interviews, licensing his name and belting out retro-soul numbers with his band.

An earthy man who rose to the top by the sweat of his brow and the fury of his fists, Frazier still likes to party. He'll be the first to admit, it's getting harder to hang, but he adds, "there's still smoke in the furnace." Frazier doesn't wear success on his sleeve. Actually, he uses rubber bands as shirt garters.

A gold watch, two gold rings, a large crown-shaped medallion dangling from a thick gold neck chain . . . and rubber bands! Just a regular Joe.

Frazier and his jocular-but-attentive bodyguard, David Love, quietly entered the diner and waited to be seated. The champ, down from his 200-pounds-plus fighting weight to a trim 186, was relatively laid back in purple pants, a black mock turtleneck (with rubber bands), a tan corduroy jacket and a wide-brimmed Stetson.

Three people walk right by him before one re-enters and asks: "Aren't you . . .?"

A smile. A handshake. A little small talk. An autograph - for free. Some laughter. A few gracious moments with the champ.

Love even carries blank business cards with a color photo of Frazier and his son, Marvis, in their boxing gear. Frazier autographs the back for fans who don't have paper with them.

Smokin' Joe is feeling good this day. He just left his doctor, who gave him a clean bill of health during a regularly scheduled checkup. Dr. Nicholas L. DePace says Frazier's diabetes is under control and his health is good. "The guy is in excellent shape and he's, what, 54 years old," DePace said. "You don't see these kind of muscles on most 40-year-olds."

Recognition slowly spreads through the diner as Frazier orders soup and an open-faced corned beef sandwich.

Frazier's lunch is interrupted about a dozen times with, "Aren't you . . . ?" Each time, Frazier's battle-scarred face lights up. More handshakes. More small talk. More autographs and even some snapshots. More laughter.

Chasing his dream

Frazier grew up the youngest of 13 children in Beaufort, S.C., where he first dreamed of becoming heavyweight champion of the world. Where, as a youngster, he hung a homemade heavybag from a tree and began turning a slightly crooked left arm into a rib-shattering left hook.

He moved in with relatives in New York at 15. Less than a year later, he was boarding with kin in North Philly, working at a slaughterhouse and chasing his boxing dream at a neighborhood gym.

"I wanted to be champion of the world and I figured here was my opportunity," Frazier said in that throaty rasp, slightly slurred by the multitude of shots to the head he's taken over the years. He began training at the Police Athletic League, which earned cops a special place in his heart.

"That's why I always speak of police officers so highly - because they gave me, let's say, my second start," he said. "That's why I can't understand that officer and the way they pushed me around that night. And then for them to lie about it? Now, you know that wasn't right."

Frazier - who prides himself on a clean police record, his charity work and his status as a goodwill ambassador for boxing and Philadelphia - was referring to his drunken-driving arrest.

He was stopped for erratic driving about 3 a.m. on a quiet stretch of Allegheny Avenue. He refused a field sobriety test. A breathalyzer test about 90 minutes later showed an alcohol level of .098, slightly below the .10 legal limit.

"He was tired, but he was not drunk," said Love, who rode back from Hudson County, N.J., with Frazier that night. Time was when Frazier liked his cups, Love said. But the diabetes has caused the champ to cut back.

Frazier said insult was added to injury the next day when Police Commissioner John Timoney said the bust demonstrated that even famous and well-connected people cannot escape the law.

"Nobody's going to be above the law," Timoney said. "I think in the past, people have gotten a pass. I can't say it won't happen anymore - but it won't happen as often as it once did."

At the trial, the arresting officer and his supervisor testified Frazier appeared to have been drinking and was uncooperative.

Frazier and his witnesses said the champ was yanked from his car and cuffed behind his back despite his complaints of an injured shoulder. They said Frazier was tired after driving back from a North Jersey police function and noted the medications he takes for diabetes and other ailments can slur his speech and halter his gait.

Frazier was acquitted by Municipal Judge William A. Brady Jr., who said the champ deserved a "presumption of innocence."

Frazier didn't let it drop there.

"I've called this city home for 38 years," he said. "Now you would think, especially because he was new here and didn't really know much about me, that Timoney would at least say, `Wait a minute. Let me check his record' before making that kind of a statement."

Timoney said his remarks were not aimed directly at Frazier. He said they were culled from "a general discussion on celebrities being charged."

"I am an admirer of Joe Frazier and felt sorry that the reporter took the quote out of its intended context," Timoney said recently.

That's as close as Timoney gets to the apology that Frazier said he wanted when he filed papers in Common Pleas Court in October to keep open the option of suing the city for excessive police force.

Reclaiming the land

The champ's land claim in Northampton Township is a bit more complicated. Frazier's daughter, Jacquelyn Frazier-Lyde, is lead attorney in her father's dispute over a 140-acre parcel that currently is home to hundreds of families around the 100 Acre Woods townhouse development.

Those familes were shocked last month when they received letters from Frazier-Lyde saying her father was filing to reclaim title to the land.

Larry Graham, president of the 100 Acre Woods Townhouse Association, said he fielded dozens of calls from anguished owners. One elderly woman wanted to know how much she owed and when she had to pay it, Graham said. A Russian immigrant wanted to know if they could do this type of thing in America.

"This is B.S.," Graham said of the letter. "It's not worth the paper it's written on."

Talk about a sullied reputation.

"I've been in Joe Frazier's company dozens of times," said Graham, a former limo driver. "In my personal opinion, he's still one of the greatest boxers of all time and he's a great guy . . . But he's not a well-liked man at all in the area these days."

Once again, Frazier is cast as the underdog.

"They have zero chance" to reclaim title to the land, said attorney Ed Hayes, who represents some of the homeowners and their title insurance companies. Frazier-Lyde said this is the fourth legal action she has filed since 1992 to recover her father's money from the Bucks County deal.

She said three earlier lawsuits were filed in Philadelphia charging an array of lawyers, law firms, developers and trusts with "legal malpractice and fraudulent conveyance" of the land. Those three suits are to be heard in court June 21.

Frazier-Lyde claims her father was never paid for the 140 acres he sold in 1978. She said her dad bought the land in 1977 and formed One Hundred Acres Ltd. with his then attorney, Bruce Wright. Frazier sold the land to the Fricker Corp. of Horsham in 1978 for $1.865 million to be paid in installments over 20 years. The land then passed through a series of developers before the townhouses were built.

Red flags went up when Frazier didn't receive his 1991 payment, Frazier-Lyde said. By then, Wright was dead and the "chain of title was broken somewhere along the line as if, as far as that land was concerned, my father never existed."

Frazier-Lyde said she now believes the annual payments her father received from 1978 to 1991 weren't part of the land deal.

"We suspect they were just paying him from the proceeds he earned when he was fighting," Frazier-Lyde said.

"This isn't just about the land or the money," Frazier-Lyde said. "This is about standing up for what you believe is right."

"Nobody wants to see anybody get put off their land or out of their house," explained Joe Frazier's son, Marvis.

A family affair

Marvis Frazier, an ordained minister in the Church of God in Christ and himself a former heavyweight contender, is the "liason to business" for his father. He handles day-to-day operations at Joe Frazier's Gym and coordinates his father's other ventures. In fact, you can't talk about Joe Frazier without talking about Team Frazier. It's a family affair.

In addition to Joe, Marvis and Jackie, there's Joe's daughter Natasha, the gym's administrative assistant. Another daughter, Weatta, works on special projects and promotions and Frazier's brother, Tommy, runs the limousine service.

The list runs all the way down to cousin Paulette, who cooks hot dogs and collects money during amateur boxing shows at the gym.

"We have a lot of family," Marvis observed.

"You have your business quarrels, your sibling rivalries and your spats. But it always comes back to love."

Frazier stays close to that love. He lives in a four-bedroom loft atop the gym - stylishly funked out with flowing fabric accents and room dividers made of rough-hewn wooden fish boxes.

Mementoes of his storied ring career are everywhere. Plaques and posters on the walls, a championship belt and citation on a side table, a cast sculpture of his left fist on a shelf.

Frazier's gym is not as busy as it was in its heyday, when its ring was haunted by big-name fighters like Gypsy Joe Harris, Bennie Briscoe, James Schuler, Bobby "Boogaloo" Watts, "Cyclone" Hart and Willie "The Worm" Monroe.

"It's coming back to the glory days," Marvis Frazier said. "We're in the process of rebuilding."

Currently, the gym's professional bangers include Terrance Cauthen, Derek Bryant and Clifford Watford. Cauthen, a junior welterweight and former Olympian, is 13-0 with five knockouts. Bryant, a southpaw super heavyweight, is 6-0 with five KOs, and Watford, a lightweight, is 2-1.

About 18 amateurs also train under the watchful eyes of trainers Val Colbert, Charles Hayward Sr. and Joe and Marvis Frazier.

"Most of the guys are not rated in the top 50," Frazier noted. "But at least they got a champion's eyes looking out for them."

Toward the end of his day, Frazier lounges in his loft, singing a few stanzas from his personalized version of "My Way."

His repertoire with the 10-piece John Hoye Band also includes vintage soul hits like "Mustang Sally," "Knock on Wood," "Proud Mary" and "A Change is Gonna Come."

"He doesn't forget where he came from," said Love, his bodyguard. "A lot of entertainers, you have to pay them for them to be who they are. But you couldn't pay him to be anything else than what he is.

"As people, I really believe we've to take time now to say, `Hey Champ, thanks for everything you've done.' "