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Jeff Lacy's deep, dark secret: He's a pussycat

By GARY SHELTON
Published August 4, 2005

With boxers, you take a breath before you look for the skeletons in the closet. Sometimes, it's not a metaphor. Sometimes, the bones actually tumble out.

In a sport where the ring is shaped like a jail cell, you enter looking for trouble. Ask about a fighter's record, and it often is necessary to clarify if you are talking about "career" or "criminal." The history of boxing is filled with killers and kidnappers, rapists and robbers, ear-munchers and cop-punchers.

On the other fist, there is Jeff Lacy.

He has some speeding tickets.

This is where the search for Lacy's dark side leads you: The iron in his fist is matched by the lead in his foot. He drives too darned fast. Feel free to gasp aloud.

Pretty much, that's it. The most scandalous thing you can say about Lacy is there is no scandal, and the most serious allegation you can make is that he's a serial speeder.

Oh, and there is this, too.

Lacy, the whispers say, is a nice guy.

In boxing, that is a rare charge. No one ever suggested such a thing of Mike Tyson or Riddick Bowe, of Jake LaMotta or Sonny Liston. A great many boxers need probation officers more than they need promoters.

Then there is Lacy, who is scheduled to fight Robin Reid on Saturday night at the St. Pete Times Forum. With Lacy, the bad doesn't go all the way to the bone. With Lacy, the reputation is that he's the sweetest guy ever to fracture a face.

He doesn't smoke. He doesn't drink. He doesn't take drugs. He doesn't travel with a posse. He doesn't bay at the moon or tattoo his face or threaten to eat the children of his opponents.

Gee. What's the guy doing? Trying to give boxing a good name?

"I am a nice guy," Lacy said, laughing. "As long as you don't push the wrong button."

Oh, let's be serious here. No one is saying Lacy is a saint. As mentioned, he treats speed limit signs as mere suggestions. He is relentlessly single. There is some mischief to the guy.

That said, boxing could use a good guy or two, couldn't it? We've seen too many boxers proclaiming how dangerous they are, and we've seen too many police reports that prove it. We have our limit of bullies and bad guys.

"You don't have to be that way," Lacy said. "You've got to know how to balance it out. You have to have a good head on your shoulders, and you can't take your anger out of the ring with you. It isn't hard. You just have to channel it.

"I like being a role model. When I was a kid, I liked looking up to people who were doing well. I like seeing it in the eyes."

No, it isn't too much to ask. Linebackers and strong safeties do it all the time. It is possible to be a devastating hitter while you compete and a decent human when you do not.

Ask Shaun King, the former Bucs quarterback. King has been a friend of Lacy's since their days back at Gibbs High School. He compares Lacy's demeanor to that of former Bucs safety John Lynch, who knew about nice and who knew about nasty.

"He's a good guy," King said. "He's never been a troublemaker. You know us guys from Gibbs. We don't cause trouble."

Early in life, Lacy was able to look at trouble up close. Two older brothers went to jail; Lacy decided he didn't want any.

"Trouble doesn't interest me," Lacy said. "That's a life lesson I learned. I didn't want to be in trouble."

Opponents might see it differently. Lacy can be merciless in the ring; he didn't get the nickname Left Hook Lacy on the bowling alley. The guy hits like Thor.

"When he's mad, he will bust somebody up," said Jim Wilkes, Lacy's adviser. "Don't misunderstand Jeff. When he hits, he hits to bash somebody's brains out. We gave him training lessons that he's not supposed to stand over his opponent and cheer when he knocks them out. When their eyes roll back and their body twitches, you're not supposed to pound your chest."

Gary Shaw, the promoter, has a slightly more sympathetic story about Lacy's viciousness. After Lacy crumpled Tommy Attardo in his second pro fight, he says Lacy came running over to him, saying, "Is he okay, is he okay? Tell me I didn't kill him."

In other words, no one is saying Lacy isn't as brutal as his sport. "Boxing ain't no play-play thing," Hydra Lacy, Jeff's father, said.

The difference is that Lacy manages to keep that anger on a shelf when he isn't in the ring. It isn't as common as it should be.

Tyson went to prison for rape. Bowe went for kidnapping his family. Dozens of others - Liston and LaMotta and Bruce Seldon and Sugar Ray Leonard and Carlos Monzon and Trevor Berbick and more - have had legal problems of one sort or another. The same violence that draws many athletes to boxing eventually catches up to them.

"It would be a sociologists' dream study," Shaw said.

Wilkes tells the story of Lacy trying to make weight before one of his fights. It can be a difficult thing, and it can leave a fighter hungry. After weigh-in, Wilkes took Lacy out to eat.

"He had to be hungry," Wilkes said. "And I look over, and he's saying the blessing before he eats."

"He's in the top 1 percent of nice guys in the sport," Shaw said. "The guy is genuine."

It should be said that Lacy does have a boiling point. For instance, there was the night of the Tough Man contest. One of the competitors kept inviting Lacy into the ring. After a while, Lacy got up, the Tough Guy went down, and the night resumed.

Want to hear about a dark side?

Once, Lacy was stopped for driving with a suspended license, although he swears he didn't know it was suspended.

Wilkes suggests that, back when Lacy worked for his law firm, Lacy would skate out of work with that smile of his.

Former Gibbs counselor Jim MacAdavee jokes that Lacy might have had a library book overdue while in high school.

Shaw says that in the days before a fight, Lacy has a painful habit of constantly poking him in the side until breathing becomes difficult.

"I like doing that one a lot," Lacy said, laughing.

Soon, the laughter will stop. Soon, his eyes will narrow and his mood will darken. Such is his chosen profession. It demands a certain portion of mayhem.

When it is over, however, feel free to unlock the doors.

A nice guy is on the loose. Nice to see it, isn't it?

[Last modified August 4, 2005, 01:05:20]