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Taylor gets big parade; hopefully he won't change Saturday, Jul 23, 2005 By Harry King LITTLE ROCK - In the spotlight, an image-conscious idol can take care to mind his Ps and Qs and then do the cold shoulder when the lights are off. When the autograph seekers are kids with no clout and there is no adult on the scene, those are the times that tell whether the hero is genuine or on auto pilot. It is that setting which makes a Jermain Taylor story worth rehashing. A couple of years ago, when the crowds were sparse and Taylor was just another young fighter with an unbeaten record, he agreed to do his John Hancock in North Little Rock. A Bryant man heard about the appearance and called his son, a big Taylor fan. The young man rounded up a couple of high school classmates and his little brother and made the 30-minute drive. When the boys arrived, they had nothing for Taylor to sign so they pooled their money and bought a pair of boxing gloves. Taylor signed both, then realized there was a party of four. He grabbed another pair, signed them, and told the admirers that there was a two-for-one sale. Magnanimous and gracious, that was Taylor now and then. If he keeps winning and those traits are unsullied, they will endear him to a national audience. Ever since he won four middleweight championships from Bernard Hopkins last Saturday, he has been in demand. Yet, on Monday, one of his first calls was to a Little Rock radio station that sent a large crew to Las Vegas and did three shows a day from the MGM Grand. Taylor's thank you turned into 40 minutes on the air with Nathan Christian and Justin Acri. Fifteen minutes after he hung up, he was on with nationally syndicated Jim Rome. On Friday, after a parade, a brief thank-you speech filled with names and "y'all," the 26-year-old Taylor fielded some lobs with spontaneity. Outside the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce building, where the heat index was 102, Marco Evans was right by the door, waiting and sweating. He had clipped a color picture of Taylor and was hoping for an autograph. Taylor, he said, was his third customer when he started cutting hair at a shop east of Main Street. Taylor would not remember Evans, but he borrowed a pen and started to sign on the picture when Evans asked if he would use the white border. Taylor started over, three inches to the right. He signed everything people shoved at him and posed with six children - all white, ages 8-13. At the amphitheater, the crowd of about 5,500 was diverse, a nice compliment to a champion who is an Arkie first and a black man second. That also was true along the parade route, where "J.T., J.T.," came and went as he rode from the Capitol to the Clinton Library to the riverfront amphitheater in a red convertible with his four title belts on the hood. Thirty minutes before it started, Debra Rowlett of Jacksonville parked her SUV barely a block from the Capitol. In the vehicle were her daughter, Michelle Earnhart of Vilonia, two grandchildren and a 9-year-old from Oklahoma. "When we heard there was a parade, it was something cool for my kids to see," Earnhart said. A block east on Capitol, a Little Rock school bus dispatched almost 50 kids, ages 3-14, wearing taekwondo T-shirts. Five young men with the city parks department, some of them responsible for sprucing up the area, had T-shirts for Taylor to sign prior to the rally, but he was holed up in a small, crowded room behind the stage. The workers were still around when the rally ended and they got their autographs with the convertible for a table. At the chamber office, Taylor said he had so much, he was ashamed to ask for more; that the belts were nice, but that the feeling inside was the thing. If the Hopkins rematch falls through, he said, he was not going to worry about it. He said trainer Pat Burns would let him know when it was time to return to training, and that he and wife Erica are leaving on a cruise on Sunday. Asked what he would say to youngsters, he talked about doing things wholeheartedly and made a point with old-timers when he was critical of youngsters wearing pants with the seat about knee-high. So far, he's all the right stuff. ----- Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media Group's Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com. |
