BETTER THAN HEARSAY - Cus and Mike

“He is a kind soul,” says Lakiha Spicer, the wife of Mike Tyson, one of the most feared heavyweight boxing champions of all time.

“We didn’t call it peek-a-boo,” says Billy White, longtime friend of Mike Tyson, both learning under legendary boxing trainer Cus D’Amato.

By Michael Ryan

CATSKILL - “He is the only one I’ve ever truly loved,” said Lakiha Spicer, speaking about someone who, in his line of work, was known as “The Baddest Man on the Planet.”

If that seems like an ungraspable contrast, it isn’t, if you consider Lakiha was talking about her husband, Mike Tyson.

Tyson came to Catskill, last weekend, to help honor Cus D’Amato, the late, world-renowned trainer who forged “Iron Mike” into the youngest ever heavyweight boxing champion, and arguably the most feared.

He was swarmed by admirers of all ages before and after making a speech for the ages about D’Amato who transformed a scared and scarred 13-year-old kid headed toward infamy into a literal living legend.

Lakiha sat silent in the shadows, content to be there, meeting Mike when she was 19, saying with a smile, “yes, it was a first glance feeling.”

“I met Mike through my dad,” Lakiha said. “A fight that was supposed to be in Atlantic City got changed to Philadelphia. I went with my family.

“Some time later I bumped into him without my family. We knew a lot of the same people. We dated when I was in my 20’s and kept in touch,” getting married in 2009.

“He is a kind soul,” Lakiha said, watching her husband being beseeched for autographs and posing for photographs for hours inside the packed boxing gym on Main Street in Catskill that now bears D’Amato’s name.

And Tyson, after finishing his speech about Cus from a makeshift stage in the middle of downtown, was engulfed by a wave of humanity, wanting to be closer to a magic neither they nor anyone else can explain.

Back home, it isn’t like that for the ex-champ and his family. “When he doesn’t have to do this, we are pretty quiet,” Lakiha said.

“Every day is an average life. We don’t go out much. He still has his pigeon coop. When he’s with them, he’s happy.

“I think it’s really beautiful how, when he comes to Catskill, he is just plain old Mike in a way again, the kid growing up in this community before everything else happened,” Lakiha said.

“He is part of this community and this community is a part of him. He didn’t come here with a big entourage. It’s just myself and my nephew and a gentleman that works with us.

“Mike doesn’t put on airs. I think that’s why people love him. And he talks about Cus all the time,” Lakiha says. “There isn’t a time he doesn’t get emotional, talking about Cus.”

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Another guy who gets gooey, talking about Cus D’Amato, is Billy White, a buddy of Tyson’s and my first boss when I broke into the newspaper business, 40 or so years ago, with the Mountain Eagle.

Back in those days, we had an office in Catskill. Billy was the sports editor, showing me the ropes, and every couple of days he’d bring this shy kid in with him, using that as an excuse to leave work early.

Tyson was that kid. Billy was a bit of a street urchin himself, gravitating toward D’Amato and his boxing club where he and Mike got close.

Billy is with a boxing club in South Florida these days, but wouldn’t have missed the celebration of Cus for anything, giving maybe the longest speech in the history of long speeches.

It went for an hour if it was a minute with Tyson sitting there waiting his turn and the November afternoon rapidly growing chilly, dark and drizzly.

Interviewing him before his epic monologue, Billy gave me a lesson about D’Amato’s famous peek-a-boo boxing technique, keeping both gloves up near the face, peering out from in-between them.

“We didn’t call it peek-a-boo. The media made fun of Cus’ style, saying it looked like we were hiding, but it worked. We never got hit,” Billy said.

“We called it, “the moves,’ Billy said, explaining how there was a sequential series of punches that Cus taught his fighters, meant to deliver the most damage and receive the least, always protecting, readying to pounce.

Billy told how Bobby Stewart, a counsellor at the Tryon school, a reform school in Johnstown, recognized the potential in the 13-year-old Tyson when he arrived, running out of chances, later introducing him to Cus.

Cus, with his wife Camille Ewald, became Tyson’s legal guardian, and they brought out the best not only in the future champ but also a lot of lost boys who wound up at their home, along the Hudson River, outside Catskill.

“Mike and I are brothers from another father and brothers from another mother,” Billy said. “Cus and Camille were home sweet home to us.

“They showered all of us with love. Many of us went on to develop other interests. What Cus did mostly is instill character and confidence in us.

“Cus was a Zen master. He was pure genius. We learned how to control our fear and how to picture our success,” Billy said.

“It’s hard to talk about him without breaking down. He saw something in Mike but Mike was special too. He was just a young kid with a rough background, but you have to understand.

“Mike would stand in the corner and do one move for an hour. Most guys did it a little bit and they’re done. It takes dedication and determination.

“Mike had it but Cus brought it out in him,” Billy said. “Cus changed all our lives for the better. He wanted to know who we were. He cared,” bringing salvation to the “baddest” kind soul on the planet.