Hall of Fame

GEORGE FOREMAN
CLASS OF 2019

George Foreman grew up running the streets and corners in Houston’s Fifth Ward and dodging the police.

The fifth of seven children raised by a single mother, he was an incorrigible kid and junior high dropout until one night in 1965 when he turned his life around.

George Foreman meets with the media after his Houston Sports Hall of Fame induction at the 2019 Houston Sports Awards.

Just 16, Foreman put the trouble behind him and took the first step in a long journey that took him from that incorrigible kid to an Olympic gold medalist, a two-time World Heavyweight Champion, a born-again preacher, a grill pitchman, a gregarious and lovable sports icon and a Houston Sports Hall of Famer.

Not long after that night, Foreman took up amateur boxing, and three years later, he won the Olympic gold in the heavyweight division at the 1968 Games. He was so excited that he stood in the ring, pulled an American flag out of his pocket in Mexico City, and waved it around.

Watch George Foreman's "Red Carpet" interview with Julia Morales Clark at the 2019 Houston Sports Awards

He knocked out then-undefeated Joe Frazier in the second round in 1973 to win his first World Heavyweight title but lost it to Muhammad Ali in the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle and retired in 1977. A decade later, he came out of retirement, and in 1994, the then-45-year-old Foreman knocked out Michael Moorer to share the heavyweight championship. He retired four years later with 76 wins (68 knockouts) and five losses. He has six daughters and five sons -- all the sons are named George -- and is an ordained minister.

Watch the introduction of George Foreman at the 2019 Houston Sports Awards.

Foreman hated school but made it through Atherton Elementary and E.O. Smith Junior High before dropping out. He would have gone to Wheatley High School but only hung out with friends nearby. He never walked through the door.