If He Reaches for His Gloves, It Might Be Wise to Sign and Run

When you think of an ex-heavyweight pug, you ordinarily picture a guy who talks through his nose, or through his ears, starts fighting when he hears a bell or has great difficulty remembering where he’s just been.

He’s hardly someone you would send to negotiate a treaty for you, or handle your case in court, or represent you in the corridors of high finance. An ex-fighter’s agility does not run to arithmetic.

If you were, arguably, the greatest runner with a football in all the ages of the sport and you were casting about for someone to manage your affairs, society would expect you to pick someone with a good head for figures, someone who looked like Woody Allen and thought like Bernard Baruch, someone who had never donned a cleat or laced on a glove, but had led the senior class in calculus, chess and compound interest.

But, the front office of the Los Angeles Rams may be startled this summer to find out that two longshots have come in, and the negotiating field may never be the same.

Eric Dickerson, who last year ran for more yards in a single season than any back in NFL history, is unhappy with a contract signed when he was a mere collegian--it calls for somewhere around $350,000 a year, the kind of wages you give punt returners or backup quarterbacks.

And his agent is not a quaint runt or a three-piece suit, briefcase-type from the elevators of Century City. Instead, he’s a guy who once broke Muhammad Ali’s jaw in two places, who gave Larry Holmes the toughest fight he ever had, who played football in college, joined the Marines and who goes 6 feet, 3 inches and 220 pounds, has a paralyzing right hook and straight left and who speaks the King’s English well enough to have been cast in half a dozen Hollywood and television movies.

You wouldn’t expect to find someone like Ken Norton in the William Morris office, or even to find him officed in Beverly Hills. But the former holder of the heavyweight championship of the world is stepping into a business that may make being on the ropes with George Foreman seem like a ride in the country.

Norton is in with some guys who may give new meaning to the term killer instinct, guys who will not break clean, who will hit below, above or alongside the belt, who will gouge, kick or thumb, and who will hit after the bell or after you’re down. There are no Marquess of Queensbury rules for agenting. Ken Norton will see some 1-2s he didn’t know existed.

Handling Eric Dickerson is not exactly coming in at the prelim-boy level of the game. The great Dickerson, who loped for 2,105 yards last season with a Ram team that was not your basic NFL juggernaut, may be the hottest property in the game right now. He may also be the most underpaid.

What will agent Norton do to get his client the money he rates? Will he hold front-office negotiators by their heels out hotel windows? Will he invite them out to the corridor for a little one-on-one? Offer to pinch their heads off?

How do you tell an ex-heavyweight champ: “That’s my final offer, take it or leave it!”? It may be your final anything.

Agent Norton scoffs at the notion of strong-arm bargaining. “We’re not going in with threats. No ultimatums. We want to talk. We know what Eric’s worth, and they do, too. We’re not looking for some kind of confrontation negotiations. We want a happy settlement,” he said.

That may be Norton’s point of view, but his superstar client is more pugnacious. “This is one reason I want an agent who works for me and for me alone,” Dickerson said. “My last agent headquartered in Colorado, and I felt I needed someone on the premises here.

“I’m not saying I’m Walter Payton or O.J. Simpson or anyone else. But Walter Payton’s getting, what, $10.3 million for the next 40 years? Billy Sims at Detroit got a new $800,000 contract. Marcus Allen got a renegotiated contract.”

How far is he willing to go to get the remaining two years on his contract renegotiated?

“All the way to a strike if necessary,” client Dickerson said. “Listen, I broke the NFL record for carries by a back when I was a rookie. I carried the ball 390 times. I carried it over 400 last year. If I don’t get the money while I’m performing, when will I get it? I’ll just be another picture on the wall 10 years from now.”

And what do the Rams say? “They say they have a contract, they won’t negotiate,” Dickerson said.

The infighting may make former champ Norton long for the good old days, when all he had to watch out for was Larry Holmes’ left or Earnie Shavers’ right. He’s in the ring with some operators now who’ll make Muhammad Ali look clumsy. And Joe Frazier timid.