Four-time world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield was ready to give up boxing when he was only 11. But he didn’t do it because his mother told him, “Never quit when you’re down. It’s an excuse.” Years later, when his mother battled joint pain, Evander convinced her not to quit moving and got her dancing again.

Evander’s first loss to a kid named Cecil Collins turned the then-undefeated pee-wee champ against the sport, but he was afraid to tell his mother that he wanted to quit.

“My momma never did like boxing, but she said, ‘You don’t quit because things don’t go your way,’” says Evander, 46. “I knew my momma wouldn’t let me quit, so I tried to quit quietly.”

When he came home from the match, instead of sitting down to dinner, Evander quickly showered and went to bed, hoping his mom wouldn’t notice. But mothers always notice. Besides, Annie Holyfield's youngest son had never, ever missed a meal.

After going up to his room and finding Evander in bed, Annie asked what was wrong. The boy considered lying, but he knew this all-knowing woman would eventually find out, and the wrath of an angry mom and a “delayed whooping” was one he certainly didn’t want to face. So he was honest. He told her he lost and wanted to quit and she simply said, “You gotta go back.”

Today, Evander fondly remembers the woman who he proudly says made him the man he has become. Telling story upon story, this massive, somewhat-foreboding man grins as he tells tales of being bathed in a tin tub in front of the fireplace and getting caught playing with matches by a well-meaning neighbor.

No Excuses

The youngest of nine children raised by his single mom in a poor neighborhood in southeast Atlanta, times weren’t easy for Evander growing up. Annie Holyfield worked 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. as a cook. Yes, it was hard work, “but my momma said, ‘Everything is hard work if you’re doing it right.’” She didn’t accept failure and she made sure her son finished everything he started.

“You never come to a true understanding to be the best you can be if quitting is an excuse,” he says. “Nobody chooses parents, neighborhood or skin color. You learn to appreciate what you have and what you come from. That’s how you become the best of what you can be.”

Evander remembers having a particularly difficult time with a job at an airport as a teenager. He came home one day, complaining to his mother that he was working harder than everyone else. She stopped him mid-sentence and told him that he was getting paid to work eight hours, so do it. “She knew I was trying to find a way to quit. My momma always took away all the excuses.”

Evander did the same thing for her years later when joint pain started causing her problems in her early sixties. “She said, ‘Son, my knees hurt. My back hurts. It hurts to move.’ And I said, Momma, you need to move around. You know how you used to dance? You just gotta move. You gotta start walking.”

Because Evander listened to his mother when he was growing up, she listened to him when the tables were turned. She agreed to start moving.

After Evander went for his daily training run, he stopped by and picked up his mom for a walk as part of his cool down.

He told her she had to keep at it for 15 days because that’s how long it takes for something to become a habit. Although she complained that her joints ached and she wanted to stop, her tenacious son wouldn’t let her. After 15 days, Evander stopped and she kept going. “She kept on walking,” Evander says. “She said she just felt like it because it made her feel good.”

To help her stay motivated, her good son loaded a portable music player with gospel music, telling her to walk for at least 45 minutes each time. But all she did was listen to her favorite song – Tramaine Hawkins’ “Holy One” – over and over again.

The exercise and the music helped. “My momma never complained about her knees once she started walking,” he said. Not only was her joint pain relieved, but she was back dancing again. “You couldn’t come into my house and not dance with my momma,” says Evander, who competed on “Dancing with the Stars” in 2005, coming in fifth place.

“I remember one dance when they asked, ‘Why are you so confident with this one?’ and I said, I know how to do that. That’s the kind of dancing I did with my momma.”

A Proud Legacy

His mother, he said, would’ve loved seeing him dance, but she passed away in 1996 in a car accident. “My momma always said, ‘You gotta appreciate me while I’m here because one day I’ll be gone.’”

It’s obvious she lives on. Her words pour out of Evander when he lectures to his own 11 children, forbidding them to be quitters and making them work to be better at everything they do. “My momma said, ‘If you get in the habit of doing things, you’ll do it all your life. You wanna get in the habit of doing good things, not bad.’”

His habits have stuck with him. He’s obviously still moving and, inspired by his mother and her need to move, he partnered with moveforever.com, introducing MaxGXL and Max N-Fuse, products designed to fight inflammation naturally (with some proceeds benefitting the Arthritis Foundation.) He is also in training for his fifth world heavyweight championship title to be decided in October in Moscow. Ironically, despite all his ring success, his mother never enjoyed her youngest son’s career path.

In 1990, Annie Holyfield flew from Atlanta to Las Vegas to see Evander fight the world championship against Buster Douglas. But before the fight she asked, “Can I stay in my room and pray for you? Just save the first dance for me, though.”

Not only did Evander win, at the celebration afterward he turned down pretty girl after pretty girl, all wanting him to twirl them around the dance floor.

“I promised to save the first dance for my momma.”