Barney with George Foreman (center) before his first professional fight, post 1968 Olympics. Charles R. (Doc) Broadus (right), the first man to put boxing gloves on George, and his first trainer.
While Litton
was making a name for itself as a growing conglomerate, the company was
also involved in the Job Corps program. The Job Corps program, founded by
President Lyndon B. Johnson, was established to provide entrance level job
skills to disadvantaged youth and high school dropouts.
One
seventeen-year-old boy had been placed in a Job Corps program in Oregon.
Because he was so incorrigible, he was transferred to the Parks Job
Corps
Center which Litton ran near Pleasanton, California. One employee of
the center, former boxer Charles "Doc" Broadus, taught the
young man how to box. Who was this young man? Soon the entire world
would know the name
George Foreman.
Barney
covered the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City for Variety Magazine.
He
arranged with "Doc" Broadus of the Job Corps Center for Foreman
to visit a Litton factory outside of Mexico City. It was the beginning
of a long-lasting
friendship.