ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, April 2, 1997               TAG: 9704020059
SECTION: SPORTS                   PAGE: B-3  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

MCCALL IS SENT TO MENTAL HOSPITAL WIFE'S CUSTODY ORDER PUTS BOXER AWAY

Former heavyweight champ Oliver McCall is said to be a ``present and imminent danger'' to everyone.

Former world heavyweight boxing champion Oliver McCall was ordered to a mental hospital after his wife took out an emergency custody order against him.

Documents released Tuesday said McCall ``presents an imminent danger to [him]self or others as a result of mental illness or is so seriously mentally ill as to be substantially unable to care for [him]self.''

McCall, of Collinsville, was picked up in Martinsville on Saturday after his wife took out an emergency custody order against him, police said.

McCall was evaluated by a mental health expert, who testified at a detention hearing Saturday night that McCall was mentally ill and in need of hospitalization. He was sent to the Southern Virginia Mental Health Institute in Danville, documents show.

An involuntary commitment hearing is planned to determine whether he should continue to be held for further observation and evaluation.

McCall was placed on 18 months probation in December after pleading guilty to possession of marijuana and cocaine in Cook County, Ill. He was also arrested in Winston-Salem, N.C., in early April 1996, and charged with marijuana possession.

McCall spent time at a North Carolina drug rehabilitation center in August. At the time his manager, Jimmy Adams, said McCall was being treated for marijuana and cocaine abuse.

``Drugs took over his life, and now he's trying to take his life back,'' Adams said in August.

McCall won the World Boxing Council heavyweight title in 1994 with a second-round knockout of England's Lennox Lewis. After a successful title defense against Larry Holmes in April 1995, he lost to Frank Bruno in September 1995.

In February, McCall broke into tears during a WBC heavyweight title fight with Lewis. His $3,075,500 purse from the fight is still being held in escrow in a New Jersey bank pending an investigation into why he stopped throwing punches and defending himself in the fourth round of the fight.

After the fourth round he stood and cried in his corner. The referee stopped the fight 55 seconds into the fifth round.

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