Columnist Dean Juipe: De La Hoya on display at Big Bear

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Aug. 10, 1999 | 9:46 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

BIG, BARE -- Oscar De La Hoya sees the bus coming and probably would like to hide.

But he can't. It wouldn't be prudent, especially with the cameras rolling.

So he smiles the effervescent smile that warmly lights his handsome face and takes the intrusion of a bus load of media types from Las Vegas with vintage graciousness. Tucking his men's magazines safely out of sight, he emerges from his plush home high in the hills off Big Bear Lake, Calif., and greets the weary travelers as if they were long lost friends.

There is a routine to the arrangement and there is protocol to be observed. For as long as he has been a major figure in the sport of boxing, his promotional firm, Top Rank, has selected a specific day and congenially transported interested writers and broadcasters from Las Vegas to the WBC welterweight champion's distant residence whenever he has a big fight on the horizon.

And the biggest of all De La Hoya's fights to date is Sept. 18 with fellow champion Felix Trinidad at what is already a sold-out Mandalay Bay Events Center.

The junkets serve a common purpose: promote De La Hoya. Without fail, the writers and broadcasters make the 12-hour round trip and happily type in the out-of-state dateline and just as predictably make reference to the cool breezes and tall pines that dominate this remote scenery.

In the stories and reports that follow, De La Hoya is inevitably portrayed as a hospitable and rugged individualist, a down-to-earth slugger living cleanly and with total focus at a high-altitude site that is both physically challenging and aesthetically pleasing.

For those making the trip, the accommodations aren't all that bad even if the ride seems never ending. The bus is buff and lunch is included.

The price -- nothing, aside from the emotional toll of being held captive with two dozen boxing zealots for half a day -- is right for those who have the time or are under orders to comply with the invitation.

The bus left Las Vegas this morning, so an array of Big Bear and De La Hoya stories -- none, however, quite like this one -- will be on your doorstep or TV screen within a very few hours.

Few, if any, will offer anything new in the way of riveting material or insight. While there will be pieces heavily weighted with freshly scented imagery, De La Hoya will keep his closest secrets to himself and will rely on a catch phrase or extravagant promise to soothe the reporters' most basic needs. For instance, prior to his fight with Oba Carr last spring, De La Hoya told those on the bus pilgrimage that he would unveil a "secret combination" that would lead to a decisive knockout victory.

Yet by fight time he had forgotten or misplaced the lock to that combination and the much-hyped secret had become a contender for a pugilistic segment on Unsolved Mysteries.

But there's no belittling a man who welcomes strangers and boxing writers into his mountain home, so De La Hoya's position on a pedestal is under no threat no matter how many women slap him with a paternity suit or say he fathered their baby.

He's a champion in the ring and as a host, a fighter with a plethora of skills who looks the other way while a depot full of visitors sneaks a peak at his rustic world and coyly steals his candy.