'I'VE NEVER BEEN SO WRONG'\Morrison warns against promiscuity, says he'll be an activist.

Byline: Associated Press 

Tommy Morrison's voice quivered and his face flushed. Never did he think this could happen to him.

"I honestly believed I had a better chance of winning the lottery than contracting this disease," he said. "I've never been so wrong in my life."

On Thursday, a second test confirmed that he did, indeed, have the virus that causes AIDS.

"I'm here to tell you I thought that I was bulletproof, and I'm not," Morrison said, speaking to reporters just 45 minutes after getting the results of that second test.

"To my younger fans, don't see me as a role model, but as an individual who had chance to be a role model and blew it, who made immature, irrational and irresponsible decisions - decisions that one day could cost me my life."

He described a life of promiscuous sex and said he had no idea how the AIDS virus was transmitted. He also said he might have contracted the virus through bloody bouts in the ring.

"I don't know how I got it, and it's really not important," he said.

Morrison entered the news conference composed and confident, the same air he took into the ring. But his face reddened and his voice cracked as he spoke of an uncertain future and expressed concern for his family and for women with whom he had sex.

"I hope I can serve as a warning that living this lifestyle can only lead to one thing," he said, "and that's misery."

The 27-year-old from Jay, Okla., learned he tested positive for HIV just before Saturday's scheduled Las Vegas fight against Arthur Weathers. Morrison said he had no symptoms and had received no notice from previous sex partners to indicate he might have the disease.

He spent the past week calling former sparring partners and sexual partners, encouraging them to take an HIV test. So far, none of them, including his girlfriend, has tested positive, he said.

"I ask everyone out there not to say a prayer for me, but for the true victims of this disease - the HIV-infected children," he said. "I had a choice. They don't."

Morrison said he plans to work with Lakers star Magic Johnson, who also is HIV positive, on education and awareness activities. After speaking with Johnson about the illness, Morrison said he does not consider it a death sentence.

Lewis not worried: British heavyweight Lennox Lewis is confident he wasn't exposed to HIV during his bloody fight against Morrison. Lewis, the last man to fight Morrison, stopped him in six rounds on Oct. 7. Morrison's face was badly cut in the bout.

But any time bodily fluids are exchanged there is a risk of transmission, she said. CDC studies of the NFL show the risk in that sport is extremely low.

While boxers are more likely to be bloodied during competition, "it would take quantity and duration" of exposure to the virus for possible transmission, she said.

As far as requiring AIDS testing for boxers, the CDC encourages any precautions and education that could help reduce the risk, Bonds said.

Morrison said he endorsed mandatory HIV testing.

"They'd be crazy not to," he said.

His last boxing opponent, Lennox Lewis, said despite a bloody battle in October, he was not worried.

"I heard different reports that I should get tested and there was a risk of me getting it," he said in a conference call from Jamaica. "I really didn't let that bother me. There were no cuts on my side in the fight. I didn't bang heads with him. The fight wasn't really a clinching fight, it was more at a distance. Although there was a lot of blood, it wasn't on me."

Morrison was suspended from worldwide boxing after the positive HIV test in Las Vegas. He acknowledged that his boxing career was over and that he plans to pursue AIDS awareness activities.

"I've been turning negatives into positives my whole life. This is just a bigger negative," he said.

His promoter, Tony Holden, and his trainers stood by his side; Morrison's parents, sister and girlfriend also were present.

"I'm sorry that I've had to drag you through this," he told them. His mother buried her face in her hands.

Morrison said his lifestyle typifies that of many of his generation who believe AIDS and HIV are limited to intravenous drug users and homosexuals.

"I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. However, if getting up here today, confronting this problem out in the open, can get just one person out there to take a more responsible attitude toward sex, then I feel I would have scored my biggest knockout ever."