Despite being a silver medalist, Jones was selected as the outstanding boxer of the Seoul Games by the executive committee of the International Amateur Boxing Association. In a perverse way, the decision against him has worked to Jones's advantage, giving him recognition he might not have had if he had won the gold medal. In the aftermath, fight managers and promoters came on the run to sign him.

All of which leaves Jones poised at the start of a promising professional career, a career he can count on being guided into by 40-year-old Roy Jones Sr., his father. The story of Jones the budding professional can hardly be separated from that of the older man, who pushed and prodded his son as a boxer from early on, and who intends to be there as trainer and more when his son fights again. A Closer Sort of Attention

Roy Jones Sr. has four daughters and a son. But he says he has pretty much left the care of Tiffany, who is 13; Corey, 12; Lakesha, 11, and Cantandrea, 5, to his wife, Carol. As he puts it, ''She just deals with them girls.'' But with his oldest child, Roy, he paid closer attention, with much but not all of it revolving around boxing.

''We started boxing when he was 5, 6 years old,'' he said. ''I'd get on my knees and play with him. In those days, we were living on a pig farm in Barth, about 17 miles up the road from Pensacola. I'd let him punch me in the head. When I punched him, he'd get mad. He'd run off and cry. Then he'd come back and want to do more. When we'd finish, I'd let him get the best of me.''

The older Jones, who had played baseball, football and basketball at Washington High in Pensacola, boxed some as a pro. ''At least 18 pro fights,'' he recalled. ''I fought maybe seven fights where I didn't get but $17. I fought once in Mexico. That was the most I got, $1,500.'' When the younger Roy was 9, he told his father, ''Dad, I want you to get me a fight.'' Ring Built in a Pasture