My first recollection of Mr. Ali was February 26, 1964 in the morning school bus on the way to my 3rd grade class at Stonewall Elementary. I still recall an older student with one of those little transistor radios, the hottest techno-gadget for that time, excitedly telling the whole bus about Clay’s stunning victory.
If not for the older boy’s excited announcement, and the fact that NEVER before or since has ANYBODY gotten so excited over any news event on my subsequent public transports, I would not have given Clay, or any boxer or boxing feat any significance whatsoever. After all, as an 8 year old, I was—THANKFULLY--never exposed to this most brutal so called “sport.”*
*[Don’t get me wrong, I have long appreciated the extreme physical nature of boxing, the strenuous work ethic boxers undergo and the strategy and unbelievable courage they have. It’s just that for me “sport” excludes any and all activity wherein the goal is to literally knock somebody else senseless.]
So was born Cassius Clay into my young consciousness. For reasons I did not then understand Clay became Muhammad Ali. The years that followed were full of ABC Wide World of Sports, and its new Ali-made celebrity, Ho-ward Co-SELL (my interpretation of which won me my own sort of celebrity in high school and college).
Month after month, year after year it was Ali “Winner” here, Ali “winner” there, indeed Ali was the greatest anywhere! His braggadocios taunting was frankly annoying to me and yes, I would be hoping for an upset no matter who he faced, but of course, Ali always won.
And then he did something during the Vietnam War that from my limited perspective seemed unpatriotic and cowardly: he refused to go to Vietnam, saying “I ain’t got nothing ‘gainst them Viet Cong.” Being a pro-establishment conservative, wary of pinko-hippie pot smoking protestors any such opposition to our war against the spread of Communism was heresy!
I could only see a killer in the ring who was scared to die outside it; my young pre-pre-sophomoric mind did not yet fathom Ali’s principled action nor the rightness of his stand. [I’m sorry Mr. Ali, and thank you for helping encourage my own miniscule-by- comparison conscience-based stands].
Three years later Ali won again—this time in the US Supreme Court, which unanimously overturned his conviction and granted him his right to refuse service on religious grounds. Then came his fights of legend: the Thrilla in Manilla, the Rumble in the Jungle where Ali, with Joe FRAZHIUH, made boxing the undisputed King of um, er…(ugh) Sports.
I began to admire Ali and had hoped he would quit while he was ahead. I shuddered at the pounding he took in his final fights and, while never liking boxing anyway, forswear ever watching it again.
Today, we celebrate Ali as a world-class leader, a man who in humility now stands more strongly than ever in his quest for peace and justice.
Indeed Mr. Simon, The fighter still remains.
[The Muhammad Ali Center opens this week in Louisville]
Rfd
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