Muhammad Ali

The Greatest

He said he would, and he did. The only sports hero I’ve ever had. He floated like a butterfly. He stung like a bee. He really did. I remember when he first hit the headlines as Cassius Clay. Oh, my God, yes, he was a loudmouth, a braggart, a psychopath who took up all the air in the room, and people hated him, white people, including me. I wanted to see Sonny Liston tear his ears off. I wanted him taught a lesson. I didn’t see anything wrong with that. The man was in your face and deserved it. Oh, yeah? There’s an irony here. At the same time Clay challenged Liston for the heavyweight championship I was a student at Morgan State College (now Morgan State University). Let me clarify this for you.
Out of 2,600 students at a historically Black college, I was the only white man. I did not go there because of political reasons, although that’s a story for another time. I went there because they were kind enough to take a floundering white boy who couldn’t get in anywhere else. I was not raised in a home rampant with racial animosity. I remember none, so matriculating at Morgan was not a roadblock but an opportunity, a social and an intellectual journey for me. I certainly wasn’t aware of dragging racial baggage along with me. That’s where Clay comes in. He hadn’t changed his name, yet, and his mouth had never stopped working. As they say in the movie biz, dissolve to the day of the fight.

A young woman named Jackie Shears shared a number of classes with me so we spoke often. I can see in retrospect that she wanted to ask me what the hell I was doing there but never did. Instead, the day of the fight - we were outside the language arts building - she asked me who I wanted to win? Liston, I answered. “That’s because you’re a racist,” she shot back. Huh? Me? What the hell am I doing here if I’m a racist? “You’re a racist”, she repeated with a smile or a smirk. I couldn’t quite fathom any of this. It took me awhile before I realized the symbolism of this match. Clay was the disrespectful loudmouth nigger while Liston, perceived as a shuffling thug, murderous but compliant, was more to the white man’s sensibility. Liston, at the white man’s behest, would put Clay in his place. It didn’t happen. Clay won, named himself Muhammad Ali, and became a legend.

My appreciation for boxing came from my father. We shared little but we always watched the Friday night fights on black and white TV. An early single digit memory from somewhere in the forties has me taken by the hand and walked up the block to where a neighbor had one of the first television sets. I sat - my feet didn’t reach the floor - with the men, ate peanuts, and actually watched Joe Louis although I can’t remember whether he fought Ezzard Charles or Jersey Joe Walcott. I think I was five. By the time Ali came along I was pretty familiar with the sport, so following him, regardless of my initial distaste, was natural. He was brilliant in the ring, a phenomenon never seen before. A true fan could not help but admire how he controlled the ring. It was a wonder. My admiration for him as an athlete grew. Then came Vietnam.

“I got nothin’ against them Vietnamese,” he said when the draft board called his number. He refused the notice, refused to follow their orders to report. “No Vietnamese ever called me a nigger,” he said, and would not go. They stripped him of his title, barred him from the sport that provided a living, sentenced him to five years in prison - they took everything from him - and still he would not go. Elvis Presley did it. Ted Williams did it. Lots of athletes and entertainers did it. Easy duty. Not much to it. They wouldn’t get anywhere near the front lines. They went and were celebrated for it. Ali did not. He would not betray his beliefs. They took everything from him, but he held firm. Nothing broke him. He said, “No”, and meant it.

Why Ali? Why now? He looked power in the face and said no. There was no price that could be put on his soul. No fix could separate him from his beliefs. Some folks hated him when he talked about how pretty he was, but he was a man who could look himself in the mirror without cringing. He was a brave man who told the truth, knew the consequences, and had the guts to face them unlike the spineless cowards in Congress and industry today. “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul,” asked Matthew. Exactly. Just what is their reward? Allegiance to such a despicable and destructive man gets them exactly what? Really, I just don’t get it. How do these men look at themselves in the mirror? What do they tell their children? That they swore an oath they never followed? That they agreed the dead buried at Normandy were chumps and suckers? Their grandchildren and great grandchildren will learn how gutless they were because history will tell them. That and a debased America will be their legacy.