The life of an American icon

For recent college graduates like WORLD correspondent Jae Wasson, news of Muhammad Ali’s death yesterday was a blast from the past. But for old guys like me, Ali’s two decades in the sun (1960–1981), and his subsequent 35 years with gradually worsening Parkinson’s disease, take in an entire life of sports-watching.

The end of summer in 1960 was when my dad bought our first television—he read books and didn’t have much money, so we were late adopters—and I became a 10-year-old sports fan, watching the Boston Red Sox and devouring the Olympic Games from Rome. To be precise, with television broadcast satellites still two years in the future, CBS shot and edited videotapes in Rome and transmitted them to Paris, where they were rerecorded onto other tapes and then flown by jet to New York City, where mobile units fed the tapes to CBS broadcast headquarters.

By that process I caught my first glimpse of a boxer who didn’t plod like most, but was quick on his feet and already, even though only 18 years old, quick with his tongue. He won the 1960 gold medal in the light heavyweight division. For more of the basics, read the short obituary I dashed off this morning. But see below how Jae, from a younger generation, picks up the story, starting in 1960. —Marvin Olasky

It was a time of racism. During his early travels as a boxer, Ali—then known by his birth name, Cassius Clay—had to stay in the car with fellow African-American fighters while his trainer, Joe Martin, bought them hamburgers. When Ali came back to his hometown of Louisville, Ky., as an Olympic champion, the leaders of the local chamber of commerce issued a citation in his honor but said they were too busy to host a dinner.

Ali later said he threw his gold medal in the Ohio River after a fight with a white motorcycle gang, when he and a friend were kicked out of a whites-only restaurant. But businessmen in Louisville recognized his potential as a professional fighter, and he signed a contract with several Louisville millionaires who sent him to work with a top trainer in Miami.

There, Ali first heard about Islam. He later said the religion could give African-Americans pride in the face of the hatred they felt all around them. He kept his new religion quiet until after his 1964 fight with Sonny Liston, when he became the world heavyweight champion for the first time. Liston had been a 7-to-1 betting favorite, but Ali intimidated him, calling him “the big, ugly bear” and won by punching Liston’s face to a pulp in the sixth round.

The morning after the fight, the new champ announced he had joined the Black Muslims (also known as the Nation of Islam), rejected his “slave” status, and taken a new name: Muhammad Ali. “I’m free to be who I want,” he told reporters.

Soon, a bigger battle came: In April 1967, Ali received his draft notice for service in the U.S. Army, but he refused to join. He requested conscientious objector status, saying he had no quarrel with the Vietcong.

Over the years, people who knew Ali explained they weren’t surprised by his choice of peace over war. He seemed to like everyone he met, other than a few boxing adversaries. He once drove hours to visit a terminally ill child. Another time, after his retirement, he spent a half hour sitting in the ninth-floor window of a Los Angeles building talking to a man who threatened suicide (see the video clip of the CBS News report from January 1981 below):

But back in 1967, Ali’s choice angered the boxing world. Suspended from competition, stripped of his title, and facing a possible prison term, Ali’s case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor in 1971.

The critics thought his three and a half years out of the ring would keep him from regaining the heavyweight title, and he did lose to Joe Frazier in 1971. But Ali came back strong, fighting many of his most memorable bouts—two more with Frazier, and the “Rumble in the Jungle” with George Foreman—over the next four years.

Ali was not supposed to win that “Rumble.” Foreman in 1974 was not the friendly, somewhat roly-poly millionaire seller of cooking devices he is now. Instead, he was the hungry, heavily muscled world heavyweight champion, seven years younger and pounds heavier than Ali.

At the bout in Zaire, 60,000 fans chanted, “Ali, booma-ya. Ali, kill him.” For those early rounds it looked as if Foreman might indeed kill Ali, who employed his now famous “rope-a-dope” tactics, waiting and leaning against the ropes, letting Foreman pound him on the arms and shoulders. Then, in the eighth round, Ali exploded on an exhausted Foreman, knocking him out in a flurry of punches and regaining the heavyweight title at age 32.

“What did I tell you?” Ali yelled at reporters. His roar throughout the 1960s emerged once more: “I am the greatest.” But the beatings he took over the next several years began to catch up with him, as he faced the initial effects of what doctors later diagnosed as Parkinson’s disease.

He lost the heavyweight title to Leon Spinks in 1978, only to regain it for a third time later that year in a rematch, after which Ali announced his retirement. But in 1980 he decided to challenge a much stronger Larry Holmes, who won easily. Ali’s final fight came in December 1981, when he lost a 10-round decision against Trevor Berbick.

The last 35 years of Ali’s life saw a slow decline in his health, but he switched his focus to what he called a missionary role. He traveled the globe with his fourth wife, Lonnie, at his side, meeting world leaders and thousands of others at huge receptions, which he attended even when he could no longer talk. He undertook diplomatic missions in Africa and Iraq, and in 1996 he lit the torch at the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta.

A few years later, Ali influenced Congress to pass a boxing reform bill known as the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act. After 9/11, President George W. Bush would euphemistically refer to Islam as a “religion of peace,” which in the arms of its radical adherents it surely is not. But for Ali it seems to have been, and he issued pleas for peace. In 2005, President Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Ali managed to travel to the 2012 Olympics in London, but the effects of his years in the ring finally wore him down. Friday night he died quietly of septic shock “due to unspecified natural causes,” according to a family spokesman. His funeral will be held Friday at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville.

He said in 1984, concerning his battering in the boxing ring, “What I suffered physically was worth what I’ve accomplished in life.”

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer summed up the feelings of many, saying, “As a boxer, he became ‘The Greatest.’ Though his most lasting victories happened outside of the ring.”

Here’s the old guy again, back for one last thought. Sports figures sometimes become larger than life. Sometimes we expect them to be heroes, and almost always when we expect too much they disappoint us. Ali’s embrace of Islam is sad, but as the Presbyterian Church in America this month and other U.S. denominations discuss past racism, we can see how segregated churches drove away many in Ali’s generation.

Obituaries are mostly a place to remember what was good, and Christians today can learn from Ali. Former Ali rival George Foreman told Houston sportscaster Mark Berman: “It’s really sad. … All of us were pretty much connected. We’re just like one guy. George Foreman, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, it was just one. … It’s like a part of me just passed with him. [But] believe me, he didn’t die. … because whenever someone tries to make a stand about anything, stand up for something they believe in, it’s like we’ll all be saying, another Muhammad Ali.” —M.O.