Andy Young
“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.” — Muhammad Ali
In the mid-1960s the reigning world heavyweight boxing champion was unquestionably white America’s most disliked (and feared) athlete.
Three decades later he was by acclamation its most beloved one.
A walking contradiction, Ali was a supremely skilled self-promoter, capable of both insufferable arrogance and genuine humility. Devoutly religious, he was also unfaithful to at least three of his wives. Paradoxically he was a man of peace, but also was capable of inflicting harsh mental and physical cruelty on opponents; his business was, in his words, “beating people up.” A once indifferent student (he graduated 376th in a class of 391), he ultimately became an insatiable seeker of knowledge and wisdom.
Ali, then known by his birth name of Cassius Clay, first came into the American public’s consciousness in 1960 as an endearing, loquacious boxer who at age 18 won the gold medal as a light heavyweight at the Rome Olympics. Two months after that he launched his professional career with an unremarkable six-round victory over an opponent whose day job was police chief of Fayetteville, West Virginia.
He became world heavyweight champion in February 1964 with a shocking victory over the universally despised yet seemingly invincible Sonny Liston. But the combination of Ali’s braggadocio and his bold public embrace of the unapologetically racially divisive Nation of Islam brought about something even more unlikely than his winning the title; it made Liston, a crude, intimidating, perpetually-glowering bully with a lengthy criminal past into a sympathetic figure. But Ali’s controversial two-minute knockout victory – in Lewiston, Maine! – in their rematch consigned the former champion to permanent obscurity while simultaneously propelling Ali to even further prominence.
“The Service you do for others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.” — Muhammad Ali
In 1967 the still-undefeated Ali was stripped of his title for claiming conscientious objector status and refusing to submit to the military draft. Summarily convicted of draft evasion, he was sentenced to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. His reaction at the time: “I got no quarrel with them Vietcong. My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality … How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.”
“Don’t count the days, make the days count.” — Muhammad Ali
In retrospect his stand was as correct as it was principled, courageous, and sincere, though it wasn’t generally viewed that way at the time. “Draft dodger” and “traitor” were two of the milder terms applied to him by a vast majority of Americans whose opinions were shaped largely by hawkish government propagandists and a reliably compliant media.
Ali immediately appealed his conviction, but during the ensuing three years of litigation he was unable to obtain a license to box, effectively robbing him of his athletic prime and unquestionably costing him millions of dollars. But opposition to the Vietnam War increased, public opinion inexorably shifted, and Ali never wavered. Years later he recalled, “Some people thought I was a hero. Some people said that what I did was wrong. But everything I did was according to my conscience. I wasn’t trying to be a leader. I just wanted to be free.”
Ultimately vindicated when the United States Supreme Court unanimously overturned his conviction in 1971, Ali never did jail time. But ironically he spent his last three decades imprisoned, quivering and virtually mute, inside a body crippled by a condition quite likely caused by the savage profession he pursued until age 39, long after time had robbed him of his once-incomparable skills.
“Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.” — Muhammad Ali
While he was arguably one of history’s greatest boxers, Ali’s numerous athletic achievements constitute just a tiny part of his legacy. Cited as a significant source of inspiration by accomplished individuals like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., Paul McCartney, a veritable who’s who of world leaders, and countless everyday people, Ali’s influence and historical significance will likely endure for generations. He was the rare (and perhaps only) athlete who truly transcended his sport.
“Live every day as if it were your last, because someday you’re going to be right.” — Muhammad Ali
— Andy Young teaches in Kennebunk and lives in Cumberland.
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