One Sunday morning in the summer of 1997 I met Muhammad Ali at the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. I was in Utah on a family vacation, and after satisfying hikes within Bryce and Zion National Park and visits with friends, we decided to cap off the trip by attending a performance of the famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s ritual Sunday program, “Music as the Spoken Word.”
When it was over, we opted to skip the forthcoming full church service and were scooting out along our pew when I looked up and saw Muhammad Ali enter the sunlit building, accompanied by two imposing bodyguards and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch.
I blinked. It wasn’t a vision. Though Ali was perhaps the last person on earth I would have expected in the Mormon Tabernacle, there was no mistaking him: Beyond being one of the world’s most recognizable figures, Ali and his bodyguards were among the only African-Americans in the room. I remember that Hatch, much smaller, had a disturbing pinkish complexion.
Word rippled through the building and applause broke out, mounting steadily as the unlikely quartet passed beneath our balcony and proceeded to front pews. I decided to go back to my seat and stay for the service. With the benediction, church officials moved Ali to another room and stood by as a long line formed. I jumped in.
When I reached Ali, I had the chance to thank him for refusing to be drafted into the Vietnam War. He smiled softly but didn’t speak as I rattled on about how he had inspired me.
I extended my hand but rather than shake it, Ali slipped a piece of paper into it and winked. When I got back to the room I looked at it. “Contradictions in the Bible,” read the heading. Below were two long columns of scriptural citations with which Ali, or whomever he represented, found fault.
At the bottom was his signature.
A devout follower of Islam, Ali used his visit to Salt Lake City to spread his own word by poking holes in his host’s religion. It was a stiff jab. “Every Mormon that was there was trying to grab one,” Hatch later commented.
I found out that Muhammad Ali and Hatch had become friends in 1988, when Hatch helped a friend of Ali’s land a federal position. The two men had stayed in touch. Ali had visited Hatch several times in Utah, where, Hatch reported, he developed a quick fondness for Hatch’s mother’s fried chicken.
And on this late summer morning, Hatch had invited The Champ to church. Loyal friend, Ali accepted.
But not without slipping in a Sunday punch.
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