He burst into my life in February of 1962. Making his New York — and Madison Square Garden — debut, Cassius Clay, as he was known then, was preceded by reams of newspaper copy, extended radio interviews and nonstop outrageous quotations.
“They all must fall in the round I call,” he would tell anyone who would listen — including me. And in this upcoming bout, Sonny Banks would fall in four.
Who is this guy? This Louisville Lip?
I was mesmerized. Athletes then didn’t talk that way.
They certainly didn’t brag about how pretty they were, or how they were the greatest — or rather, The Greatest. Certainly not after just 10 pro fights. But then, none was Cassius Clay.
So what happened? Banks caught Clay with a short flurry and knocked him down in the first round — for the first time in Clay’s career.
Unfazed, Clay rallied and took control of the fight, knocking Banks down once and winning by TKO in the fourth round.
After the fight, Clay met with the press. “It was rather embarrassing, me on the floor,” he told the assembled.
“As you know, I think that I’m the greatest and I’m not supposed to be on the floor, so I had to get up and put him out in four … like I predicted.”
There it was — his entire persona in a 41-word statement. Brash, funny and honest.
He was, after all, The Greatest. And The Greatest doesn’t disappoint.
Two years after beating Banks, Clay defeated Sonny Liston for the heavyweight title. Not long after, he changed his name to Muhammad Ali — a move that signaled the start of a long and tumultuous period of social awareness that affected his life on a daily basis.
Ali transcended his sport and became one of the most recognized, and beloved, individuals in the world.
When other leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr., spoke, the nation listened. But when the heavyweight champion of the world spoke, the entire planet listened.
So it was, in April of 1967, when faced with induction into military service, he refused to step forward. “Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me nigger.”
There it was. Ali had stepped out of the ring, beyond his athletic boundaries, to speak to a larger, vastly more important issue. Boxing was his career. This was about his life … and truly, the lives of others, as well.
He was championing the idea of Black Lives Matter, long before the phrase became a rallying cry.
His comments and activism turned the spotlight on the smoldering racial issues of the time. The Vietnam War was being fought by that segment of American youth — many of whom were African-Americans — with no way of buying their way into National Guard roles or buying their way out of the draft with a psychiatrist’s letter or a college deferment.
The athlete as social champion was a new concept. And as with all things new, this one had its own set of accompanying problems. While he was revered by the youth, he was reviled by the older, silent majority. That backlash came two months later when Ali was found guilty of draft evasion and stripped of his title.
But despite his personal crisis, Ali continued to speak out and sought social change and humanitarian understanding the rest of his life.
But remember, while he was a man of peace, he was also a professional boxer. And despite his passing, we still have some indelible memories of his amazing career — gifts that truly showed his greatness.
There was the first Liston fight at which he “shook up the world!” It’s hard to describe the ferocity of the Joe Frazier trilogy, and then, of course, the famous Rumble in the Jungle upset of George Foreman.
But there were lowlights, too. The Uncle Tomming of Joe Frazier was an ugly spectacle; then there was the way he punished Floyd Patterson and Ernie Terrell for failing to call him by his Muslim name.
But for us, the impressionable children of the ’60s — the black youth in the ghetto and the white kids on college campuses — Muhammad Ali was a hero and role model. He spoke to us, and for us.
Pro athletes today often are too concerned with their corporate sponsorships to get involved and to speak out on social issues on the national stage.
Not so Muhammad Ali.
As he grew older, he sought more to work as a humanitarian, raising money for social causes and later to help in the fight against Parkinson’s disease, from which he suffered in his later years.
He was a god. He was a hero. He was a star. But he was also a man. And like all men, he was a combination of contradiction and ambition.
When they bury Muhammad Ali, it should not be in a casket, but on a shield, for he was such a warrior god.
While he was at times defeated, he will always be remembered as the champ.
While he had his dark side, he will always be remembered as beautiful.
And while he was not perfect, he will always be remembered as The Greatest.
Don Mahler is the former sports editor of the Valley News.