Why Muhammad Ali was "The Greatest"

photo by LG/AP  
Muhammad Ali, aka Cassius Clay, has died following a 32 year battle with Parkinson's disease.  As a cocky young boxer, he declared himself "The Greatest."   By the time he died, the world recognized him as "The Greatest" in many ways.  Sports Illustrated named him the "Sportsman of the Century."  TIME magazine once called him the "best-known person on the planet."

But there was a time when he was widely hated -- reviled and arrested as a "draft dodger" -- for refusing induction into the U.S. Army to fight in the Viet Nam war.   By that time he had converted to Islam and was a conscientious objector;  but he had to fight all the way to the Supreme Court to overturn his criminal conviction.

For several years at the height of his boxing career, he was suspended by the World Boxing Association and stripped of his three Heavyweight Champion world titles.  During those years, he could not get a license for a boxing match anywhere.  Through all of that, Ali chose to stick to his principles, forfeiting millions of dollars, speaking out against the war and racial injustice.  Like this, from one of his speeches back then:

"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, rape and kill my mother and father... Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail." 

 [Remember, next time you hear someone rant about Islam as a violent religion, that it was Islam and his reading the Qu'ran that led Ali to this anti-war stance.]

Then people's attitudes toward the Vietnam war changed, in part because of Ali's activism.   He resumed his boxing career and won the "Fight of the Century," becoming a beloved figure worldwide.  But that's only half the story of Ali.

He became an active philanthropist, supporting world-wide causes, and a humanitarian among world leaders as a U.N. Messenger of Peace.  Bill Clinton said of him:   "He was unique.  And then he risked it all to oppose the Vietnam War.  It could have destroyed him.   But it didn't because people realized he was prepared to pay the price of his convictions."

Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell describes him thus:

". . . .  What we cannot do — but perhaps wish we could — is explain to those who did not live through the heart of Ali’s 20-year era that none of this is . . . even a small portion of the weight he carries in our memories. He was one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century and one of the most charming, funny and mischievous entertainers. Yet all that was the least of him — merely the platform for the larger man.

"Many will say, accurately, that no athlete since Ali has remotely approached his fame or force on the world stage. None has been remotely as beloved on as many continents by hundreds of millions who barely had any other common link except 'Ali'. . . .  Ali is proof that deep conviction, explained eloquently under duress, resonates around the world, even among those who do not entirely agree — in fact, even among many who strongly disagree.

"In the late 1960s, many admired Ali when he was a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War and refused to be drafted, citing his Nation of Islam religious beliefs. And many hated him, too. Otherwise, his actions — just one athlete’s decisions — could not have had such symbolic power. Arrested, found guilty of draft evasion and stripped of his heavyweight title in 1967, he did not fight for nearly four years during his boxing peak. Finally, the Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1971.

"Then a marvelous and, at the time, almost passing strange thing happened. To the degree that the world ever agrees to stop screaming and find a locus of consensus, a decent common ground, it did so on Muhammad Ali. He stood by his beliefs, which qualified as eccentric, almost alien to many, and took every form of punishment that the laws of his country demanded. He paid the price for his beliefs, right up to the Supreme Court, while never ceasing to speak out, especially against racial injustice.

"To a degree that may be hard to understand today, even those who disagreed with Ali’s views or did not grasp, much less sympathize with, his religion acknowledged that he was a man who had acted with honor, not out of self-interest. He was not welcomed back to the ring -- he was swept into it with joy.

"As Ali is eulogized, all will agree that, for years, he was probably the most recognized man in the world and perhaps the most widely loved. It may be noted less often that what he did then in 1967 was equivalent to . . . denouncing the country’s entire military policy, performing an act of civil disobedience to protest it and basing his stand on a set of beliefs that few Americans grasped. . . . 

"What distinguished Ali was . . . his nonnegotiable insistence that nothing would stop him from defining himself — in his entirety. . . .  For years, in an era of constant upheaval, Ali was a walking illustration of the difficulty and importance of defending basic American constitutional rights to freedom of speech and religion.

"Ali was eventually revered around the world not because he got the right answers to the hardest questions but because, when he could have opted for sports fame and riches, he chose to tackle such issues. He insisted on facing those questions with soul-deep sincerity, then following where his decisions led. . . ."

*   *   *

I have never been a boxing fan;  in fact, I hate the brutality of the sport and the physical damage to its athletes.   But I greatly admire Muhammed Ali.    Here's when I realized how much.

For the lighting of the torch in the opening ceremony of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, the identity of the athlete who would carry the flame on the last leg toward lighting the cauldron was a carefully guarded secret.   The drama increased as the cameras showed a series of runners carrying the flame through the streets of Atlanta on the final leg of its year-long journey from Mt. Olympus in Greece.   Still no hint of who would take the torch to light the cauldron towering above the stadium.

As the final runner entered the stadium and made a lap around the track before billions of tv viewers worldwide (including me, glued to my tv set at home, even though it was happening in my city), the tension became palpable.   Who would it be?   Surely it would be some famous athlete, but who was left?   The previous Olympic stars had already had their turn.

Then a tall figure, clad all in white, emerged from behind a screen at the foot of the ramp that would carry the flame up to the cauldron.   It was obviously not a young, vigorous athlete.  He even seemed to be having difficulty walking.   As he took the torch, his hands trembled.

Then a huge roar went up from the crowd -- and around the world -- as we recognized the stricken, trembling figure of Muhammed Ali.   It brings tears to my eyes even now as I write this.    The significance was so profound and deeply moving.  Despite his debilitating Parkinsonism, the most beloved and admired man on earth was making one final effort to unite the world in a peaceful meeting of athletes and their admirers.

And he did -- at least for one bright, shining moment.

Ralph