Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest (18 page)

“What seems to be the problem?” Obviously, he already knew what the problem was because, before I could answer, we were advised, “Look, this is my event. Your names aren’t on the list, and that’s the end of it. No one without security clearance is allowed past this gate.”

“But these are my friends.”

“Mr. Ali; you don’t understand.”

Nancy got back on the mini-bus, and Paul Costello came over to monitor the proceedings. There followed an explanation about how Barbra Streisand had recently been invited to the White House.
The
Barbra Streisand, who had helped raise millions of dollars for the Democratic party and was a personal friend of the President and Mrs. Clinton. Yet when Ms. Streisand brought someone with her for her appointment with the President, her friend was turned away at the gate.

And Muhammad was duly impressed.

“Did Barbra Streisand whup Joe Frazier?”

“Mr. Ali—”

“Did Barbra Streisand whup Sonny Liston?”

The Man With The Mustache, who I’m sure is a fine public servant and was just trying to do his job, excused himself and returned moments later. “All right; we’ve got to get this show on the road, so you two [pointing to Nancy and me] can go as far as the reception area, but that’s all.”

The mini-bus proceeded to the West Wing of the White House, where we were ushered into a reception area. There was small talk. Several minutes passed. Then The Man With The Mustache reappeared.

“Those of you with security clearance, come with me into the Roosevelt Room. You two [pointing to Nancy and me], stay here.”

The members of the group with security clearance were ushered into the Roosevelt Room, directly across the corridor from the Oval Office. Nancy and I stayed in the reception area, settling on a sofa. Inside the Roosevelt Room, various cabinet members, presidential aides, and White House staffers had gathered for a “photo op” with Muhammad.

Except Muhammad wasn’t there. He was with Nancy and me in the reception area beneath a painting of “George Washington Crossing the Delaware.”

Which is how Nancy and I got into the Roosevelt Room.

“But I’m telling you now,” The Man With The Mustache warned. “You are not going into the Oval Office, and I mean it.”

And he did mean it.

When the time came to enter the President’s office, The Man With The Mustache approached. “You two [Nancy and me], sit over there [pointing to the far side of the conference table].”

He waited until we’d followed his command.

“Now, I’d like the rest of you to line up over here.”

At which point, I said to Nancy, “Look; there’s no way that both of us will make it into the Oval Office. When the others go in, just walk over to Muhammad and take his arm.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll stay here.”

“That’s not fair to you.”

“Sure, it is. I’ve been to the White House. I already have a photo of me with the President.”

“Not in the Oval Office.”

“It doesn’t matter. You can go into the office for both of us.”

Across the corridor, the door to the Oval Office opened. We saw the President of the United States standing there.

The line started to move forward.

Nancy got up from the sofa, walked over to Muhammad, and with considerable trepidation took his arm—

The Man With The Mustache walked over to Nancy, and stood in front of her. “Mr. Ali,” he importuned. “The President of the United States is waiting for you.”

And Muhammad walked forward, alone.

Nancy and I watched from a distance as the President greeted his guests. Then the door to the Oval Office closed, and we were left in the Roosevelt Room.

I was disappointed. I won’t tell you I wasn’t. For a while, we explored our surroundings, which was kind of fun. If you’re ever in the Roosevelt Room, I suggest you look at the gold medallion given to Teddy Roosevelt in 1906 when he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Also, check out the bronze sculpture by Alexander Pope, and the portraits of Teddy, Franklin, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Nancy did her best to put a good face on things. “Tom; this is really very exciting. We’re having a wonderful time in Washington with Muhammad. We’re in the White House. We saw the President from a few yards away. Don’t feel bad for me.”

But I did feel bad, for both of us.

Muhammad and the others stayed in the Oval Office for about ten minutes. Then the door to the President’s office opened and they filed out, moving down an adjacent corridor.

Jim Brown . . . Ralph Boston . . . Calvin Hill . . . Zina Garrison . . .

All but one.

Finally, Muhammad Ali walked out of the Oval Office . . . leading the President of the United States by the arm toward the Roosevelt Room.

“These are my friends,” Muhammad told him.

Bill Clinton smiled and beckoned us forward with a wave of his arm toward the Oval Office.

“Come on in.”

The minutes that followed will remain forever etched in my mind. The President began by asking Nancy her name. Then he turned to me. We chatted briefly. The President was warm and gracious. Eventually, he even called in a photographer. But what I remember most about that afternoon, and always will, is something I’ve seen many times; something that has been on display for the entire world for almost four decades—the sweetness, the determination, the power, and the magic of Muhammad Ali.

A LIFE IN QUOTES

H
ad Cassius Clay not beaten Zbigniew Pietrzykowski in a Roman boxing ring, the world might never have known him. Had he not shocked the world by defeating Sonny Liston four years later, few would have paused at his conversion to Islam. Had he not conquered Joe Frazier twice after losing in their initial encounter, he would be little more than an artifact of “the sixties” in the minds of many. Had he not knocked out George Foreman in the heart of Africa, it’s doubtful that he would have become the most recognizable man on the face of the earth. And had he never shed his shirt, put on gloves, and traded blows with other half-naked men, he might not suffer from Parkinson’s syndrome; a debilitation that he confronted unflinchingly while hundreds of millions of people watched him light the Olympic flame at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

There’s no end to credible testimony about Ali’s goodness. He touched people the world over with his warmth and love. Both literally and metaphorically, he has kissed without hesitation the poor and weak, the downtrodden and oppressed, the elderly and sick, and everyone else he met. New generations must rely in part on the testimony of those who lived through Ali’s glory years. Then, one hopes, they will understand both Ali’s legacy and the legacy of Ali’s generation. Some see an inconsistency in celebrating a man as a messenger of love when he rose to fame by bludgeoning others with his fists. But history teaches that warriors often become pacifists if given enough years to live. A man who has felt the weight of violence frequently seeks to shield others from it. And because an old warrior’s courage cannot be questioned, he can be an ideal spokesperson for peace.

Other fighters since Ali have graced the sweet science of boxing and been great. More great fighters will follow. Someday, as surely as autumn leaves change color and fall to the ground, a young man will step in a boxing ring and be greater than Ali. But Muhammad Ali will always be The Greatest.

In his prime, Muhammad Ali was one of the most verbally gifted athletes in the history of sports. The passages above were written by Bart Barry and myself as part of a project undertaken for Barnes & Noble in 2010. The pages that follow offer a sampler of quotes and anecdotal recollections from and about Ali by others. As with the rest of this book, an effort has been made to avoid duplicating material contained in
Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times.
Thus, the quotes aren’t intended to be all-inclusive. Rather, they’re designed to show Ali’s essence, the sweep of his career, and his impact on people.

JIM BELL [A CHILDHOOD CLASSMATE OF CASSIUS CLAY]:
We were in elementary school together, and he was just another one of the kids. You push and you shove each other, and get into the normal fights. There were days he lost, and there were days he won. So when he beat Sonny Liston to win the championship, some of us were laughing about it, saying, “He’s not even undefeated in the neighborhood. How can he be champion of the world?”

RONNIE O’KEEFE [CASSIUS CLAY’S OPPONENT IN HIS FIRST AMATEUR FIGHT. IT WAS THE ONLY FIGHT OF O’KEEFE’S RING CAREER]:
I weighed 89 pounds, and he weighed about the same. The fight was three rounds, a minute a round. And he hit me a whole lot more than I hit him. I had a heck of a headache that night. He won by a split decision. And right after he was announced the winner by the referee, he started shouting that he was going to be the greatest fighter ever. He was heavyweight champion of the world already, at twelve years old and 89 pounds.

JOE MARTIN [THE LOUISVILLE POLICEMAN WHO TAUGHT 12-YEAR-OLD CASSIUS CLAY HOW TO BOX]:
He’s been popping off before fights from the very beginning, and it’s not a thing in the world but whistling past the graveyard. He’s just overcoming the fear that’s in him.

SISTER JAMES ELLEN HUFF [WHO SUPERVISED CASSIUS CLAY’S FIRST REGULAR AFTER-SCHOOL JOB]:
He was a sophomore in high school. Somebody had to dust up the library. And a schoolmate, who had been doing the job and was going to leave, brought him over. He was already known. Unknown to me, but he was appearing in Golden Gloves tournaments at the time and had a whole bag of trophies that he brought out to show me later when I found out that he was a boxing champion. His friend introduced him to me as Cassius Clay. I said, “Do they call you Cass?” And he told me, “No, ma’am; Cassius Marcellus Clay, Junior.” So I said, “Okay; it will be Cassius.” And he was polite; he was gentle. He always appeared on time and related to his work beautifully. Except one time. His father was a painter. And Cassius was kind of given to art too, so I gave him a paint job down in the lower area where we were working. And he resisted. He used enamel where I had asked him to use flat paint. I said, “I thought your father was a painter.” And he told me that his father was an artist, not a barn painter. And he just lived boxing. He worked at it very hard. One evening—he’d been training pretty heavily, I think—I came back from dinner. We had some reading tables in the stacks on the second floor. I looked in, and there was Cassius on one of the tables, asleep, facing the wall. I said, “Cassius, are you sick?” He raised himself up, kind of stunned because he’d fallen into a deep sleep, and told me, no. And after he became famous—you read about places where they say, “Abraham Lincoln slept here.” Well, I take people into the stacks and I tell them, “Cassius Clay slept here.”

RALPH BOSTON [GOLD MEDALIST IN THE LONG JUMP AT THE 1960 OLYMPIC GAMES]:
I’d never heard of this guy. And at age twenty-one, I really wasn’t into other sports. I was a track-and-field man, getting ready to go to Rome. I flew into New York, took a bus to the Biltmore Hotel where the Olympic team was staying. And this young guy came up to me, put his hand on my chest, and said, “Ralph Boston! Hold on; I want to take your picture.” Then he told me, “You don’t know me now, but my name is Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.” He had this old Brownie Hawkeye camera, where you had to look down to see what you were photographing. And he proceeded to take my picture, along with pictures of just about everyone else he came in contact with during the Olympics. And there’s a question I’ve been asking Ali all my life. “Where is my picture?”

WILBERT “SKEETER” MCCLURE [CASSIUS CLAY’S ROOMMATE AND FELLOW GOLD-MEDAL-WINNER AT THE 1960 OLYMPICS]:
When we were in Rome, we had this place where the athletes would go to dance and listen to music and relax. And Ali didn’t dance. That was always interesting to me; how he could float like a butterfly in the ring, but he would not get on the dance floor. The king of moving in the ring, dancing in the ring, didn’t dance. I’ll bet he doesn’t dance today. I’ll bet he still hasn’t learned how to dance.

ZBIGNIEW PIETRZYKOWSKI [CASSIUS CLAY’S OPPONENT IN THE 1960 OLYMPIC FINALS]:
During the fight itself, I had to work at a very fast pace to avoid his punches. This was good for the first round. Clay was missing a lot of punches. But in the second round, I realized I was losing my strength and that it would be difficult for me to survive three rounds. I had to think about defense, and that hampered thoughts of victory. It left me with nothing else but to try to survive three rounds and not be knocked out. I would have done anything then to beat him. But later, I began to cherish his victories.

WILBERT “SKEETER” MCCLURE:
I was fighting an Italian in Rome for the gold medal, so I figured my chances were not too good. But I went out and beat Carmello Bosce of Italy. I beat him in the last round and I came back to the dressing room, shouting, “I got it! I got it! I got it!” Eddie Crook had to go out next. Eddie went out and he came back, shouting “I got it! I got it! I got it!” Eddie was hysterical. He looked like a seven-year-old kid, he was so joyful. And Cassius, he was no nonsense. He was getting ready to go out, concentrating on his objective. Then he went out, got his gold, came back in; and we hugged each other and jumped up and down, and screamed and screamed and screamed. We just couldn’t believe it.