Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest (20 page)

ANGELO DUNDEE:
Every day is like a new toy to Muhammad.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
I don’t usually tell people this because they don’t understand, but I don’t have no fight plan. It would be the worst thing I could do to go in there with my mind all made up. I’ve been fighting since I was a child, and I do everything on instinct. Sometimes I wonder at myself when I see a big fist coming at my head, and my head moves without me thinking and the big fist goes by. I wonder how I did it.

ANGELO DUNDEE:
Ali did things wrong in the ring and made it look like art.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
The minute I’m hit; two steps backward, and I’m on the other side of the ring. Messages race out of my mind—retreat, retreat, danger, danger. I hear the messages and I’m moving away, but I’m still watching and thinking. It don’t take long to clear your mind when your body is right. When you’re in condition, it only takes ten seconds; then you’re usually out of trouble. If he gets too close, just clinch him. Grab him, do anything. Stall for time, don’t let him know you’re stunned. Keep dancing with him like nothing’s wrong. All this happening while the crowd is hollering.

FERDIE PACHECO [ALI’S RING PHYSICIAN FOR MOST OF HIS BOXING CAREER]:
With the young Ali, boxing was truly “the sweet science.”

MUHAMMAD ALI:
I’m so fast, I’ve got moves you can’t even see.

ROY JONES:
People talk about Ali’s defense, but I think his offense was the key to his success. When Ali was young, you didn’t have time to think against him. He was always putting pressure on you because he could strike at any time. It was like, what his opponent did didn’t seem to matter. And he had the safest jab I’ve ever seen because he didn’t over-commit. He used his jab to keep you away and keep you in range until he hit you.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
I don’t know anything about fighting, really. Only about me fighting.

JOE PATERNO [FOOTBALL COACH]:
Ali would have made a great linebacker and an outstanding tight end. I don’t know if he had the foot speed for any of the other skill positions, but his strength, quickness of hands, and balance were awfully good. Now maybe football wouldn’t have been the right game for him. Certainly, at age eighteen or nineteen, he’d have needed guidance as to what he could and couldn’t do as far as alienating his teammates was concerned. I’m liberal politically, but I’m conservative in terms of lifestyle and how I coach the team. And here at Penn State, we have a rule about players getting along with each other. You can only say you’re sorry so many times. But I don’t want to underestimate Ali’s ability to accommodate any situation. If he’d made a commitment to it, I’m sure he would have been a team player. I know, I’d have loved the chance to coach him.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
Most black people in this country are mentally dead, and we don’t wake up easy. It takes something like an earthquake to wake up our people. Oh, maybe black folks will get upset about something and burn a building or two, but in a couple of days, we forget.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
We were taught when we were little children that Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow. Then we heard about Snow White. White Owl cigars. White Swan soap. White Cloud tissue. White Rain hair rinse. White Tornado floor wax. White Plus toothpaste. All the good cowboys ride white horses and wear white hats. The President lives in the White House. Jesus was white. The Last Supper was white. The angels is white. Miss America is white. Even Tarzan, the King of the Jungle in Africa, is white.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
Things that are solid, black people don’t think about that. They just dance and sing and go to church and shout. We never thought about doing nothing for ourselves. We depend on white people to grow our food and make our clothes. Used to be a sign on Miami Beach that said, “No dogs, Niggers, and Jews allowed.” Jews got mad and united and bought the damn beach.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
I got tired of watching black entertainers on TV. Diana Ross married a white man. Lena Horne married a white man. Leslie Uggams married a white man. Lou Rawls married a white woman. I said to myself, if God will just let me be big, I’ll do it different. James Brown and Sidney Poitier and Diana Ross and Lena Horne and Eartha Kitt; them niggers don’t talk to black people. They don’t come through Alabama and talk to people. Niggers get big, and then they forget you.

TOM HOOVER [A FRIEND]:
Ali’s treatment of women when he was young isn’t something that should be emulated. But the things he did right were more important than the things he did wrong. He made black women feel good about being black the same way he made black men feel good about themselves. He made black women feel every bit as beautiful and desirable as white women.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
Whenever black athletes want to do something, white people run to Joe Louis, and Joe Louis always talks like the boss wants him to. Joe makes himself look real ignorant when he attacks me for standing up for my people. If Joe Louis don’t like what I’m doing, he should discuss it with me behind closed doors. But instead, Joe Louis is making himself an Uncle Tom for white people.

JOE LOUIS:
Clay has a million dollars worth of confidence and a dime’s worth of courage. He can’t punch; he can’t hurt you; and I don’t think he takes a good punch. I’d rate him with Johnny Paycheck, Abe Simon, and Buddy Baer. A lot of guys would have beaten him if he was around when I was. I would have whipped him.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
What’s this about Joe Louis beating me? Slow-moving shuffling Joe Louis beat me? He may hit hard, but that don’t mean nothing if you can’t find nothing to hit. What’s he gonna do when I’m jumping and sticking and moving? And don’t say I can only do it for a minute, because I can keep it up for fifteen rounds, three minutes a round. Now how is Joe Louis gonna get to me? Would I just quit dancing that night and stand there and let him hit me? Joe Louis, you’re really funny.

OSCAR BROWN, JR. [WHO LATER WROTE THE MUSIC FOR “BUCK WHITE,” THE BROADWAY SHOW THAT ALI STARRED IN DURING HIS EXILE FROM BOXING]:
My wife Jean and I and Jesse Jackson were over at Joe Louis’s house. Jean, Jesse, and I were sitting with Mrs. Louis in the dining room. Joe was in the bedroom, laying in bed, looking at television. Then he came to the door, and said, “Cassius is on TV; Cassius is on TV.” So we all got up to see Ali on TV. He was being interviewed, and he was saying, “I’m not an Uncle Tom like Joe Louis.” He kept on ranting and calling Joe Louis an Uncle Tom, and I’m standing there with Joe Louis. I don’t know how on earth it happened that I got into that position. The Lord just put me there, I guess. Joe didn’t say anything. He just went on back to bed. But the next time I saw Ali, I made a point of telling him, “I can’t stand to have the hero of my adulthood talking like that about the hero of my childhood. Joe Louis meant so much to us. No matter what you think, you have no right to say those things about him. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know what conditions Joe Louis came up under. If it hadn’t been for Joe Louis, you wouldn’t be here.”

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR:
My father was not very happy to hear Muhammad Ali call him an Uncle Tom. He didn’t appreciate that. Joe Louis was very different from Muhammad Ali. He was a quiet individual. He was a humble individual. He didn’t talk a lot. My father was not into mouth. He was not into being braggadocious. And he had a speech impediment, so he didn’t articulate a lot. But he believed in this country, and he didn’t like Muhammad Ali questioning what he felt. Joe Louis loved America. He knew that America had its problems. He was treated as an inferior citizen, and he fought against that in his way. He didn’t picket; he didn’t march. And he was criticized in the sixties for not being more vocal, but those who criticized him didn’t have a sense of history. And frankly, I was disgusted with Muhammad Ali when he called my father an Uncle Tom, because Ali didn’t relate at that point to who Joe Louis was and what Joe Louis meant to this country.

JOSE TORRES [FORMER LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION AND ALI BIOGRAPHER]:
Ali and Joe Louis had harsh words for each other. They had different beliefs about religion. They had different beliefs about patriotism. But I think what really bugged Ali about Joe Louis was that Louis never gave Ali credit for being a great fighter. And Joe Louis was a great fighter himself, so he had to know how truly great Ali was.

PAT PATTERSON [THE CHICAGO POLICEMAN WHO SERVED AS A SECURITY AIDE TO ALI]:
There were some hard feelings early on, but Ali and Joe Louis got to be friendly later. And there was one thing I’ve never figured out. When Ali saw Joe Louis, he’d start dancing and boxing, throwing punches real close to Joe’s face, right in his face. “I’ll eat you up; you’re too slow; come on, Joe.” Every time, he’d do that. Joe would move back, like he didn’t want to be bothered, and Ali would keep it up; dancing around him, throwing punches real fast. It never failed. And all of a sudden, Joe Louis would reach out and slap Ali right upside the face. Bop! A left hand, real quick. That would end it. And I never figured out whether Ali allowed it to happen that way or he couldn’t stop it. Because, you see, Ali was a humanitarian and he got a kick out of making you be who you were and making you better than you were supposed to be. So I don’t know if he let Joe Louis slap him or not.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
I’ve been getting phone calls lately on my reclassification from 1-Y to 1-A. Reporters have been nagging at me. You know how they pick at you and twist things you say and make you say things you really don’t know what you’re talking about. They’ve been asking questions, and I have been with my big mouth, as usual, popping off. This time it got me in a little hot water.

FERDIE PACHECO:
Ali’s United States Army IQ score was 78. So what! Measuring Ali’s intelligence with a standard IQ test is like trying to measure joy or love with a ruler.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
I’m against all war. I said that before all this draft-card burning stuff. I made a speech at a white college in Buffalo, New York. When I got to the room where I was gonna talk, they had thirty-four signs stuck up on the walls and behind the platform. The signs said things like, “LBJ; how many kids did you kill today?” So I told the man who invited me there, I wouldn’t talk until they took all the signs down.

REPORTER:
Why won’t you fight for your country?

MUHAMMAD ALI:
I’m a minister of my religion, and this country has laws for ministers. George Hamilton; why don’t he fight for his country? He’s making a movie. Joe Namath; why don’t he fight for his country. He’s playing football.

REPORTER:
Joe Namath has a bad knee.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
Yeah; ain’t that silly. I saw Joe Namath playing football the other day. Twenty-seven passes out of forty-three is all he hit. Go talk to him about fighting for his country. I’m not using them as excuses, but you all keep jumping on me like I’m the last one; like you’ll lose the war if I ain’t in it.

NEW YORK TIMES
EDITORIAL [PUBLISHED ON APRIL 29, 1967]:
Citizens cannot pick and choose which wars they wish to fight any more than they can pick and choose which laws they wish to obey. However, if Cassius Clay and other draft-age objectors believe the war in Vietnam is unjust, they have the option of going to prison in behalf of their beliefs. Civil disobedience entails a penalty, but the risk is less than for those young men who willingly serve their country in Vietnam and other places of hardship and danger.

REPORTER:
Are you worried about not projecting a good image?

MUHAMMAD ALI:
What do you mean, project a good image? An image to who? Who don’t like the image I project? That’s the weakest thing I’ve heard yet; I’m not a good image. For my people, I’m the best image in the world.

JERRY IZENBERG [SPORTSWRITER]:
Ali against Zora Folley was the last time that the crowd at an Ali fight was comprised almost totally of boxing fans. Later, we saw the capes and gold chains and beautiful people and whatever. This was like the last hurrah for an era.

HOWARD COSELL:
It seems to me that you’re taking Zora Folley too lightly.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
Why would you say that?

HOWARD COSELL:
Because every indication has been that you’re confident you can beat Zora—

MUHAMMAD ALI
(interrupting): I’m confident I can whup all of them. This ain’t nothing new. What are you trying to make it look like something new for? I’m always confident.

HOWARD COSELL:
You’re being extremely truculent.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
Whatever truculent means, if that’s good, I’m that.

JOHN CONDON [DIRECTOR OF PUBLICITY FOR MADISON SQUARE GARDEN]:
When Muhammad was getting ready to fight Zora Folley at Madison Square Garden, there were a lot of public relations problems. But number one on the list was the fact that he’d indicated pretty clearly that, if he was drafted, he wasn’t going to go into the Army. Then, about two weeks before the fight, I got a telephone call from Jack Hand of the Associated Press, who told me that Muhammad’s appeal of his Selective Service classification had been unanimously rejected by the National Appeals Board. So I went over to Gallagher’s Steakhouse, where Ali was having dinner. He and Angelo were leaving when I got there. I told them, “Let’s sit down; there’s something I have to tell you.” So we went back into Gallagher’s and I gave Ali the news. He didn’t get excited; he didn’t seem upset. All he did was look at Angelo and say, “Angelo, you better tell them to sweep out that jail cell, because it looks like that’s where I’m going.”

BARNEY NAGLER [SPORTSWRITER]:
Muhammad Ali has claimed exemption from the draft because he is mostly concerned with preaching the words of Elijah Muhammad. The Supreme Court must decide whether it accepts Elijah’s teachings as a religion and Ali as a preacher of those teachings. The boxing commissioners, being students of comparative religion, long ago cast their votes against the only authentic heavyweight champion in the world. How easy it is to espouse the popular side of an argument; how much more difficult to stand firm in behalf of a cause believed righteous in the way Muhammad Ali stands. Ali is only a prizefighter. Perhaps too much store is put in the case of just one self-defined pacifist. But he has chosen to challenge a system that, he believes, deforms his people. And his choice is that of a man of principle.