The Associated Press, citing a statement from his family, said Ali died Friday. He was hospitalised in the Phoenix area with respiratory problems earlier this week.
His funeral is scheduled for Wednesday in his hometown of Louisville, Ky., and the city plans a memorial service Saturday, the AP reported.
Ali called himself “The Greatest,” and many agreed. Among boxers, he certainly ranked among the elite, having won the heavyweight title three times in his 21-year career. But it was his life outside the ring that inspired the strongest adjectives. He was the prettiest, the brashest, the baddest, the fastest, the loudest, the rashest.
He openly attacked American racism at a time when the nation’s black athletes and celebrities were expected to acquiesce, to thank the white power structure that gave them the opportunity to earn wealth and celebrity, and to otherwise keep their mouths shut. Ali’s mouth was seldom shut. He joined the Nation of Islam at a time when the FBI and many journalists labelled the Muslim group a dangerous cult bent on destroying America.
He challenged the legitimacy of the Vietnam War and refused to enlist in the military at a time when few prominent Americans were protesting, an act of civil disobedience that led to his suspension from boxing for more than three years.
Quotes
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.
The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.
In a career full of seemingly magical feats, Ali’s greatest trick may have been his transformation—from one the nation’s most reviled characters to one of its most beloved. It was in that journey that the boxer left his marks—including welts, cuts and bruises—on American culture. He was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on Jan. 17, 1942, in Louisville, Ky., the son of a sign painter and a domestic worker. His paternal grandfather, Herman Clay, was a convicted murderer. His paternal great-grandfather, in all likelihood, was a slave.
The young Cassius Clay was a poor student who struggled to read the printed word, probably as a result of dyslexia, according to his wife, Lonnie Ali. He discovered his talent for boxing by accident, at the age of 12, when he told a police officer that his bicycle had been stolen. The police officer invited Cassius to join a group of young boxers, black and white, who trained at a gymnasium in downtown Louisville.
Team sports held little interest for Cassius, according to his brother, Rahman Ali, who was born Rudolph Clay. Cassius couldn’t stand the notion of wearing a helmet where his face would be obscured or being one of only 10 men on a basketball court or 22 men on a football field.
Cassius wanted nothing more than to be famous, according to his childhood friend, Owen Sitgraves of Louisville, who remembered Ali jogging to Central High School every day beside the bus that carried his classmates.
“He did it for the attention,” not just the exercise, Sitgraves said in a recent interview. In 1960, while taking time off from high school, 18-year-old Cassius Clay won the gold medal as a light heavyweight at the Olympic Games in Rome. He turned professional soon after and won his first 19 fights before earning a chance to fight for the heavyweight championship against Charles “Sonny” Liston in 1964. Liston was the most feared fighter of his time, and reporters covering the fight predicted almost unanimously that Cassius Clay would lose.
0 comments:
Post a Comment