Everyone has a Muhammad Ali Story, including me! Not to belabor, repeat and bore you, I will list what I perceived and recall one story:
During the 1980’s, as a freelance consultant to a Georgetown-based company, I met and worked with Mr. Ali. I found him to be humble, kind, compassionate; a patriot to the United States of America; a believer in freedom of speech; and, as Thomas Jefferson, a fervent believer in freedom of religion. He was a lifetime student of everything: art, culture, people and the ways of the world.
The people he interacted with were truly representative of all races, colors and creeds. No matter what someone did or said, he was never imposing with his beliefs and never condemning. “That is between themselves and their God,” he said (if they had one or believed).
Giving people second chances and repeat chances was not a problem for Ali. He understood that no human being was perfect and that the temptations of human nature can get the best of people sometimes. Unlike most people, he took any hardship with grace and without anger, retaliation or revenge. He was truly a man of peace and nonviolence, except for his career in the ring. It was this belief that pulled him through some very difficult and financially restrictive times. He had faith that he would make it through, that he would survive.
And he did.
Mr. Ali, also had a sense of humor. The team was in the Atlanta airport and I was walking in the front of the entourage to the awaiting cars. I kept flapping and hitting at the side of my chignon-wrapped hair. A fly, gnat or something seemed to be annoying me relentlessly. I kept walking and trying to wave off the unseen annoyance. Then I heard the light laughter behind me. Next I heard Ali say, “That was me.”
Of course I did not believe him, and told I him so. So, he stepped in front of me and walked quickly behind a group of young people heading in the same direction. When he was right behind someone in the other group, he took his index finger and thumb and rubbed them together repeatedly. The young person did the same thing I did. They were hitting quickly and rapidly, at what they thought was a gnat, fly or bee. They then scurried faster and away. Had they looked back, they would have seen Muhammad Ali!
“You didn’t know, as big as I am, that I could tiptoe and you cannot hear me!” he said. Had he not showed me, in person, I would never have believed it! Also, Ali loved magic and liked to get the staff together at the end of the day for 30 minutes to show off his latest trick.
We were scheduled for a morning flight on the return trip from Atlanta to Washington. Everything was going according to schedule. Then, all of a sudden, someone said “Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Ali!”
People stopped, looked and hurried to meet the Champ. To snap pictures and get autographs before rushing to get on their flights. Everyone, made their flights, except for us. This happened twice more before the airline official told me that after the next flight there would not be another until tomorrow.
I repeated this to Ali. Well, what he said to me I will never forget: “It is okay, if I miss the flights, because without the support of people, and these people, I would not have the successes of all that I have without them. It is because of human beings, that I have what I have and I am what I am today. So, I will stay until every one of them has spoken or seen me and received an autograph.”
I should not say this, but I was relieved when there were very few people around the terminal for that last flight! Being famous is not easy. But Ali never forgot who he was and how he got there. He understood the importance of saying thank you and being appreciative of his fans — especially young people, whom he understood needed hope, faith and opportunity.
It was interesting to note that the hundreds of the people swarming around the Champ were white. Goodness and greatness has no discriminating hatred or racism, just admiration and respect! Sports is a barrier breaker and peacemaker, sometimes.
My greatest memory of Ali would be years later, when he lead the way and lit the Olympic torch for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. Heart grabbing, it was to me, because Ali had Parkinson’s Disease back when we worked together. What people did not know is that he would awake at 3 or 4 a.m. to take his meds, which took three to four hours to take effect. He did this so that he could meet with youth across the city and appear before groups and organizations who needed his support. So to see him decades later light that torch was a TKO. He was and still is, forever in our hearts and minds, The Greatest.
