The man who will forever be known as “The Greatest” taught us the power, not just of sacrifice and forgiveness, but of revealing your own vulnerability.
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“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”–Muhammad Ali
I seem to be writing a lot about death recently. Family members, famous musicians; it seems to be the year.
But as he put it, “Inside of a ring or out, ain’t nothing wrong with going down. It’s staying down that’s wrong.”
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The latest is one who was so full of life, enthusiasm, and character, that it is hard to imagine the world without him. I’m talking about Muhammad Ali.
Ali was seemingly full of contradictions. A man about serious issues, he never took things, especially himself, seriously. Someone who came across as a braggart, yet always put the important issues of the day ahead of his own glory and accomplishments. He said it best himself, “The service you do for others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”
He’s often been called, including by himself many times, the Greatest, as in the greatest boxer of all time. This, in spite of the fact that he was beaten several times. But as he put it, “Inside of a ring or out, ain’t nothing wrong with going down. It’s staying down that’s wrong.” If that doesn’t inspire you, he also said “Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.”
I suppose I could just fill this column with Ali quotes. It would likely be more profound and entertaining.
How does someone once so controversial become so universally loved? Perhaps it was, as Kareem Abdul Jabbar wrote on the morning after his death, Ali’s “ability to be different things to different people.” Indeed, he could be for millions, not only of African-Americans, but for people of African descent all over the world, perhaps most especially in Africa itself, the inhuman symbol of black power and struggle. But it wasn’t long before whites realized that there was nothing to fear from him, that in his demands to recognize his own, and his people’s humanity, there was no desire to subjugate anyone, but to lift all up.
Ali called for his nation to rise up to a higher standard and he was willing to engage in a great deal of personal sacrifice to see that it happened.
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Though I saw him a bit as a young person, in his ubiquitous interviews with Howard Cosell, I got my first inside look at Ali from the autobiography of country singer Waylon Jennings. Waylon called him the person he admired most in the world. He got to hang out with the champ a handful of times and invited him to his son’s christening. Ali walked in, plopped down on the couch, and announced to the room, “I’m here to integrate this joint.”
But it was his courage and sacrifice that Waylon admired most. Ali was a three-time champion, but he sacrificed nearly four years of his career, the prime part of that career, over a principle. He refused the draft, and the man of infinite contradictions called out his nation on some of its biggest, “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs on brown people while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?”
The nation would eventually come to recognize, not just his greatness, but the rightness of his cause.
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It wasn’t just that “No Vietcong ever called me a nigger” as he put it and it certainly wasn’t just personal. Ali called for his nation to rise up to a higher standard and he was willing to engage in a great deal of personal sacrifice to see that it happened. He may not have ended the twin injustices of war and racism alone, but he stood his ground. He could have taken a cushy, symbolic job with the Army, performing in exhibition matches and never seeing a bit of action. But, he decided to be a symbol of a different sort, fighting for what was right instead of just fighting a man.
The nation would eventually come to recognize, not just his greatness, but the rightness of his cause. And, the world would. Ali was likely, at one point the most famous person on the planet, better known and loved than any president, political leader, activist, or celebrity.
The most inspiring sports moment I ever witnessed came 20 years ago at the Atlanta Olympics, when Ali, hands, and indeed, his whole body shaking from Parkinson’s disease, lit the torch for the games. It was the day he taught us one more thing, the power, not just of sacrifice and forgiveness, but of revealing your own vulnerability.
One more lesson among many.
—A version of this piece will also appear in the Porterville Recorder on June 15, 2016.
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Photo: Getty Images