Midweek Musing
Learning from The GOAT
It’s almost Christmas. As such I wanted to rehash an old story, because its one that i think is important,
Many years ago I learned that there are many ways to do things. There is no single way to do things…but you can always do it with good grace and treating people the right way.
One of the most transformative moments of my life came from just doing the decent thing. So below is the story I penned the week that he died. I hope you enjoy.
I am a proud man and not often drawn to tears but the past few days it has been a constant battle because the imagery, the videos and the wonderful articles lauding one of my true heroes has been impossible to avoid. This piece is a cathartic one for me as some parts of it I have never told before.
Whilst he graced everyone’s lives from his fights to his constant travel and charity work I had the true blessing of meeting Ali twice. The second in 2000 in Congress as Sports Illustrated commemorated their 100 greatest athletes of the 20th Century.
Back in 1996 however is where my real memory comes alive. I was 17 and visiting the US to watch the USPGA at Valhalla. I had recently figured out that I was never to make it as a top golfer despite the 6 days a week and several hours a day of practice. My dream career was over before it started and I can honestly recall dark thoughts about what was to come next. My dedication to golf meant I rarely spent time with people away from the course of the classroom and without its joy and the dream I felt very isolated.
I went to the USPGA with my family and a good golfing friend (Nicholas Royer) and we were spoilt rotten as it was combined as a corporate event and a holiday. Nicholas and I were driven around all week by an off duty Detective and enjoyed the banter with him. On the Friday night we didn’t want to attend the fancy corporate dinner so asked if he could drive us to Pizza Hut. When we arrived we asked him in to join us and bought him dinner.
He appeared delighted but spent the whole dinner on his brick of a mobile phone which seemed pretty rude but turned out to be one of the nicest things ever done for me. At the end of dinner he apologised and said he has been talking to his girlfriend who was currently Ali’s secretary and had arranged for us to meet him as a thank you for us inviting him to dinner. (To those still trying to figure this out - having manners and being nice to people does pay off!)
I can be honest and say we didn’t really believe him but the next morning he bundled us into his Lincoln Town Car, stopped at a local pharmacy so we could buy a simple camera, and drove off to the heartland of African-American Louisville. There we entered a simple nondescript home and were ushered to the kitchen. There was Ali with his wife Lonnie and brother Rahman (Rock) eating burgers and fries. What happened next will never grow old.
Ali stood up, turned to me with raised fists, his eyes suddenly hard and piercing. In a deep voice he said “You call me a Nigga?”
Well to say I was freaking out doesn’t come close. I am as WASPish as they get and the former 3 time World Heavyweight Champion just let me know I am in big big trouble...then his eyes lit up and he burst out laughing. I didn’t know at the time but we was apparently well known for being a practical joker. He had me for sure.
We spent the next hour in his living room. We talked about lighting the Olympic Flame only a few weeks earlier, the upcoming Tyson v Holyfield fight, the differences between the Bible and the Koran and very general chit chat. He posed for photos, signed autographs, shadow boxed and performed magic tricks (I still have photos of him levitating!). His brother kept things moving along as Parkinsons was very much in sight and keeping the conversation moving helped relieve Ali’s frustration. After the hour had gone we had to make our excuses to leave. Ali’s hospitality meant we could have stayed longer and neither Lonnie or Rock asked as to move on but it felt like we should allow them some time together.
As we filed out he asked each of us to give him Five. My two friends did so and as I went to follow them he moved his hand just in time and said “too slow” grinning like a Cheshire cat. I had just been outwitted by an old man with Parkinsons, perhaps that shows why golf was not for me.
I am a geek and when I get into a topic I consume it. I must have read a dozen books on Ali since then and have pretty much all his fights and no doubt in coming weeks and months will return to some of those (please check out Redemption Song as it is quite superb). I learnt about his time with Nation of Islam and his conversion after that to a more peaceful form of Islam following his pilgrimage. I know too that he could be mean and spiteful such as when he wouldn’t put down Floyd Patterson as he had refused to call him by his new name. Above all though I found a man rooted in his conviction and willing to keep moving no matter the obstacle, real or imagined. Read some of the Meme on Twitter and Istagram and his energy in his quotes is real.
When he spoke with us that day he made it clear he regretted nothing, certainly didn’t regret being a boxer or having this dreadful illness thrust upon him. He embraced life and everything it threw at him.
If you ever meet me and wonder why I smile a lot you can know that its seed was firmly planted on that day. I am blessed with a wonderful family - from my parents who raised me, my sister who pushed me and my wife and kids, a career in an industry I love and the means to live comfortably and as such I am an incredibly lucky man. There are many reasons for my happy existence but meeting him was a key turning point for me.
Ali was a hero to me though not for his boxing, not his quick fun comments but for the love and warmth he showed a random kid rocking up in his family home. He made me feel special again and I said to myself that day that I wouldn’t let a crushed dream stop me anymore. Here was a sporting giant crippled but not showing remorse or asking for pity. I started smiling again and I have never looked back. His photo goes with me everywhere and I thank him for kicking some sense into me.
He taught me a lot in a single hour and I hope that when the time has passed people will recall him for what he really was in every sense of the phrase: The Greatest Of All Time.