Muhammad Ali, simply the greatest of all time.

[crgildart]

Jesse Ventura remembers his hero, Muhammad Ali

"Ali gave up the greatest title in the world and stood up for his convictions.

When I went to visit him in his home, I noticed that, on his mantle in his living room, he placed the Bible and the Quran side-by-side. One was given no preference over the other. Just side-by-side, right above the fireplace.

That’s Ali for you: he's bigger than just a Muslim or Christian. He crosses the barriers of religion; he's bigger than religion itself. Ali is, and will always be, universal."

 

[Monique]

I listened to a really interesting Hang Up And Listen special about Ali. I really don't know much about him, but they interviewed a reporter who had covered him for over 50 years. This struck me:

I’ve been getting all these condolence calls, and I don’t think we need to mourn. I think we need to celebrate what he once was, which really was the most interesting and spectacular sports figure that any of us have ever even thought about. And most importantly, what I want to do here is remind people that he’s not the secular saint and this kind of beatified teddy bear that people have been making him out to be in the last few years. He was a very controversial, very scary, very paradoxical, very interesting character who in his time kind of epitomized the splits in America.

The thing that really makes me totally angry right now, are the stories coming out about Ali as this noted civil rights activist. If anything, early on when he first rose to prominence, he was the anti–civil rights activist. We were kind of appalled—most of us were young liberal reporters who were really interested in this story—were integrationists. And here he came out of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, what we called the Black Muslims, who were making deals with the KKK and really wanted to segregate themselves from American society.

I think this can all be true, and that we can still respect the man he became and the inspiration he provided. And some great quotes. He seemed to become kinder as his illness ravaged him, which you can't say about many people.

I cried in 1996 when he lit the Olympic torch in Atlanta. His whole body, his arm, his hand were shaking. And later somebody told me that some hot wax from the torch had flowed down and burnt his hand. He refused to flinch. He didn’t want to show anybody that something bad had happened.

Anyway. A complex person, as we all are. This is the podcast if you're interested in the interview: http://www.slate.com/articles/sport..._opposition_to_vietnam_the_boxer_s_sense.html