Op/Ed - USATODAY - Ali Remains a Role Model

[Murray Charters <mcharters@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Op/Ed - USATODAY - Ali Remains a Role Model
Wed, Jan 14, 2004
By Robert Lipsyte

This has been a tough time for the images of iconic sports figures.

?  Pete Rose, who once thrilled us with exuberant passion and 4,256 hits, the 
all-time record, finally has admitted
betting on his own baseball games. He did so less in the spirit of contrition 
than in an attempt to get into the Hall
of Fame and hustle his memoirs.

? Former N.Y. Giant Lawrence Taylor, perhaps the greatest defensive player in 
pro football history, is peddling an
autobiography overripe with sex and drugs.

? The fiercely private and independent baseball star, Ted Williams, became a 
late-night joke in the ugly battle over
his quick-frozen remains.

? Once considered the role model of the future, Lakers basketball star Kobe 
Bryant is facing rape charges.

So when I was invited last month to the American launch party of what is billed 
as one of the most expensive books in
history -GOAT: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali, which you can now order for as much 
as $7,500 - I accepted with a certain
wariness, even though I had contributed an essay to the 75-pound volume. I 
didn't want to rediscover Ali as another
worn-out warrior cashing in.

If the mark of a true hero is the light still shining after the high glory days 
are over, sports has a meager record.
The legacy of the great Pittsburgh baseball player Roberto Clemente shines on 
because he died in a 1972 plane crash
while bringing relief supplies to victims of the Managua, Nicaragua, 
earthquake. A few other athletes have used their
celebrity to promote worthy causes.

Ali is unique. His light has been flashing - and flickering - for 40 years. 
Yet, unlike other former sports stars who
have fallen on hard times or have had their reputations tarnished, Ali has 
beaten the odds. He has managed to transcend
some of his past comments and controversies to become an international role 
model.

Ali has been that way since 1964, when he stunned the world as Cassius Clay by 
beating Sonny Liston and becoming the
heavyweight boxing champion at age 22. Shortly after his victory, he confirmed 
his membership in the Nation of Islam, a
black separatist group, and told reporters, including myself: "I don't have to 
be what you want me to be. I'm free to
be whom I want."

In many ways, that statement was far more revolutionary than "I ain't got 
nothing against them Viet Cong," which
brought down the establishment ire. When Ali refused to be drafted, he was 
illegally stripped of his title. He had gone
quickly from scandalizing traditional fight fans to infuriating civil-rights 
activists, Christians and pro-Vietnam war
patriots.

He was always hard to categorize. How could we correlate his rigorous physical 
training with his casual sexual
dalliances, his hunger for celebrity and his dogmatic religiosity, his bubbling 
good humor and his bursts of cruelty in
the ring against opponents who insisted on calling him Cassius Clay after he 
changed his name to Muhammad Ali? Was this
hypocrisy or the complexity of his quest to be true to himself, and, thus, to 
all? He never did answer those questions
satisfactorily. As Jack Olsen of Sports Illustrated once wrote of Ali: "His 
life is a symphony of paradoxes."

As befitting a book called GOAT (it stands for Greatest of All Time, which also 
is Ali's corporate name), the party was
held in the Miami Beach Convention Center, the site of that first Liston-Clay 
title fight. I found a seat at ringside,
very close to where I think I sat for the fight, and next to Ali and Will 
Smith, the actor who played him in the 2001
biographical movie, Ali. Smith was doing all of the talking. Ali, stiffened by 
Parkinson's disease (news - web sites),
his face a frozen mask, barely mumbled. I stared into that face to try to find 
the magical youth who had babbled poetry
and predictions.

Ali's eyes were on the speakers in the ring, but half-closed. I wondered what 
he was thinking. I was lost in my fantasy
of Ali's mind, straining to find some sign in his face that he was still there. 
During my turn to speak, I reminded the
audience that no other world-renowned athlete had given up so much money and 
sports acclaim for principle, or taught
the world so powerful a lesson on how to be a human being.

And he did it without always trying to please the crowd. I certainly didn't 
always agree with him, and I still don't.
For example, I can applaud his trip to Kabul, Afghanistan (news - web sites), 
in 2002 as a United Nations (news - web
sites) "messenger for peace." He thanked Afghan youth "for showing me how 
strong you are in spite of the hardships your
country still faces. You must keep that strength. You must continue to hope for 
a brighter tomorrow."

Yet, I'm still perplexed by the paradox of his refusal to answer David Frost 
when he asked on television whether Ali
would include al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Iraq (news - web sites) among "the evil 
ones."

Ali replied that terrorism was wrong, but that he had to "dodge questions like 
that" because "I have people who love
me." He did not want to offend anyone, especially fellow Muslims.

I can live with that because that light is still shining. In 1996, when he lit 
the Olympic flame in Atlanta with
trembling hands, he offered the world lessons that went beyond borders and 
wars. One might have thought a man who once
called himself "the prettiest" would hide this shell of himself. But his 
unself-consciousness about his condition, his
willingness to get on with his life as best he could, was an inspiration to any 
of us who ever has been sick or
damaged. He's a more important role model now than ever before.

Just sitting close to him that night in Miami Beach, thinking about him, had 
erased my reservations. I was suddenly
glad I had come. And then he gave the sign.

When his old doctor, Ferdie Pacheco, leaned down from the ring to say, "We had 
good times, didn't we?" in a way that
evoked memories probably best untold, Ali smiled and raised one finger to his 
lips in the universal signal: Let's not
talk about that.

I took that as a gift. He might not always be who we want him to be, but at 
least one old sports hero is still who we
need him to be.

Journalist Robert Lipsyte is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

SOURCE: Op/Ed - USATODAY


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