Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest by Thomas Hauser Read Free Book Online

mind is alert and his heart is pure.
    I’ve seen Ali get on a plane and fly to India because the children in an orphanage wanted to meet him. I’ve sat in his living room as he talked with sadness of hatred and racism in all of their virulent forms. He’s a gentle man who will do almost anything to avoid hurting another person.
    Ali was in Louisville visiting his mother who had suffered a stroke when he was asked to go to Iraq. He is on medication for Parkinson’s syndrome. When he left that afternoon, he had enough medication with him to last for five days; yet he stayed in Iraq for two weeks. He quite literally endangered his health because he believed that what he was doing was right.
    That has been a constant theme throughout Ali’s life. He has always taken risks to uphold his principles. During the 1960’s, he was stripped of his title and precluded from fighting for three-and-a-half years because he acted upon his beliefs and refused induction into the United States Army during the height of the war in Vietnam. He now believes that all war is wrong. Ali is, and since Vietnam has been, a true conscientious objector.
    Ali knows what many of us sometimes seem to forget; that people are killed in wars. Every life is precious to him. He understands that each of us has only one life to live. Many Americans now favor war with Iraq, although I’m not sure how many would feel that way if they personally had to fight. Ali, plainly and simply, values every other person’s life as dearly as his own, regardless of nationality, religion, or race. He is a man who finds it impossible to go hunting, let alone tolerate the horrors of war.
    It may be that war with Iraq will become inevitable. If so, it will be fought. But that shouldn’t cause us to lose sight of what Muhammad Ali tried to accomplish last month. Any war is a human tragedy and we should always be thankful for the peacemakers among us. That’s not a bad message for this holiday season or any other time of year. After all, it’s not how loudly Ali speaks but what he says and does that counts.

THE OLYMPIC FLAME
    1993
    T he Atlanta Olympics are three years in the future, but elaborate groundwork has already been laid. Budweiser has agreed to become a national sponsor for a sum that might otherwise be used to retire the national debt. On-site construction has begun and television planning is underway. Eventually, the Olympic torch will be transported to the United States. The triumphal procession that follows will lead to the highlight of the games’ opening ceremonies—lighting the Olympic flame.
    Traditionally, someone from the host country ignites the flame. At the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Rafer Johnson received the torch and carried it up the Coliseum steps to rekindle the world’s most celebrated fire. Last year in Barcelona, a Spanish archer shot an arrow into a caldron, thereby reawakening the flame. The eyes of the world are always on this moment. One wonders who will be chosen to fulfill the honor in Atlanta.
    The view here is that the choice is obvious. One man embodies the Olympic spirit to perfection. He’s a true American in every sense of the word and the foremost citizen of the world. At age eighteen, he won a gold medal in Rome fighting under the name “Cassius Clay.” Since then, he has traversed the globe, spreading joy wherever he goes. Atlanta has special meaning for him. It was there, after three years of exile from boxing, that he returned to face Jerry Quarry in the ring. He loves the spotlight, and the spotlight loves him. Indeed, one can almost hear him saying, “When I carry that Olympic torch, every person in the world will be watching. Babies in their mother’s tummies will be kicking and hollering for the TV to be turned on. It will be bigger than Michael Jackson. Bigger than Elvis. Bigger than The Pyramids. Bigger than me fighting Sonny Liston, George Foreman, and Joe Frazier all at the same time. Bigger than the