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FILE – In this Feb. 2, 1999 file photo, boxing legend Muhammad Ali poses for a photo after an interview in New York. The man who became the world’s most recognizable athlete was a baby sitter, a jokester and a dreamer in the predominantly black West End neighborhood of Louisville where he grew up and forged lasting friendships while beginning his ascent toward greatness. Now, as the iconic boxer slowed by Parkinson’s disease prepares to turn 70 next week, he’s coming home for a birthday bash at the downtown cultural center and museum that bears his name. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
Louisville, Kentucky
Long before he became one of the world’s most recognisable sportsmen, a young Cassius Clay honed his skills by sparring with neighbourhood friends and running alongside the bus on the way to school in his home town of Louisville.
The man better known as Muhammad Ali was a babysitter, a joker and a dreamer in the predominantly black West End neighbourhood where he grew up and forged lasting friendships while beginning his ascent to greatness.
Now, as the famous boxer, slowed by Parkinson’s disease, prepares to turn 70 next week, he is coming home for a birthday bash at the cultural centre and museum that bears his name. The private party tomorrow will double as a fundraiser for the six-year-old Muhammad Ali Center, which promotes ideals of tolerance, respect and individual achievement.
The birthday party will highlight a week-long extended tribute to the city’s favourite son, whose name and face emblazon buildings and street signs.
Ali turns 70 on Tuesday, January 17, three days after the party.
FILE – In this April 4, 1963 file photo, heavyweight boxer Cassius Clay is seen with his mother, Odessa Grady Clay, in a car outside their home in Louisville, Ky. The man who became the world’s most recognizable athlete was a baby sitter, a jokester and a dreamer in the predominantly black West End neighborhood of Louisville where he grew up and forged lasting friendships while beginning his ascent toward greatness. Now, as the iconic boxer slowed by Parkinson’s disease prepares to turn 70 next week, he’s coming home for a birthday bash at the downtown cultural center and museum that bears his name. (AP Photo/H.B. Littell, File)
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Those who knew him before he developed his famous ringside persona – the brash predictions followed by rapid-fire punches that backed up his taunts – remember a happy-go-lucky kid with a ready smile who had a serious side, aspiring to show his mettle as a fighter.
Ali’s boyhood neighbour, Lawrence Montgomery sr, 78, was one of the first to feel the sting of the young boxer’s jabs. At the teenage boy’s request, Montgomery held up his hands and Ali popped them with punch after punch.
Montgomery saw early glimpses of the boxing star’s bravado that earned him the “Louisville Lip” nickname.
“He told me then that he was going to be the heavyweight champion of the world, and I didn’t believe him,” Montgomery said.
“I told him, ‘Man, you better get that out of your mind.’ But he succeeded. He followed through.”
Early on, Ali’s neighbours and classmates saw the work ethic that enabled him to defeat the likes of Joe Frazier, George Foreman and Sonny Liston in epic bouts that sealed his reputation as an all-time great.
FILE – In this Nov. 18, 2005 file photo, boxing great Muhammad Ali is accompanied by his wife Lonnie and singer Kris Kristofferson as he tours the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Ky. The man who became the world’s most recognizable athlete was a baby sitter, a jokester and a dreamer in the predominantly black West End neighborhood of Louisville where he grew up and forged lasting friendships while beginning his ascent toward greatness. Now, as the iconic boxer slowed by Parkinson’s disease prepares to turn 70 next week, he’s coming home for a birthday bash at the downtown cultural center and museum that bears his name. (AP Photo/Ed Reinke, File)
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Instead of travelling on a bus to school, Ali raced it in early morning workouts that stretched for kilometres.
“He would jog and of course we would pass him up,” said Shirlee Smith, 69, who graduated with Ali from Louisville Central High School in 1960. “Then we would stop at every corner to pick somebody up and he would pass us up. And he would laugh and wave at us all the way to school.”
Ali and the bus usually arrived at school about the same time, she said, but Ali never seemed out of breath.
“It didn’t faze him in the least,” Smith said.
Some early mornings, when Montgomery arrived home from his overnight shift at the postal service, he would see Ali running in heavy boots towards a neighbourhood park and back, an 8km round trip.
Ali’s introduction to boxing was spurred by a theft.
His new bicycle was stolen when Ali was 12. He rode the bike to a community event to get free popcorn and sweets. When it was time to go home, the bike was gone. Wanting to report the crime, the shaken boy was introduced to Joe Martin, a police officer who doubled as a boxing coach at a local gym.
Ali told Martin he wanted to whip the culprit. The thief was never found, nor was the bike, but soon the feisty Ali was a regular in Martin’s gym.
Victor Bender was an aspiring boxer when he and Ali began a lasting friendship when both were 12. The two became sparring partners as Ali slowly began turning his raw natural abilities into boxing skills.
“He was developing punches back then,” Bender said.
While Bender shifted his attention to basketball and American football, becoming a stand-out at Central High, Ali developed into a top amateur boxer, winning two national Golden Gloves championships by the age of 18.
Even in his early days, friends say, the gangly Ali aspired to become a heavyweight. After high school, Ali won a gold medal at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.
Unlike the brash boxer whose face become a fixture on television years later, Ali was a bit shy at school, Smith said.
“He was not a lady’s man,” she recalled.
Ali’s self-confidence soared as his career took off, but much of the brashness was aimed at garnering attention, said Gordon Davidson, the attorney for the group of Louisville businessmen who sponsored Ali in the early years of his professional career.
“As far as this ‘I’m The Greatest’ – all of that was what I’ll call sideshow,” he said. “He could turn it on and turn it off when he wanted to.”
Montgomery’s daughter, Karen Montgomery Williams, 56, remembers Ali as her first babysitter. The easygoing teenager would turn serious during those Saturday babysitting sessions when a local boxing show came on television, she said.
“I just remember having to sit down and be quiet,” she recalled.
Montgomery’s father said Ali refused to charge him for babysitting his children.
“The only thing he would require was having bologna (polony) sandwiches in our refrigerator,” he said.
Ali moved to Miami in the early 1960s, but he never forgot his Louisville roots. He would return to the neighbourhood, smartly dressed and driving a Cadillac convertible, Montgomery said.
In later years, Ali would entertain local children with magic tricks, a favourite pastime.
Ali’s boyhood home – a small, single-storey frame house – still stands in the working-class neighbourhood. In the front garden there once grew a tree that Ali used to spar with as a boy. Now only a stump remains.
Ali and his wife, Lonnie, now have homes in Michigan, Arizona and Louisville.
His boyhood friends stuck with Ali, who was brought up as a Baptist, after he converted to the Muslim faith, changed his name and refused to be drafted for military service during the Vietnam War.
Those decisions alienated him from many in America during those turbulent times. Ali was stripped of the first of his three heavyweight crowns in 1967 for refusing to fight in the war.
Bender was drafted into the army at the same time as Ali.
“At the time, I kind of believed like he did, but I didn’t fight it,” Bender said. “I went on and did my time. And, if he had gone in, he would have been successful with his time, too.”
Bender, a Baptist, said he respected Ali’s faithfulness to his adopted religion: “He has been a very spiritual individual who you would love having as a friend; who you could count on being in your corner.”
Davidson, a confidant to Ali during those years, warned the champ that skipping the draft would badly damage his career. Ali listened respectfully but would not budge.
“He said he appreciated that, but his religion was more important to him,” Davidson said.
Montgomery said Ali had always been admired in the neighbourhood for sticking to his principles.
“He was a role model for all of us in the neighbourhood,” he said. – Sapa-AP
