He’d already conquered Yvon Becaus, Gennady Shatkov, Tony Madigan, and the entire Olympic Village. Before even arriving in Rome 60 years ago, he’d laid waste to more than 100 amateur boxers, nearly all American boxing writers, and his own fear of flying.
Now, Cassius Clay—not yet the Muhammad Ali who will become the most famous athlete in history—was a reed-thin light heavyweight, 18 years old and three minutes from an Olympic gold medal.
He danced in his corner, ready to start Round 3 of his gold medal fight with Zbigniew Pietrykowski, a 25-year-old Polish veteran of hundreds flights who won the bronze medal in 1956. The first two rounds could have gone either way, both fighters putting their all into the ring.
But there was something about the teenage American, his impossibly long arms slicing like lightning as he ducked and weaved away from the left-handed Pole’s fierce jabs. And when the bell rang for the start of the final round, the native Kentucky son was ready.
Pietrykowski got a few good swings in at his opponent over the next three minutes, but not many. By the end of what may have seemed an interminably long 180 seconds to the Polish fighter, he could do little more than crouch and hold his gloved hands by his head while the future Ali’s punches cut the air around him, landing blow after blow.
And there, right there, seconds before the bell ending the fight—that quick back and forth footwork that would become known as the Ali shuffle, already practically trademarked to the kid from Louisville.
Louisville. While not actually in Appalachia, Louisville is one of the oldest cities west of our mountains, springing up at the Falls of the Ohio, a 26-foot drop over two and a half miles that meant boats traversing the wide river out of Appalachia had to stop and transport their goods by land past the rapids before continuing on toward the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico beyond.
The Louisville and Portland Canal and later the McAlpine Lock and Dam ended that shipping obstruction, and Louisville overtook the two other shipping towns that had once flourished on the Kentucky side of the river.
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Louisville's Muhammad Ali Center
Former boxers Muhammad Ali (right) and Joe Frazier at the 10th Annual ESPY Sports Awards in Hollywood.
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Louisville's Muhammad Ali Center
Zbigniew Pietrzykowski (left) and Muhammad Ali at the Rome Olympics in 1960. wikimedia
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Louisville's Muhammad Ali Center
I’m gonna ‘whup him’
Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.—named for his father, who in turn was named for a 19th Century abolitionist politician from Kentucky—grew up in segregated Louisville, on the west side of the city in a small, two-bedroom house on Grand Avenue. His father was a sign and billboard painter, and his mother a domestic worker—a maid.
He grew up Baptist, courtesy of his mother, and helped his father at work, along with his brothers and sister. And one day, when he was 12, he rode his red Schwinn bike, a Christmas gift from his father, to the Columbia Auditorium for a Louisville Service Club event. When he and his friends came out, that beautiful treasure was gone, stolen.
Angry, Ali looked for a policeman. He found Joe Martin, the off-duty cop who ran Columbia Gym in the basement of the auditorium. He told Martin he was gonna find whoever took his beloved bike and “whup him.” All right, Martin said. But you better learn to fight first.
And that’s how it all started.
Six core principles
Today, Ali’s boyhood home still sits on Grand Avenue with a historical marker. Columbia Auditorium is the athletics and activities center of Spalding University, recently renamed Columbia Gym with a replica of Ali’s bike above the door. And Ali himself—45 years after that gold medal fight—founded the Muhammad Ali Center, a glittering facility in downtown Louisville, on the river in full view of the Falls of the Ohio and the canal and lock that built Louisville.
The center’s driving force is, of course, Ali and his six core principles: confidence, conviction, dedication, giving, respect, and spirituality. Exhibits detail all aspects of his life, display his boxing memorabilia, and tell the stories that his family and friends know best. Each year, the center awards six Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Awards—one for each of those six principles.
Ali returned from Rome in 1960 and went pro, winning a six-round decision on October 29 against Tunney Hunsaker. From then until the end of 1963, he was unstoppable: 19 straight wins, 15 of them by knock-out. On the way he developed a reputation for outlandish taunts against his opponents (which he said were inspired by pro wrestler Gorgeous George Wagner) and became the top contender for heavyweight champ Sonny Liston’s belt.
And then he beat Liston.
At 22, he was the youngest fighter ever to beat a reigning champ (not the youngest to be champ: That honor belonged to Floyd Patterson, who took the belt at 21 after Rocky Marciano retired). He changed his name first to Cassius X, to dismiss a name given to his family by slavemasters, and then to Muhammed Ali when he converted to Islam. And he beat Liston again, then Patterson.
Then boxing came for him. First, the WBA stripped him of his heavyweight title because he joined the Nation of Islam. But that wasn’t what damaged his burgeoning career. That occurred when he refused induction in the armed services. “I ain’t got nothing against no Viet Cong,” he said, adding that the Viet Cong didn’t level racial slurs at him because of the color of his skin.
For that, Muhammad Ali was convicted of draft evasion and stripped of his titles, boxing licenses, and even his passport. For three years, until just before his conviction was finally overturned in 1971, The Greatest couldn’t fight.
Ali came back, but in his first big fight—The Fight of the Century against Joe Frazier—he lost. After Frazier lost the heavyweight belt to George Forman, Ali again faced the man who gave him his first professional loss and this time came away victorious, setting up The Rumble in the Jungle against Foreman.
“I thought Ali was just one more knockout victim until about the seventh round,” Foreman said years later. “I hit him hard to the jaw and he held me and whispered in my ear: ‘That all you got, George?’ I realized that this ain’t what I thought it was.”
And just like that, Ali was again world champion. But he was tiring. He beat Frazier again in the Thrilla in Manila, lost his belt to Leon Spinks, and then won it back from the 1976 Olympic gold medalist. He retired, and then, needing money, came out of retirement. But Parkinson’s disease was already taking over his body, and he never won again.
‘His beautiful soul’
Instead, he focused on the humanitarian work that had always been close to his heart, even as the Parkinson’s became more evident with each passing year. He hand delivered food to needy sites around the world, visited food kitchens, joined forces with actor Michael J. Fox to take aim against the disease that afflicted them both. President George W. Bush put a Presidential Medal of Freedom around his neck, saying “the real mystery, I guess, is how he stayed so pretty. It probably had to do with his beautiful soul.”
And the man who once enraged some for his stance against war, for choosing a religion different from most other Americans, for relentlessly taunting his opponents inside and outside the ring—that man won them over with his wit, his charm, and his unforgettable boxing skill.
Interviewer David Frost asked Ali in 1974 how he’d like to be remembered, what he’d like people to see his legacy.
“I’d like for them to say he took a few cups of love, he took one tablespoon of patience, one teaspoon of generosity, one pint of kindness,” he said. “He took one quart of laughter, one pinch of concern, and then, he mixed willingness with happiness. He added lots of faith and he stirred it up well. Then, he spread it over a span of a lifetime and he served it to each and every deserving person he met.”
In 1996, when Ali stepped into the spotlight at Atlanta to take the Olympic flame from swimmer Janet Evans, the world stood with him. He hadn’t been publicly identified as the one who would light Atlanta’s Olympic cauldron, and there he was. The Greatest of All Time. Ali lowered the flame, and his legacy flew up that line and ignited the torch that would burn for 16 days, through the sporting events, the musical interludes, and a deadly bombing.
Muhammad Ali left this world on June 3, 2016. His legacy remains, in Louisville and beyond.
Want to go?
Located in the heart of historic downtown Louisville, Kentucky, the Muhammad Ali Center is a multicultural center with an award-winning museum dedicated to the life and legacy of the renowned humanitarian.
The center museum captures the inspiration derived from the story of Muhammad Ali’s incredible life and the six core principles that fueled his journey. It is located at 144 N. Sixth Street, Louisville.