Back before cable, regular TV would actually show major boxing matches. When I was a kid, I didn’t like boxing, it just looked like two guys punching each other in a square. But things changed when I watched Muhammad Ali! I’d love to hear Howard Cosell interview him and how Ali talked about how pretty he was and he was the greatest of all time. Even back then, if someone said that about themselves you could hear the collective eyeroll, but Muhammad Ali backed it up. He’d get in that ring and be so light on his feet and yet hit so hard!! I couldn’t imagine what a right hook from him would feel like. But there was so much more about him to appeal to the kid in me.

In my head he was a real life superhero. I mean, there he was on Saturday morning TV with his own cartoon! Some of you may not remember that and for those who don’t know, check it out on YouTube. He was also on a giant sized DC Superman comic fighting the Man of Steel in the ring!! So for me, the cartoon and the comic were enough to sell me! He would also show up on popular shows and tell kids to do their homework, listen to their parents and eat their veggies so that they could be big and strong like him. Definitely hero level behavior!

As I grew up and learned how to research, I started reading stories about how Ali used his celebrity to be a force for good. He’d reach out to his fans and take time to talk to them, to make a real connection. I just recently heard a story about how my wife’s coworker’s family would vacation close to his home and one day they went to look at his home through the gate. After a brief conversation with security The Champ invited them in his home, gave them a tour and hung out for a while! You’d never hear about that now!

When I heard that he’d died I felt sad. It felt unreal because he was so much larger than life. I like to believe that Bruce Lee met him at the gates, walked with him to the ring and said “I’ve been waiting for a long time for this, let’s go!”