January, 2002... The University of Miami had beaten the hell out of Nebraska a few weeks earlier. I received a phone call and was cordially invited to have dinner as a guest, along with some other people with the entire 2001 Miami Hurricanes Team at Joe's Stone Crabs on Miami Beach. Talk about being excited for an opportunity of a lifetime.
As we were all being seated, in walked Muhammad Ali. Yes, THAT Muhammad Ali. Of course, he had already been battling his Parkinson's Disease for almost twenty years. Although his speech was not what it once was, and his physicality was noticeably debilitating, he was still an impressive figure. With his body guards by his side, he shook the hands of everyone at the tables, including mine, and by a remarkable coincidence, ended up sitting two or three chairs away from me. Needless to say, the entire restaurant was in awe of Ali and the National Champion Miami Hurricanes, and there was a lot of picture taking and interaction with the former Heavyweight Champion.
However, there were some brief moments of pause, and I found the courage to get up out of my chair, shake his hand again, and have a conversation (albeit very brief) with him about his faith and religion.
What precipitated me to do this was the fact that 4 years earlier in 1998, when I was 17, my family and I took a trip to the Middle East, which included stops in Israel, Jordan, and Syria. We were briefly imprisoned in Syria for passport technical violations. I have spoken about this incident from time to time on the Board, and many of you who know me know the whole story- I won't take the time to repeat it here. However, I reference what was a difficult time for my family and I in 1998 because I wanted to ask Ali about his conversion to Islam and how he used his faith as a basis for protesting the War, and how other famous people who were opposed to various wars, nevertheless heeded their call as an American to serve this country. Of course, I was respectful with him, and he even smiled and chuckled a few times, probably at the fact that this 21 year old college kid had the curiosity to ask him about real adult issues, of which he was graciously proud to discuss. He told me what most of us already know: that in his mind, he wasn't dodging the Draft because there was no war to fight unless it was declared by "Allah". I remember coming away with the impression that he was bothered, more than anything, by the fact that for HIM, he shouldn't have to fight a "war" some five thousand miles away when there were "wars" (i.e., race/civil rights movement) five miles away. I gave him a hug and thanked him for his time and wished him well and sat back down. For such a powerful, all-time great American athlete, his demeanor was very peaceful- talking to him felt like talking to a professor in college, and I wanted to soak up as much of his thoughts as I could in the little time I talked to him at the table.
So, with this short story, I say now what I have said over the past few days, and what I have consistently said for years. That is, as much as I respect Ali for being one of the greatest all-time American Athletes, for ME, I do not consider him one of the greatest all-time AMERICANS, because of his reluctance to heed the call of duty and serve his country (despite what can be considered a reasonable basis based on his faith). That doesn't mean that Ali was either a bad person or a bad American, but it DOES mean, in my opinion, that he cannot be considered a great American on the level of a George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Jackie Robinson, Fredrick Douglass, or a George Patton. I will concede that Ali DID serve his country in other ways, most notably as a proponent for racial equality under the law. Perhaps it can be argued that that was even more important than fighting in the War.
What is truly disgusting, dishonest, and frankly disturbing is how some of you treat reasonable criticism of Ali as some sort of either racially or bigotry based personal attack. That is weak sauce shit. If you have a reasonable rebuttal to criticism of Ali, then lay it out like an intellectual person, instead of being weak. All this other bullshit attacking posters who either criticize Ali or have a different opinion is WEAK. It is what weak minded people do. Don't twist words; don't shift the narrative; don't be a p***y and play the race card when there is no basis for playing it. What I find funny almost as much as anything is the fact that so many people tell me I would never say "ABC" to such and such person- well chances are, I ALREADY HAVE. I'll discuss any issue, anytime, anywhere.
