WEBVTT - Muhammad Ali: A Study in How to Become "The Greatest" 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:11.000 Personology is a production of I Heart Radio. Muhammad Ali, 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:14.960 whose nickname was aptly the Greatest, is regarded as the 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:19.000 greatest professional boxer of all time. He was also a 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:22.720 celebrated celebrity figure of the twentieth century, known for his 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:28.440 political and social activism, humanitarian works, philanthropy, and champion of 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:33.120 the Muslim faith. My guest today is Jonathan ig Ig 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:35.280 is the author of five books, three of them New 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.480 York Times bestsellers. A former staff writer for The Wall 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.360 Street Journal, I has also written for The New York Times, 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:44.680 The New York are Online, and The Washington Post. His 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:48.600 latest book is Ali, a Life, which won the penn 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:53.520 ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. Ali was also named 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.440 Best Book of the Year by Sports Illustrated, one of 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:58.720 the ten best non fiction books of the Year by 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:01.120 The Wall Street Journal, and one of the New York 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:09.600 Times Notable Books of two thousand and eighteen. Muhammad Ali 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:17.200 was born Cassius Clay January of two in Louisville. And 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:22.319 we will talk a little bit about his family of origin, 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:27.199 his father, who was a sign painter, and his mother, 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:31.720 who was a homemaker. But really what matters is the 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:34.400 kind of people that his parents were and the kind 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.640 of relationship that they had with their son. So let's 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:43.440 talk a little bit about his namesake. His father, Cassius, Yeah, 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:48.160 Cassius Clay senior, Cassius Marcellus Clay Senior. Everybody called him Cash. 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:55.480 Was a great character. Um, a womanizer, a very effervescent, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:02:00.400 very popular guy, love to go out and drink, drank 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:02.400 a little too much, got arrested a few times for 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:06.800 public intoxication, and ran around on his wife. So um, 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.040 he was this very compelling, very dynamic figure that has 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.480 you know, in some ways his his two sons really idolized. 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:17.520 But he was also a troubled figure who brought violence 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.000 into the home and and you know, beat his wife 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.919 on occasion, came home drunk and and and beaten his 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:26.280 kids a couple of times too. So uh, you know, 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:29.560 I think this is one of the really key relationships 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:33.600 in shaping young Muhammad Ali, particularly in terms of thinking 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.640 about what Ali went on to do with his life. 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:39.800 That it's interesting to think about, as you said, he 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.359 this father who, in the kindest way you could say, 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:45.600 was maybe a scoundrel. You know, that he was a 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:49.919 womanizer and that he got into trouble, but people liked him. 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:51.680 But at the same time, as you said, there was 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.280 this dark side to him. He did hit his wife, 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:59.880 he did hit his children, and he had interactions with 0:02:59.919 --> 0:03:03.480 the police because it got into fights, physical fights. And 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:06.040 this is important because when you think about children who 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:10.400 grow up in abusive homes, they have to find a 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.639 way to cope with the abuse of what's going on, 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:16.800 and often what they do, and this is why you 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.080 see this repeated pattern in families is they use a 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:24.519 defense mechanism called identification with the aggressor, which means basically 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.280 they've been the victim and they've been the powerless one, 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.720 and to cope with the trauma of that, they grow 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:33.720 into somebody who tries to have the power and be 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.760 the doer, not the one done to. And so we 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.400 often see this pattern of kids who have been in 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:44.240 abusive homes going on to become abusers themselves in domestic 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:49.080 abuse or in abusing their children. And of course, while 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:53.360 that is not what Muhammad Ali is known for, he 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:56.640 did go on to be a fighter, a boxer, and 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:03.120 um that would be an incredible sublimation of another defense mechanism, 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:05.920 of a way of taking urges to be the hitter, 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:09.200 to be the powerful one, and using it in a 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:12.720 way that is constructive. So and just in terms of 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:16.359 already right out of the gate, thinking about motivators for 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:21.480 young Cassius Clay to be interested in fighting and in boxing. 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.080 That's right. One of the things that really struck me 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:26.400 about Ali that I was so interested in is that 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:29.159 he was never a bully in school. He was much 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.560 bigger than the other kids in his class. You look 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.400 at the school pictures, the class photos, and he towers 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:38.840 over everybody in the class. He grew not only large, 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:43.080 but he grew early, and he um struggled in school. 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:47.200 Later discovered that he was dyslexic, but he really lagged behind. 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:50.359 And I was always kind of surprised that he didn't 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.600 lash out and become violent in any way. That he 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.039 didn't you become a bully, and he didn't. He was 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.440 the class clown instead. It wasn't until he was twelve 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.840 that he discus over boxing. He had some physical prowess 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.880 as a young boy. He as you said, was bigger, stronger, 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:11.200 and even in some ways faster. Already that he was uh, 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.120 not terribly engaged in the academics of school, to say 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:18.359 the least, but he turned his let's say, energies to 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.960 a lot of athletic pursuit. You tell this great story 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:27.039 of how he raced the bus to both entertain students 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.280 who were in the bus, but also because running and 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.479 being physical was was part of his makeup at a 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:36.360 very early age. That's right. He liked the idea of 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:38.520 getting in shape. He liked the idea of getting stronger 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.560 and being the strongest and the fastest um and the 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:44.200 fact that he could also um entertain the other kids 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.680 on the school bus was was key because he loved attention. 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:50.720 He desperately needed attention. His mother said that he used 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.400 to stand up in the stroller because he wanted people 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:55.400 to see him even as they were as he was 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:58.400 a baby walking down the street. And and that seems 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:00.200 to have really been a part of his d n 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:02.520 a that he just needed to be noticed all the time. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:04.800 And that may come from feeling like he didn't get 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:07.159 the love of his father. He certainly felt like he 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:09.200 got the love of his mother. And his mother was 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:11.880 in many ways the opposite of Cash. She was this 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.120 sweet Her nickname was Bird because she had this sweet, 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:19.680 little high pitched laugh, and everybody loved bird. Bird was 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.880 was was stable and solid and and took care of 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:25.440 her family, took care of other families. Like so many 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.640 black women of the nineteen fifties, the only work she 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.320 could get was as a domestic cooking and cleaning for 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:35.159 white families. But she was the you know, the epitome 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.040 of a of a of a loving mother. So he 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.360 had the balance from his parents. Well, she was, as 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:45.880 you said, described as very angelic, churchgoer, a caretaker at 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:50.120 all costs, very selfless. And that's important because his model 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:54.360 for the first woman in his life, UM seems to 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:58.520 be pursue him, let's say, in terms of who he 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.960 chooses as wives and his girlfriends and what he expects 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:06.440 of them. Certainly you see as he moves through life, 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:11.960 definitely an expectation of caretaking. Definitely an expectation of selflessness 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.080 on the part of women. Um. Sometimes it seems that 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.800 he later takes a lot of advantage of that. But 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:23.440 clearly his model for a woman seems very much based 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:27.800 on his relationship with and the model that his mother said. Um. 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:32.480 Also important is his relationship with his younger brother. Yeah, 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:34.680 that's right, and the younger brother kind of serves in 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.520 that role of being the giving him even more attention. 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:41.840 His his younger brother is kind of like his Sancho Panza. 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:43.520 You know, He's there's there all the time to give 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.680 support and encouragement and to remind Ali of how great 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:51.040 he is. And Mohammed's hungry. The first thing he his brother, 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:53.080 you know, does his run to the kitchen without even 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:55.000 you know, being asked to go make him a sandwich. 0:07:55.320 --> 0:08:00.000 He's obedient fan. He's the ultimate fan. And he stays 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.720 close with Rudy Ruddy, his brother. He stays close with 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.200 Rudy and involves him in all of his life ongoings 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:11.280 as his second mate throughout his life. So that remains 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:16.280 a very important relationship for him. But equally important to 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:20.360 the impact of this mother and this father and this 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.560 brother is the environment in which she's growing up in, 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:26.480 in the culture in the years of which he's growing 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:30.680 up where basically this is the Jim Crow South. He 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:35.320 grows up with tremendous race consciousness. His father has some 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.680 strong opinions about what it is to be a black 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.280 man in Louisville in those years and what he thinks 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.960 his son can and cannot accomplish. As a result. Yeah, 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:51.920 once again with everything around Ali. It's beautifully complicated because 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:53.920 he's growing up in the Jim Crow South. He's he's 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:58.720 you know, he's born into segregation. Um. But but he's 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.760 not poor. Most back there's tend to come out of poverty. 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:04.240 Ali lives in a middle class neighborhood where he sees 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.800 people going to work every day, um, including business owners, 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:13.240 people who own funeral homes and dentists offices, and school 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:15.920 teachers and principles. His family is a little bit sort 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.840 of on the lower end of that uh spectrum, but 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.880 still solidly within the middle class. So he sees this 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.960 proud community that he lives in. But at the same time, 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:28.520 if he goes downtown, he can't shop in the clothing stores, 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:32.880 he can't try on close in the department stores. He 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.640 can't um sit anywhere but the balcony in the movie theater, 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.680 and they're most of the city parks in in Louisville 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.199 are completely off limits to him. So he grows up 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:46.080 knowing that he's considered second class, and he can't understand why. 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:48.920 For example, Um, you know, they go to church and 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:52.440 they pray to a white Jesus. Um. You know, he's 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.560 he's puzzled by that, and he can't understand why, um, 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.280 skin color should make a difference, why should he be 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.240 categorized this way? And when he tells his father one 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:03.200 day that that he wants to be rich and famous, 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:05.600 his father laughs at him and says, you can't be 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:07.600 you can't be rich and famous. I'll tell you why. 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.520 He just points to his skin and says, look at that. 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.720 You know you're too dark. You're never going to be anything. Mhm. 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:19.240 So a couple of interesting psychodynamics are set up early 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:24.480 in the life of Ali, these models that are before him. 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:28.920 His clear temperamental set up to be an extrovert. I 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:32.120 mean that seems very obvious from his life and lifestyle 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:34.960 and what he seeks out that unlike introverts who gain 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:40.360 and need some time alone to re establish their energy, 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.320 he clearly gets his energy off of being with other 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:47.079 people and playing to other people, interacting with others. Very 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.320 very extrovert man. And that's something that probably he was 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:53.880 just biologically born with. Yeah, he hated being alone all 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:57.280 his life. So that's that's that's often what exactly what 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:00.560 a what a pure extrovert would say. Um, And they'll 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:02.920 go to great lengths to be around other people, so 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:07.679 that that desire for attention, you know, maybe some combination 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:11.480 of wanting to, you know, aspire as everyone does, and 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:13.800 having a father telling him he could never be special, 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.160 and so feeling insecure in that way and looking for 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.440 things that would shore up his self esteem or make 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.840 him feel that he was able to be special, and 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:29.239 being an extrovert wanting to be recognized therefore, and interacting 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:34.240 with other people. And then you take this whole milieu 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:37.000 and you plumped him into school, where as you mentioned, 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.679 he really struggled. He really struggled because, as it turned out, 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:45.440 he had dyslexia and could not read. That's right, and 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:47.960 I think that must have been incredibly frustrating for him 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.640 and it but but he again didn't act out in 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:52.600 a in a bullying kind of way as he might have. 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:57.720 He He just turned up the notch, turned up the levels, 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.800 and went even more extroverted and just tried to be hilarious, 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:02.760 trying to be the class clown. And then this miraculous 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:07.400 thing happens and he finds the perfect cure for all 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.760 of his problems. That's something that satisfies every bit of 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:14.520 his enormous appetite and that's boxing. At the age of twelve, 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:19.120 he stumbles accidentally into a gym where a white police 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.440 officers training kids how to box, and there are black 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.960 and white kids in the ring together. So, Son, I mean, 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:28.880 it had to be like a monstrous epiphany where he 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.199 suddenly sees that there's this place, a boxing ring, where 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:35.080 the normal world, the normal rules of the world, do 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:37.920 not apply. Here's a white police officer who wants to 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.319 help him, who wants to be kind to him, who's 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.840 working with black and white kids together, and there are 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.000 white kids and black kids in a boxing ring punching 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:48.560 one another. You know, his father has told him all 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:51.719 his life that if you get into a fight with 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:53.600 a white kid, you're going to jail. If you have 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:55.719 any kind of running with a white police officer, you're 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.800 in trouble, And here the opposite seems to apply. And 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:01.760 then best of all, he gets to fight in front 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:04.959 of crowds and on Friday nights, those fights are on television. 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:07.360 He can't believe it, like this is a dream come true? 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:09.280 What could be better than this? He gets to punch 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:11.160 white people and they'll put him on TV for it. 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:15.000 He brings to the mix, right this this background of 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:18.080 what he's been told. So this this is like a revelation, 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:20.760 as you point out. But also I think it's important 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:26.400 to understand when one has dyslexia, one often has another 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.360 diagnosis along with it, and the most common one is 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:34.320 attention deficit disorder, particularly attention depth is a disorder with hyperactivity. 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.880 And as you said, he seemed too many people who 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:41.120 interacted with him, particularly his mother, but others like he 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.120 was a very hyperactive kid, that he was in addition 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:46.720 to being trying to be the class clown and get attention, 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:49.640 that he was moving all the time, that he had 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.439 high energy and high movement all the time. And for 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:58.240 someone who feels hyperactivity, which feels kind of like ants 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:00.400 in your pants all the time, the eye idea of 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:04.640 being able to jump around a ring and box and 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:09.559 hit people and get feedback would be like phenomenal. Would 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:14.400 be an engaging, absorbing and actually physically relieving kind of 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:17.920 activity because it's so busy, because it really plays into 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:22.400 feeling hyperactive. So there were so many things that could 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:26.120 lead to and then of course having this moment where 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:30.160 actually it was there that really existed. Yeah, it was really, 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.440 like I said, almost miraculous. Because he tried basketball and 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.880 football and baseball and he hated those things. There was 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.040 there was too much time standing around, and you know, 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:41.760 in football, he said, you got to wear a helmet. 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:44.640 Nobody can see you. And this was really serendipity. He 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.040 had basically had a new bicycle that his family had 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.000 given him and it was stolen and he was enraged 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:53.520 and he marched down to the police station to really 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:56.440 report this. And this is when he comes upon this 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:01.400 white police officer who happens to be the boxing coach. 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:04.560 That's right, and the white police officer says, if you 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:06.800 want to learn the box, come back and all. He 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:09.240 comes back and in fact finds another gym and starts 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:11.880 training at two gyms at one time because he just 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:14.960 can't get enough of this and it absolutely transforms his life. 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.760 And he starts almost immediately telling everybody, I'm going to 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.400 be the heavyweight champion of the world. He starts, you know, imagining, daydreaming, 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:23.680 sitting in class, imagining that the principle comes on to 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.160 make the announcement that Muhammad Ali has just won the 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:29.000 gold medal in the Olympics. But then he's still castis 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.080 clay at this point, um he starts sketching pictures of himself, 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.800 you know, in a boxing robe with the words World's champion, 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.080 you know, across across the back. Um as he once said, 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.640 you know, the years later he said, I was calling 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:45.000 myself the greatest before I knew it was true. So 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:49.400 he is in basically middle school and then high school, 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.960 and he's he's boxing already. He's boxing for crowds, he's 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:59.600 getting positive feedback, he's finding that he's good, and that's 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:03.040 giving a sense of self esteem and why is he good? 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:07.640 Because and this becomes actually the hallmark of who only 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:12.360 becomes as a boxer. He doesn't use typical boxing techniques. Yeah, 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.720 that's right, it's really fascinating. He Um again seems to 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:18.640 just get lucky that he's got these this, this, all 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.160 these things lined up perfectly for him. He never really 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:24.960 takes the coaching seriously. You know, in boxing you're supposed 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:27.280 to keep your hands up to protect your head at 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:28.840 all times. You throw a punch and you put your 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:32.320 hands right back to protect your head, and you duck punches. 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.160 You know, you don't just um like, lean back because 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.800 if you lean back, you're gonna get tagged eventually. But 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.480 Ali develops this style all of his own, where he 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:42.880 he keeps his hands down low, doesn't protect his head, 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:44.200 just moves his head out of the way, and his 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:47.520 reflexes are so fantastic that he gets away with it. 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.360 And everybody keeps saying, well, when he gets to fight 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:52.520 some real opponents, when he when he moves up to 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:56.200 some some serious boxers, he's gonna get clawbered, But that 0:16:56.280 --> 0:17:00.720 never happens. He somehow manages to consistently find a way 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.240 to win. And and some of it is because he's 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:06.119 he's just got these natural gifts. He's so fast and 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:08.159 he's so big, and this kind of a combination of 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:12.160 speed and strength it's really unusual. Today we can look 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.679 at the neuroscience and the data that support this. He 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:19.200 has some actually other special talent in his pocket, if 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:23.880 you will. And that is when a person has dyslexia, 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.160 their brain is wired a little bit differently, and that 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.719 is the reason that actually they can't process parts of 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:34.360 words um called phonemes, and that's why it's so difficult 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:37.720 for them to learn to read. But this same difference 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:42.560 in wiring also seems to confer a strength, and that 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:49.520 is a wider net for spotting visual and auditory and 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:55.040 cognitive material, but wider spatial attention. And what does that 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:58.480 mean visual spatial attention, It means that their ability to 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:02.240 see what's in the per referee of their visual field 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:06.760 is greater than someone who does not have dyslexia. And 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:10.840 that means, as a boxer, right, your ability to see 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:15.920 and process and use the information that's coming from a 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:20.040 wider lens, from a wider view than someone who doesn't 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:24.000 have that would be better and that you might see 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:28.280 that and process it more quickly. And also another strength 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:31.960 of people with dyslexia is an increased ability to discern patterns. 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:37.280 And often as sports of all kinds, but particularly in boxing, 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:43.200 there are patterns to boxing styles. So this combination might 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:47.000 have been what allowed at that time cash As Clay 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.080 to use a different tchnique because he would be faster 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:52.680 and he would see more and he would see punches 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:56.680 coming or moves coming before someone else might. Absolutely, and 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:59.840 when you're talking about elite athletes, you know a split second, 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:02.439 a hundredth of a second makes a huge difference. And 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:05.120 when you're a boxer and you can move, start moving 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:06.359 your head out of the way of a punch, just 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:09.080 a split second sooner, and when you can discern where 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:11.959 the other fighter's head is moving as he's throwing that 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:15.840 punch and prepared to counteract it, you have an enormous advantage. 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:17.960 And Ali could never really quite explain it, but he 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:19.520 would say, I don't know how it happens. It just 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.480 happens that my chin is always just a little bit 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:24.399 out of the way when the punch lance, like I 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:26.880 can just make that that punched glance off my chin 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:29.200 in a way that other fighters would have been hit 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:32.000 full on. And he sensed that he had this ability 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:33.720 and he didn't really know how because it was just 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:37.280 completely native to him. Let's take a quick break here, 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:47.120 we'll be back in a moment. Sadly, even though this 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:51.600 was amazing and he was doing more and more boxing, 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.879 getting more and more accolades, that he was able to 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:59.520 make money, he had people start to back him to 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:03.000 end help him with the management of that money. He, 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:07.240 as you pointed out, loved the fame. He never learned 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.680 to read. He never I mean, he was now traveling 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.399 so much for one in high school. Um, but in 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:15.919 those days they didn't have the kind of schooling that 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.760 they have now to help children who have dyslexia learn 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:21.640 different techniques and different styles so that they can read. 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:26.600 And it was really that his high school principle ultimately said, 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:29.520 you know, we could see this guy's going somewhere, and 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:31.119 we're not going to be the ones to have not 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:35.440 graduated him. We would like a superstar to have graduated 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:39.640 from our high school. So he graduates, but he really 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:44.320 doesn't get the academic tools that say would have probably 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:46.800 benefited him in life, and and that ends up being 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:50.680 important simply. I think in the world of later on, 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:56.080 when he could be taken advantage of financially, sometimes his 0:20:56.160 --> 0:21:00.240 ability to say, read a contract for himself or or 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:04.640 manage any of the finances was was not so good. Yeah, 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.840 that's true. Although I suspect that even if he had learned, 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:11.359 and he did eventually learn to read um slowly, but 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:13.680 he got better at it. I suspect even if he 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:15.679 knew how to read, there was something else in his 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:18.719 personality that made him vulnerable to two con men and 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:21.760 shady managers. He was just so trusting and he just 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:24.000 always believed that everything was going to work out fine 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:27.280 for him. He had this incredible sense of confidence that 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:29.680 he would always have money. He would always make more 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:32.840 money and if he needed, if he lost some of 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:34.719 it to some shady con man, well that shady con 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:37.040 man must have needed it, must have must have needed 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:38.920 the money more than he did. And he just had 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:43.160 this very like um Leisa Fair about a relationship about money. 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:45.840 What time was it when the whole issue of the 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:49.600 Olympics presented for him? He won the Olympics, the gold 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:51.520 medal in nineteen sixty when he was still in high 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:55.520 school one the the light heavyweight division, and came back 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:58.119 and to the United States and was suddenly a star. 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:00.359 And in fact, even in the Olympics even are there, 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:03.680 um the newspaper reporters all before he even won the thing, 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:06.359 before they even knew whether he could box, they all said, 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.159 we really hope this kid wins because he's got such personality, 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:12.560 such charisma, and the sports world really needs a needs 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.240 a kid like this to brighten up the boxing universe, 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:18.639 which had become you know, kind of dull and was 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:22.720 losing popularity. So people recognized his star power even when 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:26.320 he was a kid. So he's in high school, he's 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:32.520 an Olympic gold medalist. He is outgoing and handsome and charismatic, 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:37.359 and he likes girls. He really likes girls. Talks about 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:40.159 how much he likes girls. But he's shy, which is 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:43.800 so interesting. It's the one environment that he seems to 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:49.000 be really socially inhibited in. He definitely describes himself as 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:53.719 shy around girls. And so even though you think this 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:56.479 must be a high school boy who's definitely, you know, 0:22:56.560 --> 0:22:59.760 having girlfriends, he really didn't. Yeah, it was interesting. When 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:02.240 he turned pro a few years later, a lot of 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:04.520 the sportswriters who covered and thought he was either he 0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:06.680 was certainly a version in their opinion, and that he 0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:09.800 might have been gay because he was so nervous around 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:13.000