Speaker 1: November ninety four, driving through eastern Kentucky on the way
Speaker 1: to hang with Ali and Louisville, first time since Lynn
Speaker 1: and I sold the house and bought one in Winston Salem.
Speaker 1: A lot of change over the past couple of years
Speaker 1: that house in Winston, I swear, I'm starting to think
Speaker 1: some homes are unlucky, their.
Speaker 2: Own kind of haunted.
Speaker 1: Mohammad has seen serious change too, and I'm anxious to
Speaker 1: see how he's coping, while also hoping to shake a
Speaker 1: few ghosts out of my bloodstream. Tooling down I sixty four,
Speaker 1: watching bare naked trees in brown fills on both my
Speaker 1: left and right, roving the FM dial in search of
Speaker 1: cleansing sounds, I land on Mountain Stage, a syndicated Americana
Speaker 1: show coming live from free Eadam Hall in Louisville this week,
Speaker 1: featuring a favorite of Lens when we were living in Kentucky.
Speaker 2: Bruce Hornsby and the Range.
Speaker 1: Happy to be back in town, Hornsby says, here's a
Speaker 1: Louisville tone across the river, the Great Ohio River. I
Speaker 1: want to dedicate this song to Louisville's own, the great
Speaker 1: Mohammed Ali.
Speaker 3: Dude, Ali is my hero, the person that I looked
Speaker 3: up to growing up in Louisville, Kentucky. He allowed me
Speaker 3: to believe that I could achieve almost anything I set
Speaker 3: my mind to. I just have to get off my
Speaker 3: button do it.
Speaker 1: That's Justin Cornwell, a young talented actor who's been big
Speaker 1: time motivated by Mohammad Ahweih.
Speaker 2: Yeah Louisville. He is not only the most famous person
Speaker 2: that ever lived in Louisville, but part of the fabric
Speaker 2: of the city. When we were honorary captains for the
Speaker 2: Louisville Sugar Bowl against Florida thirteen, two thousand and thirteen,
Speaker 2: he was so glad to be there for the city,
Speaker 2: as was I, but I was even happier just to
Speaker 2: be around him.
Speaker 1: And this is Tom Jackson, NFL VET and Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame sports commentator who, despite not being starstruck by anybody,
Speaker 1: was wowed by Mohammad Ali.
Speaker 2: Hanging on to him and holding him by the arm.
Speaker 2: I don't even remember the toss of the coin. I
Speaker 2: don't remember who won it, who got the ball first.
Speaker 2: The only thing I was thinking is you're holding on
Speaker 2: to Mohammad Ali, You're helping him, and you're never gonna
Speaker 2: forget it. You're never gonna forget it as long as
Speaker 2: you live.
Speaker 1: When I was a young boy who'd lost his mom,
Speaker 1: I desperately wanted to belong. I wanted to be made
Speaker 1: whole again. And through my experiences with Ali and by
Speaker 1: finding an audience for my writing, now I know that
Speaker 1: I do belong, but also that I have all along.
Speaker 1: All things vibrate, all things are connected. How could it
Speaker 1: be otherwise? We seek connection, not recognizing there's nothing we
Speaker 1: need to do, the shape of tree trunks and branches,
Speaker 1: the form of our limbs and torsos, the rhythms I
Speaker 1: feel rotating inside me, the shape of hurricanes and of galaxies,
Speaker 1: the orbits of planets and of neutrons, so very similar.
Speaker 1: Everything is at the center rocks, pig shit, penises, bsycles, pumpkins, breast, electrons, stars,
Speaker 1: galaxy clusters, These cold fingers us everything, the gold we
Speaker 1: wear around our fingers and necks, the calcium that makes
Speaker 1: up our bones, both from the marrow of long ago
Speaker 1: exploded stars. We are, each of us, even in the strictest,
Speaker 1: most literal sense, the very stuff of the cosmos. Yet
Speaker 1: that recognition doesn't make things New Age easy, ain't nothing easy.
Speaker 1: While I'm saying these words, star systems are getting gobbled
Speaker 1: up by black hole galaxies right now are being eaten
Speaker 1: by other galaxies and own our shimmering blue marble dictators
Speaker 1: breathe and laugh and destroy, and all the while, this
Speaker 1: remarkable man, Mohammad Ali, is slowly being eaten alive by
Speaker 1: Parkinson's disease. Yet everywhere we look, all around us and
Speaker 1: inside us, there is beauty and magic. Episode seven, All
Speaker 1: things vibrate. Ali's mom, Missus Odessa Grady Clay, Mama Bird,
Speaker 1: dies in August nineteen ninety four. Mohammed was closer to
Speaker 1: his mom than to anybody else. Her death hits him
Speaker 1: deep and hard. In November, I watched the Michael Moore
Speaker 1: George Foreman World Heavyweight Championship out with Ali in a
Speaker 1: suite at the Old Brown Hotel in Louisville. More Foreman
Speaker 1: is the only boxing match I've seen in a year.
Speaker 1: I just can't watch them anymore. I've stopped writing about
Speaker 1: people who punch each other in the head. This past summer,
Speaker 1: I managed to sell a couple pieces of short fiction,
Speaker 1: and I'm damned happy about that. More recently, I've chosen
Speaker 1: not to be working, hoping to rest and heal up.
Speaker 1: Lynn and I are divorcing. I understand what she finds
Speaker 1: so frustrating about me and about our lives together. She
Speaker 1: sees me on TV or hears me on the radio
Speaker 1: acting like hot shit, she says, time and again, believing
Speaker 1: the last word of that is true of me, if
Speaker 1: not the first or the third. Yes, ma'am, I'm hot shit,
Speaker 1: or at least I'm shit, she thinks.
Speaker 2: And all the.
Speaker 1: Time she's getting more and more burned up that I
Speaker 1: can't pay the bills like people who work in a
Speaker 1: real profession. I just don't have a romance any longer.
Speaker 1: For the physical jabbing of boxing and martial art, it's
Speaker 1: time to grow out of a relationship where that emotional
Speaker 1: jabbing has been regarded as susceptible behavior. So here I
Speaker 1: am with Grandpappy Ali again, hoping my life will fall
Speaker 1: back into shape. I haven't seen Ali in a long time,
Speaker 1: mostly because magazine and newspaper editors no longer pay my
Speaker 1: expenses to hang out with him.
Speaker 2: All.
Speaker 1: During this visit in Louisville, Ali looks removed, as if
Speaker 1: from another dimension, as if he's staring at the world
Speaker 1: from the other side of a thick pane of glass.
Speaker 1: Early today we move from appearance to appearance. There are
Speaker 1: globules of drool on Ali's bottom lip. When he notices them,
Speaker 1: he sucks on his lip, bends his head, tugs at
Speaker 1: the left lapel of his suit jacket, and discreetly catches
Speaker 1: spittle near the inside breast pocket beside a label sewn
Speaker 1: into the jacket lining the greatest. The label reads in
Speaker 1: red Arabic style stitching. Now, while we're watching the fight,
Speaker 1: and I'm watching Ali intently watch the fight, Muhammed is
Speaker 1: lying on the bed. I'm sitting in a chair beside him.
Speaker 1: In the ring, Foreman is wearing the faded and shabby
Speaker 1: red and blue trunks he'd worn in his knockout lost
Speaker 1: to Ali twenty years before, trailing on every judge's scorecard
Speaker 1: in the eleventh round, forming Ko's more with a magically
Speaker 1: timed overhand right to the jaw. At forty six years old,
Speaker 1: Reverend George has become the oldest ever world's heavyweight champion.
Speaker 2: Job, I'm glad for him, glad.
Speaker 1: For him, Ali says, when I ask what he feels.
Speaker 1: I notice Ali's wearing a new timepiece. I suppose he
Speaker 1: broke the last one. He must have broke the last
Speaker 1: one playing with someone somewhere, everyone everywhere, always playing, always
Speaker 1: throwing punches. Every watch he's worn has had a classic, clear,
Speaker 1: round face, clear face that protects to watch his sweeping
Speaker 1: hands and that remind ahwih, We're on a rotating dust mode,
Speaker 1: speeding through the vast fast cosmos.
Speaker 4: Justin Cornwell has a deep connection to Muhammad Ali. He
Speaker 4: grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, volunteered at the Muhammad Ali Center,
Speaker 4: and graduated from Eastern High School before studying at the
Speaker 4: University of Louisville. He began his professional acting career at
Speaker 4: the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Justin appeared on popular television shows
Speaker 4: such as Chicago PD and Empire before being cast with
Speaker 4: the late Bill Paxton in the CBS series Training Day.
Speaker 4: He later was seen in NBC's The In Between the
Speaker 4: Netflix film Jingle Jangle, a Christmas Story. Almost impossible to
Speaker 4: have grown up in Louisville and have spent time with
Speaker 4: Muhammad Ali and not feel the impact of the great man.
Speaker 3: Ali is my hero, the person that I looked up
Speaker 3: to growing up in Louisville.
Speaker 2: Kentucky.
Speaker 3: He allowed me to believe that I could achieve almost
Speaker 3: anything I set my mind to. I just have to
Speaker 3: get off my button, do it.
Speaker 4: You must have some full circle feeling having volunteered at
Speaker 4: the Ali Center as a teenager and then getting to
Speaker 4: hang out and spend time with Ali.
Speaker 3: Walking into the Ali Center is an amazing experience. I'm
Speaker 3: looking at all of the exhibits and I'm looking at
Speaker 3: this beautiful mural and I'm painting this mural with Ali's
Speaker 3: face on it and with my face on it right
Speaker 3: there in the halls of the Ali Center. It still
Speaker 3: stands right now. And here comes Muhammad Ali walking inside
Speaker 3: with his entourage, and it was like watching a piece
Speaker 3: of history walk And we got to go into this
Speaker 3: back room and we hung out. We were just kind
Speaker 3: of chilling there and I see Ali and he's just
Speaker 3: smiling and he's looking at the kids, and got to
Speaker 3: take this picture with him. After that, I felt linked
Speaker 3: to Muhammad Ali. Every time I go back to Louisville,
Speaker 3: I'm looking at that mural. I'm walking in once again
Speaker 3: into the Muhammad Ali Center. It's my home, a place
Speaker 3: where my name still says some years later, I'm going
Speaker 3: through the audition process for the show. The show is
Speaker 3: called In This Corner Cashius Clay was written by an
Speaker 3: amazing playwright named Adris Goodwin, and Idris loved Ali as
Speaker 3: much as I did. I'm looking at myself in the mirror,
Speaker 3: and I'm thinking, I can be Muhammed Ali. I could
Speaker 3: do the workout, so I could do whatever I had
Speaker 3: to do. He felt like he was already in my
Speaker 3: bones a little bit, just from having painted that mural
Speaker 3: and hanging out with them at the Holly Center. I
Speaker 3: studied every night, poured my sweat into trying to sound
Speaker 3: like him and trying to move him and getting the
Speaker 3: words right. And I walked into the audition, into this
Speaker 3: big auditorium, and I could see the other guys who
Speaker 3: looked a little bit more like Ali than I did.
Speaker 3: Maybe they had his complexion down a little bit, but
Speaker 3: I knew that they couldn't have embodied what I would embody.
Speaker 3: It couldn't mean as much to them as it meant
Speaker 3: to me. I wasn't nervous at all. I got the job,
Speaker 3: and when they discovered that I'm from Louisville, that I
Speaker 3: had worked at the Muhammad Ali Center, every news outlet
Speaker 3: ran with that The Louisville Son returns as Ali and
Speaker 3: I had such an amazing welcome back home. It was
Speaker 3: some of the most amazing experiences I've ever had working
Speaker 3: as an artist. I got to meet his brother, who
Speaker 3: would tell me how Ali walked when he was a kid,
Speaker 3: how Ali talked when he was a kid.
Speaker 2: Nice, kind, sweet, loving, jolly, You'd like to laugh and play.
Speaker 5: He would share these anecdotes.
Speaker 2: The love he as a child, he carried it of
Speaker 2: to adulthood. He's remained the same, but got struggled with
Speaker 2: the only.
Speaker 5: Guy talking to Ali through him.
Speaker 3: I got to hang out with Muhammad Ali almostly. I
Speaker 3: had dinner at his house and I brought my brother.
Speaker 3: We sat down on the couch and ate egg salad
Speaker 3: and Gritson. Sat there on the lazy board next to
Speaker 3: Muhammed Ali and watched Law and Order. That maybe one
Speaker 3: of the greatest memories I had because it was human,
Speaker 3: the thing that we all do, we just have dinner
Speaker 3: with our family and watch television. It gave me such
Speaker 3: a confidence just sitting next to him, and it lasted
Speaker 3: through to the next year when I had the breakout
Speaker 3: moment of my career. My first television show in La.
Speaker 3: Warner Brothers called me and said, you got to come
Speaker 3: out here to La tomorrow. I go out there, and
Speaker 3: I realized that all of the bravado that I put on.
Speaker 5: Was starting to shape. When I walked into the.
Speaker 3: Room, another big auditorium, just like when I auditioned for Ali,
Speaker 3: but this time it was a bunch of Hollywood execs
Speaker 3: and studio heads. It felt overwhelming and I shook. I
Speaker 3: literally was trembling as I was saying the words and
Speaker 3: I and I felt like, oh no, I blew this.
Speaker 5: This was my chance, and I blew it.
Speaker 3: I walked out of the audition and it kept me
Speaker 3: there for two hours while they auditioned everybody else, and
Speaker 3: then everyone left and they came back out and they said,
Speaker 3: justin You're the person we want, but we literally see
Speaker 3: you shaking in your audition. And the only thing I
Speaker 3: could think of was Ali, I'm the greatest.
Speaker 2: I'm the greatest.
Speaker 3: It made me feel like he was with me in
Speaker 3: those moments, because back when I was having dinner with him,
Speaker 3: hanging out on the lazy Boy, I remember walked in,
Speaker 3: he looked at me and he smiled, his eyes got big,
Speaker 3: and he reached out his hand and he said, I
Speaker 3: almost like I got to get for you. I got
Speaker 3: something to give you, go ahead and take it. I
Speaker 3: wrapped my hand around his hand, and he looked like
Speaker 3: he didn't have any strength left in his body. But
Speaker 3: when he grabbed my hand, he squeezed it and I
Speaker 3: felt a rush of energy. He was giving me the
Speaker 3: pieces of his spirit. He was infusing my spirit with
Speaker 3: the thing that made him unstoppable. It wasn't just confidence,
Speaker 3: it was also a knowledge of self to understand that
Speaker 3: you are me, I'm you. We are the same one.
Speaker 3: At this moment, you were one. You are Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 3: And then I had to go and actually be Muhammad
Speaker 3: Ali on stage. So it did feel like a one
Speaker 3: to one transference of energy directly to me. I summoned that.
Speaker 3: I walked around the lot of Warner Brothers. I've never
Speaker 3: been to Los Angeles in my life. I've been working
Speaker 3: to be an actor my entire life, and this was
Speaker 3: the town that was going to make or break my career.
Speaker 2: This was it.
Speaker 3: I walked around and I looked at those lots of
Speaker 3: Warner Brothers, and I had to forget about the pedestal
Speaker 3: that I put everything on, and I had to remember
Speaker 3: the humanity that Ali showed me, the confidence that I
Speaker 3: could be great. And I took that confidence, and I
Speaker 3: walked back into that room and I gave another audition
Speaker 3: that was so good they decided that I didn't need
Speaker 3: to do another test. I ended up starring in the
Speaker 3: show only three days later. It was a beautiful time.
Speaker 3: I was able to find confidence, and I wouldn't have
Speaker 3: found it without trying to walk in Ali's footsteps, not
Speaker 3: only the footsteps of his mentality, but his humanity as well.
Speaker 3: I'm still walking in his footsteps today. I ended up
Speaker 3: working with in the organization called Kids in the Spotlight.
Speaker 3: What we do is we help kids from the foster
Speaker 3: care system who would have never had the kind of
Speaker 3: opportunities that I had with great teachers, to get them
Speaker 3: into a position where they can learn how to act
Speaker 3: and direct and all these skills, and work with professionals
Speaker 3: like myself, the whole gamut of amazing people. I feel
Speaker 3: a responsibility to transfer my energy. You get to be great,
Speaker 3: but you don't get to be great. Tell someone else
Speaker 3: that they're great, and reach out your hand.
Speaker 4: One of the most common questions I get is among
Speaker 4: all the on their personalities you've worked with, Who's your favorite?
Speaker 4: The answer is easy. I had the great pleasure of
Speaker 4: being Tom Jackson's producer, covering the NFL for ESPN from
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty seven to nineteen ninety two. He was recognized
Speaker 4: by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in twenty fifteen
Speaker 4: when he received the Pete Roselle Radio and Television Award
Speaker 4: for his longtime exceptional coverage of professional football. In two
Speaker 4: thousand and nine, Tom won an Emmy Award as the
Speaker 4: Outstanding Studio Analyst, and in nineteen ninety six he won
Speaker 4: the Cable Ace Award in the same category. Prior to
Speaker 4: his successes in sports television, Tom was a three time
Speaker 4: Pro Bowl linebacker for the Denver Broncos. During fourteen NFL seasons,
Speaker 4: he led the Broncos to the Super Bowl twice in
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty six. A member of the Bronx Goes Ring
Speaker 4: of Fame, Tom was the franchise leader in seasons played
Speaker 4: and games played at the time of his retirement. He
Speaker 4: was named by his teammates Denver's defensive MVP three times
Speaker 4: in the team's Most Inspirational Players six years in a row,
Speaker 4: and if it sounds as if I'm biased on the topic.
Speaker 4: That's because I am guilty ist charged TJ. Welcome to
Speaker 4: the podcast.
Speaker 2: Thanks Sport, thanks for having me.
Speaker 4: Well, it's my pleasure. And just to get the nickname
Speaker 4: out of the way, my nickname at ESPN was Sport.
Speaker 2: You'll always be Sport to me.
Speaker 4: I know I'm in the company of one of my
Speaker 4: old colleagues when I hear that. So, the last time
Speaker 4: I covered a Super Bowl was in nineteen ninety four
Speaker 4: in Atlanta, and the Friday before the game, I came
Speaker 4: to you with a special invitation. Pick up the story
Speaker 4: from there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't remember exactly where we were, but I
Speaker 2: can definitely remember the question. You said, how would you
Speaker 2: like to have lunch with Mohammad Ali? And how would
Speaker 2: I like to have bunch with Mohammad Ali? Yes, I
Speaker 2: would love to do that. You set that up and
Speaker 2: I actually found it hard to believe. I was like,
Speaker 2: how's it going to happen? And he said, he's going
Speaker 2: to be in town and you can meet him for lunch,
Speaker 2: and I was in all in.
Speaker 4: Well, that was one of my gifts to you for
Speaker 4: all the fun we had together.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 4: The good work we did together, and the laughs and
Speaker 4: all that. I knew it would mean a lot to you.
Speaker 2: It's a story of growing up with someone who seems
Speaker 2: to be so different than all the rest of us.
Speaker 2: I'm not starstruck by people. I'm just not. I was
Speaker 2: starstruck when it came to Ali. There's something about him.
Speaker 2: If you have this image of what you think he is,
Speaker 2: and then when you meet him, he's bigger than that.
Speaker 2: He's a bigger personality. He's a bigger human being. He
Speaker 2: does seem different, and then everything that goes on around
Speaker 2: him verifies that for you. When we did finally meet
Speaker 2: for lunch, by the time he left the restaurant, there
Speaker 2: were hundreds of people who had gathered outside the restaurant
Speaker 2: because they knew that he was there. Howard Bingham who
Speaker 2: was there at the lunch as well, and as we
Speaker 2: got through with the lunch, he was like, Tom, you
Speaker 2: probably want to you know, because we had some assignments
Speaker 2: and stuff to do. He said, you probably should go
Speaker 2: on and go because all of those hundreds of people
Speaker 2: who are outside this restaurant, Ali is going to sign
Speaker 2: all of their autographs, He's going to meet them, he's
Speaker 2: going to shake hands with them. He's going to take
Speaker 2: pictures with them because he will not leave anyone out
Speaker 2: there wanting to meet him or have something signed. He's
Speaker 2: not going to let him walk away disappointed. So it's
Speaker 2: going to take some time. And I just again, I
Speaker 2: just thought, Wow, he's a different human being. I asked
Speaker 2: the question, how do people know where he is? And
Speaker 2: the answer is, somebody knows where he is all the time.
Speaker 2: I think he liked it. He enjoyed people. His life
Speaker 2: was so public, but that privacy that I felt talking
Speaker 2: to him and having a chance to have a conversation
Speaker 2: with him was extraordinary. I always remember the very first
Speaker 2: thing he ever said to me. We sat down and
Speaker 2: he looked at me and he went, Joe Frasier.
Speaker 4: I'm certain he was familiar with you from television, and
Speaker 4: maybe he didn't put two and two together. When I
Speaker 4: said Tom played football for Louisville, he and Lonnie their
Speaker 4: eyes kind of popped up and then it clicked right.
Speaker 4: And yes, yes, friends of Muhammad will tell you if
Speaker 4: there's a Louisville connection, you're in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Louisville not only the most famous person that ever
Speaker 2: lived in Louisville, but part of the fabric of the city.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I know that when we were honorary captains
Speaker 2: for the Louisville Sugar Bowl against Florida two thousand and thirteen.
Speaker 4: Seconds to start again, to Rolford touchdown, all that it
Speaker 4: could not have been a better start.
Speaker 2: For the Cardinals. He was so glad to be there
Speaker 2: for the city, as was I, but I was even
Speaker 2: happier just to be around him. I was like, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna get to be around Ali again, and my daughter's
Speaker 2: gonna get to be around Ali. So this is going
Speaker 2: to be the experience of a lifetime. She's gonna remember
Speaker 2: it forever. I almost enjoyed that more than me being
Speaker 2: around him. And I know that sounds odd, but when
Speaker 2: your kids get a chance to experience something that you
Speaker 2: know is important and you don't know exactly how they're
Speaker 2: going to accept it. She's a different generation than Ali. Yes,
Speaker 2: she's heard about him from me. In my head, I'm like,
Speaker 2: is she going to understand who this man is? Is
Speaker 2: she really going to get it? And before we actually
Speaker 2: met him, we had arrived at the stadium. We had
Speaker 2: some people taking us through some different areas and she
Speaker 2: turned to me and she said, am I going to
Speaker 2: get a chance to meet Ali. I said, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I said, what I'll tell you is this. I said,
Speaker 2: They're going to set up us going out to the
Speaker 2: field in some way, shape or form, and it's gonna
Speaker 2: be whatever he wants. I said. If he wants to stay,
Speaker 2: then he'll stay, and if he wants to leave, they
Speaker 2: will make arrangements for him to leave. They're going to
Speaker 2: do whatever it is that he wants to do. He's
Speaker 2: just unique. What he was doing seems so outside the
Speaker 2: realm of the norm. That he was alone. That's one
Speaker 2: of the things I respect most about him me. He
Speaker 2: didn't take his cues from anybody. They took us finally
Speaker 2: down to the locker room that led out to the field,
Speaker 2: and when we walked into that locker room, I'll leave
Speaker 2: us sitting there. From that moment on, Taylor literally was
Speaker 2: mesmerized by what she felt, what she saw, the interaction
Speaker 2: with him. It came time for us to go out
Speaker 2: on for the toss of the coin, and Lonnie asked me,
Speaker 2: when he gets out there, he had time sometime maintaining
Speaker 2: his balance, would you mind holding him? The feeling even
Speaker 2: right now is one of I don't even know where
Speaker 2: to put it. I was so honored that she would
Speaker 2: ask me, and I told her that that it would
Speaker 2: be an honor for me. I've never forgotten it. It's
Speaker 2: one of the great moments in my life, hanging on
Speaker 2: to him and holding him by the arm. I don't
Speaker 2: even remember the toss of the coin. I don't remember
Speaker 2: who woned, who got the ball first. The only thing
Speaker 2: I was thinking is, you're holding on to Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 2: You're helping him, and you're never going to forget it.
Speaker 2: You're never gonna forget it as long as you live.
Speaker 2: I felt such a sense of pride. I had to
Speaker 2: steal myself against tears in that moment. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 2: would I and just making sure that he's okay. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the moment. He ended up staying for the game.
Speaker 2: Taylor had a chance to sit right next to him,
Speaker 2: which I will tell you it might have been the
Speaker 2: line of the night. She's having a great time, Mohammed's
Speaker 2: having a great time, and Lonnie comes over to me,
Speaker 2: and she turns to me and she goes. You know,
Speaker 2: he still likes to interact with a pretty girl every now.
Speaker 2: And we stepped back into the hotel room, and Taylor
Speaker 2: turns to me and she said, Dad, it's like being
Speaker 2: with royalty. She goes being with him was like being
Speaker 2: with royalty, and I told her, I said, he is royalty.
Speaker 2: He is royal in every way and treated as such.
Speaker 2: And there's nobody who doesn't feel it when you're around him.
Speaker 2: If he doesn't say anything, if he doesn't say if
Speaker 2: he doesn't say a thing, it makes no difference. It's
Speaker 2: just that you realize you're in the midst of greatness.
Speaker 2: My wife Jennifer had a chance to meet him at
Speaker 2: a seventieth birthday party out in Arizona, and I told
Speaker 2: her before he and Lannie arrived. Because we were there
Speaker 2: for four days. It was a celebration of Ali's birthday,
Speaker 2: so there were a number of people who spoke and
Speaker 2: I was asked. They said, would you speak last, And
Speaker 2: I said sure, but it's the kind of thing that
Speaker 2: you want to get right. And I had thought about
Speaker 2: it quite a bit. I got out there and I
Speaker 2: told him, I said, I want to tell you about
Speaker 2: the first time that I heard your voice. That's the
Speaker 2: way I started it. February twenty fifth, sixty four, and
Speaker 2: I said, I told him, I'm laying in bed with
Speaker 2: my dad. I don't know actually anything about you, I said,
Speaker 2: I'm just laying in bed with my dad and knowing
Speaker 2: that Sonny Liston is supposed to beat somebody else up
Speaker 2: and move on to the next opponent, I said, And
Speaker 2: we're listening to the fight on a radio, wasn't on TV.
Speaker 2: Life metaphorm like clown. I said, you win the fight,
Speaker 2: and I heard your voice. Then you were screaming me
Speaker 2: I'm handsome, I'm fat, I'm pretty and can't possibly be
Speaker 2: beaten at the top of your lungs. That how pretty
Speaker 2: you were, how you were the greatest fighter of all time,
Speaker 2: how you shook up the world, How nobody should ever
Speaker 2: doubt you again, no matter what. And I told him,
Speaker 2: I said, something inside me was touched, like millions of
Speaker 2: other kids just like me, the young African American black kid.
Speaker 2: I had never heard a black man talk like that.
Speaker 2: And then there was my dad, completely other generation. My
Speaker 2: dad turned to me and he goes, he's crazy, and
Speaker 2: that's what I wanted him to know. That was the
Speaker 2: beginning of the relationship. For many, many kids, many many
Speaker 2: young people. We all experienced the same thing. You came
Speaker 2: out and you were like, I am this, I am different.
Speaker 2: I am going to be boastful about who I am.
Speaker 2: I am going to give confidence to people who don't
Speaker 2: have it. I'm gonna make people feel good. And that's
Speaker 2: what he did for me. And I told my wife Jennifer,
Speaker 2: I said, you should prepare yourself before he gets here.
Speaker 2: I said, because you cannot imagine the emotion. There's about
Speaker 2: three hundred people. I said, you're going to see some
Speaker 2: emotion that you have not seen before that's going to
Speaker 2: be exhibited toward him as soon as he gets here.
Speaker 2: And sure enough he comes in. They wheeled him in.
Speaker 2: He's in a wheelchair, and people broke down in tears,
Speaker 2: and not tears of sadness. I'm talking about just an
Speaker 2: overflow of emotion. People who had young kids who were
Speaker 2: there at this thing, who brought them over so that
Speaker 2: Ali could touch them. There was a couple of babies
Speaker 2: in the area. People brought those babies over to touch him,
Speaker 2: as if he was an apostle. Jen had tears coming
Speaker 2: out of her eyes, and I told her, I said,
Speaker 2: I knew what it was going to be because I
Speaker 2: have felt it myself. You can't help but feel it.
Speaker 2: And he lives with it all the time. That night,
Speaker 2: I don't know that he said one word the entire night.
Speaker 2: He was just sitting there, and yet there was all
Speaker 2: of this emotion around him. That's what I felt. That's
Speaker 2: what I felt. Here's what I would say. There's something
Speaker 2: spiritual about him. I can't explain it. I don't know
Speaker 2: what it is. There's something spiritual if that word has
Speaker 2: the meaning that it's supposed to have, god like, not God,
Speaker 2: but god like, emulating something spiritual in many ways, that's
Speaker 2: what I felt about him.
Speaker 4: How does he impact your life today? Do you still
Speaker 4: think about him a lot?
Speaker 2: The thing that he passed on and try to be
Speaker 2: straight with people. It's not always easy because there's always
Speaker 2: different things that get involved in life. Even when you
Speaker 2: mentioned my retirement, we had a pretty good thing going
Speaker 2: around the time I retired, and I remember having a
Speaker 2: conversation with a few people and saying, yeah, but what
Speaker 2: I would rather be doing is hanging out with the girls.
Speaker 2: I don't feel the necessity to sit there in the
Speaker 2: studio for the next ten years. And you know, I'm
Speaker 2: doing all right and feels good to do what I
Speaker 2: want to do. I don't have to be what anybody
Speaker 2: wants me to be. I can just be who I
Speaker 2: want to be. There's ever a message that he gave us.
Speaker 2: It couldn't have been stated more simply. Sometimes the most
Speaker 2: complicated issues are solved in very simple statements. That's what
Speaker 2: that felt like to me. He said such simplistic things.
Speaker 2: But if you take it and you break it down,
Speaker 2: there's just no mistaking the straightforwardness of it. So hopefully
Speaker 2: that's how it passes on.
Speaker 1: In our final episode of the Tao of Muhammad Ali,
Speaker 1: Ali transforms my son Isaac's life.
Speaker 6: My father has been a lifetime living in the doubt
Speaker 6: if Ali in the footsteps. Through meeting him, you open
Speaker 6: doors that you never would have. You became a writer,
Speaker 6: but Ali gave you the confidence to follow that dream.
Speaker 6: It also trickled down to me the way that I've
Speaker 6: been in fluid by you and the life that you've led,
Speaker 6: the way that you've used writing that means everything.
Speaker 1: We'll explore Ali's influence on today's generation, all that and more.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned. The Doao of Muhammad Ali is produced by
Speaker 1: Imagine Audio for iHeart Podcast and hosted by me Davis Miller.
Speaker 1: My co host is Craig Mortally, Kara Welker, Mark Bouch,
Speaker 1: Nathan Kloke, Derek Jennings and Little Woe Me. Davis Miller
Speaker 1: are executive producers, produced by Craig Mortali, sound design and
Speaker 1: mixing by Juan Borda, music by Djsparr and introducing a
Speaker 1: very good pal of mine Isaac Miller, and also Luminescence
Speaker 1: track Nuage. Visit Luminescent music dot com to check out
Speaker 1: more from the band.