Muhammad Ali
...politicians, some were actors, and some were even athletes. One such man was a gifted boxer named Muhammad Ali. He made his mark as an amateur, then as a professional. "The Greatest" was the self-proclaimed nickname of Ali, but so many people agreed that it stuck. He went through trials and tribulations in his life, which make him a historic icon. Muhammad Ali is known for being "The Greatest" boxer of all time, but unlike other athletes he is remembered for his out of the ring actions as well as his athletic accomplishments.
Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Mercellus Clay Jr. on January 17, 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky. Cassius lived with his father, Cassius Sr., his mother, Odessa, and later on with his younger brother Rudy. He was a boisterous baby, who demonstrated his pugilistic skills at the age of one, when being spanked he knocked his mother's front teeth out of place (Conklin 19). The Clays were a very close family who lived in a small house bought by Cassius Sr. They were better off than many other southern blacks at the time. They would have been
considered middle class by today's standards (Conklin 20).
One day, Clay's bike was stolen while he was watching a show at Columbia Auditorium. He went to report his bike stolen to a cop named Joe Martin. Joe Martin ran a boxing gym, so when Clay went to report this he saw the fighters in the gym and he later said, "A feeling of awe came over me
I was so excited I forgot about my bike." Now Clay had discovered boxing. Clay trained at Martin's gym for eight years.
During his amateur career, he fought one-hundred-and-eight fights and only lost eight of those. He won the National Golden Gloves and the Amateur-Athletic Union light-heavyweight championship. Clay won them both two years in a row. In 1960 he decided it was time to take his skills to the Olympics. In order to do so he had to get a...
View Full Essay
