By Michael Marley
The Icon is The Icon.
The Icon cannot be given proper tribute with just one day or a single night.
A full week won't get the job done and neither would a whole month.
So that's why I, Michael Lewis Cassius (Confirmation name, really) Marley are hereby declaring this year of 2012 as the International Year Of Muhammad Ali.
I got hooked first on poetry-spouting Cassius Marcellus Clay when I bought his Columbia record album. Sure, it was cornball but, to me, it was the greatest thing since sliced pizza.
In his verbal tour de force, Clay predicted (as written by some clever guys) that fight fans would see "a total esclipse of the Sonny (Liston)" when they fought in a bout just as highly anticipated in the 1960s as Floyd Mayweather Jr. versus Manny Pacquiao has been anticipated the past few years. Clay said that those watching him clobber Big Ugly Bear Liston "would see the launching of the first colored satellite."
But, my favorite of doggerel, was the First Rapper's warning to all foes.
"If you sign to fight me, you need speed and endurance...but what you need most of all is increase your insurance!"
Ali marks a natal day milestone just 15 days hence (January 17), his 70th birthday.
Clearly, my idol's health is not the best. You probably saw the photos from when he attended the Smokin' Joe Frazier funeral services in Philadelphia.
Ali looked so haggard, so worn. But I am willing to bet that if you met him tomorrow or the next day, he would still be using his stock comedy lines such as "did you call me Roy because I know you didn't call me boy" or "did you say champ or chump?"
He might even still be spinning his ancient jokes such as this one he laid on me while he was filming the movie "Freedom Road" in an antebellum mansion in Mississippi.
Ali: "What did Abraham Lincoln say when he woke up after a five day drinking binge?"
New York Post sports columnist Marley: "I have no idea..."
Ali: "I freed the WHO?"
Lines like that don't age well and "The Greatest" may not be with us for too many more birthdays although I had a dream that he made it to 101.
So why not make every boxing show across America and in other parts of the world "Alicentric" this year?
Let's have him mentioned on each and every HBO, Showtime and ESPN fight card.
Personally, you will read plenty about Ali from me these next 12 months.
In boxing, the memorial 10 counts are always emotional especially so when a great one like Joe Fray-ziuh's absence is duly noted.
Ali was born in Louisville, Ky., on Jan. 17, 1942. Louisville is the historic home of Kentucky Derby aka "The Run for the Roses" and also the Muhammad Ali Museum.
Let's have Ali smell all the roses while he's still among us.
Let's show the love the world's most famous athlete "of all times" so richly deserves.
We can do no less.
(Michael Marley founded the first and only Intenational Cassius Clay Fan Club circa 1963 in Brighton, Mass., and published a newsletter known as "The Lousiville Lip." Tennis expert and Boston Globe scribe Bud Collins even wrote a column about how Marley made it a mission to meet his idol and did just that. You can call Marley an Ali Fan Boy, he won't mind.)