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Muhammad Ali's sweetest shuffle
All through the auction portion of last year's Celebrity Fight Night, an annual gala benefiting the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Scottsdale businessman John Scherer sat waiting for that one dream package to go up for bid, that special offering that could make him part with $100,000.
The auctions at Celebrity Fight Night have become famous for presenting fantasy evenings for the well-heeled, and last year's was no exception.
Dinner and a Lakers game with Magic Johnson: Sold - for $80,000. Private lesson with Andre Agassi - $70,000. A day on a movie set with Robin Williams - $190,000. Dinner with Paul Newman - $80,000. All sold.
Finally, during dinner, Scherer called over a Celebrity Fight Night representative and made an offer on the one experience he'd been wishing for ever since he heard a certain "loudmouthed kid" named Cassius Clay taunt world heavyweight champ Sonny Liston that he would "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee" before a bout in 1964. Nine days after taking Liston's title, following a conversion to the Nation of Islam faith, that 22-year-old kid would famously rename himself Muhammad Ali.
"I just wanted to meet him," says Scherer, who ultimately offered a donation of $100,000 just to shake hands with his idol. For his generous pledge, Scherer was granted a private moment backstage with the champ, his wife, Lonnie, and daughters Jamillah, Rasheda and Laila.
Scherer says he couldn't tell if Ali responded after Scherer told him how long he'd been a fan. After 23 years of battling Parkinson's syndrome, a late-blooming form of the neurological disorder brought on by repeated blows to the head during his boxing days, the former Louisville Lip now talks only in the slightest of whispers. Still, it was enough.
"It was worth every penny," Scherer says, breaking into a huge smile. "I can't tell you how fortunate I feel that I could do it."
Of course, not everyone in the Valley has to cough up 100 grand to shake hands with the Greatest - especially now that Muhammad and Yolanda "Lonnie" Ali have moved into their new home in Paradise Valley.
"Oh yeah, you'll probably run into us at AJ's now," says the personable Lonnie. "Muhammad goes to the grocery store with me. Now, that's an excursion!"
The fourth Mrs. Ali, who first met the champ when he was 22 and she was 6 (their mothers lived across the street from each other in Louisville, Ky.), has been his constant companion since 1986. The love story she can tell - "At 17, I knew that I was going to marry him one day" - is sweet enough to make a best selling book, and someday probably will.
At the moment, though, Lonnie is too busy being a baseball mom to her and Ali's 16-year-old adopted son, Asaad, and keeping her famous husband from eating all the produce and sweets before she gets to the check-out line.
"I don't know if Muhammad ever went to the grocery store before he was married to me," she says, laughing. "He doesn't understand that just because it's in a bin, that doesn't mean you can eat it! He'll go in and take a cookie out of the bin and start eating it. Or he'll go through the frozen-food aisle and open up a box of ice-cream sandwiches and start eating. Of course, everybody in the store thinks it's amusing."
Interestingly, keeping Ali out in the public is one of Lonnie's most important jobs.
"He just genuinely loves people," she says. "It's like Hana (Ali's 31-year-old daughter) says, 'He needs people like we need the air to breathe.' He feeds off the positive energy - children delight him to no end. And he really gets something from being around everyone, no matter who it is."
He doesn't get out every day. Lonnie says Ali's Parkinson's treatments require five days of physical therapy a week and that every three or four months, he checks in with his personal physician at Emory University, in Atlanta. He also pays regular visits to the world-class Parkinson Center at Barrow that bears his name, which was part of the reason the Alis decided to buy a home in the Valley. That and the warm weather, which Lonnie says seems to be helping the champ.
"He's actually doing a lot better here," she says. In January they also purchased a nearly $2 million home in their shared home state of Kentucky but Lonnie expects they'll be spending a lot of their time here. "Milder climate and blue skies. Muhammad loves it."
Among the residents in their wealthy gated community, Muhammad is an anomaly.
"Money means nothing to him," Lonnie says. "Other than he enjoys estimating the cost of things - that's kind of a game for him."
When it comes to dining out, Ali sometimes will make a late-night stop at Tarbell's, where he recently surprised diners after a Suns game and wound up making a tablecloth drawing for some of them. But he's just as likely to drop in on a Denny's.
"One of his favorite spots is 5 & Dine," Lonnie says, breaking into a hearty laugh. "Why? Because it reminds him of his childhood, I think. But it's also just a normal diner with regular, everyday people. And that's the kind of people Muhammad likes."
Other people Ali enjoys spending time with are those going through difficult challenges, as he is.
At least once a year, he visits the sick and recovering children at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, where the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center occupies a floor in the Barrow tower. Just before last Christmas, he also paid a surprise visit - his third in five years - to the people in line at the St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchens.
"That's really his people," says friend and Celebrity Fight Night founder Jimmy Walker. "I think he would rather be in the company of the homeless and people who are sick than celebrities, by far."
Walker says Ali's last visit to St. Vincent de Paul's Jackson Street dining room originally was scheduled as a 15-minute meet-and-greet.
"Two and a half hours later, after he hugged and kissed and shook hands with what must have been a thousand homeless people, we left. Same thing when we went to St. Joseph's over the holidays. He went in the children's ward and he was passing out candy canes and teddy bears, and hugging and kissing these little kids. It's what he does. He stops. He signs every autograph. He hugs."
Walker says he's occasionally caught Ali at home in a nostalgic mood, watching one of his old fights or listening to Elvis. But Lonnie says that's a rare day for Ali, and that he's usually itching to get out somewhere: to a magic shop, a homeless shelter or just the corner store.
"He's not gonna sit in a chair and be complacent and watch television all day," Lonnie says. "That's not Muhammad. And what purpose would he have? Just because you have some sort of physical ailment - as so many people do - that doesn't mean you give up on life. And he never will.
"He's a fighter," she adds. "He's never gonna allow Parkinson's, or anything else, to dictate his life."
Not everyone likes it that Muhammad Ali continues to get out of the house so often. In Sports Illustrated's 65th birthday tribute to the champ in January, writer Phil Taylor argued that many sports fans would prefer to remember Ali as he was, and get squirmy seeing their now frail, muted hero continue to lumber through so many public appearances.
Millions were inspired when Ali appeared carrying the Olympic torch in Atlanta in 1996. They were less inspired when they saw Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade have to lift Ali out of his seat at the 2007 Orange Bowl.
"There's no need for such appearances, Champ," Taylor pleads. "You have inspired enough people for one lifetime. The next time someone comes calling, asking you to grace their event, feel free to say no."
That's not an option, Lonnie says. "He's not uncomfortable getting out - they're uncomfortable seeing him. Because they can't stand the idea - and I quite understand this - that a man who had such physical beauty and grace of movement and athletic power could be so affected by a disease. But it only makes you know that he's human."
Indeed, there are even more admirers who feel the champ's most courageous and inspiring fight is the one he's been openly waging with Parkinson's since being diagnosed in 1984. In fact, some say it's his continued engagement with the public - particularly with the poor and sick - that ultimately will form his greatest legacy.
"It's not so much that he's struggled with Parkinson's, it's how he's managed it," says Dr. Robert Spetzler, director of the Barrow Neurological Institute. "He hasn't crawled into a hole. He's demonstrated how active you can be, despite a very significant physical deficit. To make the effort that he does, in his state, to be present and help others with that disease is just remarkable. The message is: You can be a complete person, despite what you may be missing physically or mentally."
Steve Zabilski, executive director of the five St. Vincent de Paul dining rooms in Phoenix, says he's seen some of the soup-kitchen regulars transformed by Ali's visits. Children of homeless families see the shuffling gentle giant first as one of them - then they spy the respect and admiration in their parent's eyes and learn some greatness may be hidden in everybody.
"I think it's that respect and dignity he brings to those struggling and suffering - as he is today - that he'll be most remembered for," Zabilski says. "More so than his days in the boxing ring."
Lonnie agrees. "If anything, I think his physical challenges have given Muhammad another dimension. Because in his prime, there were people who felt Muhammad was almost superhuman and didn't have these frailties of regular human beings. I witnessed that. I saw the way people acted around him. Now, I actually think his challenges have made him more real for a lot of people."
All through the auction portion of last year's Celebrity Fight Night, an annual gala benefiting the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Scottsdale businessman John Scherer sat waiting for that one dream package to go up for bid, that special offering that could make him part with $100,000.
The auctions at Celebrity Fight Night have become famous for presenting fantasy evenings for the well-heeled, and last year's was no exception.
Dinner and a Lakers game with Magic Johnson: Sold - for $80,000. Private lesson with Andre Agassi - $70,000. A day on a movie set with Robin Williams - $190,000. Dinner with Paul Newman - $80,000. All sold.
Finally, during dinner, Scherer called over a Celebrity Fight Night representative and made an offer on the one experience he'd been wishing for ever since he heard a certain "loudmouthed kid" named Cassius Clay taunt world heavyweight champ Sonny Liston that he would "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee" before a bout in 1964. Nine days after taking Liston's title, following a conversion to the Nation of Islam faith, that 22-year-old kid would famously rename himself Muhammad Ali.
"I just wanted to meet him," says Scherer, who ultimately offered a donation of $100,000 just to shake hands with his idol. For his generous pledge, Scherer was granted a private moment backstage with the champ, his wife, Lonnie, and daughters Jamillah, Rasheda and Laila.
Scherer says he couldn't tell if Ali responded after Scherer told him how long he'd been a fan. After 23 years of battling Parkinson's syndrome, a late-blooming form of the neurological disorder brought on by repeated blows to the head during his boxing days, the former Louisville Lip now talks only in the slightest of whispers. Still, it was enough.
"It was worth every penny," Scherer says, breaking into a huge smile. "I can't tell you how fortunate I feel that I could do it."
Of course, not everyone in the Valley has to cough up 100 grand to shake hands with the Greatest - especially now that Muhammad and Yolanda "Lonnie" Ali have moved into their new home in Paradise Valley.
"Oh yeah, you'll probably run into us at AJ's now," says the personable Lonnie. "Muhammad goes to the grocery store with me. Now, that's an excursion!"
The fourth Mrs. Ali, who first met the champ when he was 22 and she was 6 (their mothers lived across the street from each other in Louisville, Ky.), has been his constant companion since 1986. The love story she can tell - "At 17, I knew that I was going to marry him one day" - is sweet enough to make a best selling book, and someday probably will.
At the moment, though, Lonnie is too busy being a baseball mom to her and Ali's 16-year-old adopted son, Asaad, and keeping her famous husband from eating all the produce and sweets before she gets to the check-out line.
"I don't know if Muhammad ever went to the grocery store before he was married to me," she says, laughing. "He doesn't understand that just because it's in a bin, that doesn't mean you can eat it! He'll go in and take a cookie out of the bin and start eating it. Or he'll go through the frozen-food aisle and open up a box of ice-cream sandwiches and start eating. Of course, everybody in the store thinks it's amusing."
Interestingly, keeping Ali out in the public is one of Lonnie's most important jobs.
"He just genuinely loves people," she says. "It's like Hana (Ali's 31-year-old daughter) says, 'He needs people like we need the air to breathe.' He feeds off the positive energy - children delight him to no end. And he really gets something from being around everyone, no matter who it is."
He doesn't get out every day. Lonnie says Ali's Parkinson's treatments require five days of physical therapy a week and that every three or four months, he checks in with his personal physician at Emory University, in Atlanta. He also pays regular visits to the world-class Parkinson Center at Barrow that bears his name, which was part of the reason the Alis decided to buy a home in the Valley. That and the warm weather, which Lonnie says seems to be helping the champ.
"He's actually doing a lot better here," she says. In January they also purchased a nearly $2 million home in their shared home state of Kentucky but Lonnie expects they'll be spending a lot of their time here. "Milder climate and blue skies. Muhammad loves it."
Among the residents in their wealthy gated community, Muhammad is an anomaly.
"Money means nothing to him," Lonnie says. "Other than he enjoys estimating the cost of things - that's kind of a game for him."
When it comes to dining out, Ali sometimes will make a late-night stop at Tarbell's, where he recently surprised diners after a Suns game and wound up making a tablecloth drawing for some of them. But he's just as likely to drop in on a Denny's.
"One of his favorite spots is 5 & Dine," Lonnie says, breaking into a hearty laugh. "Why? Because it reminds him of his childhood, I think. But it's also just a normal diner with regular, everyday people. And that's the kind of people Muhammad likes."
Other people Ali enjoys spending time with are those going through difficult challenges, as he is.
At least once a year, he visits the sick and recovering children at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, where the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center occupies a floor in the Barrow tower. Just before last Christmas, he also paid a surprise visit - his third in five years - to the people in line at the St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchens.
"That's really his people," says friend and Celebrity Fight Night founder Jimmy Walker. "I think he would rather be in the company of the homeless and people who are sick than celebrities, by far."
Walker says Ali's last visit to St. Vincent de Paul's Jackson Street dining room originally was scheduled as a 15-minute meet-and-greet.
"Two and a half hours later, after he hugged and kissed and shook hands with what must have been a thousand homeless people, we left. Same thing when we went to St. Joseph's over the holidays. He went in the children's ward and he was passing out candy canes and teddy bears, and hugging and kissing these little kids. It's what he does. He stops. He signs every autograph. He hugs."
Walker says he's occasionally caught Ali at home in a nostalgic mood, watching one of his old fights or listening to Elvis. But Lonnie says that's a rare day for Ali, and that he's usually itching to get out somewhere: to a magic shop, a homeless shelter or just the corner store.
"He's not gonna sit in a chair and be complacent and watch television all day," Lonnie says. "That's not Muhammad. And what purpose would he have? Just because you have some sort of physical ailment - as so many people do - that doesn't mean you give up on life. And he never will.
"He's a fighter," she adds. "He's never gonna allow Parkinson's, or anything else, to dictate his life."
Not everyone likes it that Muhammad Ali continues to get out of the house so often. In Sports Illustrated's 65th birthday tribute to the champ in January, writer Phil Taylor argued that many sports fans would prefer to remember Ali as he was, and get squirmy seeing their now frail, muted hero continue to lumber through so many public appearances.
Millions were inspired when Ali appeared carrying the Olympic torch in Atlanta in 1996. They were less inspired when they saw Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade have to lift Ali out of his seat at the 2007 Orange Bowl.
"There's no need for such appearances, Champ," Taylor pleads. "You have inspired enough people for one lifetime. The next time someone comes calling, asking you to grace their event, feel free to say no."
That's not an option, Lonnie says. "He's not uncomfortable getting out - they're uncomfortable seeing him. Because they can't stand the idea - and I quite understand this - that a man who had such physical beauty and grace of movement and athletic power could be so affected by a disease. But it only makes you know that he's human."
Indeed, there are even more admirers who feel the champ's most courageous and inspiring fight is the one he's been openly waging with Parkinson's since being diagnosed in 1984. In fact, some say it's his continued engagement with the public - particularly with the poor and sick - that ultimately will form his greatest legacy.
"It's not so much that he's struggled with Parkinson's, it's how he's managed it," says Dr. Robert Spetzler, director of the Barrow Neurological Institute. "He hasn't crawled into a hole. He's demonstrated how active you can be, despite a very significant physical deficit. To make the effort that he does, in his state, to be present and help others with that disease is just remarkable. The message is: You can be a complete person, despite what you may be missing physically or mentally."
Steve Zabilski, executive director of the five St. Vincent de Paul dining rooms in Phoenix, says he's seen some of the soup-kitchen regulars transformed by Ali's visits. Children of homeless families see the shuffling gentle giant first as one of them - then they spy the respect and admiration in their parent's eyes and learn some greatness may be hidden in everybody.
"I think it's that respect and dignity he brings to those struggling and suffering - as he is today - that he'll be most remembered for," Zabilski says. "More so than his days in the boxing ring."
Lonnie agrees. "If anything, I think his physical challenges have given Muhammad another dimension. Because in his prime, there were people who felt Muhammad was almost superhuman and didn't have these frailties of regular human beings. I witnessed that. I saw the way people acted around him. Now, I actually think his challenges have made him more real for a lot of people."
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