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By Lyle Fitzsimmons - As Mondays go, this week’s was a pretty big one.
Not only was it the 25th incarnation of a holiday honoring a leader taken far too soon from his calling, but it also marked another anniversary of the birth of a man to whom fans my age and older give credit for planting the seeds for a lifelong love of the sport.
Muhammad Ali turned 69 years old yesterday, and, from all accounts, celebrated the milestone in the same spotlight-free way in which the most-recent third of his life has been lived.
As all who know the story are aware, the man once known as the “Louisville Lip” has been silenced by unforgiving health concerns over the years, robbing from today’s youngest generations a first-hand glimpse of the brash emperor who ruled the ring for nearly two full decades.
It’s an irony history’s best storytellers would be hard-pressed to concoct.
Love him or loathe him, Ali changed the game forever and provided a blueprint from which all subsequent athletes – particularly those with a gift for gab – could borrow while constructing their own larger-than-life personalities in an increasingly media-sopped environment.
It’d be hard to imagine modern-day motor-mouths like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Terrell Owens, Charles Barkley or Rex Ryan had it not been for Ali’s emergence and the paradigm shift he authored while dethroning Sonny Liston to become the most recognized man on the planet. [Click Here To Read More]
Not only was it the 25th incarnation of a holiday honoring a leader taken far too soon from his calling, but it also marked another anniversary of the birth of a man to whom fans my age and older give credit for planting the seeds for a lifelong love of the sport.
Muhammad Ali turned 69 years old yesterday, and, from all accounts, celebrated the milestone in the same spotlight-free way in which the most-recent third of his life has been lived.
As all who know the story are aware, the man once known as the “Louisville Lip” has been silenced by unforgiving health concerns over the years, robbing from today’s youngest generations a first-hand glimpse of the brash emperor who ruled the ring for nearly two full decades.
It’s an irony history’s best storytellers would be hard-pressed to concoct.
Love him or loathe him, Ali changed the game forever and provided a blueprint from which all subsequent athletes – particularly those with a gift for gab – could borrow while constructing their own larger-than-life personalities in an increasingly media-sopped environment.
It’d be hard to imagine modern-day motor-mouths like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Terrell Owens, Charles Barkley or Rex Ryan had it not been for Ali’s emergence and the paradigm shift he authored while dethroning Sonny Liston to become the most recognized man on the planet. [Click Here To Read More]
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