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Happy Birthday, Champ

Muhammed Ali turned 65 today. Aging is, of course not an unusual process. Nothing drives me crazier than when stories call someone an "aging" sthlete. Find one who isn't, THAT's news.

Ali has been news his whole life. Out of the limelight, robbed of his charismatic power of speech by Parkinson's disease, he's still news, still far more important to far more people than any of the innumerable jocks since who've imitated Ali without understanding him.

Assessing Ali is hard to do without appearing to slam athletes of our time. Nothing could be further from my mind. If Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan are more inner-directed great athletes, that's both their right and irrelevant to evaluating their work. An artist owes us his or her art and nothing else.

BUT, and this is a but deserving a larger typeface, when an artist engages the public on a level beyond their work, when he or she makes the public feel part of that work, when the artist gets people to believe that work is part of THEIR lives, and above all, when the artist stands for something beyond themselves, that artist achieves something so far beyond technical merit us lesser humans don't have many words for it.

The mouthy, playful heavyweight with the warp speed hands became, somehow, a symbol for plain folks the world over. There was some shit Ali would not eat. He suffered in exile for his beliefs, returning both a lesser fighter and an infinitely greater champion. Not to get too hippy-dippy '60s here, but if Ali hadn't stood up to the draft board and the US government, he couldn't have stood up to Joe Frazier the last five brutal, glorious rounds of the Thrilla in Manila. No way.

I note without comment that the notion of a current professional athlete suffering significant career damage for the sake of a principle is so bizarre as to be comical. It isn't even the jocks fault. If our society isn't throwing up so many real heroes, its because deep down we don't want any. Just as well. We don't deserve too many, either.

I will note that some guys lead the sports section, and others lead the whole paper. Muhammed Ali is and always will be a front page guy, even if the lede is only he's now eligible for Medicare.

posted by Michael Gee @ 8:35 PM