Ali was not the only G.O.A.T.

By WILLIAM WILCZEWSKI

TODAY’S NEWS-HERALD

 

Yes, Muhammad Ali called himself the Greatest Of All Time—or G.O.A.T.—but he wasn’t the only one.

Don’t get me wrong, he bestowed the now-legendary term on himself for good reason.

He was slick with his tongue.

Swift with a punch.

And smooth with his feet.

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He was brash.

Bold.

Hated by some.

But loved by most.

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Controversy was a calling card Ali created for himself. In doing so, however, he transcended his vocation like no other athlete—or perhaps any other human—that ever danced on our big ball of water and mud.

Known once in his nimble youth as just a talented boxer, Ali would grow into a champion of not only the ring, but also of many social causes, including his religious conscientious objection to being drafted into U.S. military service during the Vietnam War.

As age—and Parkinson’s Disease—weakened Ali’s body, though, his spirit never faltered, even questioning recent racial comments by presidential candidate Donald Trump in perhaps the G.O.A.T.’s final social statement before he died of respiratory complications at age 74 on Friday night in Phoenix.

The sad part is that for many of today’s youth, their more indelible memories of The Champ will be the tremors, the twitching and the stammering of his once-eloquent words.

I know those Parkinson’s problems all too well after watching my mother decay to the same disease.

I’ve witnessed the same stammering.

Seen the same twitching.

And have silently cried when those same tremors transformed my mom’s once-ever-smiling face into a twisted heap of relentless agony and tiring pain.

Like Ali, though, Christine Marie Wilczewski did the rope-a-dope.

She bobbed.

She weaved.

She put her shoulders to life’s proverbial ropes and told her own George Forman to bring it on and give her all he has.

Because of that, I began to call my mom my G.O.A.T., until—that is—she finally succumbed to Parkinson’s this past August.

Like Ali winning The Rumble in the Jungle against Forman in 1974, though, my mom had won daily battles with the disease that would make eight rounds in Zaire seem like a walk in the park.

Now, Muhammad joins my mom in a walk of another kind. As Ali might put it: “Floatin’ like butterflies, stingin’ like bees, somebody’d better warn heaven to watch out with these two G.O.A.T.s on the scene!”

Wilczewski can be reached at wwilczewski@havasunews.com.