For my hero, impossible is nothing.
My Father told me that everyone he knows can remember where they were and what they were doing the day OJ Simpson was acquitted of murder. Apparently at the time it was such a shocking verdict that it reverberated around the world and my Grandmother tells me that this was nothing like the day the world heard that Kennedy had been shot. I believe the days my living heroes die, it won’t matter how, it will be like the world stops turning. Muhammad Ali and Nelson Mandela have to be two of the most heroic people ever to have lived and their names will echo through the coming ages. I could have written for hours about both of these truly great men, however I want to tell you a little about Muhammad Ali and why he is a classically flawed hero in the mould of the mighty Hercules. I have to start by describing the age in which the young Cassius Clay grew up, in the Southern American state of Kentucky. Here was a society barely reconciled to the abolition of slavery, the colour of your skin dictated what class of citizen you were. You couldn’t use a public toilet designated for white men if you were black. No dining in the whit e restaurant or riding on the white seats on the bus, and woe betide a black man falling fowl of the law. Justice for a black man in a white world was no justice at all. Into this unfair and brutal world was born probably the greatest and proudest black athlete ever seen: a man of supreme talent, unbending will and a determination to win, the like of which may never be seen again. Imagine for a minute, a twelve year old Cassius Clay, who had saved what little money he could to buy himself a little bicycle. Now imagine how he felt when on the very day he had purchased his new, red bicycle, which shone brightly in the overbearing heat of the Deep South sun, that it would be stolen whilst he bought an ice cream with the rest of the money he had collected. Angered and enraged, the young Cassius Clay demanded that a “state wide bike hunt” be implemented to catch the thief. But later was directed to seek the advice of Joe E. Martin, a police officer who spent time training young boxers when he was off-duty. When Clay finally entered the gym, it seemed as if he had discovered his destiny. Intoxicated by the smell of perspiration and the sound of leather on leather, Cassius was to be an instant hit in the sport of boxing. It was six years before Clay got a taste of his first international tournament. But with six Kentucky Golden Glove titles, two National Golden Gloves, two Amateur Athletic Union championships, the eighteen year old was no stranger to competition. Clay stole the show in the Light-Heavyweight Division of the OlympicGames held in Rome, 1960, pummelling his Polish opponent, Zbigniew Pietryskowsky, in the final to claim the gold medal. This brought him international acclaim for the first time. Segregated drinking fountains.
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