Word: cassius
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Cassius' permanent record at Louisville's Central High School lists his IQ as "average," but when he graduated in 1960, he ranked 3761)1 in a class of 391. He only got into trouble once. He hit a teacher with a snowball and was called to stand up before a disciplinary board. He was terribly sorry, he said. Then he calmly told all three of them he was going to be the heavyweight champion of the world...
...Great Gamble. By 1960, when he was 18, Cassius had piled up 108 amateur bouts, and lost only eight. He won six Kentucky Golden Gloves titles, two national Golden Gloves championships, two national A.A.U. titles. "I'm going pro," he told Martin. But the cop said wait. "In boxing," he counseled, "the Olympic champion is already as good as the No. 10-ranked pro." Reluctantly, Cassius boarded the plane for San Francisco and the Olympic trials. Over Indiana, the plane ran into a thunderstorm. Cassius was petrified. He slumped down in his seat, squeezed his eyes shut, and passengers...
When he won at San Francisco, Cassius threw away his round-trip plane ticket, borrowed money from a referee, and took a train home instead. The Olympics were out, he told Martin. No boat berths were available, and Clay would not fly. Martin sat him on a park bench, told him that the Olympic gold medal was his only chance to be wealthy and famous. "You'll have to gamble your life," he said. "Your whole future depends on this one plane ride to Rome. You'll have to gamble your life." Cassius agreed...
...York pay its respects. He stayed with Joe Martin in a Waldorf Towers suite that belonged to William Reynolds, vice president of the Reynolds Metals Co.-next door to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Reynolds asked him if he had brought back any presents for his family. Cassius said no, so Reynolds told him to go out and get some. He picked out a $250 watch for his mother, a $100 watch for his father, a $100 watch for his brother. Still wearing his gold medal around his neck, Clay ate at the Waldorf-Astoria ("The steaks were...
Louisville gave Cassius a welcoming parade that "crippled the town." He bought a "rosy pink" hardtop Cadillac on time. And he signed to fight his first professional bout-a six-rounder with a former smalltown West Virginia police chief named Tunney Hunsaker. "He's a bum," confided Cassius. "I'll lick him easy." But he still got up at 5 a.m. every day to run at least two miles in Chickasaw Park, and he boxed a few fast training rounds with his younger brother Rudolph...