Word: championing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Defending Yankee Conference champion UMass weighs in as about a one-touchdown favorite for the 1:30 game, based on their close loss to Villanova (25-21) and their trashing of Maine (40-6), coupled with Harvard's surprise loss to Columbia last weekend...
...Sandown raceway in Melbourne was packed with 61,500 people, there to see the car that had been flown in from Stuttgart and the driver from Argentina. "It's like meeting an old friend," said Juan Fangio, 67, five-time world racing champion, as he clambered into the cockpit of the Mercedes-Benz "Silver Arrow" that he had driven to victory in world title races in 1954 and 1955. "But," he added, "please do not think I am going to do the same things I did many years ago. This car has been in a museum and soon...
...there was the prospect of ending his career as a defeated fighter, no longer the champion he had dreamed of being since he was twelve. And there was the challenge of bringing his body back into condition to fight-really fight, not rope-a-dope-a powerful champion eleven years his junior. Leon Spinks, on the other hand, was overwhelmed by the new status he had so frantically sought. The privations of a ghetto background had suddenly been replaced by $3.75 million purses. The gap-toothed young street fighter was, overnight, the biggest man in sports. There were cars, women...
Spinks, defending the title in only his ninth professional fight, was obviously ill equipped to run Ali to ground. The former champion's talent may have dimmed, but he was still a superbly conditioned athlete. Six months ago Ali could not escape Spinks and had folded his hands over his face, leaned on the ropes and allowed Spinks to bash away. Now Ali backpedaled on resilient legs and, more important, he used his hands. The famous Ali jab lacked the sting of old, but it held Spinks at bay. Each time the boxers closed on one another, Ali threw...
...exulted in a victory that was as multidimensional as himself: over Leon Spinks, over encroaching age, over his need to leave an enduring mark on his sport-three times a champion in 14 years. The new champ laughed with reporters in postfight interviews: "What do you think of this old man?" he asked. Quite an old man indeed...