Word: clay
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Atlanta, as Wolfe portrays it, handles this problem a lot differently. Fareek is a fairly typical contemporary phenomenon, a loutish, sullen, spoiled athlete wearing diamond ear studs and, Roger observes, "a gold chain so chunky you could have used it to pull an Isuzu pickup out of a red clay ditch." Fareek is also a local Atlanta boy who climbed to fame from a poor black neighborhood. And he has now been accused, though not yet formally charged, of date rape by the daughter of one of Atlanta's most powerful white businessmen, Inman Armholster, who happens to be Charlie...
Since those giddy days, Muhammad Ali, ne Cassius Clay, has done two things nobody thought possible: he has finally stopped talking, and he has become universally popular. Those who know him now only as a benign, spectral presence at sports events and testimonial ceremonies can have no idea how much noise this man once made or what confusion he sowed in some people's heads. Previous athletes had been loved or hated, and that was that, but Ali had been both at the same time. Half of you wanted to see his head handed to him, the other half sort...
...Remnick tells it, Clay learned the uses of confusion by age 12, when he tied on his first gloves and discovered that his mother Odessa's serenity combined with his daddy Cassius Sr.'s maddening braggadocio sold tickets, captivated journalists and drove opponents clear up the wall. The phrase "I am the greatest" seems to have been almost Ali's first words, but the joke was that the words were absolutely true. The sweet little motormouth from Louisville, Ky., was about to become the greatest fighter in history, fast as a flyweight, strong...
Like a good dramatist, Remnick centers his whole story on one amazing night when Ali proved his claims, cashed in his chips and changed his identity for good. Up until his epic first fight with Sonny Liston in 1964, Clay and his chatter had been just a good joke. Suddenly he was the heavyweight champion of the world, a position that, like Queen of England and Archbishop of Canterbury, carried certain moral responsibilities. So was Clay planning to be yet another credit to his race, like Joe Louis and Floyd Patterson, or was he going to be the other kind...
...floated like a butterfly around such cliches. Instead of a saint or devil, why not both in one package? Or why not just go crazy and leave them guessing? On the day of the Liston fight, Clay summoned all the thespian training he had picked up in the rings of Louisville to go so thoroughly crazy that his vital signs went crazy too, and Liston was scared out of his mind. The worst mistake you can make in writing about Ali is to leave out the boxing, but Remnick's account of the fight that followed is so vivid that...