Word: sportingly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Soviets can hardly escape the many reminders of how quickly allegiances can change on the Horn. The Ethiopian soldiers still wear American-supplied uniforms; their weapons, ammunition and even their slang are mostly U.S.-issue too. Only a few have the new caps, supplied by the Soviets, that sport a hammer and sickle...
...have a split decision," Ring Announcer Chuck 'Hull proclaimed, and absolute silence fell over the plush Las Vegas boxing emporium where Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks had struggled through 15 lashing rounds to claim sport's most special crown. "Judge Art Lurie: 143-142, Ali. Judge Lou Tabat: 145-140, Spinks. Judge Harold Buck: 144-141." A pause, a breath in that utter stillness and then: "The new Heavyweight Champion of the World, Leon Spinks...
...first two words were lost in the roar of the crowd, that unmistakable, primordial voice of a fight crowd hailing a new king of the most basic sport. But the silence before the verdict had spoken too, for it anticipated the passing of a giant, a unique athlete whose skills and life had resonances far beyond the ring. As Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., Cassius X, or Muhammad Ali, he had talked from center stage, mirror and lightning rod for a tumultuous era. Olympic gold medalist, Louisville Lip, upstart champion, Black Muslim convert, draft resister, abomination, martyr, restored champion, road show...
Even when performed amid the Naugahyde and flash of Las Vegas, sport can serve a kind of liturgical function. It becomes a parable: those few athletes who are gifted with a certain magic become proof of the splendors that the body can achieve-the feats of grace, strength, speed, skill, stamina. But the athlete's half-life is so short; his decline and failure become a model of the mortality in everyone...
Muhammad Ali has caused inflammations of metaphysical prose in a number of writers; perhaps the urge ought to be resisted. But sport and play can lend themselves to extravagant speculations, and Ali is one of the most abundantly complicated figures in the history of games. His career in boxing has of course been totally entangled with his celebrity-Ali may be the most famous man in the world. Since he took the heavyweight title from Sonny Listen in Miami Beach 14 years ago, "the Greatest" has been the protagonist of a vast popular psychodrama in which sport was only...