The first time I saw Muhammad Ali was at a newly opened Boscov's store in the sparkling new Pottsville (PA) mall. His driver pulled this vehicle to the curb in front of the store, and Ali went shopping. A young teen, I had never seen a car anything like Ali's. It was some kind of welded hybrid with a Silver Shadow retro front and more standard Cadillac-type limousine from the windshield back. I had also never before seen a car with a phone or a wet bar. The crowd that had gathered, like me, seemed more enamored with the car than the man. Forty-five years later, the car is an afterthought, and the man has taken on a mythic veneer.
Ali trained in Deer Lake. His camp was a collection of cabins set into the side of forested mountains outside of Orwigsburg, about eight miles from that mall. The camp, just off Route 61, was rural, isolated, away from all crowds. Rocky Balboa would have been right at home. We occasionally drove there for training camp open house. Ali sometimes recruited local sparring partners, including one notable boxer from up the road in Easton. That guy was named Holmes.
Ali's banishment from boxing is sometimes viewed with sugar coating from our vantage point today. The truth is that most Americans did not consider Ali or his decision favorably. He was disliked, often intensely, by the majority of US citizens when he first took his stand. Returning from his banishment, he was hurried into his first title fight with Frazier. In retrospect, he hadn't put in the number of training camps or opponents necessary to regain anything close to his old form. It cost him the fight.
I remember huddling with a long range radio long after my parents had gone to bed, listening to the Associated Press round summaries for that Frazier fight. The fight seemed, to me, to be up for grabs heading into the 15th round. When the final round (with Ali knocked down), and the result, were reported, I shed a few tears.
Had that championship fight been 12 rounds, as they are today, Ali probably would have won, and boxing history would have unfolded quite differently.