In the days when a black boxing champion was expected to be a mute front-man for Mafia interests, Ali spoke his mind and made his own decisions about whom he’d fight and when he’d fight them. He taunted opponents in the ring and via the media. In the 1960s, he was the brash-talking black convert to Islam who was stripped of his world championship title for refusing to fight in Vietnam. New Yorker editor David Remnick takes this larger view in King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero, writing that Ali is “an American myth who has come to mean many things to many people, a symbol of faith, a symbol of conviction and defiance, a symbol of beauty and skill and courage, a symbol of racial pride and wit and love.”Īli didn’t always carry such symbolic weight. They go beyond the individual players and coaches – even beyond the sport itself – to reveal larger truths about society and the scope of human achievement. However, good sports biographers extend their scope beyond a description of what fans see on television or witness from the bleachers. A well-written account of the sporting life can prompt fond reminiscences of one’s own athletic past, call up daydreams where you’re the one with the ball and only five seconds on the clock. There’s nothing like a good sports biography to get a fan’s blood pumping.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |