Ayodele Odumade and boxing legend Mohamed Ali in 1992
My column would not be complete without mentioning Muham- med Ali’s recent 70th birthday. This is a man who sacrificed his own career by refusing to go to fight in Vietnam on principal and spoke out on discrimination against blacks at every oppor- tunity. He transcended every boxer of his generation not be- cause of what he did in the ring but what he did or did not do outside the ring.
He paved the way for black people and was seen as a leader. Some people point to the fact that he is an illiterate but Ali is probably one of the few boxers who have defied the logic that you need to go to school to obtain an education.