Family Treasures: My Little Brother and Mohammad Ali

Notes from me: I'm realizing more and more how much of my writing revolves around relationship. My soon to be published chapbook, Stars and Strangers is all about relating to each other, Creation, and the Divine. I wrote in my last blog how a friendship intersected unexpectedly with my poetry and this post brings to mind how my writing has connected me with my family. I've enjoyed having my sister and mother in writing groups and here I post an essay my younger brother wrote. I'm related to a gifted bunch of story-tellers. I enjoyed his essay for the poignant memories he crafted, and also appreciate the example he models here of honoring what is good about this famous boxer and Islam, his faith tradition. Thanks Pete for sharing, "I Met Muhammad Ali Once"... Sue Sutherland-Hanson

I met Muhammad Ali once: A long time ago in my hometown of Port Townsend, Washington. He came for the funeral of a friend and a teammate. He gave a eulogy. He spoke eloquently to an audience of strangers and soothed a small town’s grief with his presence and his words.

It was March of 1980. Ali no longer was the heavyweight champion, which was just as well for me. I never rooted for him, never liked his flamboyance, never understood his anger. I appreciated his talent, all the more so those few times when he lost and I could take satisfaction in his comeuppance. I recall cheering as a 10 year old during his first fight with Joe Frazier in 1970, hanging on the radio announcers every word describing the match, round by round. It wasn’t even a live broadcast, just a summary of each round after its conclusion. But when the announcer confirmed that Frazier had knocked Ali down in the 15th and won the decision, I happily took leave of the radio and returned to my own training at the Port Townsend Boxing Club.

My father coached that boxing club for nearly 10 years. And he trained some pretty good amateur boxers over that time—but none even close to Chuck Robinson. Chuck wasn’t yet 10 years old when he started boxing, flailing away in his early sparring sessions. But the sport clicked for him early on. He loved boxing and couldn’t wait for his next bout. He developed a style that was both graceful and exasperating to face. He would hold his guard high, above his head, and then punch down over the opponent’s gloves, careful to turn the hand at the last instant so that he hit with his fist rather than the palm of his hand. Time and again, his opponents were left befuddled, hit with a flurry of punches whenever they tried to press the attack.

By 1980, Chuck was a local celebrity in picturesque Port Townsend, then a population of 5,400 people. He was a 19 year old golden haired wonder, with an engaging and fun-loving personality. He had over 200 amateur fights, had won both junior and senior tournaments and had fought internationally. He was ranked third nationally at 156 pounds among amateur boxing, the light middle-weight division, and he aimed to make the U.S. Olympic team. But no accomplishment ranked higher at that point then joining the Muhammad Ali’s Boxing team in San Monica, California.

Ali had lent his name to an amateur club with boxers recruited in each weight class from all over the country. They would train together in Southern California and compete against other teams of boxers as well as individually. Many of the fighters would later compete and win in the Olympics and go on to fight professionally. Chuck was nearing the pinnacle of amateur boxing under the tutelage of top trainers and sponsored by the greatest of all time, Muhammad Ali.

So often when tragedy strikes, there is a sense that it’s coming. And that was true for Chuck. In March, he had an option to box stateside or to join a U.S. team traveling to Poland to fight the Polish national team as a kind of pre-Olympic warm-up. It has been said that Chuck really wasn’t excited about the trip, that he would rather have stayed and continued to box and train locally. But additional international experience could make a huge difference in his efforts to make the U.S. team, so, on March 14th, he boarded a Soviet made Iluyshin 62 jet in New York bound for Warsaw and never returned.

I didn’t fully understand why the airliner crashed. But it crashed outside Warsaw and no one survived, including 12 members of the U.S. Boxing team and 10 coaches.

Those of us back home reacted with a sense of loss that I imagine equates with the loss of a young warrior prince who is returned to his people on his shield. It was devastating: to the townspeople, to his friends and to his parents and brother and sister. This handsome young champion was taken before even reaching his prime. After 36 years, it still hurts.

Chuck’s funeral was about a week later in the high school auditorium, as the Episcopal Church would not be anywhere big enough to accommodate all those expected to attend. I returned to Port Townsend from college and prepared to act as usher along with several of his other friends. We knew that the other members of the Muhammad Ali club planned to attend from California and there was a rumor that Muhammad Ali himself would attend.

I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t imagine a person of his stature and image coming to Port Townsend, at the time an almost an all-white blue collar town. What would Muhammad Ali say to a town of millworkers and fishermen?

But he did come. The day of the funeral he landed at the local airport where he was greeted by our junior high principal and coach Don Rosbach. I wondered how that meeting would go, as Coach Rosbach, a no-nonsense educator with a perpetual crewcut, was not a fan of anyone who would draw attention to themselves outside the sports arena. He impressed me at the time as Ali’s antithesis.

He and the boxing team arrived at the auditorium in a respectful procession, Ali greeting townsfolk as he walked. I greeted him awkwardly—he wordlessly communicating that we would shake hands with a traditional clasp rather than with interlocking thumbs.

It was apparent that Ali was completely at ease. Despite my fear that Ali was completely out of his element in isolated little Port Townsend, he seemed as if he walked among his own people. He was a king here to remember a prince, and the subjects were drawn to him as if he was their own.

Ali and the boxing team sat through the Episcopalian service, sitting in the front row with hundreds of grieving townsfolk. Then, without fanfare, he walked up on the stage to speak to Chuck’s home town. I remember feeling a sense of dread as he walked up the steps to the stage. I wondered what a Muslim was going to say at a funeral to an audience of small town Protestants and Catholics.

But the eulogy he gave was transformative. He spoke of knowing Chuck in California and how Chuck had impressed him as a person and a fighter. He joked about how this small-town white kid was beating up on all the black kids in the club. He spoke of how we all had more in common than our differences and how we could use the tragedy to understand each other better in our mutually shared grief. I remember Ali using the word God, not Allah, when he spoke of our common creation. Whatever word used to describe the creator, clearly Ali believed that we were all his children: Black, White, Muslim, Jew and Christian.

I could sense the realization of the audience. Ali honored Chuck and felt as we did about him. We all shared a bond with Muhammad Ali and I will never forget seeing him before my hometown, giving all comfort in our shared grief.

After Ali finished speaking, the team showed a video of one of Chuck’s boxing matches. I remember being impressed with the quality as the footage was filmed by one of the major television networks. Then, to my surprise, the second video showed Chuck sparring with Muhammad Ali himself. Of course, Chuck weighed 156 pounds and I imagine Ali was about 250 at that time and clearly not throwing punches back at the rate Chuck was punching him. But that didn’t matter, the audience was overjoyed. A voice called out, “Get him Chuck!” And everyone laughed, I think no one more so than Ali.

Ali was not done at that point. After the public funeral, he drove out to the Robinson’s home just out of town and attended the wake which was otherwise limited to friends and family. Again, he appeared completely at home, as boxing team members and locals mixed inside the one story rambler. True to form, Ali began slap boxing with Chuck’s younger brother Jimmy. Ali was no longer a stranger, he was now part of the family.

Today, 36 years later, upon his death, I remember Muhammad Ali as a spiritual leader as much as an athlete. I feel this sense of gratitude that I will carry for the rest of my life. Muhammad Ali honored my friend in a way no one else could. And he taught me and my neighbors that we shared a common loss, and he celebrated a life that touched us all. Ali was my first real impression of the practice of Islam as it can be. Ali was clearly a man compelled by his faith to serve others. I cannot listen to grotesque generalizations about the Muslim faith without thinking of Ali standing there giving comfort to my home town at the death of its hero.

I was never a fan of the boxer, but the man will always remain one of my heroes.

Peter E. Sutherland