My favorite athlete of all time is Muhammad Ali.  Has been for almost 40 years.  When I was about 13-years-old, I read “The Greatest: My Own Story,” by Ali and Richard Durham.  I was already a fan of Ali’s, having seen him box and entertain, both inside and outside the ring.  However, reading about him – his upbringing, his Olympic achievements, his refusal to be drafted into the U.S. military, his opposition to the Vietnam War, and his resulting conviction on draft evasion charges (which led to the loss of both his heavyweight title and nearly four years of his career at its peak) – led me to realize that athletes can have tremendous influence away from the ring or field of play, and that resonated with me. Still does. It also drew me to other courageous and influential athletes – Jim Brown, Bill Russell, Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul Jabbar) John Carlos, Tommie Smith, Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby.  Athletes who took a stand and made a difference became the standard by which other athletes were measured in my book.  But the activist athlete of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s soon became a thing of the past, seemingly never […]