Why Tiger isn't Muhammad Ali

[Hannah Bell]

CAN ESPN please declare a company-wide moratorium on comparing current athletes to Muhammad Ali? I thought it was unfortunate when columnist Jemele Hill wrote that anti-choice icon Tim Tebow was "as courageous" as Ali. But that comparison is inspired compared to recent comments by "ESPN's The Sports Guy" Bill Simmons.

Simmons wrote that Tiger Woods's return to golf from "sex addiction" would be tougher than Ali's return to the ring after being banished for opposing the war in Vietnam. Yes, for Simmons, Ali's efforts to resist the military draft are dwarfed in importance by Tiger's efforts to resist nookie.

For the uninitiated, Bill Simmons is a pop-culture vulture in the best and worst sense. If you want 3,000 words about The Real World, he's your fella. If you want even 300 words about the actual real world, you're better off reading a TV Guide.

This became crystal clear when, in an online chat, Simmons wrote:

Tiger's comeback is going to be the most fascinating running sports story of my lifetime. I really believe that. We only get a handful of truly transcendent athletes per lifetime, he's one of them, and yet, none of them have ever been tested this way. The only thing that comes close: When Ali returned from four years of boxing exile for refusing to serve in Vietnam.

An incredulous reader typed back, "Really Bill? Ali coming back to win the title after being banned from the sport for religious convictions that prevented him from serving in a war that continues to effect the course of American history today, 'comes close' to Tiger missing five months for a cavalcade of bimbos and a staged sex rehab?"

Simmons' retort: "Here's the big difference though: Everyone was rooting for Ali. He never came even 10 percent close to facing the scrutiny, vitriol and 24/7 news cycle microscope that Tiger will face." He later sniffed, "You don't know your Ali history..."

When Ali took his stand, the great Red Smith wrote, "Cassius makes himself as sorry a spectacle as those unwashed punks who picket and demonstrate against the war."

In the Los Angeles Times, Jim Murray called the Champ, "the white man's burden."

Beyond the sports page, Ali also had other concerns that Tiger couldn't comprehend: daily and credible death threats against his family, financial ruin and a five-year prison sentence in Leavenworth that he was challenging on appeal.

Ali also endured the full weight of the U.S. government on his back. The day of Ali's conviction, the U.S. Congress voted overwhelmingly to extend the draft and make it a federal crime to desecrate the flag. Ali's passport was revoked and the FBI bugged his phone.


http://socialistworker.org/2010/03/05/why-tiger-isnt-muhammad-ali



Why media people get paid the big bucks...to cheapen & falsify history...

[icnorth]

1. Tiger Woods couldn't tie Ali's shoes. n/t

[malaise]

6. +1,000

The comparison is beyond simplistic.

[PCIntern]

2. Well, you're right about this one, Hannibal...

:hi:

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Simmons is completely clueless

Muhammad Ali was never universally adored. I recall the days when he was referred to as 'uppity' and roundly condemned for refusing to enlist after being drafted. The outcry was equally loud when he was able to resume fighting; some were especially livid when the SC reversed his conviction. I remember hearing some people rooting for Joe Frazier to 'finally shut him up.'

Lots of Americans will keep quiet when history gets revised in other areas, but they'll speak up when it's sports or famous sports figures who get run through a lens of distortion. I hope lots of people give ESPN an earful, as I despise revisionism in any form - especially when it overlaps into areas like civil rights, racial relations and war for fun & profit.

[PCIntern]

4. You betcha...

I recall people wanting Liston to knock Cassius Clay into the next dimensiion and when that didn't quite work out as planned, went on a veerbal rampage about this 'uppity' (guy)...I'm being polite. I was sort of used to racist language, as my neighborhood was divided into two halves: the Progressives which included my family and their friends, and the angry whites who were 'forced' to move from West and North Philly to the suburbs.

[Frank Cannon]

5. I was there. Muhammad Ali was reviled by many for his outspoken views.

Particularly after he declared himself a conscientious objector. About his only steady advocate in the sports media was Howard Cosell. Which was another reason why so many people hated Howard Cosell and why Howard and Ali became good friends.

Tiger Woods was NO Muhammad Ali. What a fuckin' joke.

[Brewman_Jax]

7. The ignorance of too many sports writers

and overuse of hyperbole is staggering. :eyes: