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Odessa Grady Clay is a short, pillowy woman with freckled fawn skin and an expensive orthodontist. Cash never gave her a bit of trouble. She likes to talk about him as a baby. "The first thing he said was 'Gee-gee,' and that's what people in the family still call him: Gee. Later he said that Gee-gee stood for Golden Gloves, which he was going to win." Around Grand Avenue, Cassius was known as a prodigious eater, a pretty good rock fighter, and a deadeye marble shooter—when his parents let him out of the house. "Don't you take one more step," his mother ordered one day, as Cassius started down the front steps. Deliberately, he took one—just one —more. His mother said. "Daddy will strap you," and sent him to bed. Cassius used to dream that some day he would be big enough to walk around the block all by himself and not worry about that one step. And he talked about "getting a wheel and wheeling around that block."
"That Little Smart Aleck." Dreams came easy in Louisville's West End. "Why can't I be rich?" Cassius once asked his father. His father touched him on one pecan-colored hand and said. "Look there. That's why you can't be rich." But at twelve. Cassius got his "wheel." It was a shiny $60 bicycle, and he proudly pedaled off to a fair at the Columbia Gym downtown. When the show was over, the bike was gone. In tears, Cassius sought out Policeman Joe Martin. "If I find the kid who stole my bike." he said, "I'll whup him." Martin told him that he'd better learn how to box before he went out looking for a fight, and offered to let him join the boxing classes he ran in the gym.
Cassius never did get his bike back. But six weeks later, he got in a ring with another twelve-year-old, a white boy, and beat him. Then he knew everything was going to be all right. The salesmen in the Cadillac showroom downtown got a big laugh at the little Negro, face pressed against the glass, gazing wistfully at the glittering cars inside. "All Cassius talked about was money—turning pro," says Martin. "At first, I didn't encourage him. A year later, though, you could see that little smart aleck had a lot of potential."
Cassius skipped rope for hours to toughen his legs, flailed away at a heavy bag to put power into his punches, sparred with his own mirrored image to quicken his timing and reflexes. There was one terrifying moment at 15 when he flunked a prefight physical. "Heart murmur." said the doctor. But nothing came of it. Cassius rested for four months, then started, fighting again. On weekends, he wandered about like a nomad, taking on all comers in amateur tournaments all across the U.S.
Cassius' permanent record at Louisville's Central High School lists his IQ as "average," but when he graduated in 1960, he ranked 3761)1 in a class of 391. He only got into trouble once. He hit a teacher with a snowball and was called to stand up before a disciplinary board. He was terribly sorry, he said. Then he calmly told all three of them he was going to be the heavyweight champion of the world.