(3 of 9)
The Great Gamble. By 1960, when he was 18, Cassius had piled up 108 amateur bouts, and lost only eight. He won six Kentucky Golden Gloves titles, two national Golden Gloves championships, two national A.A.U. titles. "I'm going pro," he told Martin. But the cop said wait. "In boxing," he counseled, "the Olympic champion is already as good as the No. 10-ranked pro." Reluctantly, Cassius boarded the plane for San Francisco and the Olympic trials. Over Indiana, the plane ran into a thunderstorm. Cassius was petrified. He slumped down in his seat, squeezed his eyes shut, and passengers near by could hear him praying over the roar of the engines.
When he won at San Francisco, Cassius threw away his round-trip plane ticket, borrowed money from a referee, and took a train home instead. The Olympics were out, he told Martin. No boat berths were available, and Clay would not fly. Martin sat him on a park bench, told him that the Olympic gold medal was his only chance to be wealthy and famous. "You'll have to gamble your life," he said. "Your whole future depends on this one plane ride to Rome. You'll have to gamble your life." Cassius agreed. It was a big gamble. But he got on the plane. Besides, in Rome, with that name how could he miss?
There were times when people wondered if he was real. Crowds stopped to gawk at the tall, brown gladiator as he ambled along the Via Veneto, grinning, waving, talking to everybody whether they understood him or not. He captured Bing Crosby and went everywhere with him arm in arm. He posed with Heavyweight Champion Floyd Patterson, shook hands solemnly, and crowed: "So long, Floyd, be seein' you—in about two more years." He brushed off a Russian reporter who prodded him about the plight of U.S. Negroes: "Man, the U.S.A. is the best country in the world, counting yours. I ain't fighting off alligators and living in a mud hut." In the Olympic Village, he swarmed over foreign athletes, yelling "Say cheese!" while he snapped photos, swapped team badges, slapped backs, and winked at pretty girls. They loved him.
If there had been an election, he would have won in a walk.
Fighting as a light heavyweight at 178 lbs., he knocked out a befuddled Belgian, flicked past a stolid Russian, an Australian and a Pole. "I didn't take that gold medal off for 48 hours," he says. "I even wore it to bed. I didn't sleep too good because I had to sleep on my back so the medal wouldn't cut me. But I didn't care. I was the Olympic champion."