Salon.com > Larry Platt

The darker side of Muhammad Ali

Wed, 06 Jun 2001 18:32:00 +0000

Now that he's lost the power of speech, now that he walks shakily, now that he can be safely trotted out before an adoring public with the surety that he will not offend mainstream sensibilities -- now that he is no longer a threat -- Muhammad Ali is universally loved. He was once a reviled revolutionary, but after he lit the torch to open the 1996 Olympics with a quivering hand and frozen expression, the drama of the moment jump-started a love affair -- some would say a deification -- that continues to this day. Suddenly, the one-time black nationalist and conscientious objector -- some would say draft dodger -- was the subject of an Academy Award-winning documentary ("When We Were Kings"), a bestselling book (David Remnick's "King of the World"), even a Wheaties box cover, nearly 20 years after his last punch.

John McEnroe

Tue, 11 Jul 2000 19:38:00 +0000

Roughly 10 points is all it took for the Beast to rise. Until this moment, the Champions Senior Tennis Tournament in Central Park's Wollman Rink had been a sweet chance for tennis fans to revel in nostalgia. Here was Jimmy Connors at 47, mock-limping to the delight of the capacity crowd of 3,000. There was the once-stoic Swede, Bjorn Borg, 44, actually laughing between points at Connors' antics. All grown-up now, they parodied the solemnity of a youthful rivalry. They had realized, finally, that it was only a game.

All except, that is, for the Beast. Friday night, June 16, should have been Johnny Mac night in New York City. The legendary John McEnroe had walked to the court from his Central Park apartment, Yankees cap pulled down tight. As so often happened throughout his playing days, he had been greeted by enthusiastic cheers from his hometown crowd. Yet a mere 10 points into his match against Frenchman Henri LeConte, there was the graying, 41-year-old McEnroe, a doting father of five plus a stepdaughter, doing something just as inevitable: Turning everyone against him by charging the net -- to question a lines call. "C'mon, Mac, not already!" a spectator called out.

Charles Barkley

Tue, 30 May 2000 19:24:00 +0000

It was a humbler, portlier, more emotional Charles Barkley who said goodbye to the sport of basketball April 19, the last day of the NBA regular season and the final night of his roundball career, which had spanned 16 riveting, often maddening, always dramatic years. Barkley had blown out a knee in December, playing for the Houston Rockets in Philadelphia, where his pro career began in 1984. The injury cut short his farewell tour; that night, the onetime bad boy of professional sports sobbed alone in his hotel room, so haunted was he by this final image of himself being carried off the court. Still, his depression didn't keep him from quipping wiseass, as usual: "Now I'm just what America needs -- another unemployed black man," he joked.