Muhammad Ali Athletes As Role Models

The public’s fascination with sports is less about any specific sport but more about challenges and obstacles that an athlete overcomes. In part, our admiration of these athletes is based on their perception in the public sphere, athletes are viewed as role models and heroes in a godlike manner. Our relationship with these athletes takes us to various sports stadiums no different than how we attend church. We cheer for field goals, and touchdowns similar to the adulation we express during a Sunday night spiritual revival. We celebrate everything and consequently become enamored with everything associated with the athlete. We celebrate their lifestyle, wealth, accomplishments and their faults. Modern day sports represent a combination of

Fans enjoy the sport, but the athlete puts in the necessary work in order to achieve unparalleled success in their field. Each fan has a fascinations with different sports for a variety of reasons ranging from the love of basketball, gladiator like efforts of a boxer or the beauty of gymnastics. Every fans connects with an athlete on many different levels and expects greatness from the athlete. We expect different heroics from a boxer than a cyclist. This sentiment is exemplified by the reaction towards Muhammad Ali unusual bravado before the historical fight against Sonny Liston. Fans either loved him or hated him such as the case with celebrity Jackie Gleason, who predicted that “Sonny Liston will win in eighteen seconds of the first round, and my estimate includes the three seconds Blabber Mouth will bring into the ring with him. ” Muhammed Ali began his boxing life as a celebrated Olympic athlete and changed right before our eyes. People liked Ali but feared his opponent. Sonny Liston was the champion and he was an enormous, black destroyer of men. He was feared and loathed. Muhammad Ali was considered an underdog, but that’s sports. Ali’s own “financial backers expected disaster, perhaps physical harm” . Nevertheless, he overcame the obstacles, and performed one of the greatest upsets in sports by being his own man in a time where differences could be fatal. His goal was not just to be a champion but to “prove he could be a new kind of black man, I had to show that to the world” (Remmick). We expect different heroics from a boxer than a cyclist, but we expect heroics