Muhammad Ali Research Paper

The text that I chose for this assignment is, “The Soul of a Butterfly.” This book was written as an autobiography of the world-renowned boxer, and activist, Cassius Clay Jr., better known as Muhammad Ali. The Louisville, Kentucky native Muhammad Ali was of many great things in life, but what he was most known for is his boxing career where he fought 61 total fights, winning 56 of them, 37 of those wins being of knockout and of those 61 fights 5 were losses. Many only knew of Ali for his legendary knockouts, or his unmatched trash talking, but throughout, “The Soul of a Butterfly,” Ali shares the parts of his life that many did not know of, the gentle Muhammad Ali to say the least. Ali takes the text to a more personal side of his life, speaking

This disease Is not known of what exactly caused it for Ali, but there were speculations that it could have been due to the exposure of pesticides, or it could have come from taking too many blows to the head throughout his boxing career due to his unique fighting style. Parkinson’s disease is neurodegenerative disorder, where cells of the brain that control movements of the body start to die. Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1984, only 3 years after retiring of his boxing career. The disease slowly began to take away from his ability to speak, and his motor skills. Although these very important skills were being taken away from him, Ali did not let it get the best of him. He continued to be the activist that he was. Ali and his wife Lonnie went on to set up a center in Phoenix Arizona, called the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center, to help with those dealing with the disease. Ali fought until he no longer could anymore and passed away in the recent

CTE is a neurodegenerative disease that has developed recently, and research is steadily increasing on the disease. CTE causes depression, disorientation, and dementia. What causes this degenerative disease is severe blows to the head of multiple blows to the head. The Parkinson’s disease and CTE seem to have somewhat correlating connection with each other, but it has yet to be proven. The bad apart both of the diseases is that neither of them can be confirmed until death. Speaking from personal experience of being a football player, I know that I find myself thinking about the danger of developing CTE just from playing in such a dangerous sport where there are many collisions involving your head. The developing research of the disease has caused a lot of rule changes, alternatives preventing unnecessary head collisions, and even parents/athletes not wanting to be a participant of the sport of football anymore. One of America’s favorite sports could be slowly coming to an end due to the fear and dangers of