Cassius Clay aka Muhammad Ali

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I consider an idol someone that has done great things and someone that I admire. Some of the things that I consider great are, accomplishing seemingly impossible goals, standing up for your own rights and doing things that are extraordinary. Muhammad Ali is someone that I consider to be a "significant other" because I admire him and strive to have the same type of conviction that he has.

At first Cassius Clay had no intension of boxing. After his bike was stolen, in the month of October 1954, when he was twelve, his whole life destiny changed in an instant. Upon finding out that there was a police officer in the basement of a gym, Cassius went down in a horrendous state of mind exclaiming a "state wide bike hunt," and said he was going to beat up the person that stole his bike.

The way his life changed was that the police officer asked him if he knew how to fight and he said "no." The policeman offered Cassius lessons in how to box so that he could seek out the bike thief. This was the starting point in Muhammad Ali's boxing career. In the late fifties, Cassius Clay rules Golden Gloves And the AAU national champion. A quick fight at the Rome Olympics in 1960, Cassius Clay a teenager, beat a Polish fighter by the name of Zbigniew Pietrzykowski to a "bloody pulp." Muhammad Ali took home the gold.

After the Olympics he started training at the fifth street gym in Miami Beach, Florida. His trainer Angelo was very impressed by Cassius's work in and out of the ring. "Never a beef, never an argument, first guy in the gym, last guy to leave, these were his qualities he had a lot going for him" (Angelo Dundee). These were the qualities that he had, he was a very hard worker, which is why he became the boxer that everyone wanted to face, but no one could beat. These are also the qualities that made people look up to him as an example of what it takes to become a success.

This is when Clay got into the professional ranks of boxing. At the young age of eighteen Clay stepped into the ring for his first professional fight in which he easily beat Tunney Hunsaker by a unanimous decision. Lennox Lewis said, "Clay showed the sweet science of boxing of hitting with out being hit.

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