When Muhammad Ali celebrated his 65th birthday in 2005 I decided to write a column saying thanks for the memories. It had been forty years since I first met Ali on the campus of Howard University. I wanted in some way wanted to thank him for taking me along for the ride. More than anyone else he inspired me during my sports media broadcasting career to be all that I could be.
In February 2007 I was honored on the Tom Joyner Morning show as a “Little known fact in Black History.” Tom was reading from a story published on his BlackAmericaweb.com web site. The tribute made me think about the people like Ali who inspired me and are responsible for my success in the community and the media. God and family are first and Ali is not far behind.
My thoughts went to “President Richard M. Nixon and Muhammad Ali.” Nixon invited me to the White House shortly after his election and I met Ali on the campus of Howard University. Those were the two moments in 1969 that turned my life around. It was my fifteen minutes of fame.
I was in high school when I first met Nixon at the Burning Tree Golf Course. He was then Vice-President. The White House photo opt gave me National recognition. This was a signal for the Player Haters to come out of the woodwork. I was labeled a sellout and a Black Republican and I was not even a registered voter.
In 1973 I traveled to Cleveland with Atty. Harry Barnett and Washington Post sports columnist J. D. Beathea. Ali was fighting a charity exhibition match for a hospital and there we would meet again. It was there in Cleveland against almost everyone’s wishes he would give Don King his first break as a black promoter. J. D. was writing a column on Don and I tagged along for a breakfast interview. It was during this breakfast King would say, “Harold Bell stick with me baby we are going places” another one of his many outlandish lies.
In 1974 I was asked by James Denson President of the DC Chamber of Commerce to pick Ali and his friend Veronica up at National Airport. The champ was in town for a dinner being held in his honor. The Chamber was honoring Ali as “The Athlete of the Century” at the Sheraton-Park Hotel.
During the dinner before a packed house Ali asked me to stand up as he accepted his award. Ali shocked me when he said to the late Mayor Walter Washington who was seated next to him “Mr. Mayor do you know Harold Bell? The Mayor looked out into the audience to where I was standing and as he hesitated he asked him again, Mr. Mayor do you know Harold Bell? He did not wait for him to answer. He said, “Let me tell you who Harold Bell is, he is my friend and I don’t want anything to happen to him in this town, and if anything happens to him I am holding you responsible, do you understand? The Mayor’s response was, “I understand Champ.” The next words out of Ali's mouth brought the house down, “Mr. Mayor you are not as dumb as you look.” Only Ali could get away with something like that. The Mayor even thought it was funny.
Ali proceeded to tell the audience, “Harold Bell and I have a whole lot in common, he has persevered and stool fast for the principles in which he believes,” that was a PRICELESS moment I will never forget.
l read Don King early, he was nothing but a con artist. He treated me with respect while Ali was still in the ring. He really had no choice, I would not allow him to treat me any other way. When Ali retired Don's whole demeanor changed towards me. I didn't grow up in an environment where I had to kiss some one's ass to get along with them and Don King was not going to be the first.
I remember traveling to cover Don King Production fights and once I arrived I would discover there were no press credentials. He was usually hiding out in a trailer somewhere on-site. His son Carl who was a decent person would tell me where he was hiding out. I would then confront him about my press credentials and he would say to me "Man I ain't got nothing to do with issuing the credentials." He is a piece of work.
I will never forget the Larry Holmes and “Bone Crusher” Smith fight in Las Vegas. I had to watch the fight from my hotel room because King had denied me credentials. The second Riddick Bowe and Evander Holyfield fight in Las Vegas, I was assigned a seat in the AUXILIARY section of the arena to watch the fight on close circuit television. There is more, Don King promoted a fight card here in DC my hometown and told the PR man Charlie Brotman to deny me credentials. Brotman later apologized. Thanks to the likes of Don King the battle for equal access at media press tables (NBA, NFL and MLB) continues to be an on-going battle for blacks in media. For a long time Don thought the only people who could coordinate media press conferences and press tables were white. He finally hired long time New York Amsterdam sports columnist Howie Evans shortly before the Mike Tyson and Buster Douglas fight in Philly. The honeymoon was short and Howie had to end up telling him to kiss-off.
Don is one of the best examples, of Sam Greenlee’s best selling book The Spook That Sit by the Door. Unlike Greenlee’s character King’s goal has always been to keep the brothers out. He has never been Black and Proud, only “Green and Greedy.” He is truly one those brothers that you can take out of the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetto out of him. My problem, I never kissed up to him like other media types. My success in the media and the community has been “Against All Odds.” I realized Ali had Don King’s number at the press conference in New York for the fight in Zaire with George Foreman. He looked over at King and said “I know you got him, but I am going to fool all of you suckers” and he did. That was PRICELESS.
Ali's gestures of kindness go on and on. There was the hundred dollar bill he gave to me for gas and food to help get me and my crew back to DC after we taped the interview in your hotel room. The Deer Lake press conference he singled me out to sit on the rock with as Pat Patterson stood behind us. This all led up to my first television special in 1975 aired on NBC affiliate WRC-TV 4 here in DC he was my special guest. This event marked the first time a black man hosted and produced his own sports special on the network.
I remember the time in Chicago after a training session you invited me back to the dressing room for an update on how things were going. We talked for about thirty minutes while you were getting a massage we both fell asleep. I remember Howard Bingham coming into the dressing room to wake me up and asking me to leave because you had to get some sleep. I still have not figured that one out! I also owe Rachman, and Gene Kilroy for getting you to sit down to look at our final edit made for the television interview. Gene was always a class act. I think he understood my struggle and kept me in the mix.
The one regret I have is that I didn’t take him up on his invitation to go to Zaire. I told him that I was not too happy about flying over all that water. He looked at me and made a sound of “cluck, cluck” meaning I was chicken and I was (smile). I remember when my wife Hattie, encountered HIM in the Philadelphia hotel lobby in the wee hours of the morning (Joe Frazier re-union)? I had gone out to pick up a newspaper. I found her in the lobby trying to explain to Ali who she was and I walked up and your eyes shown the love. You hugged us both, thanks for another PRICELESS moment.
I had planned to get out for his opening of his new museum but things didn’t work out. I had made arrangements to go out for Rachman’s wedding reception. I was hoping to kill two birds with one stone.
My Aunt Dorethea, she helped raise me, was celebrating her 90th birthday on that same weekend.In closing, I am still trying to get to Louisville, hopefully before Christmas. I have more incentive now that the champ has moved back home. If everything goes as planned I am going to give an annual scholarship in Muhammad Ali's name to a worthy kid who exemplifies the quality of character that made him the outstanding human being he is today. I will use Kids In Trouble, Inc as the vehicle for the award. Thanks for the memories and the PRICELESS moments.
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