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I’ve been a boxing fan since I was a kid. My father and I used to listen to Rocky Marciano fights on the radio.

I was a college freshman in 1964 when I saw Muhammad Ali beat Sonny Liston to become heavyweight champion of the world.

I was determined to go see the fight. It was being shown on closed circuit television at a place called The Mosque in the heart of downtown Richmond, Virginia.

The next day I was to turn 19 years old. My college buddies said if I went to the fight I might not live to see it. Racial relations in Richmond at the time were not the best.

I went anyway. If there was another white guy in the audience I didn’t see him. I remember being nervous walking in, but once I got to my seat in the front row of the mezzanine and the broadcast began I knew I had made the right decision.

I admit I didn’t think Ali would win. Liston looked every bit the “big, ugly bear” Ali had called him. When he sat in his corner unable to come out for the seventh round the place went wild.

Color didn’t matter. We were all Ali fans.

That was the first of several closed circuit Ali fights I saw – the second Liston fight, the Jerry Quarry fight in Atlanta when he made his comeback, the first fight he had with Joe Frazier when he lost, and the “Rumble in the Jungle” when he beat George Forman to regain the title.

Everybody loves Ali now, but they didn’t back then. At the beginning whites didn’t like him because of his boasting, but when he refused to be inducted into the army he became the most hated sports figure in the nation even among many blacks.

More than that he was stripped of his heavyweight title and lost his license to box. For all practical purposes Ali lost his ability to earn a living for being against war, especially the one we were fighting in Viet Nam.

The only sports broadcaster or commentator who defended Ali for his stand was Howard Cosell – the only one.

Cosell was bigger than life just like Ali. You either loved him or hated him, there was no in-between. I was one of his admirers.

He was convinced that Ali had been judged guilty and sentenced to exile in the court of public opinion without ever having a trial. A 9-0 Supreme Court ruling in 1971 proved Cosell was right.

Ali’s stand was deemed genuine and the government dropped its charges against him. He was granted conscientious objector status by his draft board and got his license back to box again.

Still, while millions rooted for him when he fought Jerry Quarry, millions more hoped Quarry would beat him to a pulp.

I saw every fight he ever had, and followed his life until his death on Friday. I once met him in the Cincinnati airport. He was gracious and soft spoken, with that sly smile of his that left no doubt he was the much older version of the likeable, brash kid he had been.

The rise, fall, and rise again of Muhammad Ali is a story that is as much about all of us as it is about him.

We are a quixotic people, as unpredictable as the weather. We love and hate, condemn and praise with changing winds, often saying today the opposite of what we said yesterday.

Thrust into the limelight because of circumstances not of his own making, Ali transcended boxing, becoming a symbol of the struggle of black Americans to gain respect along with rights.

He made us mad and he made us laugh. Most of all he made us see that we often judge people, especially public figures, before we know who they really are and what kind of character they have.

Ali received all kinds of awards and recognitions, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award any American can receive.

But when he was asked how he thought he would be remembered, he answered that he didn’t really know. Then he said how he wanted to be remembered. It said everything about the man he truly was.

“I don’t know, but I’ll tell you how I’d like to be remembered: as a black man who won the heavyweight title and who was humorous and who treated everyone right. As a man who never looked down on those who looked up to him and who helped as many of his people as he could– financially and also in their fight for freedom, justice and equality. As a man who wouldn’t hurt his people’s dignity by doing anything that would embarrass them. As a man who tried to unite his people through the faith of Islam that he found when he listened to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And if all that’s asking too much, then I guess I’d settle for being remembered only as a great boxing champion who became a preacher and a champion of his people. And I wouldn’t even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was.”

I think he will get his wish.

Rest in peace, Champ, rest in peace.