Family Lore Fact-Check: Finding The Teen Muhammad Ali Boxed Along The Way
at 4:00 am NPR
Every family has that story you ve heard a thousand times. It s swapped at family reunions, over holidays or at birthday parties. Sometimes the edges change, or details get added, but the shape of the story is always there â that one persistent detail that always gets the reaction.
For Miriam Colvin, the story was about a boxing match: A young farm boy from Indiana facing off against a 14-year-old kid from Kentucky. There was a broken three-legged stool. The farm boy was wearing swim trunks and a tank top. Or was it tights and military boots? The details weren t the point. The point was that the scrawny 14-year-old â who beat the farm boy to a pulp â was named Cassius Clay.