Does pro football make strange bedfellows or what? After an exhibition charade, Vick bragged that "the sky's the
limit." How high the sky? We will have a better idea starting Sunday, when Vick is activated for his first meaningful game in 3 years. What does history tell us about his chances?
Let's start with Ali, a very good place to start any noisy debate. On April 28, 1967, Ali refused to take that one step forward at an Army induction center in Houston. That very same day, the New York State Athletic Commission stripped Ali of his title and snatched away his boxing license.
Other states followed. For 3 years, for chump change, Ali delivered clumsy speeches to college kids. He appeared briefly on Broadway in "Big Time Buck White." People worked feverishly to get him a fight, on an Indian reservation, on a barge beyond the 3-mile limit, in Pennsylvania ("Over my dead body," snarled commissioner Chuck Bednarik).
Even before the Supreme Court reversed Ali's draft-evasion conviction on a technicality, Ali was permitted to fight Jerry Quarry in Atlanta in October 1970. Showed glimpses of those swift hands and dancing feet, stopped Quarry on cuts in the third round.
Beat Oscar Bonavena 2 months later. And then signed to fight heavyweight champ Joe Frazier in Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971. Fought brilliantly, courageously, but Frazier was too strong, too determined, flooring Ali in the final round with a left hook that came whistling out of Beaufort, S.C. Joe won a unanimous decision.
Along the way, Ali somehow got the image of antiwar crusader and civil-rights activist. Which had to tickle the charismatic fighter who once declared, "I don't have to be what you want me to be."
