In "Muham­mad Ali: Ath­lete of the Cen­tu­ry," a col­lec­tion of As­so­ci­at­ed Press sto­ries and vi­su­als, AP re­porters and pho­tog­ra­phers cap­tured the life of the box­ing cham­pi­on as he made news in the sports world and far be­yond. Here are two ex­cerpts from the book.

ALI-LIS­TON FIGHT

On Feb­ru­ary 25, 1964, a brash young fight­er named Cas­sius Clay stunned the ex­perts by beat­ing Son­ny Lis­ton at the Mi­a­mi Beach Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Clay, who lat­er changed his name to Muham­mad Ali, was a new breed of cham­pi­on.

"Ali changed the per­cep­tion of what a sports hero was," said Fer­die Pacheco, the fight­er's long­time physi­cian and one of his cor­ner­men for the Lis­ton bout.

"Back then, sports he­roes had to be self-ef­fac­ing, 'aw-shucks' kind of guys. Now here was a guy who told every­body he was the great­est and backed it up. But he did it with such spon­tane­ity and child­like glee that peo­ple ac­cept­ed it."

Pacheco was co-host of an NBC spe­cial com­mem­o­rat­ing the sil­ver an­niver­sary of the Clay-Lis­ton bout, which aired in 1989.

The show in­clud­ed the orig­i­nal closed-cir­cuit tele­cast of the fight and rare footage of the press con­fer­ences be­fore and af­ter the bout.

Lis­ton was an ex-con­vict with a dev­as­tat­ing left jab, a surly de­meanor and a bale­ful stare that scared most op­po­nents be­fore he ever threw a punch.

"To say Lis­ton was the Tyson of his day is to un­der­state it," Pacheco said. "Every­body they put in front of him, he knocked out. It didn't seem like there was a hu­man be­ing on earth who could beat him."

At times, peo­ple won­dered whether Ali was from this plan­et. At the weigh-in, he screamed at Lis­ton and be­came so ex­cit­ed that his blood pres­sure soared to a dan­ger­ous lev­el.

"He want­ed to con­vince Lis­ton that he was fight­ing a lu­natic," Pacheco said, "be­cause a bul­ly doesn't know what to do with a crazy man."

That was an act.

It was no act, how­ev­er, when Ali tried to quit in his cor­ner fol­low­ing the fourth round. Lin­i­ment that had been rubbed on a Lis­ton cut some­how got in­to Ali's eyes and prac­ti­cal­ly blind­ed him. Ali tried to con­vince his han­dlers to stop the fight but his man­ag­er, An­ge­lo Dundee, re­fused to throw in the tow­el.

"An­ge­lo saved Ali's crown," Pacheco said. "If he doesn't send him out for the fifth round, the fight is over."

With Ali strug­gling to see, Lis­ton quick­ly cor­nered his op­po­nent and be­gan pound­ing him with vi­cious body shots. But Ali staved off the at­tack, even­tu­al­ly re­gained his vi­sion and went on to win when Lis­ton failed to an­swer the bell for the sev­enth round.

"I knew Ali had the fight won af­ter he made it through the fifth round," Pacheco said. "Lis­ton hit him with every­thing he had, the kind of shots that knocked every­one else out, but they didn't have any ef­fect on Ali."

BLACK MUS­LIM

The new heavy­weight cham­pi­on, Cas­sius Clay, said Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 27, 1964, he had adopt­ed the Is­lam re­li­gion. He called Is­lam the best way to bring about last­ing peace.

"They call it the Black Mus­lims," the 22-year-old Clay said. "This is a press word. It is not a le­git­i­mate name. But Is­lam is a re­li­gion and there are 750 mil­lion peo­ple all over the world who be­lieve in it, and I am one of them."

He said he had made an ex­tend­ed study of the re­li­gion over a pe­ri­od of months and had be­come con­vinced it was "the truth and the light."

"A roost­er crows on­ly when it sees the light," he said. "Put him in the dark and he'll nev­er crow. I have seen the light and I'm crow­ing."

"Clay, who stopped Son­ny Lis­ton in their 15-round ti­tle fight in Mi­a­mi, Tues­day night, was re­lax­ing at his tem­po­rary quar­ters when he was told that the leader of the black su­prema­cy sect, Eli­jah Muham­mad, had told a meet­ing in Chica­go that the new ring cham­pi­on was a dis­ci­ple.

"That is true, and I am proud of it," Clay said. "But what is all the com­mo­tion about? No­body asks oth­er peo­ple about their re­li­gion. But now I am the cham­pi­on, I am the king, so it seems the world is all shook up about what I be­lieve.

"You call it Black Mus­lims, I don't. The re­al name is Is­lam. That means peace. Yet peo­ple brand us a hate group.

They say we want to take over the coun­try. They say we're Com­mu­nists. "That is not true. Fol­low­ers of Al­lah are the sweet­est peo­ple in the world.

They don't car­ry knives. They don't tote weapons. They pray five times a day.

"The women wear dress­es that come all the way to the floor and they don't com­mit adul­tery. The men don't mar­ry white women."

Clay said that his re­li­gion, which had brought him "in­ner peace," was re­spon­si­ble for his sen­sa­tion­al up­set vic­to­ry over Lis­ton, an 8-to-1 favourite.

"All they want to do is live in peace with the world. They don't hate any­body. They don't want to stir up any kind of trou­ble. All the meet­ings are held in se­cret, with­out any fuss or hate-mon­ger­ing."

"God was with me–I couldn't have done it with­out God," he added.

The new cham­pi­on said he as dis­turbed to find that the Is­lam group had drawn the fire of in­tre­gra­tionist forces among the Ne­gro peo­ple.

"We be­lieve that forced and to­ken in­te­gra­tion is but a tem­po­rary and not an ever­last­ing so­lu­tion to the Ne­gro prob­lem." he added. "It is mere­ly a paci­fi­er.

We don't think one peo­ple should force its cul­ture up­on an­oth­er.

"I get tele­phone calls every day. They want me to car­ry signs. They want me to pick­et. They tell me it would be a won­der­ful thing if I mar­ried a white woman be­cause this would be good for the broth­er­hood.

"I don't want to be blown up. I don't want to be washed down sew­ers. I just want to be hap­py with my own kind."

Clay said it was on­ly nat­ur­al that peo­ple of the same cul­ture and her­itage should live to­geth­er.

"An­i­mals in the jun­gle flock to­geth­er," he said. Mex­i­cans, Puer­to Ri­cans, Chi­nese and Japan­ese all live bet­ter if they are to­geth­er.

"I don't like hot Mex­i­can food and I would be un­hap­py if some­body made me eat it. At the same time, you may not like what I like–turnip greens and hominy grits, or coun­try mu­sic. If you don't like it you shouldn't have to ac­cept it." (AP)