Craziest Story Ever: How I met Muhammad Ali
Many people have had the privilege to meet Muhammad Ali. But I assure you, no one has done so quite like this. In the summer of 2002, I was with my family returning from a 10 day vacation in Boston/Cape Cod. We drove the whole way there and back to our home in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We were about an hour from home, heading south on I-69 which connects the Indiana/Michigan border, when one of the craziest and most random experiences of my life took place. At this time Muhammad Ali and his wife lived in Michigan and were driving through Indiana to get to an event Muhammad was going to appear at.
So I’m in the back seat with my younger brother, dad driving with mom in the passenger seat. I’m half asleep, listening to music when my brother starts freaking out after a car passed us. A red SUV drove past and he swore he saw Ali looking right at him. He then convinces my dad of what he saw and the chase was on. Mom wrote on a piece of paper “Are you Ali?” and put it up to the window as my dad caught up to the car and we passed them. This time Ali is looking right at all of us and WAVING! We couldn’t believe it. Sure enough, it was him. At this point we think we’ve already got a cool story to tell. But it was about to get much more interesting.
A few moments later, the Ali’s car goes to pass but instead slows down next to us. His wife, who was driving, is waving at my dad and instructing him with hand signals to follow them. My dad smiled and nodded, gave a thumbs up and we followed the car to the next exit. Just as we are nearing the end of the exit ramp, the Ali’s car pulls over to the side of the road and we follow behind. My dad at this point, cannot believe what is happening and tells us he’s going to go talk to Ali’s wife and see what exactly she wants to do. He talks her for about a minute, comes back to the our car and tells us “O.k. guys, lets get out. He wants to meet us!” (I just got chills while writing about this moment all over again.)
So we all get out and walk towards the Ali’s car passenger side and the wife says hi to all of us. She states “Muhammad saw the look on your faces and made me pull over to meet you. He feels like young people don’t recognize him anymore due to his disease and he got very excited at your reactions.” She then opens the door and out comes this towering man. I forgot this guy was the HEAVYWEIGHT champion of the world for years. And he was still huge, all 6'3 240 lbs of him. I’m the tallest in my family at 5'11, but only weighed about 170 at this point. The size difference was laughable.

He starts doing is shadow boxing routine, fainting punches at us and showing off with a big grin on his face. He then shakes my hand and fakes a punch at me, which actually scared me pretty good. I’ll never forget his massive hand engulfing mine. After he shakes everyone’s hand and has a moment with us, we all gather round for a group photo. After this, he steps back to the car for a moment, to then hand each of us an autographed document he signed right on the spot. We now have 4 Muhammad Ali autographs, and being the young collector I was, I knew we just hit the jackpot. We then thanked the Ali’s, got back in the car and drove the rest of the way home.
This was truly one of the most unique and unforgettable moments that will ever happen to me and a story I love to share.
TM
