September 19, 2012
Ali Goes to Mars: The Lost Interview
It was in the summer of 1966 when a star-struck 17-year-old set out to interview his idol: Muhammad Ali. Twenty miles from the South Side of Chicago, in Glencoe, Ill., Michael Aisner was calling repeatedly to the gym where the boxing champ was training. Finally, a man named Mr. Shabazz — Jeremiah Shabazz, perhaps? The man who introduced Ali to Islam? — picked up.
“Where are you from?” Shabazz asked the boy.
“I’m from WNTH, a high school radio station,” Aisner said.
“The champ doesn’t have time to talk,” he told him.
Aisner called back two days later. And then two days after that.
“Can I interview the champ?” he asked again.
Finally, Shabazz relented.
“Ok,” he said. “The champ will meet you.”
Jonas Dees is a Visual Interface Designer for the University of Illinois College of ACES in Urbana, IL.