The meeting has had a powerful impact on Stevie personally and professionally.
“I met a legend last night and had my photograph taken with Muhammad Ali at the event in Old Trafford, a man I have researched over the years about total self motivation self belief.
His phrase is “suffer the pain in training now and live the remainder of your life years as a champion”. It was an unbelievable moment for me.
Only 6.5 years ago I was unemployed, so sitting last night with a senior manager of Fed Ex was a true inspirational moment that has given me the strength to do more in my life a lot more…
I am running two open day unemployment academies this week. This morning I carried out a web cam link to Inverness where my training team are now recruiting people for a 4 week course. I had the X Factor runner up from last year, Andy Abraham, on the phone wanting to talk to the candidates to motivate them to get on course. I met Andy the runner up of X Factor two years ago at an Ali event and just approached him and asked for his help and he kindly agreed. We now have formed a relationship with him and many more people to get people into a better place and back to work. I have got Andy on web cam for day 1 of my Inverness academy next week, so this journey will be interesting.”
Muhammad Ali is a retired American boxer and three-time World Heavyweight Champion, who is widely considered to be one of the best heavyweight boxing champions ever. As an amateur, he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. As a professional, he became the first person to win the lineal heavyweight championship three times.
In 1999, Ali was crowned "Sportsman of the Century" by Sports Illustrated and "Sports Personality of the Century" by the BBC.
Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali after joining the Nation of Islam in 1964, subsequently converting to orthodox Islam in 1975. In 1967, Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. military based on his religious beliefs and opposition to the war in Vietnam. He was arrested and found guilty on draft evasion charges, stripped of his boxing title, and his boxing license was suspended. He was not imprisoned but did not fight again for nearly four years while his appeal worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ali was well known for his fighting style, which he described as "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee". He was involved in several historic boxing matches, including three with rival Joe Frazier and one with George Foreman, whom he beat by knockout to win the world heavyweight title for the second time. He has only 5 losses (4 decisions and 1 TKO by retirement from the bout) and 0 draws in his career, while amassing 56 Wins (37 knockouts and 19 decisions).
The Muhammad Ali Center, a museum and cultural center built as a tribute to the champion athlete and his values, is located in Louisville, Kentucky's "Museum Row" in the West Main District of downtown.
The six-story, 96,750 sq ft (8,988 m2). museum opened on November 19, 2005 at a cost of $80 million. It also includes a 40,000 sq ft (3,700 m2). two-level amphitheatre and plaza, to be connected to the Louisville Museum Plaza upon its construction.
The cultural center features exhibitions regarding Muhammad Ali's core values on respect, confidence, conviction, dedication, charity, and spirituality. An orientation theatre helps present Ali's life from birth to the present. A mock-boxing ring is recreated based on his Deer Lake Training Camp. A two-level pavilion, housed within a large elliptical room, features Ali's boxing memorabilia and history. A large projector displays 'The Greatest', his fight, onto a full-sized boxing ring. There are also pods where one can view Ali's greatest fights on video-on-demand terminals that feature pre- and post-fight interviews.
Another exhibit offers individuals the chance to explore sense of self, others and purpose through an interactive terminal program. The final exhibits include 'Hope and Dream' and 'Global Voices'. 'Hope and Dream' is composed of over 5,000 tiles with drawings and paintings from children from 141 countries; they tell what they want to be when they grow up. 'Global Voices' is a similar project, in which the Ali Center asked questions to both children and adults from around the world. The answers were submitted through a variety of mediums, such as drawings and poems, and are now displayed in the exhibit.
Two art galleries, the LeRoy Neiman Gallery and the Howard L. Bingham Gallery, feature rotating exhibits that are located on the third floor.