LR visit: 'Like God' walked in the door

Gary Hogan was among an invited group waiting anxiously inside of a Little Rock boxing gym in November of 1990.

Hogan, then working as a sportscaster at KTHV, Channel 11 in Little Rock, had been summoned there the night before by Ray Rodgers, who operated the gym, adjacent to the Junior Deputy baseball fields.

Rodgers told Hogan that one of the most iconic sports figures of the time had promised to show up. Hogan, now an assistant athletic director at UALR, remembers at least one newspaper reporter and a handful of youth boxers waited anxiously that day, staring at the gym's backdoor.

When it opened to allow the guest of honor to walk through, it didn't matter that it had been nine years since Muhammad Ali last stepped in a boxing ring, and more than a decade since he was last known as a world champion.

"It was like God had walked through the backdoor of that gym," Hogan said Saturday. "The kids just stared at him."

Ali, the three-time heavyweight world boxing champion, died Friday in Arizona at 74. A day after his death, two figures who were at his last Little Rock appearance remembered the day fondly for Ali's graciousness to take out the time to meet with a handful of kids he didn't know then and likely never saw again.

"That was the real human side of him that a lot of people never knew about or never saw," Rodgers said. "He was totally at ease with the kids."

The meeting came about thanks to Ali's planned visit to Pine Bluff and one of Rodgers' old connections.

On Nov. 10, 1990, Ali served as the grand marshal in the Arkansas-Pine Bluff homecoming parade.

Rodgers, a longtime boxing trainer who still owns the gym that Ali visited, had read about his trip to Pine Bluff and got connected with Ali's public relations people.

Rodgers, through national Golden Gloves events, had become friends with Joe Martin, a Louisville, Ky., police officer and trainer who helped Ali's start in the sport.

Eventually, Rodgers was told that if he had someone meet Ali at the Little Rock airport and provide a police escort, Ali would make time to visit the gym.

"So, I called the sheriff, and said I needed for him to get Muhammad Ali from the airport and he sent two squad cars to get him," Rodgers said. "And they did that, and they had one car in front of Ali and one car in the back all the way to Pine Bluff. It paid off for him and it paid off for us."

In between was Ali's visit at Rodgers' gym, when he talked with visitors, shadow-boxed with local kids, showed off his footwork, posed for pictures and signed autographs.

"He was very gracious, very personable," said Rodgers, who still has pictures from the day lining his gym office.

Rodgers guessed the visit was about an hour, however, a story published in the next day's Arkansas Gazette noted it was a bit shorter, lasting about 23 minutes and watched by about 200 people.

"For most, seeing was plenty," former columnist Jim Bailey wrote. "You don't often get to share a building, even briefly, with living legends."

Ali was 48 at the time, and most of Rodgers' youth boxers weren't alive during his prime, but it didn't matter that day.

"For the next year, all I heard was 'I'm going to be another Muhammad Ali,'" Rodgers said. "None of them have made it yet, but they're working on it."

Hogan was one of a few journalists invited by Rodgers to get an interview.

"I was just jumping out of my shoes," said Hogan, a longtime boxing devotee and a participant in several exhibition matches through the years.

Hogan couldn't remember Saturday if he ever got around to doing the on-camera interview. But he did shake the former champ's hand and got an autograph on a Sports Illustrated photo from Ali's third fight with Joe Frazier in 1975.

"Meeting him and shaking his hand is something that will be ingrained in my mind forever," he said.

Rodgers said Saturday that he wouldn't call Ali the greatest heavyweight fighter in history -- that would go to either Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis or Rocky Marciano -- but will always remember that Thursday in November.

"It was wonderful," he said. "It was a blessing to have him there."

Sports on 06/05/2016