FAYETTEVILLE -- Three former Razorbacks have a great memory of "The Greatest" to share.
J.R. Ross, Tim Adams and Robin Smith all smiled amid their sadness upon learning last weekend's passing of heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali.
On Jan. 3, 1978, the day after Lou Holtz's Razorbacks beat prohibitive favorite Oklahoma 31-6 in the Orange Bowl, Ross, Adams and Smith "wrestled" with Muhammad Ali in Miami. They have the photo to prove it.
At Ross' urging, the three Razorbacks reserves bused to Fifth Street gym to watch Ali publicly spar before his fight with Leon Spinks.
"We were standing in the back but we had on these bright orange windbreakers that they had given us at the Orange Bowl," Smith said. "Ali saw us and said, 'Hey, where are you all from? We said, 'Arkansas.' He said, 'You all won last night! That's the only reason you all are in here. We only let champs in here.'"
Angelo Dundee, the legendary trainer of 15 world champions, invited the three to Ali's corner.
"Ringside with Angelo Dundee while Ali was sparring," Smith, who now lives in Houston, said. "It was so cool. He was sparring but he was having fun with the crowd talking to them between rounds and saying different things."
Things that were different than the what he said to his sparring partner, heavyweight champion to be Larry Holmes, the three recalled.
"He said some things to his sparring partner that I would not like to repeat," Ross, retired in Conway, said, noting they were said smiling. "And he told us, 'You boys had better not say that.'"
Ali concluded sparring and showered while Dundee talked.
"I remember Angelo Dundee telling us about an up and coming young boxer he was training that he was really impressed with: Sugar Ray Leonard," Adams said of the eventual welterweight, light middleweight, middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight champion. "Ali came back out and was the nicest guy you could imagine."
And ever the showman.
"I felt something that pushed me on the cheek," Adams, who lives in North Little Rock, said. "I turned and it was Muhammad Ali acting like he was hitting me and we kind of wrestled around and I think it ran on the front page of the Miami Herald."
It sure did, Smith said.
"He kind of started slap boxing Tim, playing around with him," Smith said. "So J.R. and I said, 'Let's get him' and jumped on his back. That's when they took the picture. I can't remember it word for word but it said something like: 'The Razorbacks were feeling their oats after their win over Oklahoma but they might be out of their league in this fight.' It was a cool couple of hours. In the picture Tim is in the front and I have got my arm around his neck and J.R., he's just the forehead behind Muhammad's head and it was his idea to come."
"All you could see of J.R. was his forehead and that was his nickname anyway," Adams said. "We called him "Forehead."
Ross got the last laugh.
"Yeah, they really enjoyed that," Ross said. "And of course that forehead is a lot bigger now because I lost more hair. I was the only one that really didn't have my face in the picture, but I am the only one with an autograph. I was the only one who kept Angelo Dundee's business card and he sent me the autograph."
Adams and Ross were avid Ali fans but not Smith until meeting him.
"In the '60s I wasn't a real big fan of some of the things he did," Smith said. "But once I read about him and got to meet him and realize what kind of person he was and the things he did, he seemed like a pretty good man. He did what he believed in and he didn't care what anybody else thought."
In a world mourning him, Ali leaves three Razorbacks who thought the world of him.
"It was a special event," Ross said. "One you never forget."
Sports on 06/08/2016