Muhammad Ali's 75th birthday: Canadians recall their brushes with 'The Greatest'

Once said to be the most recognizable human on the planet, you would be hard-pressed today to find a boxing gym not adorned with an image of Muhammad Ali.

Seven months after his death, as we mark what would have been his 75th birthday on Tuesday, the man they called "The Greatest" continues to hold a profound influence on the Canadian boxing community.

In 1966, Ali came to Toronto for what is widely considered one of the greatest events in Canadian sports history — his legendary fight against Canadian heavyweight George Chuvalo at Maple Leaf Gardens.

The impact of Ali's visit to Canada, and his remarkable life, still resonate with five men who share their memories here:

'Born to be in radio'

Former Golden Gloves champion Spider Jones was a broke 17-year-old, just out of reform school, when he met the champ during his training sessions at Sully's boxing gym in Toronto leading into the Chuvalo fight. They would become friends.

One day, during one of their many discussions about soul music, Jones says Ali told him: "'I was born to be the champion of the world, and you was born to be in radio.'"

Underrepresented as a black person in the industry, Jones says he felt discouraged about his prospects until Ali gave him a pep talk.

"He told me, 'Listen man, if Jackie Robinson thought that way, there would never be a black man in the major leagues,'" Jones says. "'You get knocked down and you get back up, but you gotta go after what you believe in.'"

Jones landed his first radio show in the 1980s and became the first black Canadian to do a national show, on the Toronto all-sports station The Fan.

Today he says he's grateful to have been able to pay Ali's impact on his life forward by mentoring many young black Canadians.

'Fighting him in your dreams'

During his time in Toronto, Ali made a number of public appearances — one of which a then six-year-old boy named Robert Bath will never forget.

Only weeks after he started boxing, Bath was fighting in a local tournament when the heavyweight champion of the world unexpectedly showed up to referee.

"The luck I had with Ali being the ref [during my match] meant so much to me later in life," Bath says.

A photo of Bath with his famous adjudicator ended up in the Toronto Star the next morning, beginning the young boy's lifelong admiration for Ali.

"I don't think there's a fighter out there that Ali has not touched," says Bath, who had 26 amateur fights before going pro for a short period. "You were either imagining you were him, or you were fighting him in your dreams. He was the king."

'No one does it alone'

Mitch Chuvalo, also six at the time, saw Ali in person for the first time when the boxing legend fought his father in a packed, cigar-smoke-filled Maple Leaf Gardens.

"I stood up on my chair in the fourth row, screaming at the referee to get out of the way so my dad could hit Ali," Chuvalo jokingly recalls.

Now a teacher and coach at the University of Toronto Schools prep school, Chuvalo says he had a number of opportunities over the years to spend time with Ali, and got to observe firsthand the close relationship he shared with his trainers and management team — something that deeply impressed Chuvalo.

"No one does it alone. When you can be a midwife to someone's success, it's a great feeling," he says. "Which is why I enjoy being a part of the support system for young athletes in my own life today."

Man on the run

On April 28, 1967, Ali famously refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army, and was consequently stripped of his heavyweight title and boxing license.

At the time, there were many young men who had strong feelings against the war, and came to Canada to escape the draft. One of them was an academic from Cleveland named Richard Brown.

"I applied for my PhD at the University of Toronto to get away from all the chaos in the U.S. in 1968," says the now-retired high school teacher.

Brown moved to Toronto in 1969 and says he ignored the many draft notices he received in the early '70s.

"Ali's example told my generation we were on the right side and that there were other people that weren't going into the draft without putting up a fight."

Brown, who still lives in Toronto, says he and others like him owe their freedom largely to Ali's influence.

"Thankfully, enough people followed Ali's example that the FBI stopped chasing us. Otherwise we would have all been fugitives."

'He lit my fuse'

A 17-year-old Joe Manteiga had just immigrated to Canada in 1966 when his "hero" came to the city.

"I loved boxing, but there were no clubs on the small island where I grew up in Portugal," says Manteiga. "My cousin took me to Sully's gym days after Ali had left."

Manteiga, who now runs the gym, says he was so inspired by knowing that Ali had been at the club, he would go there every day just to watch the guys spar until one day he was invited to train.

He went on to have a career as a lightweight, and today continues to nurture athletes in what he calls the quick-moving "Ali style."

"Ali lit my fuse," he says. "And I just kept going."