- Will you consider this, your friend floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee.

I'm Christine Zak-Edmonds.

And we'll hear from sports writer who truly knew the greatest Muhammad Ali.

(upbeat music) He really knew more than most about the three time heavyweight champ.

And their friendship unlikely as it may have been spanned a few decades.

Please welcome the greatest friend, David Kindred.

I'll call you a Dave from now on.

- Thank you Christine.

Very happy to be here.

- Well, we are so glad to have you because PBS is having this special, four-part special on Muhammad Ali.

And I mean you're from Atlanta, Illinois, how did you get to be his friend?

Everybody around the world knew him.

- Well from Atlanta, I worked at the pantograph in Bloomington for the time I was at Illinois Wesleyan and then two years after then I went to Louisville, Kentucky which was Ali's hometown.

I was just a kid working the desk.

I wanted to be a writer.

They knew that.

They'd hired me as a writer but I had to fill in until there was a writing opportunity.

One day someone comes in and, hey boss.

Everyone was my boss at that time said, "Clay is in town, go find him."

Well, the Louisville newspaper at the time still called him Cassius Clay.

So it was very easy to find Cassius Clay in Louisville.

By then it was 1966.

Ali had been the heavyweight champion for two years.

He had changed his name to Ali.

I just went to the west end of Louisville, near where he had lived and said, "Anybody's seen Cassius."

Everybody had seen Cassius because he wanted to be seen.

So I spent the full day with him then.

Had my four year old son with me at the time.

So we carried him around.

Ali carried my son, Jeff, around all day.

We just went to Ali's old places, saw a telephone pole that Ali thought was famous because Joe Louis once had leaned against that telephone pole.

So he showed me that telephone pole.

- So it wasn't even him having leaned against that telephone pole?

- No, not yet.

So we spent the full day together and then I wrote about him for the next 60 years.

- Amazing, and so he took you around and then is that the day he nicknamed you Louisville?

- No, because I was always around and later I became a columnist in Louisville.

So when I became a columnist then, I went to almost all of his fights.

Anytime he would fight and I'd be there.

I'm not sure he ever knew my name but he knew I was his guy from Louisville.

So that was the way that he beckoned to me whenever he needed me.

- Just an incredible story of friendship and long lasting.

And so here you are from, what was the population of Atlanta, Illinois?

- 1300.

- 1300.

And then you ended up knowing somebody who was known around the world.

- The most famous man in the world at the time.

He may still be the most famous man in the world.

- Could be.

- Most of the surveys during his time as the heavyweight champion showed that he was the most famous person in the world or the Pope was.

Sometimes it was the Pope, sometimes it was Ali depending on how loud Ali had been in the lately.

- Did anything ever surprise you with what came out of his mouth because he was braggadocious?

- No, he would, you know, we're taught as kids or we're taught even as adults that we don't talk about race.

We don't talk about religion.

We don't talk about politics.

We'll Ali talked about all of them all of the time.

So he was a writer's dream because you didn't have to interview him, you just had to listen.

In fact, if you were in a room with Ali and he saw that you didn't have your notebook open, he would scold you and say, "You gotta write this down, this is heavy, man."

(Christine laughs) You know, and so you'd prop up and pay attention and he never stopped talking.

Nothing surprised me.

I mean, anything was liable to happen at any time either physically, mentally, spiritually.

You know, it was, you know, obviously a great time of my life to be that close to him.

I saw 17 of his fights from ringside.

- You're in the front row a couple of times?

- I'm sorry.

- You were in the front row a couple of times, most of the times.

- I've been in the front row every time.

- All 17 times?

- Yeah, it was a different time.

It was before ESPN, for instance, before 24 hours sports news.

So it was a different time for newspapers.

Newspapers mattered.

Newspaper reporters mattered much more than they do now.

So we were important.

When newspapers mattered, the Louisville paper was always there then I went to the Washington post and the post I covered Ali there too.

- Because of your friendship with him that they moved you forward that way?

- Well, yeah, I mean, they knew that I knew him.

They knew that I could get to him.

I knew all the people around him so I could reach him anytime I wanted to, you know.

And so I was important in that sense.

And I liked him, I just liked him.

He was the greatest athlete that I've ever seen, football, basketball, baseball, I don't care what you talk about.

He was 6'3", 215, quick, strong, smart.

You know, he was just the greatest athlete that I'd ever seen or ever will see.

And so it was a privilege to be around him, you know, beyond all the other stuff.

And all of that other stuff was important.

And he was an important historical figure in addition to being a historical athlete.

- Yeah, yeah, and you had the front row seat.

- Front row seat, front row seat and I should tell you also the time that I was in bed with him.

- Well, yeah, I do wanna hear about that 'cause that's in your book (laughs).

- I though you might get to that.

- That's in your book.

- I didn't write it at the time because I was still kind of young at the time and it was kind of a odd thing.

- Definitely.

And it wasn't here was this?

- Early '70s.

You know, and I didn't write it at the time when I did a book on Ali and Cosell, Howard Cosell.

- And the name of the book?

- Name of the book, "Sound and Fury: Two Fateful Lives, One Powerful Friendship."

It's still available on Amazon.

So I began this book with a story that I had never told about a time in Ali's hotel suite in Las Vegas.

Ali was the most accessible of celebrities.

Everyone knew where he was in the hotel.

They knew that his room was open.

Come see him.

So I go to his room suite, everyone is there.

He's in a room over there, I'm here.

He sees me and he just beckons to me, "Louisville, come here."

Because he couldn't hear anything.

So I go in and I wanna talk to him about his entourage.

- And he had quite the entourage at every turn.

- Everybody was there.

He couldn't hear me even when I'm at the bedside.

So he raises up the corner of the sheet and says, get in.

So I don't know what you'd do.

(Christine giggles) The heavyweight champion of the world said, the most famous man in the world says, get in.

Well, I did, you know, anything for a story, right?

- Fully clothed, yeah.

- So, well, one of us had on clothes.

(Christine laughs) So I just interviewed him about his entourage.

He took my notebook and it was one of the regrets of my life that I cannot find that notebook.

I am a pack rat.

I've got everything, but I can't find that notebook.

And wrote down the names of his people and how much he was paying him per week.

By then he had pulled the sheets over our head like we were hiding.

- Oh my.

- Like we were kids hiding from the adults.

- A little flashlight (giggles) - And which we were.

And I just did the interview 10, 15 minutes about the fight and about his entourage.

And I said, thank you and I left.

- You left the room, - But I had to turn back and say, Ali, I need my notebook 'cause he still had it.

So I got my notebook and I wrote that 30 years later when I was a grownup.

- Did he say anything to you as you were leaving the room after you just?

- No, I said, Christine, anything could happen around Ali at any time.

It didn't make any difference what was going on.

- So nothing surprised you?

- Nothing, nothing, it was just another act in the long running circus that was Ali.

- And he really was very intelligent and he felt a lot of things from his heart.

What do you think is the biggest takeaway from a deep topic that you had gotten into that you probably didn't ask any questions but he wanted you to pay attention?

- Well, I think the thing that I come away from the entire Ali experience with is that he was a sweetheart.

He was not an educated person but he was a emotionally smart person.

And it was a great adapter.

He was a great mimic actually.

If you hear Ali tell a story, you can have a dozen people around a table.

In fact, a guy showed this as an example of one time, tell a story.

This guy tells a story.

This guy tells the same story.

This guy tells the same story, kind of like telephone.

It gets a little bit different all the way around until it gets to Ali.

And then Ali tells the story better than anybody told the story because he's a great mimic, great showman and just an all around nice guy really.

You know, off camera, he was a kind hearted guy.

- And very generous.

- Well, it gets complicated politically with the nation of Islam.

As long as he was a member of the nation of Islam and Elijah Muhammad was the head of the nation of Islam, Ali was a reviled figure.

Once the Elijah Muhammad died in 1974, Ali became a different person.

He was free of the bond that he felt with Elijah and he became a different person.

Then the real Ali, the Ali that I saw up close, the kindhearted sweetheart that wanted you to like him that's what he wanted all the time.

Just like me, like me became the most revered guy.

He went from reviled to revered in a way that probably no great political creature ever had.

- But you weren't around when he changed his name?

- No, he won the heavyweight championship in 1960, beating Sonny Liston in Miami Beach.

The next day he said that he was, well, he didn't use the name the next day but he was asked if you are, quote, card carrying member of the nation of Islam?

He had no idea what that question meant.

But he said, if you mean, am I loyal to Elijah Muhammad?

Yes, and then he went off on a racist rant.

But the interesting thing he said that day and that formed his character forever was I don't have to be what you want me to be.

- I can be me.

- I am me.

And that's the way he lived his life from then on.

It was an important to African-Americans.

It was important in the opposition to the war in Vietnam.

It was the basis of all of it.

I don't have to be what you want me to be.

- We don't have anybody like that really today, do we?

- Well, nobody will be that blunt about it.

Nobody will be that direct about it.

Ali didn't care.

I mean, he was willing to go to jail.

He was sentenced to five years.

He was willing to go.

Gets complicated.

- It really does.

But you're right, he wasn't afraid to speak his mind and stand up for what he believed in.

And so few people can do that especially today.

So you were also with him when he lost a couple of times.

How did he handle that?

When you were with him, how?

- You know, probably the greatest sports event I ever went to was the first Ali-Frazier fight in 1971 at Madison Square Garden.

Ali was undefeated.

Joe Frazier was undefeated Until that night, Frazier won that fight, won a decision, knocked Ali down in the 15th round.

Ali for the only time ever didn't come to a press conference after that fight.

The next morning though, he talked about it.

And by then he had convinced himself that he had won the fight.

He had not won the fight.

- He knew how to put the spin on it.

- It was clear that Frazier had won the fight.

Frazier was a great fighter too and never got full credit for the greatness that he had.

- Because of the timing.

- Yeah, you know, Ali was everyone's hero at the time.

And to see Frazier win destroyed a lot of dreams.

But he came back, fought Frazier two more times, beat him twice.

Ali was good in defeated actually.

You know, I saw him lose the Leon Spinks, should never have lost to Leon Spinks but he just hadn't trained at all for that.

He took Leon Spinks too highly.

The Thrilla in Manila, I was not there.

I did not go.

My newspaper thought it cost too much money to go to Manila.

Yes, so I didn't see that fight.

Saw it on the Coast Circuit, one of the great fights ever.

You know, it's a wonder that either guy came out of that alive.

And it was one of the reasons that that Ali became later, you know, damaged goods.

- Right, and I wanna talk to you about that.

So even when he carried the Olympic torch at the Atlanta Olympics, he was already suffering.

And how did you communicate with him at all once that part of his life took a turn?

- Yeah, that started, I just think of it as brain damage.

I don't go for the Parkinson's thing.

Maybe Parkinson's developed from the brain damage, I don't know.

But if you've been hit in the head a million times and he was 'cause he had been once upon a time, he'd been Cassius clay.

You couldn't touch him.

You couldn't reach him.

He was too fast.

When he became a Muhammad Ali, he was always there.

He was strong.

You could hit him.

He took all the punishment in the world.

And as we know from football players now who wear helmets and are protected from it, the brain still gets damaged.

Ali is wearing no helmet, has been hit in the head by people like Joe Frazier, Earnie Shavers.

So it's brain damaged.

And that became evident early '70s I say, voice became sored.

He wasn't as quick anymore to talk.

Wasn't as quick athletically.

And then I think the first time that I saw him that was really bad was like in the mid '70s and that's 20 years before Atlanta.

Atlanta was 96.

And I had seen him in the meantime, you know, the shaking, you know, I thought that he was gonna light himself on fire in Atlanta 'cause he was holding the flame and a flame is licking up his arm and he couldn't control it.

So I was afraid then.

I mean, I wrote about it that night because it was a great moment.

Nobody knew that it was gonna be Ali that lit the flame.

So it was a magic moment for America and for Ali.

- Well, and it was so respectful because of all that he had done for the world of sports in general.

- Well, he had, again, as I said, he went from revile to revered.

He was a living saint by the time he did the Olympics.

And that's a complicated thing too.

You know, that's a very complicated thing to figure out.

By then he was defenseless.

You know, he could no longer talk.

He could no longer rant.

You know, he could barely walk.

I spent the next morning with him after he lit the torch, the next morning, in his hotel room and laid on a bed.

- Again, I don't know, you and this guy.

- Well, this time, at least we both were dressed.

(Christine laugh) He was, just a single bed and I sat on the corner of the bed like this and he's here and his whole body is trembling.

The whole bed is trembling.

It was almost a seasick thing.

- Wow.

- And the torches lay in the corner of the room.

It had been a great moment for him but I'm not sure he even realized how great it was.

His friend, Howard Bingham, a professional photographer had persuaded him that lighting the torch would be a great thing for him because it was so big everybody in the world would see it.

Big, Ali liked anything big.

- He lived big.

- He lived big.

So the next day I can't even understand him, he can't talk.

- Was there anyone there to help interpret what he was saying?

- Yeah, Bingham was there and then he could help some.

I wrote about it.

It was very disheartening.

- For you?

- Yeah, because I had seen the most graceful, strongest, loudest man in the world and now here's this guy laying on the bed and the whole bed is trembling with his whole body as is trembling.

But he understood it was a big moment.

He understood it was a big moment for him.

- And you understand that all of your time with him was pretty big moment for you too, guy from little old central Illinois.

- I never really thought of that, I never literally.

I mean, I should have.

I mean, like if I had been half smart, I'd have collected the million dollars worth of memorabilia in 30 years but I never collected anything.

He gave me a sweatshirt one day at his training camp in Deer Lake.

That's the only thing I've ever had from Ali.

I didn't want anything.

- And that notebook you can't find.

- Yeah, I've got lots of notebooks with him in it but not that one.

You know, it never occurred to me that I was this kid from Atlanta, Illinois doing this because every day it was a great experience just to be there and to write about him because it was always fun.

And he was, as I said, best athlete that I've ever seen, ever will see, you know, and the greatest story that I will ever write about.

- That's awesome.

Do you have any regrets about, oh, you were gone for 45 years and then you came back to central Illinois.

What brought you back?

- Well, the newspaper business failed.

The whole print journalism business was failing by then.

I had done everything I had ever wanted to do.

I was writing for magazines.

I could live anywhere I wanted.

My wife had had a small stroke in Virginia and we had family here.

My sister lives in Morton.

My mother was living with her in Morton.

My wife had cousins all over central Illinois so it was kind of closing the circle, going home.

We'd been gone from '65 to 2010.

And so we moved back, found a place in the country.

I told the realtor, this is the good that I told the realtor, I wanna live in the country but I don't want to be able to see a corn field.

- Very good.

- Although in central Illinois that puts a realtor to a real test.

But we found a kind of place where I really have to work to see a corn field in the country out there beside Carlock and Congerville.

- And that's north of the interstate.

Is that where the lake is?

- Yeah, North of 74?

- I think I ended up there one time when I was looking for something else but it's beautiful.

(both giggle) - So been there 10 years now, loved it, got connected with the Morton High School-- - Basketball.

- Girl's basketball team.

Had a friend's daughter played.

I went to watch.

I couldn't sit there and watch a game-- - Without writing about it?

- The old war horse syndrome had to do something.

So I started writing about it and I've never stopped.

That has been fun.

- And you've been on 60 minutes a couple of times with that story and with your friendship with Muhammad Ali.

- 60 Minutes must have been really running out of subjects.

- I don't think so, I don't think so.

But did it come up when you were doing the Morton girls basketball?

Did it come up that you had this relationship with Muhammad Ali?

Or how did that come along?

- With the team?

No, no, I don't think I've ever talked about it.

There was never, you know, I just went to the game.

The girls didn't know.

As far as the girls knew, I was just a guy who was writing about their games.

They had no idea if I had ever written about Ali or if I'd written about Michael Jordan or Pete Rose or anything.

It didn't matter to them.

I'd spent 50 years at the very top of sports journalism and now I'm writing about the girls' high school basketball team - And giving them some recognition.

- Well, I just wanted to write.

I wasn't doing it out of the goodness of my heart or anything else.

I just wanted to write.

And they were a good subject.

They became a very good team and that made it maybe more fun.

I mean, if they had at one point, they had won 201 games and lost 14.

Now, maybe if they had one 14 and lost 201, I wouldn't have been writing about them every day.

But they were very good, always fun.

And I wrote about them as professionally and as seriously as I ever wrote about anything.

- Good for you.

So just real quick, we have a little bit of time.

Bucket list, what's one thing on your bucket list or have you done it all?

- I really have no, well athletically or journalistically, I have nothing to do.

- The bucket is still there.

- Yeah, I'm available for a addition to the bucket list.

- Okay, all right, and fill in that bucket with more memories.

- And I hope to do that from now until I can't type anymore.

- There you go, the typing.

Well, so nice to talk with you, Dave Kindred.

Amazing story and thank you for sharing those memories.

- Well, thank you Christine, I appreciate it.

- And I hope you appreciated it too.

And I hope that you'll watch the PBS specials.

He's part of that too.

There's four specials or a four part series, I should say.

So I hope you'll enjoy that.

You stay healthy and safe.

(upbeat music)