Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., or more widely known as Muhammad Ali was born , on January 17, 1942, and was raised in middle-class Louisville, Kentucky in a clapboard house at 3302 Grand Avenue .  A white Louisville patrolman named Joe Martin, who had an early television show called "Tomorrow's Champions," started Ali working out in Louisville's Columbia Gym when Cassius was 12, there it was a black trainer named Fred Stoner who taught Ali boxing. Stoner taught him to move with the grace of a dancer.    

       At 18 Ali won the Olympic gold medal  Ali signed a contract (a 50-50 split) negotiated by a beginning professional in the history of boxing, with a 12-member group of millionaires called the Louisville Sponsoring Group.  Even from the beginning, it was clear that Ali was his own man; quick, original, and witty.  Ali knew that his rhymes and press-grabbing claims would bring more interest and more money into the sport of boxing.

ali training in his early days