The greatest

I always watched Wide World of Sports. It was a Sunday afternoon ritual. Jim McKay, Howard Cosell, those yellow blazers, and whatever random sporting event they were covering. (Based on this early experience, I would have projected cliff diving to feature much more prominently in my life than it actually has.)

I watched with my dad, mostly. Probably my brothers were around, too. But it was my dad I was aware of, in the room, following the standings of the giant slalom or weightlifting. And it's my dad I thought of immediately when I heard this morning that Muhammad Ali had died.

Wide World of Sports was the Muhammad Ali show for a lot of those years (with short breaks during which it become the Evel Knievel show). Howard Cosell was Ali's foil. Wide World previewed the fights, showed the fights, interviewed Ali before, after, and for all I can remember, during the fights. Cowell and Ali, Ali and Cosell, verbally jabbing at each other, engaged in a joyous dance, each endlessly amused by the other, needing each other.

Ali was on Wide World so much because he was a personality. He must have been great for ratings. And because of that, I felt ... odd about him. It wasn't always about the sports, is what I realized. Often it was just about putting entertaining, unpredictable people on air and waiting for the fireworks. I intuited, in a childish way, that Cosell was something of a parasite, when it came to Ali. I was disturbed that he could get so far by so blatantly hitching his wagon to a star. (There was more to Cosell, too, I know, but the relationship still felt one-sided.)

What I wasn't quite sure about was whether I should be equally disturbed by Ali playing along. Was he in on the joke? Was he doing an act for the cameras? Was he giving the people what they want? Or was he desperate for attention? In my world, one was expected to be self-deprecating and gracious. All the boasting and grandstanding -- it made me uncomfortable. And the Wide World machine enabling and encouraging it, egging him on. I really did not know what to think.

Boxing was different in those days, for sports fans. Now the title fights are all on pay-per-view. They're still very popular, no doubt, but they aren't a mass-market product. Back then they were on network television and we all watched them avidly. When Ali fought, that's when my confusion melted away. He was actually engaged in a different sport than his opponents. He was playing a different game. He could tell the whole world his exact strategy, like the "rope-a-dope" (which I remember so well), and still nobody could do anything about it.

Someone who could back up his braggadocio with actual domination -- someone who was bigger than life in a seventies wide-lapel suit and in boxing trunks -- someone who made for equally great copy in his interviews as in his contests. That's what I wasn't prepared to understand. Someone who always played his own game and expected us to come to him, in the media world and in the ring alike. I didn't know how to judge that, how to value it.

Race was a factor, there's no doubt. We were privileged white folks. I had very few black classmates in my private schools, and at least in the arenas where I interacted with them, they displayed few cultural traits or habits that weren't my own. We employed a black maid. Dad interacted with black truck drivers or other workers in his job sometimes, I knew. Our large and prosperous church was all white. Obviously I wasn't comfortable with black assertiveness, black speech patterns, black politics, black power. Obviously I was bound to see it as alien, as a threat, even if I had the most generous of curiosities.

I watched with my dad, and part of my discomfort was my suspicion that he wasn't okay with the changes in sports that Ali represented. I idolized and learned my sports fandom from my dad. I didn't know whether I should be okay with them or not. But we kept watching, together. There was never any question that when it came to the fights, these were monumental events, and that Ali's triumphs represented a historic dominance of the sport.

That ambivalence mixed with fascination defined my view of Ali during childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. Boxing moved away from the mass market, and I stopped paying attention to it. It wasn't until the 1996 Atlanta Olympics (which Noel and I attended) that Ali re-entered my consciousness in a big way. I was stunned by the significance of that event, by the courage of the fighter bowed by disease standing up once again to be seen, taking it as his due. In subsequent years, the documentaries When We Were Kings and The Trials of Muhammad Ali (both tremendous, powerful films) filled in the massive gaps in my knowledge. I don't remember Cosell asking about, or Ali talking about, resisting the draft -- maybe he did and I just didn't know what was going on. I was ignorant of all the context surrounding the Rumble in the Jungle. I was ignorant. I'm glad in a way that I was too conflicted to have a strong opinion, besides just fascination. I didn't know enough to have an opinion.

Since then I've read David Remnick's biography. I've read many great sportswriters painting a picture of the man, in all his dimensions.  (Check out Jerry Izenberg's obit, just for a sample.) He has only grown larger, more imposing, more improbable with each detail. What I wasn't equipped to appreciate until only a few years ago, I think (having been fortunate enough to be educated by many eloquent, thoughtful, forceful, patient people of color on social media, especially), was how important he was as a black man. How his politics and religion unapologetically flowed from that singularly American experience. How paying attention to that could teach me things I could never learn on my own.

Muhammad Ali made me a better, more well-rounded, more nuanced and perceptive person for paying attention to him, for thinking through what he showed me, especially when it was uncomfortable for me to do so.

Yet he didn't exist for my benefit. That's what made him the greatest. He was exactly the person he wanted to be, almost from the moment he burst onto the scene until the day he died. I'd thank him, only it's beside the point. Better to say to the universe: We didn't deserve that. We're grateful.

Fathers

Looking around at my friends, my students, and the news, I know how lucky I am for the fathers in my life. We don't get to choose our fathers. But if we did, I know the line for mine would be very long. It was always a source of some inchoate pride for me that my dad was so well liked and well respected in our social circle. He's genuine, fun to be around, easy-going, and great company.

We do get to choose our kids' fathers, but we might not have suitability for fatherhood as the first consideration when we do. When Noel and I got married, I certainly wasn't picturing the way our life is arranged now, with him staying home and assuming primary childcare responsbilities. Anybody who has met our kids, though, knows what an amazing father he's turned out to be.

I read in the paper about, see on television, and occasionally -- sadly -- meet fathers whom none of us would want in our lives. None of us go to a school to learn how to be parents; we learn by observing, for better or for worse, the people who raise us. If it took an unbroken string of perfect parenting for us to be able to do a good job, we'd be in trouble. So I feel doubly fortunate that both I and my children got such a head start. Love you, Dad. Love you, Noel. Happy Father's Day, everyone.

Dad rock

I heard a story on NPR driving home this afternoon about what songs our dads were listening to when they were our age. I haven't asked my dad what his favorite might have been in his forties, but judging from my memory of long commutes listening to Luther Masingill on WDEF -- master of the news, traffic, and MOR pop format -- it was probably Anne Murray's "You Needed Me."

My dad loved the adult contemporary female singers -- all the better if they had a country streak (though I never knew him to listen to country music per se). Olivia Newton-John hit a chord, as I recall; Barbara Mandrell was one of his idols. When he and mom went to Vegas for a convention and he got to see Mandrell in concert, he seemed genuinely thrilled. (Naturally as a teetotaller and non-gambler, the shows were the main attraction of Sin City, and he forgave them if they went a little blue.)

I've written before, but probably can never write enough, about how important my dad has been in my life. He taught me optimism and loyalty, two principles that form the bedrock of the approach I try to take to my life. He and I don't see eye to eye on many matters of ideology, but he's always been sincere in his beliefs, never an opportunist or a reactionary, and that I deeply admire. Reading his devotional blog, I recognize his honest search for truth, although we start from quite different premises.

And the way that our world views overlap like the halves of a stereoscopic image, slightly different angles that add up to the same fundamental values, describes the music we listened to as well. I grew to love the version of pop that my dad responded to, even though my teenage ears yearned at the time for something harsher, younger, and (I thought) more authentic. It was at least secular, concerned with feelings I recognized as the hallmarks of adulthood (love in all its manifestations and results, good and bad); it was a closer cousin to the pop and rock my friends and older siblings sent my way than the hymns on the local Moody Bible Institute affiliate favored by my mother. Sharing it even without comment felt like a point of agreement.

It was always that way with my dad. What we shared was more important than what separated us, and listening ears were always open. Happy Father's Day, Dad.

Patriarch

Some people would consider my life a success. I have a wonderful marriage, two gorgeous and brilliant children, minimal debt, an advanced degree, and a prestigious job. And it probably looks like I did it all myself. What you can't see is that I owe it all to my dad.

My dad is a laid-back character. It's not in his nature to push people. His high expectations are quiet. His motivational method is invisible. Yet he and my mother raised three children with three masters degrees and two doctorates between them, all occupying high positions in the field of education. He built a business he inherited into a major cog in the food chain in our community. I remember him joking about being one of the "community leaders" at his local Kiwanis Club; "gotta go hang out with the CL's," he would say. But of course he was a leader. He was never the loudest voice, but everybody listened to him.

Nothing has been more influential in my life than the words my dad repeatedly said to me: "You can do whatever you want to do." I'm sure there were times when he and my mom wondered if that assertion was misleading, as I went for a Ph.D. in a field with no clear job market. But more than anything else, my life has been shaped by the fact that I never thought to doubt my dad. I knew that my opportunities were limitless, and I simply acted on that knowledge. I didn't give a moment's thought to pursuing a career on the basis of job security or ease of entry or renumeration. I did what I wanted. And that has made all the difference.

Even when I was trying my parents' love and patience most severely, even when we disagreed about almost everything, Dad was always there. "We can always talk," he would say, and he didn't mean it as a prescription -- it was a description. No matter what, we could have a meeting of the minds. Our difference remain, but they're matters of approach, perspective, and philosophy. They're trivial compared to the common interest in thinking, talking, reading, learning, and finding the good in life every day. And Dad always treated them that way.

There are a lot of remarkable dads who deserve tributes on this Father's Day, including the one sitting next to me in the living room, the father of my amazing children, who deserves so much credit for their optimism and accomplishments. But I hope they will all forgive me if I put them second to the man who raised me and believed in me. Dad, it's not just Father's Day obligation when I say you're the best. It's just the truth.

Family business

Mandy asks:

I would like to know what influences your family has had on you to bring you to where you are today. You have shared some in the past about growing up, etc. but what do you bring to the table now from interactions with parents, siblings and others.

Your question gives me a great excuse to write about my dad. Thanks.

I'm the only daughter out of three children, and from the beginning, I gather, I was daddy's girl. Some of my most cherished memories are fall Saturdays in my preteen years, when I hopped in the truck with Dad and drove the thirty miles out of town to our farm property. Sometimes all three of us kids went, but sometimes it was just me. We'd care for our dwarf fruit trees, pick blackberries, drag hay out of the barn for the cows, and listen to Tennessee football on the portable radio. And on the way back, I could usually persuade Dad to stop for an Icee at the drive-thru Golden Gallon, a convenience store concept that still fascinates me (there was no store per se, just two large coolers intersected by a six-foot hallway; the attendant slid back the door, you told her what you wanted, and she handed it out to you).

My dad always told me that I could do whatever I wanted to do, and I never thought to question that assertion. When I think of "supportive" parents, I picture clapping and cheering on the sidelines, or serious discussions about life options. With my dad, it wasn't any particular demonstration -- it was just an easygoing confidence that sent the unmistakable message that everything would work out (another of his favorite maxims). When my dad was proud of me -- which he would say with a chuckle, as if it were a joke that he even had to say it out loud -- I was on top of the world.

He also gave me the curiosity about the world that led me into academia and continues to motivate me every day. Dad liked to show me how things work, but he also wasn't afraid to wonder about what he didn't know. After all of us kids graduated college, he turned over the family business to one of his long-time employees and became a high school history teacher. Even though he only got to do that for a few years before retirement, it was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. It's a striking occurrence that all three of his children went into education -- two college professors, and the founder/headmaster of a private school.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to ask Dad some questions about his young adulthood. I learned for the first time that he had no desire to go into the business that his father had started, a brokerage that bought fruits and vegetables from agribusiness and sold them to Chattanooga grocery stories. His two younger brothers, however, weren't bound for the business, either, and my grandfather made a deal with Dad -- if he took a job in the Wayne L. Bowman company to learn the ropes, he'd get support setting up housekeeping with my mom. Dad agreed, majored in accounting, became a CPA, and dutifully went back to Chattanooga to take his place as the heir apparent.

I was stunned by Dad's frankness about this detour in his life. It occurred to me that my success rested on advantages I'd been given in my upbringing that were directly tied to this compromise in my father's dreams. He made a very good living, and none of us ever set foot in public schools. We went to the exclusive prep schools that paved our way to college scholarships and graduate school. I never thought of us as rich -- that label was reserved for my classmates with doctor or lawyer fathers, the ones who lived in exclusive neighborhoods on Lookout or Signal Mountains -- but we were well enough off to give us kids everything we needed to jumpstart our dreams. And remember, Dad always said we could do whatever we wanted, so those dreams were absolutely unlimited.

I believe I've taken with me throughout my life that unconditional support, that essential optimism, and that confidence that comes from always having someone who understands. Even when my dad and I disagree, and we certainly do disagree on a great deal, I know he agrees that I have to figure it out for myself, and that he respects my efforts. As the years go by and students come and go from my classroom, I see very few who have that kind of relationship with their parents, and I am ever more grateful for the way my dad has made my life possible.

Thanks so much for the question, Mandy. Who's got another?