Who is Cassius Clay; if you asked the majority of the people in the United States who this was many people couldn't tell you. If you then asked the same people who Muhammad Ali (the name Cassius took after converting to Islam) is all of a sudden they all start sounding like boxing scholars. They start saying words like: the greatest, the fastest, brash, and cocky. All of these words do describe Ali but they don't start to reach the depth of his cultural stardom. His cockiness and work ethic in the ring and his conviction to his morals outside of it catapulted him to a status that most people will never reach, ICON.
             Muhammad Ali would start out his life as Cassius Clay in a little house in Louisville Kentucky. His father was a working class man that tried to scrape together a living as a sign painter (Grabsky). When Cassius was young he had a bicycle that he liked very much. There wasn't much money in the Clay household so this bike was very special to him. This is why Cassius go mad, so mad that he wanted to beat up the person that took it. His father asked him if he knew how to fight and Cassius said no. His father then started taking him to the boxing gym; this paved the way for the greatest boxer ever, to start his boxing career (Grabsky). The fact that he started from a modest background, and then worked hard to become the success that he is today is one on the main reasons why he is looked at as an icon today.
             Clay started his boxing career at the age of thirteen, and won the golden gloves by the age of seventeen. After he won the golden gloves he called his soon to be manger Angelo Dundee and told him that he was going to win the Olympic gold medal in two years (Grabsky). This cocky attitude was always a staple of Clay's persona. This cocky attitude ether made people love him or hate him, but either way every one knew his name and no one could forget his face. After two years of training Clay almost di...