The reach of Muhammad Ali, who died Friday at the age of 74, extended all over the world, including into North Vancouver.
After Ali passed away, North Shore News reader Stu Gibbs sent in the above photo, showing The Greatest playfully squaring off against Ron Gibbs, Stu’s father. Ron was North Vancouver’s city clerk for nearly three decades, and his office was used for a CBC interview with Ali prior to his bout against George Chuvalo in 1972.
North Shore sport historian Len Corben wrote about the encounter in his column with the North Shore Outlook newspaper. According to Corben, Ali was training at the Northwest Eagles gym in North Vancouver and went across the street to the old city hall on West Fourth Street to do the radio interview. After the interview the ever-playful Ali emerged from Gibbs’ office holding a rose while also putting up his hands in a sparring position. Gibbs, an accomplished athlete himself in his younger days, returned the pose, although the camera caught him a little too early, making it almost look as if he is thumbing his nose at the champ.
“Ali was a very polite and outgoing person,” Gibbs wrote in letter that was displayed with the photo at city hall. “I always look back with pleasure to the day I met a great boxer and a great humanitarian.”
Ali topped off his visit by signing the city’s guest book, complete with the address and phone number of the New Jersey house he was living in at the time.
The full story is collected in Corben’s book Play It Again! A Century Plus of North Shore Sports Stories (Little Lonsdale Publishing Company, 2013).
