Joe Elsby Martin was Muhammad Ali’s First Boxing Teacher. Joe Elsby Martin came to Louisville Kentucky in 1937 and joined the Louisville Police Department, serving until his retirement in 1974. In 1938, he became a boxing coach at the local recreation center called Columbia Gym in Louisville (now the student center of Spalding University). In […]
Muhammad Ali listening attentively to Joe Martin. Six weeks after that fateful day, having lost his precious, beloved bicycle, 12-year-old Clay got into the ring with another boy his age. He was a white boy and Cassius Clay enjoyed his first victory. As the next several years of his training unfolded, Joe Martin took a […]
Cassius Clay was born on January 17, 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky. One day, he would become more commonly known as Mohammed Ali, and during his childhood, while out riding his bike, events unfolded that changed the true course of it. His brand-new $60 red and white Schwinn bicycle that he cherished was parked outside the […]
Nestled within the Catskill Mountains in New York was Grossinger’s Training Camp. It was an incredible location located next door to Grossinger’s resort camp and the Grossinger Hotel. The resort enjoyed its heyday in the 1950s. It offered a quiet retreat ideal for fighters seeking an escape from the concrete jungles of big cities. Sprawling […]