It was Muhammad Ali’s humanity that people responded to

One of the contributors to Thomas Hauser’s biography of Muhammad Ali told a story that sums up one — just one — aspect of the boxer.

Ali, then world champion, was strolling through a high school gym one afternoon, chatting to friends, when some kids shooting around at one end realised who he was. They threw the ball to him and Ali caught it, kept walking and talking, and flung the ball back over his shoulder without looking once at the basket.

It dropped through the hoop, of course.