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It is easy to wax nostalgic, to celebrate someone who today becomes a senior citizen and to speak reflexively about the most famous man in the world.

A lot tougher is answering the question: what does Muhammad Ali really mean right now, as he turns 65?

Perhaps less than some of us, old enough to have cast him as a hero, might hope.

For anyone under 40, Ali is a benign, sentimental figure from a vague past and a now irrelevant sport. For anyone under 30, he's been reduced to more of a brand name, like Elvis.

Lost, except on those who remember when, is the sense of newness, the fun, the danger and the hatred Ali generated long before he became so broadly loved and admired, and the scope of the sacrifice he was willing to make -- initially because he feared being killed in a foreign war and later because of his evolving political and religious beliefs.

Ali's infirmity, the fact that it's been two decades since anyone could actually hear him speak in his own, full voice, has prevented him from evolving as a public figure. He went from being Ali, name-in-lights, to being the sad, nearly silent, shuffling figure last seen during the coin-toss ceremonies for this year's Orange Bowl, almost in a heartbeat.

On that increasingly blank slate, others could attach their hopes and dreams and theories and sentiments. The latest, espoused in a new book and television special called Ali Rap, is that because of his famous, off-the-cuff (and often not-so-off-the-cuff) poetry, he was the true godfather of hip-hop culture. (On closer analysis, the argument doesn't really hold much water, but no matter. It's fun to consider.) With Ali, it has become much easier to discuss what he was, than what he is.

He was a beautiful, nearly perfect athlete, in an age when most didn't even lift weights, never mind ingesting steroids. He was an original talent in an extremely orthodox sport. There were other great innovators in boxing, including Ali's idol and role model, Sugar Ray Robinson, but taken as a whole, no one before Ali had ever fought the way he did.

He was a simple kid from Louisville who on the day he declared "I ain't got nothing against them Viet Cong" was apolitical and scared. He was a person who, though he would eventually embrace the racial separatist beliefs of the Nation of Islam, still retained a white trainer, Angelo Dundee, and an Hispanic doctor, Ferdie Pacheco, as key members of his entourage.

He was funny, he was quick, he could be cruel, he wasn't much of a husband, he was a brilliant self-promoter, he was an egotist, he was always worth watching, he was bad with money, he didn't know when to quit and he liked being Muhammad Ali so much that it cost him dearly.

And he was a whole lot braver than most of us. Brave enough to face down Sonny Liston and Joe Frazier. Brave enough to climb into the ring against George Foreman, knowing he was physically overmatched. Brave enough to stand in with Larry Holmes when he knew better than anyone that he had absolutely nothing left.

Brave enough to put his career on the line, his freedom on the line, even though there were face-saving alternatives available that would have ensured that he remained rich and famous.

He is . . . well, he is a kind of silent saint for a lot of people, even those who until very recently would never have considered dissenting on the Iraq war as Ali did with Vietnam. He is the focus of a feel-good industry that spins greeting-card sentiments about universal brotherhood, notions rather different from the thoughts of Elijah Muhammad he once so fervently embraced.

He is the progenitor of a whole generation of big-talking, self-celebrating professional athletes who, by and large, lack his wit, his hint of irony, who take themselves oh so seriously (Ali freely admitted that he lifted his act from a professional wrestler, Gorgeous George.) He is without a true heir when it comes to the more significant aspect of his legacy. Though they enjoy far more economic power and far more security than he ever did, professional athletes today are loath to risk a nickel in the service of their personal beliefs -- let alone sacrificing a championship, giving up a craft and opening the door to a prison sentence, as Ali did.

He is, in name, a marketing machine, finally enjoying the kind of wealth that ought to have been a given, but thanks to exploiters and bad management and his own naiveté, wasn't.

His is a sick, fragile man who now seems far older than his years. The keepers of his commercial flame will tell you that it's an act of God, a disease like any other, but it's hard not to believe that his brutal calling was in part responsible -- and so all of us who thrilled to watch him are as well.

Happy birthday, champ.

sbrunt@globeandmail.com

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