Memorial Coliseum, January 28, 1974
When C told me her story about the Monkees concert yesterday, I remembered that Mom 93.10 had done a similar thing for me in 1974.
In the leadup to the second Ali-Frazier fight, I pestered my mom about going to the closed circuit broadcast of the fight. The fight wasn't on regular TV, and it wasn't being shown in my town. Instead, it was being shown in Corpus Christi, the "big" town twenty minutes away, at Memorial Coliseum (capacity 3,000).
I'd been there before with Mom, to see the Harlem Globetrotters. It seemed huge to me.
To say that boxing wasn't Mom's thing was a huge understatement, and I didn't really expect to go. Plus, tickets were $10, which was not an insignificant sum in 1974. So I was stunned when Mom told me she'd talked to my seventh grade history teacher, Mr. Matula, and he'd agreed to take me.
Mr. Matula was a hardass, but he liked me. He was also a coach, and was the only coach who ever showed a genuine interest in me. He was also a boxing fan.
I had an enormous amount of respect for Mr. Matula, so talking to him casually on our way to Corpus Christi was both fantastic and bizarre. We were just two guys going to a fight, and he was as excited as I was.
What I remember first when we got into the Coliseum was the size of the screen. I expected a movie theatre-size screen, not understanding how impossible it was to bring one of those in. Instead, it was a screen that seemed so tiny comparison. We had good seats, so we could still see clearly, but people in the back couldn't have seen much, and there were easily over a thousand people there.
I also remember that there were hardly any other kids there. I'm not sure I saw a single one. It was just me and a bunch of grown-ups.
I wanted Ali to win, while Mr. Matula was rooting for Joe Frazier. It was a close fight, and I thought when it ended that Ali had lost, but he won a unanimous decision on the scorecards and I cheered my lungs out.
I didn't understand it at the time, but one of the ways people show love is in acts of service, and my mom did that repeatedly. It took me a long time to understand what it meant.
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