Daily Inspiration Quote by Dick Schaap

“Of course” does a lot of quiet flexing here. Dick Schaap isn’t merely praising Muhammad Ali; he’s policing the boundaries of what counts as arguable in sports history. The line is built like a verdict delivered after a long trial: fifty years of evidence, countless nights in arenas and press rooms, and the conclusion is presented as self-evident. Schaap uses his own longevity as a credential, then immediately downplays it with that casual phrase, implying that even without the resume, the outcome would be the same.

The subtext is that Ali didn’t just win fights; he reorganized the category. “Dominant figure” isn’t “best boxer,” because the claim is larger than punches landed or belts collected. Schaap is pointing to dominance as cultural gravity: Ali as the athlete who turned sports journalism into political journalism, celebrity coverage into civic argument. In the 1960s and 70s, his refusal to be drafted, his public conversion, his verbal artistry, and his willingness to be disliked made him impossible to reduce to a record.

Context matters: Schaap’s era was when the press still guarded a supposedly neutral posture, yet Ali forced writers to reveal their assumptions about patriotism, race, and dissent. The quote’s intent is canon-making, but it’s also an admission that Ali dominated the storytellers as much as the sport. He made boxing a stage where America had to watch itself.