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Some good old Olympic propaganda
« on: 2004-08-13 06:51:32 » |
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Some good old Olympic propaganda from an older article: "What is a million dollars compared to the love of my people?"
Teofilo Stevenson - The Cuban Ali
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,6903,641858,00.html
His house might have no hot water, but Teofilo Stevenson, the triple Olympic champ who chose Castro over Don King, has all the rum and adoration he wants
The man who could have fought Muhammad Ali - no, more than that: who could have been Muhammad Ali, famous throughout the world and rich beyond imagining - was fully awake after a drowsy morning. He said he'd be ready to go to lunch as soon as he washed up and changed his clothes. Here's what Teofilo Stevenson did next: He took a big galvanised bucket out to the front yard, filled it with water from the garden tap, lugged the bucket inside, hoisted it on top of the kitchen range and turned on the flame.
He went back out to sit in the shade with an old friend who had dropped by, Oscar Torres, who used to be a doctor for the Cuban national boxing team. As is often the case with men who have known each other for decades, there was more silence between them than conversation. Across the street - a quiet suburban lane of fairly new houses, one of the better addresses in greater Havana - salsa music poured from a neighbour's radio.
<snip>
The rest is crisply told in a 1974 headline from Sports Illustrated: 'He'd Rather Be Red Than Rich.'
'Given two, maybe three more years, he probably could become the heavyweight champion of the world,' the article said. 'But he most assuredly will not.'
After his Olympic victory in 1972, Stevenson was offered $1 million by American fight promoters to defect, come to the United States and turn professional. They offered more money throughout the next decade. Stevenson was handsome, he spoke English, he was a great fighter, and he had bankable charisma, the same kind that Ali had. He even looked like Ali, enough that the two could be brothers. That was the money fight: Stevenson vs. Ali.
<snip>
He turned all the offers down, despite having every chance to defect during his frequent trips abroad. He stayed in Cuba, where boxing is all-amateur, where there's no Don King, no Vegas bling-bling, no pay-per-view. He stayed to write a grander legend, and to revel in the love of his compatriots and the praise of his government.
<snip>
Stevenson seemed relaxed and in his element, so I asked: Why didn't you go for it? Why didn't you leave?
'What is a million dollars,' he said, 'compared to the love of my people?'
It was a pat answer, the one he'd been giving for at least 25 years. I tried a different angle: Quite a few Cuban baseball players have defected over the years, but not many boxers. Why is that? Stevenson insisted on answering in the English he had learnt as a child, rather than in Spanish. 'Because they don't have to,' he said. 'Because in Cuba, everyone goes to school. School is the light, because when you go to school, you can see. They don't have to resort to boxing to earn money. It's not your eyes that you see with, it's your mind.'
The vocabulary was rusty, but the thrust was clear enough. Time and again he has spoken of his appreciation of the revolution's accomplishments, particularly in wiping out illiteracy, providing an impressive level of medical care and making sure everyone has a roof over his head, even if sometimes it's a leaky one. One could point out the failings and misdeeds of the Cuban government, but there was no reason to doubt his sincerity. Still, the answer seemed incomplete.
<snip>
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