From midnight until well after dawn, Louisville Police Det.Tom Hodgkins sat alone in his car atop an embankment deep in the heart of Cave Hill Cemetery.
There in the dark, with his engine turned off and windows rolled down, the only sound he could hear was a splashing fountain just down the hill. There were no flowers, no throngs of people in commemorative T-shirts, chanting. No celebrities, no entourages. No crowds to keep at bay.
Instead, he looked out on a simple white tent and a patch of sod — an unremarkable scene for, arguably, among the most remarkable men in the world.
Over the final resting place of Muhammad Ali, he kept watch.
“If I said I didn’t go down there and spend a little time with the champ I’d be lying,” Hodgkins said. “This place will never be the same. This little corner, anyway.”
Saturday morning was the first time the public was allowed into the cemetery to see the grave of the man who called himself the people’s champion.
They flew in from Toronto and drove all night from Brooklyn. They came from Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Queens. From Los Angeles, London, and Wales.
All day, a steady trickle of onlookers wound their way through the cemetery’s narrow lanes to Ali’s grave. Some stayed a few minutes. Others lingered in prayer. They left flowers and flags from their home countries.
If Friday was the pomp and panache of the formal funeral service with its celebrities and dignitaries, Saturday was for quiet reflection from the everyman.
Mustafa Ameen and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, longtime friends of Ali, arrived before anyone else. They stood, eyes closed, palms turned up, in prayer. Ameen wanted a quiet moment, alone, with his friend.
“We traveled the world together,” he said. “I wanted to be the first one here this morning.”
In the hot morning sun, cab drivers dropped off out-of-town passengers. Some drove rental cars. And a couple of locals walked. Every single one had a story.
Eradzh Sattorov knelt at the grave of his idol. He remembers seeing Ali on television in Tajikistan when he was 10 or 12 years old. In a country with little technology, Sattorov recalled a friend dragging a TV set out to the street so 50 or more people could watch the legend box.
As an amateur boxer himself, Sattorov revered Ali. But it wasn’t until he was diagnosed with Hodgkinlymphoma in 2009 that he began to understand the inner strength of the athlete who’d been known for his speed and skill in the ring.
Sattorov watched YouTube videos of Ali during his cancer treatment.
“The only thing that helped me survive was Muhammad Ali,” Sattorov said. “While he had a disease, his inner motivation was strong. So I took a lesson from him. I’m a Muslim as well, but today it doesn’t matter what faith you are. We are all Ali.”
Anson Lane flew from Portsmouth, in the south of England, to Louisville when he heard Ali died. The senior citizen turned his face to keep from crying as he remembered all that Ali represented in the 1960s — the powerhouse who stood against the Vietnam War and fought for racial equality.
“I put money on him to beat Liston in his first fight,” Lane said. “Nobody believed. But I did.”
The Brit met Ali twice and keeps a faded photograph of him.
“I’ve come all the way from England,” he said at the gravesite, “just to say thank you, I suppose.”
The champ had the same influence on Adam Pinnock, a 14-year-old who flew in from Toronto with his dad and sister. The teenager said he appreciated how Ali stood up for civil rights and his hometown.
Pinnock held a laminated, poster-sized photo of himself as a 5-month-old baby in Ali’s arms. In 2002, they’d been to a football game Ali attended when Pinnock’s dad handed him over to the champ.
“He kissed my cheek and signed my shirt,” Pinnock beamed.
Brad Williams’ connection to Ali was a bit more personal, though theman from Walesnever met the champ.
He stood in the shade of the white tent over the graveand unfurled a red dragon flag of Wales with hand-printed letters that read: “From the people of Wales. We love Ali.”
“I didn’t have a father growing up,” Williams said. “But I had a picture of Ali on my wall.”
The boxer wasn’t a thug, but he could fight, Williams said. He was educated and had a way with words. He was a ladies man and a man’s man.
Imitating Ali was how Williamsbecame one.
This article originally published June 11, 2016.
VISITING CAVE HILL CEMETERY
Address: 701 Baxter Ave.
Summer hours:
8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday
8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday
