Muhammad Ali is the only one with a permanent spot on the Mt. Rushmore of sports

Published Jun. 4, 2016 1:00 p.m. ET

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If there were a Mt. Rushmore for sports, there would be great debate ... over the other three spots.

The one lock passed away Friday at the age of 74. Muhammad Ali was bigger than any other sports figure. He transcended sports in a way no other athlete has, and will. Muhammad Ali is your favorite athlete's favorite athlete.

Sure, there will always be a lot of argument over who was the best boxer of all time. Ali was the three-time heavyweight champion of the world during the golden age of heavyweights. He was blessed with dazzling speed, guile and creativity. Boxing, given its extensive history and all of its weight classes lends itself to cross-era debate as much as any other sport we have. Was it Ali? Sugar Ray Robinson? Willie Pep? Joe Louis? Benny Leonard? Henry Armstrong?  I'll defer to the boxing historians to sort that one out.

Ali, though, was so much bigger than boxing. That's why all the news channels this weekend have scrapped all their programming to try and provide more insight and context into who he was and what he meant to people.

I have a mounted 3x4 black-and-white picture of Ali. It might be the only thing that has stayed with me through the course of six different cross-country moves that span 20 years. 

I got it while working at ESPN. The piece was used as part of an Outside The Lines special on Ali. I love the image. It is playful and stylish, and tugs at a deeper meaning. Over the years, I've come to realize it epitomizes why I've always been most fascinated by colorful characters, from the Miami Hurricanes to Deion Sanders to Brett Favre to Charles Barkley. Ali was the rare figure that was about both style and substance ... even if the style part was much easier for many of us to hold on to.

Many of our sports heroes are our heroes, to a degree bound by our borders in uniquely American sports. As great talents as Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry Rice, Walter Payton, Bo Jackson and so many others were, they weren't global icons. Michael Jordan, LeBron James and many soccer stars have status all over the world but none of them will mean as much to people of all races as Ali.

He stood for something and stood up to something, and did so at the time when it certainly wasn't popular, and it wasn't easy. He refused to be drafted as a conscientious objector, risking being jailed and was stripped of his title and ended up losing over three years of his boxing career in his prime. Ali risked everything to stand up for something. These days sports stars often appear to go out of their way to stand up for nothing.

I've always felt certain sports heroes because of the magnitude of their triumphs and the adversity they overcame were much more significant than any championship rings, records or stats. Given the climate of World War II and what they did with the world watching, Joe Louis and Jesse Owens hold special places in our history. Jackie Robinson does, too, for his courage and dignity in breaking baseball's color barrier. Their greatness was bigger than merely sports in our history. They are heroes, not just sports heroes. Ali's was too, stretching into a different and more complicated landscape.

Ali was the most charismatic figure our nation has produced. He was deified and vilified during one of the most turbulent times in our history for his religious and political positions. He spoke and acted like no athlete the sports world had seen. It was boastful and poetic and hysterical and at times cruel. It wasn't always pretty or artful. His banter directed at his biggest rival, Joe Frazier, especially so. But Ali also evolved as our society evolved. He became a statesman. 

Ali was a canvas for us. Many of the most revered pieces in the history of sports journalism are Ali-related. So are the most iconic sports photos of all time. 

Of all the things you will read and hear this weekend, of course, Ali himself summed up his own legacy best.

(Who would you put on your Mt. Rushmore of sports?)

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