As the world mourns the death of Muhammad Ali, many who had the chance to meet the boxing great are sharing their memories.
In North Texas, few may have the pleasure like Gary Kaposta of Southlake does.
Kaposta said Sunday that he met Ali back in the 1970’s when he was an owner of a small custom van business in the Houston area.
"My brother Bruce called me, he said 'Gary, there's a guy here from Canada who says he's friends with Ali and can get Ali to do a commercial for us,’" Kaposta remembered.
Kaposta said he ended up flying out to Chicago on that connection where he was brought face-to-face with “the champ” who, after Kaposta proposed the commercial for his small business as a long-shot, agreed to do the project.
Kaposta showed off a picture of him and Ali in front of one of his vans where he said the boxer coined a saying for the commercial, ‘they’re local, but I’m worldwide.’
The North Texan went on to become a competing bodybuilder himself, and said he got to cross paths with Ali on a few more occasions.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
He remembered Ali as a larger-than-life presence in the room who always had a snappy phrase to turn.
Now on this weekend, he held the pictures and memorabilia from those encounters close.
Ali died at a Phoenix area hospital on Friday according to NBC News.
Kaposta said he woke, saddened to hear of the passing even though he hadn’t seen Ali in years.
"That kind of life within him, to have it stripped away, pretty painful,” he said.
Now though, Kaposta said he’ll have to convert some of his old photo slides and that commercial, which he still keeps on an old format cassette, to something more modern; to preserve those images forever.
However he says the few, but impactful memories he has with the Champ will never leave him
"To experience what he experienced in his lifetime, man; special person,” said Kaposta.
