Nonetheless, Don spent a year at Western University in Cleveland before resuming his thriving numbers career. "I made the irrational realization," he recalled, "that you go to school in order to get educated so you can get some money, but I already was making money so why should I go to the school."

During his twenties, King, now known as Donald the Kid to his intimates, forged ahead to become one of the chief numbers racketeers in Cleveland. "I was a respected man in the community, because I always paid off. And because I was so damn honest the white mobs came after me with machine guns. Wanted to blow my house down, kidnap my kids." His front porch was blown off in 1957.But it was Lloyd Price the singer who wrote and recorded "Personality" and "Stagger Lee" who really positioned King for his run toward success. In 1958 when Ali was a kid, he would sit outside the Top Hat Lounge in Louisville, Kentucky but was not allowed in because he was underage.

When Price, on tour got to the lounge, Ali rushed over to him saying, "I'm Cassius Marcellus Clay; I'm the Golden Gloves champion of Louisville, Kentucky; someday I'm gonna be heavyweight champion of the world; I love your music; and I'm gonna be famous like you." Price told him he was dreaming, but liked the kid and they got along, "you couldn't help but like him" Price would say.

Around the same time he met King. His songwriter, Harold Logan was from Cleveland and introduced Price to King. According to Price, "One day I was over at Don's place, in the kitchen talking about Muhammad. Don's daughter Debbie said, I want to meet him,' It was her birthday; she was about five. So I telephoned Muhammad, and he sang 'Happy Birthday' to her over the phone. Then Don got on and started talking. He was strictly a Cleveland man at the time. He didn't know anything about New York or Chicago or Los Angeles; and he was into numbers, not boxing. But that was the introduction. He and Ali got together - once I think it was - and then Don went to prison" for manslaughter.

King contends that after an argument with Sam Garrett, one of his number runners over an unpaid debt, that Garret attacked him from behind. In the fist-fight that ensued the man's head hit the pavement. He died five days later. Jack Newfield, no fan of King's, in his book 'Only in America' portrays a different scene, beginning with Garrett saying, "Don, I'll pay you the money". He portrayed Garret as a small sickly man with tuberculosis, who was easy prey for King, who he called a 240-pound hustler making a statement with an easy prey. According to Newfield "when the police arrived, King gave Garrett one final kick to the head which caused his death... 'Just as twelve years earlier he had shot and killed a man who tried to raid one of his gambling dens.

"The earlier case was deemed to be self-defense, but King was sentenced to a term of one to twenty years for the Garrett death. He did not appeal because he feared his reputation as a numbers overlord would only hurt his case. After hauling hog manure in the work gang by day, King found a haven in the prison library in the evenings. It was there he immersed himself in world literature and philosophy, he still liberally quotes the classics, especially Shakespeare, who in 'As You Like It' taught him the "sweet uses of adversity".

King also took university correspondence courses, but although he proved his academic mettle by earning an A average in freshman English, business, law, economics, and political science, he declined an offer of a scholarship to the Harvard School of Business.After serving three years and eleven months at the Marion, Ohio Correctional Institute, which he calls "one of my alma maters," King was paroled on September 30, 1971 and in 1983 Governor James Rhodes of Ohio granted him a full pardon. In an article in TV Guide King said, "I came out armed and dangerous, armed with wisdom and knowledge.""The events that followed Don King's release from prison read like the script of a television miniseries. On March 8, 1971, he had listened to reports of the first Ali-Frazier fight from his prison cell. Three years later, he was a key player in putting together Ali-Foreman.

One year after that, he promoted the historic third Ali-Frazier confrontation in Manila. In a little more than four years, he'd become one of the most successful black businessmen in America, and the cornerstone of his power was Muhammad Ali." This explanation by Ali's biographer Thomas Hauser is echoed by King himself which makes his treatment toward Ali at the end of his career all the more remarkable. It was after the Ali-Holmes fight, Ali already showing signs of pugilistic dementia, and soon to be diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, that King swooped in. With Ali in the hospital King convinced Jeremiah Shabazz the man who converted Ali to Islam to go to Ali's hospital bedside and offer him 50,000 dollars to drop his lawsuit against King for money King promised and never delivered. King knew that 50,000 in hand was to a kid who grew up poor, hard to turn down, especially in Ali's condition. King also knew he was in no state of mind to negotiate.

Again while King is an obvious villain here, it is stunning that that a Muslim spiritual man, the one who converted Ali to his religion at that, would also agree to sell him out for a few thousand dollars himself. Somewhere along the line it seems, King decided that power and money are what really matter, that all the rest is just talk. While this is a spiritual and humanistic blight in ones character, it is also a part of life and King is not one to pass over an economic truth.Perhaps the final blow to a more humanistic slant occured when King created a road for Ali to make five million dollars to fight Foreman in Zaire. He thought that because he put on a great show and gave Ali millions more than anyone in the universe could or would that he would be building some loyalty.

But when King later raised eight million for Ali to fight Norton, he was turned down in favor of Promoter Bob Arum who came up with two million less. Herbert Mohammed, Ali's spiritual mentor and manager, protecting his influence pushed King out. Ali was the only loser because the battle cost him two million. In fact, King was trying to take Ali over. An open secret was that King was paying people in Ali's camp to give him inside information and speak highly of him just for that purpose.

If not for Ali neither King nor Shabazz or Herbert Mohammed would be where they are today. As Ali's people have said when Ali gave King, an unknown wanna-be promoter a chance, he never expected King to carry the mantle the way he has. Ali gave and gave and gave. For all his bombastic rhetoric and sometimes unpopular views, Ali cared deeply about others and his race. He put his money and his actions where his heart was and everyone around him is better off for it. King while he creates glamour, money, excitement and entertainment, does not.

Herbert Mohammed knows this. Remarking about how King could now return the favor to Ali and does not remarks, "King right now could say to Ali, 'Okay, I got a promotion and I want you to come in,' and give him some real money. Not just five or ten thousand dollars; (King regularly gives Ali five or ten thousand dollars to attend fights and lend glamour to the fight.) I'm talking about really helping. But I haven't seen it in Dons nature to help anyone like that"

That is why Ali has become an Icon and King Infamous, Ali a Great man, King a great promoter. King himself gives Ali credit for his rise. At his induction in the Boxing Hall of Fame King says:"Those who are confused will be able to understand. I'm like the tree planted by the water and I shall not be moved. But it comes as no surprise. If you want to know the secret, the secret sits right here in the personage of Muhammad Ali. The greatest. Allow me to tell exactly where Don King stands and where he came from. It was from this man named Muhammad Ali who came to Cleveland in 1971 to help me to promote a hospital thing, Forrest City Hospital. And it was suffering from financial woes. Couldn't pay its pharmaceutical bills.

Whatever. And so I initiated a fundraiser and Muhammad Ali was that fundraiser. He came to town, boxed four guys, and the local disc jockey called Gary D. It was a smashing success. Muhammad prevailed upon me to go into the sport of boxing. And he said that I was one of the greatest promoters he's ever seen...From that I went into boxing and the rest has been history. I'm the legacy of this man... And so from that legacy, I came along and tried to emulate it. Imitate in my meager way... And I've been very successful at that. And for that I have to take the whupping that they whup on me. But I do it with a smile because I stand ever ready to fight any wrong and help any right... And the only reason I'm standing at the helm is because of a man like Ali, that would stand up and defy all odds, all systems, and say yes you can when everybody else would say no you can't. So I'm an extension of Ali. I'm the legacy of Ali. I'm a living testimony of the man".

King is aware that Ali gave him his chance, that Ali set the stage, yet he still cheated him. He is willing to give credit where it is due, willing to give a few thousand to Ali so his fights become a grand spectacle, but had no qualms about circling like a vulture over a broken Ali. Perhaps he is just a smart vulture giving credit where it is due to defer some criticism, throwing Ali a bone to come to fights because it helps his promotion. That though would not explain away the fact that he does give. Less known about King is just that, he does give. "If you do something just to get noticed,’ he says 'then it is not a truly charitable gesture." He does go into neighborhoods every holiday season and personally hands out turkeys to needy families. His "Turkey Tour" has given away hundreds of thousands of turkey dinners over the years in cities across the country during the holidays.

He has given millions to such organizations as the NAACP, UNCF, Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation, Simon Wiesenthal Center, National Hispanic Scholarship Fund, National Coalition of Title 1/Chapter 1 Parents, Wheelchair Charities, Our Children's Foundation and numerous other organizations, charities, colleges and hospitals. He recently donated $100,000 to an education fund set up in the name of the Black man who recently was killed by three White men, who dragged him to death in Jasper, Texas, doubling what Al Sharpton asked of him. (What is ironic, yet almost an axiom in Kings life, is that Sharpton helped the government try to prove that King was involved in Organized Crime. Yet Shapton on the other hand asked King for the money, and King gave it to him. He also recently lavished praise on King in an CNBC talk show)

This is how King will be an asset to our community. He has already made an impact. His office on Fairway drive in Deerfield has three huge ever present flags that can be seen to all who drive past the Hillsborough exit on I-95. One an American Flag, the other one with his motto 'Only In America' and the third with the words Liberty waving to passerby's. He gave the Florida State Boxing Foundation a check for $100,000 to help boxers with education and job skills. He also gave the Deerfield Beach Fire Department a new fire engine, which they sorely needed.

The facts though still bear out the ever-present reality; Don King does not care about the welfare of his fighters or how much he takes from them. This is King at his core. He is brilliant, shrewd, mesmerizing and most of all believes that down deep he has earned the right to take whatever he can get. It is the principle that in life you do not get what you deserve you get what you negotiate. He believes that Business is all about control and winning. His is the theory that it is not enough that I win everyone else has to lose as well.

This belief blossomed when King saw injustice and prejudice after the brutal death of his father. He, it seems gave up all desire to achieve within the system. King was able to win and gets as much satisfaction from beating the system and those pseudo moralists he came to understand so well. That is why Don King cheated Ali. He was aware of how Ali helped him, it was simply that King had to win. He had to be able to beat the Greatest, to gain control, as he says: "In business the decisive factor is control". Don King sees the hypocrisy in America, in business, and just flat out beats everybody at their own game. As Jack Newfield said, "sometimes the bad guy is better and smarter than all the good guys combined".

America was built on the back and sweat of Native Indians who they cheated, on back of the sweat and blood of Afro American slaves and others, but there came a time when America and Americans evolved and came to stand for the opposite of the means upon which they used to conquer. King has not evolved and remains a symbol of the very thing that he preaches against. This hypocrisy and lack of desire to grow is the lasting impression and epitomizes the man.

Perhaps King could heed Lilly Tomlin's words, "even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat". King says, "You've got the critics and the doomsayers...but there was a guy-Hannibal, I believe, who said, "we've got to either find a way, or make one."

Perhaps he should heed his own words and do what he is so very good at, making a new path for himself. It would be a new and challenging game to win. It would give him a chance to live up to his slogans about America, to act on his belief that the founders created something special, that needs to be worked at to achieve it's potential. He no longer needs to undermine society with street wise cynicism at the expense of idealism.... at the expense of humanity. One of the best ways to understand a person at their core is to ask them who they admire. They invariably will pick people who reflect their inner nature, hopes desires and aims. This is the answer King gave in an interview when asked. Who are your heroes?

Frederick Douglas...and John Brown. He raided Harper's Ferry, fighting that evil thing called slavery. And when they were getting ready to hang him, they had him in a wagon, and he looked up at the Blue Ridge Mountains and said, "My God, this is a beautiful country. And they're taking him to the hangman's noose.”