Dave Kindred covered Muhammad Ali for 20 years, watching the world's greatest heavyweight boxer give pounding after pounding to opponents early in his career before suffering similar types of poundings late in his career.

Kindred estimates he covered 20 of Ali's fights during his time as a sportswriter for the Louisville Courier-Journal and Washington Post.

He witnessed Ali at his best and he also watched Ali slowly fall into the clutches of what many believe is Parkinson's disease.

Kindred, a multiple recipient of the National Sportswriter of the Year award and a 1963 graduate of Illinois Wesleyan, doesn't buy it.

"I just don't think he has Parkinson's," said Kindred, a native of nearby Atlanta and a former Pantagraph sports writer.

"I think he's just brain damaged. When you've been hit in the head two million times for 30 years, you pay a price for that. If he has Parkinson's, it's a result of being hit in the head so many times."

Kindred doesn't go to fights anymore. He's been to one in the last 20 years.

"I don't want to be a part of it anymore," said Kindred, who was at IWU to visit friends Friday during homecoming week.

"When you think about it, boxing is the only quote 'sport' in which the intention is to injure the other guy's brain.

"The more you injure the other guy's brain, the more richly you are rewarded. When you get knocked out, it's a concussion … you're injuring the brain. It's a brutal sport, so I don't deal with it anymore."

Kindred, who has been covering and writing sports columns for numerous publications during his 37-year career, also was in town to give a lecture and sign his latest book: "Sound and Fury: Two Powerful Lives, One Fateful Friendship."

The book recreates the unlikely connection between Ali and the late, great sports broadcaster Howard Cosell. Many of the events in the book are recounted firsthand by Kindred, who knew both men personally.

"I wanted to do the book because I knew them both intimately," explained Kindred. "I knew them both in ways no others did. I'm not an immodest guy; I'm a modest guy, but I'm one of only three people who knew these guys well enough to have written this book.

"It was almost a thing I felt I had to do. There have been a lot of books on Ali, and I've read them all, but none of them told the story the way I saw it happen.

"And no one has written a book about Cosell. This is literally the first book that ever tries to tell Cosell's story basically because everyone disliked him so much and didn't want to deal with it. It's a unique book about two of the great sports/media personalities of our time."

Kindred said Ali was the most famous guy in the world and Cosell may have been one of the four or five most famous people in America during their prime.

"They had this great fame to what I saw end in a sad silence," added Kindred. "Cosell ended up as a bitter guy, kind of beaten down by his own fame. And Ali suffered brain damage from being hit in the head a million times."

Kindred began his association with Ali after leaving the Pantagraph in 1966 for a job with the Louisville Courier.

"I was a kid working the sports desk and somebody said Clay (Ali, formerly named Cassius Clay who grew up in Louisville) was in town and to go find him," said Kindred. "I was eager to write about anything, so I went out and found him and spent the day with him.

"I've known him since, maybe covered 20 of his fights, and been with him in hundreds of situations. I don't know if he ever knew my name, but he recognized I was from Louisville and I was like his hometown guy. That continued even after I left Louisville.

"He was the most accessible athlete of all time. It wasn't that I had any special relationship with him. Every newspaper man felt they had a special relationship with him because he was always accessible. There were never any bodyguards or security people around him. You could walk into his hotel room at any time anywhere."

Kindred grew up reading Cosell's column "Speaking of Sports" in Sport magazine.

"Before I ever heard his voice I read him," Kindred continued. "I respected him as a journalist. I was one of the few newspaper people who ever got along with him.

"His style always overcame his substance and I paid more attention to the substance than style. I respected him and he saw that, so he put up with me."

Kindred said the two men's lives overlapped in ways in that they were the first of their kind.

"Ali was the first loud-mouth braggadocio great athlete," added Kindred. "Cosell was the first bombastic opinioned sportscaster. They were the first of their kind. And now 40 years later, they are still the best of their kind.

"Their stories are from the time they were young people actually discriminated against as a black in 1950s Kentucky (Ali) and discriminated against as a Jew in 1930s Brooklyn (Cosell) to the great fame that they had."

Kindred labeled Ali as a "sweetheart" and Cosell as a "very insecure person."

"Ali just liked people and people instinctively liked him," added Kindred, who currently writes a weekly column for The Sporting News and a monthly column for Golf Digest.

"Cosell was not a likable person. He was a brilliant guy, but highly insecure about his looks, his place in broadcasting, and about being a sports broadcaster.

"He thought he ought to be doing something more important. But he was kind of trapped by the money, the celebrity status and by the fame of what he had created, so he chose not to get out.

"It was a strange pairing between the two that they got along so well together, but they realized the act worked on television and it was good for both of them in terms of getting attention."

Kindred said he hasn't seen Ali lately, but understands the former world heavyweight champion is not in good health and uses a walker to get around.

"Ali, as a young fighter, took great pride in that you couldn't touch him," added Kindred.

"As an old fighter, he took great pride in that you could hit him and not knock him down. It was terrible at the end to see his last couple of fights."

That, in part, is why Kindred doesn't watch boxing matches anymore.

Bryan Bloodworth is the Pantagraph sports editor. Contact him at bbloodworth@pantagraph.com