Daddy, We Hardly Knew You -- Ali's Twin Daughters Shared Ex- Champion With The World

MIAMI - The knowing didn't come all at once, but in pieces: a picture here, a conversation there, some documentary flashing by late at night. Yes, he was a boxer, a champion, but there were other words, too, the kind children recall only because they are so bizarre. Malcolm X. Vietnam. Supreme Court. Zaire.

He'd give advice, he knew so much, but his hands shook and sometimes Daddy slurred his words. Jamillah and Rasheda looked in Muhammad Ali's face and saw themselves grown old. It was good, seeing him so much now. But he wasn't what he was, the loud man who conquered the world at 22, the age the twins are now. And who doesn't wonder what Daddy was like at their age?

The trip to London last year - that gave them a taste. Jamillah adores George Michael, and here in the waiting room is the pop superstar and she has stopped breathing because omigodhe'scomingthisway! He's grinning, staring at Daddy. Then there was the book signing in Manchester. All those people lined up for blocks, waiting.

"This guy came up to my father and said, `I just wanted to touch you.' He went like this. . ." - and here Rasheda pokes my hand with a tentative finger, her face lit by amazement - "and when he walked away he was in tears."

One fan insisted on kissing his hand. Jamillah looked at her embarrassed father, and thought, "This is the same guy I told, `Put that milk back in the refrigerator!'?" She shakes her head.

They were lucky. When their parents divorced in 1976 after nine years, the twins lived with neither one. The marriage had ended in bitter farce: Ali, in the Philippines to fight Joe Frazier while Belinda stayed home with the kids, introduced his lover to Ferdinand Marcos as his wife. On TV. Belinda left to make movies. At age 6 the twins - plus brother Muhammad Jr. and sister Maryum - moved in with Belinda's parents outside Chicago.

It was a strict Muslim household, high on rules and respect. He'd visit between bouts and each time was a holiday. But, "We never knew his importance," Rasheda says. "He was just Daddy to us."

They went to public schools, then to the University of Illinois, lived together, majored in advertising together, graduated last August together. They moved to Coconut Creek, Fla., last fall, got jobs as restaurant hostesses. Once in a while, Dad sends money.

An icon to millions

In 1967, at the peak of his powers, Ali refused induction into the Army because of his beliefs, was stripped of his title and barred from fighting.

"He said, `No,' ' Rasheda says. "He lost 3 1/2 years of his career. Most men and women don't do that, put their lives on the line. If he can do something that brave, I can do this."

But Rasheda really didn't understand her father's sacrifice until recently, when she began to read the books about Ali. One afternoon, the twins peppered his old colleague here, fight doctor Ferdie Pacheco, with questions for hours. Just to know what he was like then. "Just the other day I rented out eight tapes: The Sports Illustrated documentary, fights like Liston-Clay, Norton-Ali," Rasheda says. "I've watched every last one of them, just so I can learn the history.

"Now I know. Just to say he was a boxer is an injustice. He was a humanitarian, he was political. He was everything."

Of course, Ali has never carried himself like an icon. Parkinson's syndrome has robbed him of speed and control, but the twins insist his brain, his wit, work well. Ali's fourth wife, Lonnie, tends to him closely.

"He's happy the way he is," Rasheda says, and for the first time there is an edge in her voice. "People are like, `Ohmigosh, lookit how he is now!' He's a happy person."

The twins never liked sharing him, they say, not with fans who would pull up a chair at dinner, not with kids from his other marriages. Once bitter about their parents' breakup, they now don't blame Ali.