DEER LAKE — David B. Crouse recalled how he used to drive up Sculps Hill Road in West Brunswick Township in the early 1970s to visit the world-renowned boxer known as “The Greatest.”
“We used to jog together with other friends of ours. And he used to invite us up to see reel-to-reel tapes of different fights. I remember watching a lot of Jack Johnson tapes. He tailored his style and his fighting ability after Jack Johnson,” Crouse, 60, of Deer Lake, said Saturday.
As news about the death of Muhammad Ali swept across the world Saturday, people who remember how the heavyweight boxing champion trained in the Deer Lake area shared their memories. More than 50 people drove up to the former Ali camp — which is privately-owned and closed to the public — to pay their respects.
“We live in Orwigsburg. This area has always had this connection to Muhammad Ali. And seeing the news reports today reminded me of it, this training camp up here. I’ve heard stories about this place. Anyone who’s lived here long enough has a story about Muhammad Ali being in Pottsville or Deer Lake. They’re almost legends,” said Jason Swick, 40, who was at the camp Saturday with his daughter, Maddie, 12.
They were given a tour of the one-story, 3,000-square-foot gym where the champ trained.
There are boulders decorating the camp and painted on them are names of fighting champions. On Saturday, sitting atop the one dedicated to Sonny Liston was a bouquet of flowers and a note: “RIP Champ.”
Last week, Ali experienced respiratory problems and was hospitalized in the area of Phoenix, Arizona. He died Friday at age 74. A funeral will be held in his hometown, Louisville, Kentucky, according to The Associated Press.
Memories
Ali started training in the Deer Lake area in the late 1960s, according to Crouse.
“He fought Ernie Terrell in the mid-1960s. Ernie Terrell trained in Deer Lake for that fight. Ernie Terrell was tall. I remember as a kid I was sitting on the school bus and saw Ernie Terrell jog by. He was, like, 6-3 or 6-4. Of course, Ali beat Ernie Terrell. After that fight, Bernie Pollack brought Ali into Schuylkill County. And Ali — who was known as Cassius Clay at that time — started training at the Pollack mink farm,” Crouse said.
“Ali liked the area and the fresh air, the mountain air,” Crouse said.
But Ali had other ties to the area. For example, his former business manager, Gene Kilroy, was a Mahanoy City native, according to newspaper archives.
“When he started training at the mink farm, I was about 9 years old. Ali was training at the mink farm and I used to ride my bike over there and got to know him. I’d be in there all day. One time my dad came driving over to look for me,” Crouse said.
In 1972, Ali bought land on Sculps Hill Road from Pollack, owner of Pollack Furs, a boxing enthusiast who had hosted Ali at his Deer Lake farm.
Don Snowell, 53, of Mar Lin, was at the former camp Saturday. He said he and his family traveled to the camp “in 1970 or ’71” to meet Ali.
“He’s been a good friend to my family since I was 8 years old. When we first came here, there were only trailers here,” Snowell said.
Rosemarie Modesto, Deer Lake, said Ali and his entourage used to stop at the former Deer Lake Inn for dinner.
“I waited on Muhammad Ali and Bundini, his spiritual advisor,” Modesto, 67, said referring to the late Drew Bundini Brown.
“This was around 1973 or 1972. He was always nice and kind. I remember he’d eat fish. He liked to order fish, probably broiled. He ate very healthy,” she said of Ali.
“When you met him, it didn’t feel like he was this big celebrity coming in. He just didn’t make you feel that way. He was always very nice, very nice to wait on. And his whole entourage that he came in with, they were always very pleasant to wait on,” she said.
Modesto remembered seeing Ali jogging in the neighborhood.
“He’d jog on Drehersville Road. I saw him a couple times there,” she said.
Modesto is the wife of Deer Lake Mayor Lawrence L. Kozlowski.
Ali trained at the camp on Sculps Hill for some of his most famous fights, including the “Rumble in the Jungle” against George Foreman and the “Thrilla in Manila” against Joe Frazier.
“As they developed the area and built the training camp up at Sculps Hill, I used to go up there all the time and spent time up at the camp,” Crouse said.
In particular, Crouse remembered watching Ali train for a non-title boxing match against Joe Frazier, “Super Fight II,” which took place at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Jan. 28, 1974. Ali won by unanimous decision.
Visiting Pottsville
On Saturday, Keith Semerod, 61, of Pottsville, remembered the time Ali took him to see Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” at the former Capitol Theatre in Pottsville.
“He was a friendly, outgoing, really verbal, talkative guy. He had no sense of entitlement. There was no standoffishness. And he wasn’t a reclusive guy. He wanted to be out and about,” Semerod said, describing Ali.
“The first time I met him was at the Coney Island downtown. A friend and I were going to the movies to see ‘Taxi Driver,’ and we stopped in there to get hot dogs, and the only people in the place were Ali and Angelo Dundee,” Semerod said, referring to Ali’s boxing trainer.
“So I got a napkin and asked Ali to sign it and he did. They had just finished eating and they asked us what we were doing. And we said we were going to the movies to see ‘Taxi Driver.’ Ali asked us what it was about. What limited stuff we knew about it we told him. And he said to Dundee, ‘Let’s go to the movies with these guys,’ ” Semerod said.
“And we went across the street. It was, like, a 7 o’clock showing on a weeknight and there were, like, maybe, eight other people in the theater. He paid for the tickets and we went in and watched the movie with him,” Semerod said.
In 1978, Semerod got the opportunity to travel to the Sculps Hill camp to watch Ali train.
“I remember talking to him about how he met The Beatles, and I saw Kris Kristofferson there,” Semerod said.
During a visit to the camp on March 24, 1978, the boxer demonstrated his skills as a magician and called on Semerod to assist.
“I was sitting on the ring with him. He would pull ribbons out of my ears, that type of stuff,” he said.
Photographers snapped pictures. A week later, Semerod saw one in an issue of Sports Illustrated.
“It was amazing to me that the photo taken that Friday would be in the magazine and on the newsstand less than a week later,” Semerod said.
A local celebrity who had the honor of meeting Ali at the training camp in the 1970s is Pat Garrett, Strausstown, Berks County, singer, songwriter and entrepreneur who owns the Pat Garrett Amphitheater and Sickafus Sheepskin, both in Bethel, Berks County.
“It was in the ’70s sometime. I was up there to watch him train. He came down to the sheepskin shop a couple of times. He was very nice, you know. When I first reached out to shake hands with him, I thought ‘this is going to be a bear handshake.’ But it was very gentle. And I thought, I guess he doesn’t have to prove anything. He was very cool,” Garrett said Saturday.
The camp’s future
In 1990, Crouse had the opportunity to visit the camp to introduce his children, Brian and Jason, to the legendary boxer.
“He was a kind, generous and humourous man. He was a neat guy to be around and listen to. He used to give different tours of his cabins at the camp and he’d say, ‘When I turn the lights off in my cabin, I’m so fast I’d be in bed before the room gets dark,’ ” Crouse said.
Crouse is the president of Deer Lake Borough Council.
In 1991, Ali again visited the camp and announced plans to convert the property into a Muslim retreat and summer camp for underprivileged children. But the plan did not come to fruition, according to The Republican-Herald archives.
Ali and his family owned the property from June 7, 1972, until July 21, 1997, according to the online Schuylkill Parcel Locator.
In 1997, Ali sold the camp to George A. Dillman, Reading, a renowned karate expert, for $100,000. For a time, Dillman turned it into a bed and breakfast.
Dillman, originally from Schuylkill Haven, worked out at the camp with Ali from 1972 to 1975. Dillman could not be reached for comment Saturday.
But his son, Allen Dillman, 51, traveled out to the former training camp Saturday and opened the main cabins for visitors who came out to pay respects.
“He never kept it open as a bed and breakfast because he got so busy teaching martial arts around the world,” Allen Dillman said of his father.
But George Dillman hosts martial arts camps there from time to time, his son said.
The “roughly 5.8-acre property” has been on the market for “five or 10 years,” Allen Dillman said.
“I’m looking for investors. I’m looking for someone to help me buy it. It’s going for $495,000. The price used to be higher, and they started lowering it with the economy going bad. I want to buy it and reopen it and restore it and turn it into a bed and breakfast,” Allen Dillman said.
The gym at the camp features a collection of Ali memorabilia, including framed photos of celebrities with Ali.
“Here’s Howard Cosell. Over there you’ll see The Jackson 5 down there on the wall. And if anybody doesn’t know it, if you look in the office you’ll see Ali’s desk and his original typewriter in there,” Allen Dillman said as he gave tours.
Also inside the gym is a 1998 mural by the late David W. Naydock, Pottsville, of Ali in the ring.
In July 1997, according to an article published in The Republican-Herald at the time, the camp included 18 log buildings: six homes, eight one-room cabins, a chapel, the gym, a five-horse barn and a hay storage barn.
Allen Dillman and Snowell said they are looking into the possibility of holding a memorial service for Ali at the camp in the near future.