By Bill Robinson
Senior News Writer
LOUISVILLE — In 1967, world champion boxer Muhammad Ali (formerly known as Cassius Clay) went on trial for refusing to enter the U.S. Armed Services. The Vietnam War was then raging, and, based on his religious convictions, Ali unsuccessfully had applied for conscientious objector status.
Although he was convicted for resisting the military draft, the U.S. Supreme Court later overturned the verdict.
This past weekend, Ali got a new trial. This time, the case was tried in Louisville, the legendary fighter’s hometown, as the Kentucky High School Mock Trial Tournament used the Ali case as its subject.
In the tourney’s final round, conducted Sunday at the Muhammad Ali Center on the banks of the Ohio River, the Madison Central High School/Kentucky Tech team was selected by coin toss to represent Ali. Both he and the MCHS students emerged as the champs when the judges’ ballots in the final round were counted.
Thirty teams, representing 26 high schools, competed. DuPont Manual of Louisville was runner-up, with the Model Laboratory School team finishing sixth and Madison Southern High School team coming in 12th.
In a much-remarked-upon irony, Madison Central sophomore Josh Barrett, who is white, played the part of Ali, while senior Sydney Morton, a young black woman, played the role of the white male attorney who represented Ali in the original trial.
Some chuckles could be heard as Barrett, who describes himself as a “skinny blonde kid,” uttered on the witness stand some of the colorful, rhythmic language that the muscular Ali was so fond of using.
Smiles could be seen on many faces, especially those of long-time Ali friends who attended the event, when Morton told the court that in the future, “America would be different.” The day would come, she declared, when a black man could be president.
Morton was named the tournament’s best attorney, with Barrett recognized as best witness.
Ali had hoped to attend the event, but illness prevented him, said the MCHS faculty coach, Vicki Rollins. One of Ali’s daughters, however, attended.
A documentary film crew that is producing a movie about Ali’s “exile years,” when he was banned from fighting while his conviction was appealed, recorded the tournament. The film also had chosen to follow the progress of the Madison Central team, visiting the school where it practiced and the Madison County Courthouse in which a portrait of 19th century emancipationist Cassius Clay hangs, said Madison Circuit Judge William G. Clouse Jr., one of the team’s three attorney coaches.
Clouse said he feared the film crew, which often put their cameras “right in the students’ faces,” would distracted the MCHS students, but nothing could prevent their concentration on the task.
Clouse’s daughter Kristin, a Powell County public defender, and Richmond attorney Robin Lakes, a member of MCHS’s first mock trial team in 1999, are the other two attorney coaches.
Muhammad Ali’s father, Cassius Clay Sr., was named for the Madison County planter and Berea College co-founder whose home, White Hall, is now a state shrine. The boxer’s father was a freed slave who once was employed by the Cassius Clay of Madison County, who also was famous for hand-to-hand combat and writing a manual on how to fight with a Bowie knife. The emancipationist’s unpopular opinions often got him into fights, but two men who took him on died for their trouble.
This was the second consecutive year for Madison Central to win the state mock trial championship, and its third overall. The school also won in 2001 and has been runner-up three times.
Seven of the eight team members were on last year’s team that also finished 12th in the national tournament in Atlanta. The team includes two juniors and one sophomore. The rest are seniors.
Madison Central will represent Kentucky at the 2010 national tournament May 6-9 in Philadelphia.
MCHS not only won all four preliminary rounds, the ballots of all three scoring judges, 12 in all, were tilted in the Richmond school’s favor.
Thirteen judges scored the championship round, with 11 of them casting their ballots for Madison Central.
After winning last year’s state tournament and placing in the national competition, the MCHS team went into this year’s tournament feeling it could win the state title again, said senior Matthew Bendure.
Some opposing schools team members were dismayed to see that Morton and Brad Allen, four-year members of the MCHS team, were back in the competition, Barrett said.
The team had examined and corrected the weaknesses that cost it a national victory in 2009, said senior Jordan Haney.
Most of the team members do not plan to be lawyers. Bendure, who has applied to eight colleges, wants to go into international business, as does Morton, who will attend the University of Louisville. Haney, who plans to attend the University of Kentucky, will major in engineering.
Allen plays to attend UK and go on to law school there. Brittany Marcum will attend UK, majoring in social work or political science, with the goal of going to law school and becoming a children’s advocate.
Team members Brittany Dargavell and Sara Robinson are juniors.
Lakes said members of the Madison County bar have pledged to support the team financially as its heads to Philadelphia. Others who would like to support the team with donations should contact Rollins at vickijrollins@ky.gov or at 624-4520.
Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 624-6622.
