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“Impossible is nothing.”
What does that mean? It sounds like nothing is impossible but simply out of order.
Was this person eating paint chips when he indirectly coined the phrase? Quite to the contrary, it was the words of the people’s champion and the one known as the Great One.
Muhammad Ali floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee and is now the face of the new Adidas advertising campaign.
Ali stood for the ideas that anything is possible and that there is no point to shunning away from challenges, but to face them head on constantly proclaiming that he was the best.
It was this cocky attitude that drew people to the sport of professional boxing and made people listen to Ali when he stood up to people who promoted social injustice. Ali was one of the first sports heroes.
Now as he slowly walks about the streets, living a relatively quiet life when compared to before while suffering from Parkinson’s disease, he continues to inspire people to achieve greatness all over the globe.
The “Impossible is Nothing” campaign began a couple weeks ago with a large poster placed inside Sports Illustrated and continues with commercials featuring people running with Ali stating at the end that “impossible is nothing.”
An exert from the advertisement states that “impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary.”
On the other side of the poster, there are 16 pictures of athletes from Ian Thorpe showing the incredible hydrodynamics of new swim suits, to wheelchair half pipe rider Stacy Kohut about to drop into a pipe, to track and field star Jesse Owens, who set two Olympic records at the 1936 games.
Ali’s own daughter, Laila, was even featured in boxing shorts and a sports bra. All of the athletes proudly display the three stripes and are showing off how good they look in new Adidas apparel.
But the advertisement should look beyond what Adidas can accomplish and acknowledge the fact that little is impossible in sports and in life.
A century ago, man was struggling with the idea of flight. Would contemporaries of the Wright brothers considered that impossible?
Where would we be if Pres. John F. Kennedy did not dare the impossible: putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Now we are viewing live pictures of Mars and discussing a colony on the moon.
About 20 years ago, one may have thought it impossible to score 50 goals in 50 games.
Then came along another great one, a person Canadians refer to as “the great one,” No. 99, Wayne Gretzky.
A decade ago, we may have said that breaking Roger Maris’ single season homerun record was impossible.
Then we witnessed the battle between Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa, not to mention the 70 homeruns McGuire hit that season. Only to have his record taken away when Barry Bonds hit 73 shortly after.
Right now, we might say that winning six Tour de Frances is impossible. Four men have won five while none have been able to win that illusive sixth.
Lance Armstrong, this July is your turn to show us why impossible should be taken out of the dictionary.
If we learn anything today, it is that we should re-examine the meaning of impossible.
Impossible really is nothing. Possibilities are only limited by the size of the human heart and the amount of time.
There is no impossible because there will always be great men and women who dare to succeed while not being afraid to fail.
