SAN DIEGO (NEWS 8) – The late former heavyweight champion Muhammed Ali’s daughter, Rasheda, is a champion in her own right.
Rasheda speaks in her father’s memory around the world as a passionate advocate for Parkinson’s disease awareness.
Many of her father’s greatest deeds were done in private, and while Rasheda carries her father’s generous legacy, her fight against Parkinson’s is done in the public ring.
“I just met someone at an event two weeks. They were honoring my dad and a gentleman said, ‘your dad paid for my law school.’ I was like wow! Really!?”
Rasheda is helping support the 60,000 San Diegans impacted by the devastating neurocognitive disease. “I am just trying to help from a family member’s perspective and try and shed light on my personal situation. It is very challenging. Parkinson’s tries to rob people of so many things. My dad was robbed of his speech. Everyone is not going to have slurred speech, but my dad had that symptom,” she said.
The disease is also brutal on care takers. Care takers, Rasheda said, “they give too much of themselves and sometimes they don’t take care of themselves. I talk a little about how a car partner has to take care of themselves.”
Rasheda said she will be in the fight until the final bell. “One person can’t do everything, but we all can do something – even if it is $10 or whatever. It’s a big difference in the lives of those living with Parkinson’s and other neuro cognitive diseases.”
News 8’s Carlo Cecchetto spoke with her on Friday ahead of an appearance in San Diego this weekend and knocked her out with some video of her father she had never seen.