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 “We’d been planning everything for about eight years. As a group, we met once a year, updated plans. These were Ali’s wishes. He sat at the table with us. We were all very uncomfortable talking about his death, but he wasn’t. He said, ‘Make sure the world gets to see me because I’m so pretty. I want to do it in a stadium so all of my fans can say goodbye.’

“Originally, the plan was for him to lie in repose at the Muhammad Ali Center for the whole week. We just so happened to meet the week before he died — before he even went into the hospital — and decided we didn’t want to do that because security would have required us to close the center. On Thursday, the day before he died, I was at a meeting for the Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau and got a call from Lonnie. We still thought he’d be OK — she thought it could just be a cold — but I had yet to brief the Ali Center about the changes to the plan. We were sitting in a conference room at the Ali Center, maybe five minutes, and my phone rang. It was Lonnie again. She said, ‘It’s not good, you have to come to Phoenix. He’s in organ failure.’

“Lauren Cox from Boxcar, three off-duty Louisville police officers and I flew on John Schnatter’s private jet to Phoenix. At the hospital, the family, all the children, Lonnie — we went into a big conference room and the doctor told us Muhammad wouldn’t make it. The family stayed with him in the hospital because they knew he would make it through the night so some other family could make it to town to see him.

“Matt Lauer is a very good personal friend of the Ali family, so we told Matt what was going on. I reached out to his producer and said, ‘I think I know how big it’s gonna be, but I’m not sure how big it’s gonna be.’ Matt called back and said, ‘Bob, think Nelson Mandela.’

“We were all in the intensive-care ward. All the other patients were moved to the other side, so all of this stuff didn’t interfere. Hana, one of Ali’s daughters, came out of the hospital room, hugged me and said, ‘You need to tell.’ We had a code word: GOAT (greatest of all time). When my staff got the word from us, they did the media release. My phone was blowing up all night long, people calling from all around the world. Right after we made the announcement I got a call asking if I wanted to go on with Matt Lauer. I moved out of intensive care into the hallway, and I looked back through the window at the family gathered around a TV listening to me talking about their dad dying. They were sobbing. (The cause of death was septic shock. — Ed.)

“At one point in Phoenix, I realized I needed to buy a suit for the funeral. Lonnie called me, because we still had to go over some final details, and I said, ‘Lonnie, I’m on my way to Nordstrom,’ and she said, ‘Well, I’m at Nordstrom.’ We met in the shoe department, on a couch, and planned the final details of the funeral. People kept coming up and hugging her.

“I will never forget the call to George Foreman that day to ask him to be a pallbearer. He was too upset. He said, ‘It’s my greatest honor, but I can’t. I can’t be there. I’d cry like a baby. I want to come later and pay my respects privately.’ Mike Tyson was supposed to be in Japan, but he changed his plans and called at like 1 in the morning the night before the memorial service saying he could be a pallbearer. Lonnie and I spoke to him and he was crying and said, ‘I’m gonna be there.’ I called Will Smith and he said, ‘Whatever I have to do.’ At one point, my phone rang with a Hollywood number. ‘Is this Mr. Gunnell? This is Aretha Franklin. You know, R-E-S-P-E-C-T.’ She wanted details about the plans. I said, ‘We were talking about you just last night. You were kind of sweet on Muhammad.’ And she said, ‘Honey, all the women loved Muhammad.’ 

“The morning we left Phoenix for Louisville, we got to the airport early. The plane we flew back on was actually the San Francisco Giants team jet, which was made available. It was me, John Ramsey, Lauren, police officers, airport workers and people from the funeral home. Some of Ali's family was already on the plane. We loaded the body onto the plane. What a surreal moment. We knew where we were going.

“Once we were in Louisville, every night after everybody went to bed — so 1 or 2 in the morning — I’d go over to the Muhammad Ali Center for 45 minutes to sit and decompress, to remind myself that it wasn’t about all the celebrities who were coming to town. And there were plenty: Dave Chappelle, Don King, Whoopi Goldberg, Wayne Gretzky, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spike Lee. Despite all that, this was still about a family grieving for their dad and husband.

“Outside the funeral home, after the service for family and very few friends, Lonnie said, ‘Look at all these people around this corner.’ I said, ‘I think they’re just here by the funeral home.’ When we rounded that corner, we had the windows down. All we could hear were people chanting, ‘Ali! Ali! Ali!’ People were lining the highway, standing on overpasses. You’re not supposed to stop on an interstate highway no matter who you are, but the mayor said, ‘You wanna stop, you stop.’ The police stopped traffic for us. The family got out, had time to reflect by the Ali Center.

“The Yum! Center had never seen so many satellite trucks, so we stacked them on the Second Street Bridge. When the memorial service was running long, I texted the networks and said, ‘I’ve got bad news. We’re only halfway there. It may be closer to three hours than two.’ They said, ‘Can you go four? Our ratings are through the roof.’

“After everything was over, Laila Ali’s husband, so Muhammad’s son-in-law, came to me and said, ‘Our children knew Muhammad as their grandfather. They didn’t know him as this big celebrity. Now they know what it was like.’”

Gunnell is a spokesman with Boxcar PR.