I’ve been looking forward to the Final Four and National Championship games all week (read: for the past year), but one of the most interesting pieces of information to appear on SI.com’s newsfeed this week has nothing to do with basketball: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) presented a resolution on Wednesday calling for a presidential pardon for legendary heavyweight Jack Johnson.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this man’s place in history — 100 years before Barack Obama was sworn into office as America’s first African-American president, Johnson became the first-ever black heavyweight champion. On Dec. 26, 1908, he beat Canadian champion Tommy Burns in Australia in a fight that went 14 rounds before being stopped by police. Johnson had as many haters as he had fans.