A NY1 exclusive: In 1967 Priscilla Konecky was a determined ninth grader from Greenwich Village who interviewed Muhammad Ali for her school newspaper. That girl is now a dentist in Manhattan, and she is sharing her recording of the interview, and the remarkable story behind it, for the first time. Our Michael Scotto filed the following report:.

It is one of Dr. Priscilla Konecky's most cherished possessions - a small reel-to-reel tape. Konecky has had it since 1967, when she was just 14 years old.

In her Manhattan office the other day, she played the recording for NY1.

"Testing, testing, testing," it begins.

Konecky smiles. "It takes me back to that moment," she says.

"This is Muhammad Ali, speaking to you one day, March the 21st, one day before one of the greatest heavyweight title fights there will be held in the history of boxing," the tape continues.

Back in 1967, Konecky was in the ninth grade at an East Village junior high school. She also was an aspiring sportswriter, which is why she and a friend trooped to the old Madison Square Garden on an audacious mission: to try to land an interview with Ali for her school newspaper. Ali was scheduled to fight Zora Folley at the Garden the next day.

She was armed with a letter from her English teacher, vouching for her assignment.

At the Garden, the girls were directed to a hotel across the street, where they were told Ali might appear in the restaurant, at the lunch counter. Konecky spoke to Ali's manager Angelo Dundee, who said Ali could not be interviewed a day before his fight. But he said Konecky could ask the champ to talk into her tape recorder. When Ali arrived, she did. And Ali agreed.

"I turned on the tape recorder and of course it didn't work," Konceky recalls. "He said let me see the tape recorder. He took it and opened up the back of it. And he got it to work."

What followed was classic Ali — eloquent, brash and funny.

"This will be my ninth title defense. I plan on giving Zora Folley a good whipping," Ali says. "Never bet against me because I never lose."

Ali made good on his boast, defending his heavyweight boxing title, his last fight before he refused the draft and was suspended from boxing.

"What did you say your name is?" Ali asks on the tape.

"Tina."

"What is your name?"

"Priscilla."

"Tina and Priscilla are two of my loyal fans. I'm sure they've bet their last dime on me. I cannot let them down," Ali says. Then he signs off:.  "This is Muhammad Ali, the heavyweight champion of the world, speaking to you from the Midtown Motor Inn motel just after a salmon sandwich."

"Our persistence paid off, and I think that was the important lesson," Konecky says.

A two-minute recording in 1967, and a lesson that Konecky says has helped guide her ever since.