BEING SUGAR RAY
The Life of Sugar Ray Robinson, America’s Greatest Boxer and First Celebrity Athlete
[ Amazon.com ]
A biography of Sugar Ray Robinson-described by Muhammad Ali as "the king, my master, my idol"-and an intellectual expedition into the culture of celebrity in sports.
And in this corner, hailing from Black Bottom, Detroit by way of Harlem, with more victories than Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali combined, the greatest fighter-pound for pound-of all time: Sugar Ray Robinson.
If imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery then there should be little doubt Sugar Ray Robinson is the greatest and most influential American boxer of all time. Fighters (and the occasional alt-rock band) have been adopting his name, and trying to imitate his inimitable fighting style for decades.
Sugar Ray Robinson transcended race and sport to become a celebrity athlete in a way that no one-white or black-had accomplished before him. From his business empire to his prized flamingo pink Cadillac, described as the Hope Diamond of Harlem, Kenneth Shropshire shows Sugar Ray was the trailblazer whom every athlete since has been trying, consciously or otherwise, to emulate.
A quick author Q & A about Being Sugar Ray. . .
Q: WHAT IS THE BOOK ABOUT?
A: It’s about whether or not celebrity athletes are doing the right thing. It looks at what they are confronted with and what they are capable of doing and should be doing beyond their limited athletic worlds. The focus ranges from obligations to friends and family, to communities and society at large (redeveloping a local neighborhood to protesting against a war). The book makes this examination using the life of boxer Sugar Ray Robinson as the prism. As a result, much of his life is revealed in the process.
Q: WHY DID YOU WRITE IT?
A: The idea for the book began with my childhood curiosity about Robinson. His was a life that I heard bits and pieces about growing up and wanted to look into more closely. I was raised in Los Angeles in the 1960s and that’s where Robinson was in his retirement years having spent the bulk of his like in New York City. He lived in my old neighborhood but he was also a presence on variety shows and made numerous cameos on television. My father and his partners would always compare the next great boxer to the Sugar.
Q: HOW GOOD WAS SUGAR RAY ROBINSON? MANY OF US KNOW ABOUT SUGAR RAY LEONARD, HOW DO THEY COMPARE?
A: Well, you have to start off comparing Robinson with the acknowledged greatest boxers of all time. If you just go by number of bouts Robinson’s record, by way of comparison is nearly unbelievable. He had more bouts than Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis combined. And Leonard? He had 100 fewer bouts in his career than Robinson.
Q: WHAT IS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CELEBRITY ATHLETES TODAY AND CELEBRITIES OF THE PAST?
A: The two biggest are money and lack of privacy. The two make for a combination that can be highly positive or dramatically negative. We know so much more about the celebrity athletes of today than we did in the days of say, Babe Ruth or Jack Dempsey. Much of what we know abut them has been uncovered by historians years later.
Q: WHAT DID ROBINSON DO IN TERMS OF GIVING BACK TO HIS COMMUNITY?
A: Much. He sometimes gave entire purses to the Damon Runyon Cancer fund. He developed and owned nearly an entire city block in Harlem. This included Sugar Ray’s Café, Edna Mae’s Lingerie Shop, a barber shop and a dry cleaner. In retirement he founded the Sugar Ray Robinson Youth Foundation which aided the lives of thousands of Californians including Olympic gold medal winner Florence Griffith Joyner.
Q: WHO ARE SOME OF THE OTHER ATHLETES YOU LOOK AT ALONG SIDE OF ROBINSON?
A: The book talks about a number of athletes including: Magic Johnson and his business interests including Starbucks coffee establishments and movie theaters; Kobe Bryant and his rape case; the style aspirations of San Francisco 49ers coach Mike Nolan; the hip hop influence of the Denver Rockets’ Allen Iverson; the aspirations of Michael Jordan to excel beyond his initial sport; the many athletes accused and found to have used performance enhancers; and, many aspects of Muhammad Ali who referred to Robinson as "the king, my master, my idol."
Q: WHAT’S UP WITH THE TITLE?
A: The title is definitely a play on the 1999 film, Being John Malkovich, where the characters could enter a secret door behind a file cabinet and for 15 minutes go into the mind of the actor, John Malkovich, before being spit out onto the road side. Robinson did so many things first or at a higher level than any athlete before him: he owned a pink Cadillac; he wore only the best of clothes; he traveled with an entourage; he retired for a year to become and entertainer; he made comebacks; he fought too long; he had tax problems and the list of first goes on. So, in a sense, in all that these celebrity athletes are doing today they are being Sugar Ray Robinson.
Q: THIS IS NOT A FULL BLOWN BIOGRAPHY, IS IT?
A: No, definitely not. But if you want to put his life in context and get a good grasp of who he was while doing so, that’s what this book strives to do for you.
Q: YOU HAVE A PHOTO AT THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK WITH ROBINSON WITH JIM BROWN AND MUHAMMAD ALI, WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THAT?
A: The key message of that image is that Robinson’s life is part of a continuum. Without Robinson there may not have been a Jim Brown, in the radical sense that we know him, and certainly not a Muhammad Ali, who actually wanted Robinson to serve as his manager. One could Photoshop that image and add before Robinson, figures like Jack Johnson, Lou Gehrig and Red Grange and after Ali, Billie Jean King, O.J. Simpson and Peyton Manning.
