Being Sugar Ray: The Life of Sugar Ray Robinson, America's Greatest Boxer and the First Celebrity Athlete [Hardcover]

Kenneth Shropshire (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 8, 2007

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Shropshire (The Business of Sports Agents) calls this "the biography of an idea": Sugar Ray Robinson as the first sports figure to engineer a synergistic success machine out of a flashy image, a fancy entourage and a business plan. Indeed, rather than a straight recount of the storied fighter's life, Shropshire uses scenes from it to create a prism through which the phenomenon of the celebrity athlete reveals itself. Consequently, this volume often reads like a CliffsNotes version of the African-American boxer's troubled youth, 25-year career, restless retirement and demise. Though hardly a saint in or out of the ring, Robinson carved a legacy that Shropshire contends athletes have been trying to emulate (consciously or otherwise) ever since. Race obviously plays a big role in Robinson's story, and the author (African-American himself) handles the topic admirably; on the subject of contemporary sports stars, however, he isn't as evenhanded, making examples of the usual suspects-Kobe Bryant, Terrell Owens, Randy Moss-and arguing how each could learn from Robinson's example. Vivid, present-tense you-are-there retellings of boxing matches balance nicely a narrative that often runs dry on textbook-like prose.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Shropshire argues that boxer Robinson's popularity in the 1950s and 1960s was the precursor to the "cult of celebrity" experienced in later years by such black athletes as Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, and Tiger Woods. Robinson was a black celebrity in a generally hostile white world, yet he managed to avoid many of the pitfalls experienced by previous black boxing champions, such as Jack Johnson (who antagonized the white world and was virtually crushed by it) and Joe Louis (who submerged his real personality to avoid a similar fate). Robinson, on the other hand, managed to become an embodiment of middle-class values without turning his back on the black community. Shropshire points out that middleweight Robinson's success outside the ring had much to do with his average size, which made it possible for average-size men, both black and white, to identify with him. By presenting the story of Robinson's life in the context of his stature as a public figure, Shropshire delivers both an empathetic biography as well as a studied, thoughtful examination of celebrity. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Basic Civitas Books; 1St Edition edition (January 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465078036
• ISBN-13: 978-0465078035
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #854,199 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Puzzling Pseudo-Biography, April 6, 2007

By 

Bicycle Day - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Being Sugar Ray: The Life of Sugar Ray Robinson, America's Greatest Boxer and the First Celebrity Athlete (Hardcover)

"Sugar Ray Robinson was the consummate professional, entertainer, and businessperson. How do today's athletes measure up compared to Sugar Ray Robinson?" And unfortunately for the focus of the book, author Kenneth Shropshire spends too much valuable space in the 220 pages trying to find Robinson's trifecta in the athletes of today.

For nearly 190 of those pages Shropshire takes small snippets from Robinson's life and attempts to weave comparisons & contrasts through stars like Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Terrell Owens, Ron Artest, Randy Moss, Roger Federer, Pat Tillman, Mike Tyson, Shaq, Michael Jordan, Paul Pierce and Allen Iverson. It is oftentimes a very frustrating read as Shropshire fails to tie these loose strands together in so few pages.

And, ultimately, Shropshire questions his approach in the closing paragraph: "There is no evidence that Sugar Ray consciously led the postsegregation celebrity athlete transition. Maybe athletes today are accomplishing something unconsciously. Time will tell."

The book starts out with so much promise - chronicling Robinson's final farewell to boxing in December 1965 - and his years as an amateur fighter, with special emphasis on how he "found" his ring name and nickname. But the spotlight doesn't again fully focus on Robinson until the closing chapters of the too-often tragic boxing story of a former great champion; major financial problems to go along with severe physical debilitation from taking too many hard blows in a career lasting far too long.

I would give Shropshire the benefit of the doubt of being overly-ambitious if only somewhere in the title describes how he theorizes the evolution of Walker Smith Jr. into Sugar Ray Robinson has impacted the new generation of celebrity athletes.

"Suger Ray lived the moment," concludes Shropshire. It is too bad that Sugar Ray's moment is muddled in this book.

3.0 out of 5 stars About sport and celebrity and not the greatest boxer, April 25, 2009

By 

Siriam (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Being Sugar Ray: The Life of Sugar Ray Robinson, America's Greatest Boxer and the First Celebrity Athlete (Hardcover)

If you want a detailed biography of Sugar Ray then this book is not it and to be fair does not pretend to be despite the title. Shropshire who has written a number of books and articles on business and sports and black sportsmen has taken the core theme that the man was in the 1950s (after an initial first career in the 1940s) able to reinvent himself and become the prototype for many of todays black sports stars in terms of handling how they become famous and wealthy.


The book takes a number of themes such as style; business dealings, competitor rivalries and followers/hangers on and covers each in a chapter built around events in Sugar Ray's life. These are expanded to include reactions under the scrutiny of the media; mega financial wealth from very poor beginnings and obtaining status and respect with both blacks and whites (or the ability by wrong moves to easily lose it!). However Shropshire does spend a lot of time in the telling making many references to later sportsmen and events from the 1970s to date. For an non-US reader with little knowledge of NFL, NBA I suspect many of the names and events will mean little, even if the key points of principle are understood.

An interesting read from that limited perspective but I suspect if like me you read as a boxing fan, you will find it a bit of a disappointment, despite the occasional detailed coverage of a key fight. One thing the book does show is the clear evidence that many of todays superstars have it easy compared with the number of matches and scores Robinson achieved across his long period of activity. Proof again that Sugar Ray was the true all time boxing great, whatever his personal flaws.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Being Sugar Ray.....(or others), November 22, 2007

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R. Zywica (Rio Rancho, NM) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Being Sugar Ray: The Life of Sugar Ray Robinson, America's Greatest Boxer and the First Celebrity Athlete (Hardcover)

This is one of the worst biographies I have ever read. The author, instead of giving us new information on Sugar Ray, compares his life and deeds to that of many other athletes, in many different sports, in many different eras. There are many bio's of Robinson available, all of them much better than this one.