Robert Lipsyte

Robert Lipsyte (2008)

Robert Michael Lipsyte (born January 5, 1938 in New York City ) is an American sports journalist and writer. As a sports journalist, he has worked for major daily newspapers such as the New York Times and USA Today , but also for television ( ESPN , CBS , NBC ). One of his most important achievements as a writer is the novel The Contender , published in 1967 , which, together with Susan E. Hintons The Outsiders, founded a new category of youth literature, young adult fiction . The American Library Association honored Lipsyte with its Margaret Edwards Award in 2001 for this and other contributions .

life and work

Lipsyte studied English at Columbia University in New York City, where she earned a bachelor's degree in 1957 and a master's degree in 1959 .

After studying, a job at the New York Times followed, where Lipsyte was employed first as a copyboy (1957–1959), then as a sports reporter (1959–1967) and finally as a sports columnist (1967–1971; again 1991–2002). The activity was interrupted in 1961 by military service.

In 1977 Lipsyte was a columnist for the New York Post . From 1982 to 1986 he contributed as a sports essayist to the popular news program Sunday Morning on the television channel CBS. He then moved as a correspondent for the television station NBC (1986–1988). From 1989 to 1990 he moderated the television program The Eleventh Hour on the PBS television channel.

Lipsyte is married to the writer Lois B. Morris and has two adult children. He currently lives in Shelter Island on Long Island . His son Sam Lipsyte (* 1968) is also a writer.

The Contender

In 1967 Lipsyte published his most important work in literary history, The Contender , which, together with Susan E. Hinton's The Outsiders (1967) and Paul Zindel's The Pigman (1968), became the starting point for a new, strictly realistic young adult fiction . The novel tells the story of a 17-year-old African American high school dropout in Harlem who becomes a boxer and, after a series of complications, manages to escape his drug-abuse and acquisitive environment:

Alfred has lived with an aunt since his father's disappearance and his mother's death; his main caregiver is his friend James. Alfred works as a salesman in the Epstein's grocery store, which James, who has joined a street gang, breaks into. Things go wrong, James is arrested but released on parole. The gang leader, Major, beats up Alfred for not mentioning that Mr. Epstein had an alarm system installed in his shop.

In Mr. Donatelli, who runs a boxing school, Alfred finds a wise mentor who teaches him that the key to any success in life is striving . He advises Alfred to become not a champion but a contender , someone for whom the journey is the goal, not victory. Boxer training proves to be laborious and tedious; the Epsteins, his employers, doubt whether they can still trust Alfred after the break-in; Alfred loses courage, goes to a gang party where he gets intoxicated with alcohol and marijuana and discovers that James is now addicted to heroin. After a trip with the gang to Coney Island , where Major is almost arrested, he decides to give up boxing.

Only in a conversation with Mr. Donatelli does Alfred realize that giving up is out of the question for him. With fresh enthusiasm, he starts training again, is now making rapid progress and will soon be through his first competitions. He gets into crisis again when he almost kills an opponent in the ring. Since he doesn't dare to strike after that, Mr. Donatelli himself advises him to stop boxing. In the decisive final fight with a superior opponent, he finds the courage to fight again and knows that he will go on. Later he will also decide to take his school leaving certificate.

The last challenge Alfred has to face is the fight over the fate of his friend James, who was seriously injured in a recent break-in. Seeking medical help would inevitably lead to James's arrest. However, Alfred succeeds in encouraging James, and the friend has him take him to the hospital.

Lipsyte's literary achievement consisted in transforming the genre of the sports novel , which until then had been action-oriented and characterized by one-dimensional protagonists and predictable storylines. Under Lipsyte's hands, the material became “a realistic development novel in which sport served as a metaphor for the real action of the novel: the coping with life” (Jack Forman). With his book, Lipsyte started a trend towards sports novels in which the focus is on the character of the characters who grow as personalities through hard work and adherence to moral principles. He also wrote several other boxing novels ( The Brave , 1991; The Chief , 1993; Warrior Angel , 2003).

Publications

For adults

Non-fiction

• With Dick Gregory: Nigger . Dutton, New York 1964.
• The Masculine Mystique . New American Library, New York 1966.
• SportsWorld: An American Dreamland . Quadrangle, New York 1975.
• With Peter Levine: Idols of the Game: A Sporting History of the Twentieth Century . Turner Publications, 1995.
• In the Country of Illness: Comfort and Advice for the Journey . Knopf, New York 1998.

Novels

• With Steve Cady: Something Going . Dutton, New York 1973.
• Liberty Two . Simon and Schuster, New York 1974.

Scripts (selection)

• 1975 - That's the Way of the World (Director: Sig Shore)
• 1983 - The Act (Sig Shore)
• 2018 - Measure of a Man (Jim Loach)

memoirs

• An Accidental Sportswriter: A Memoir . Ecco, 2011, ISBN 978-0-06-176913-9 .

Novels for teenagers

• The Contender . Harper, New York 1967, ISBN 978-0-06-023919-0 .

German: Al, the gentle winner . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1989.

• One fat summer . Harper, New York 1977, ISBN 978-0-553-25591-1 .
• Summer Rules . Harper, New York 1981, ISBN 978-0-06-447071-1 .
• Jock and Jill . Harper, New York 1982, ISBN 978-0-590-32862-3 .
• The Summerboy . Harper, New York 1982, ISBN 978-0-06-447072-8 .
• The Brave . Harper, New York 1991, ISBN 978-0-06-447079-7 .

German: ko - life is harder than your fist . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1996, ISBN 978-3-570-20210-4 .

• The Chemo Kid . Harper, New York 1992, ISBN 978-0-06-020284-2 .
• The Chief . Harper, New York 1993, ISBN 978-0-06-447097-1 .
• Warrior Angel . HarperCollins, New York 2003, ISBN 978-0-06-000498-9 .
• Yellow flag . HarperCollins, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-06-055707-2 .
• Center Field . HarperTeen, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-06-055704-1 .

Non-fiction books for children

• Assignment: Sports . Harper, New York 1970.
• Free to Be Muhammad Ali . Harper, New York 1978.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger: American Hercules . Harper, New York 1993.
• Jim Thorpe: Twentieth-Century Jock . Harper, New York 1993.
• Michael Jordan: A Life above the Rim . HarperCollins, New York 1994.
• Joe Louis: A Champ for All America . Harper, New York 1994.

Novels for 11 to 13 year olds

• The Twinning Project . Clarion, 2012, ISBN 978-0-547-64571-1 .
• Twin Powers . Clarion, 2014, ISBN 978-0-547-97335-7 .

Awards

Lipsyte has been awarded a number of important prizes for both his sports journalism and his writing work:

As a journalist

Dutton Best Sports Stories Award, EP Dutton:

• 1964 - for The Long Road to Broken Dreams
• 1965 - for The Incredible Cassius
• 1967 - for Where the Stars of To-morrow Shine Tonight
• 1971 - for Dempsey in the Window
• 1976 - for Pride of the Tiger

Other awards:

• 1966 - Mike Berger Award, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
• 1990 - Emmy , for The Eleventh Hour

As a writer

• 1967 - Wel-Met Children's Book Award, Child Study Children's Book Committee at Bank Street College of Education, for The Contender
• 1967 - American Library Association (ALA) Notable Book for Children, for The Contender
• 1977 - New York Times outstanding children's book of the year , for One Fat Summer
• 1977 - One Fat Summer is included in the ALA list of best young-adult books
• 1978 - New Jersey Institute of Technology: New Jersey Author citation
• 1999 - ALAN Award ( The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents , an organ of the National Council of Teachers of English )
• 2001 - Margaret A. Edwards Award, for its overall contribution to American youth literature

Web links

• Lipsyte's official website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Robert (Michael) Lipsyte (1938–) Biography. Retrieved September 19, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Robert Lipsyte: Biography. Retrieved September 19, 2019 . 
3. ^ The Contender: Book Summary. Retrieved September 19, 2019 . The Contender: Plot Overview. Retrieved September 19, 2019 .