Being Sugar Ray by Kenneth Shropshire

In sports there is no shortage of flamboyant champions who, by virtue of their triumphs on the field, the court, or in the ring, rise to the mantle of celebrity.

In boxing there are Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, and Sugar Ray Leonard, among others. Yet decades before Leonard thrilled the nation at the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal, the man whose nickname he adopted, Sugar Ray Robinson, set the standard for sports celebrity.

In his book, Being Sugar Ray: The Life of Sugar Ray Robinson, America’s Greatest Boxer and the First Celebrity Athlete, Kenneth Shropshire, a professor at the Wharton School and the head of its Sports Business Initiative, presents a detailed look at the life of the pioneering boxing champion.

Shropshire, however, goes far beyond a historical rendering of Robinson’s storied life and career, offering, by way of comparison, an insightful examination of the rise of the black celebrity jock in the decades since Robinson left the ring in 1965.

Shropshire notes that, long before the Escalade and Bentley generation of Allen Iverson, Terrell Owens and Donovan McNabb, Robinson was cruising stylishly through the streets of Harlem in the 1950s in a top-down, flamingo-pink Caddy bearing the vanity plates “27 RR,” drawing cheers and waves from pedestrians.

The author reminds readers that, in a sport that can be both bloody and ugly, Robinson was “pretty,” with movie-star looks, chiseled physique, processed hair, and an extensive and stylish wardrobe.

From Robinson’s early years in Detroit to his family’s move to New York and his death in 1989 in the Crenshaw section of Los Angeles, Shropshire chronicles the life of a five-time middleweight champion who recorded 175 wins, 19 defeats and two no-decisions, boxing’s version of ties, in a quarter century that began in 1940. The author points out that premier heavy-weight champions Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis notched career records of 56-5 and 63-8 respectively.

Shropshire also notes that during his 25 years in the ring, Robinson earned $4 million, a paltry amount in comparison to the fighters of today whose purses for a single championship bout easily exceed that sum.

Despite the disparity in earnings, the author relates that Robinson was able to use his money and fame to become a Harlem entrepreneur, owning thriving businesses, including Sugar Ray’s Cafe, a lingerie store, a barber shop, a cleaners on Seventh Avenue between 123rd and 124th streets, and offices and apartments.

Aficionados of the “sweet science” can appreciate the descriptions of Robinson’s epic battles with Jake La Motta, Joey Maxim, Rocky Graziano, and England’s Randy Turpin, presented in crisp, often blow-by-blow detail.

The strength of the book, however, is the analysis of what it means to be a combination of athlete, icon and black man in America, where nearly every aspect of life is viewed through the prism of race and where the fall of a celebrity is chronicled with at least as much passion and detail as his or her climb to fame.

“In the postwar 1940s and the tumultuous 1950s, Sugar Ray Robinson was the world’s top sports icon, black or white,” Shropshire writes. He notes that as much as Robinson was hailed in America, he was beloved in France, where he once kissed the wife of the president twice on each cheek and where he began referring to the troupe that traveled with him as his entourage.

While the focus is clearly on Robinson’s life, the author takes many jabs — some glancing, others stingingly flush — at contemporary and historic black athletes from Terrell Owens, Donovan McNabb and Ron Artest to Jackie Robinson, Jim Brown and Wilt Chamberlain.

There are reflections on problems encountered and often created by contemporary athletes, and there are generous accolades. No need for scorecards here; it’s a TKO.