Robert lipsyte short biography

American sports journalist, novelist (born )

Robert Lipsyte
Born	() January 16, (age&#;86) New York Metropolis, US
Occupation(s)	Sports journalist, author
Employer(s)	New York Times, ESPN, CBS, NBC, various publishers
Children	2
Website

Robert Michael Lipsyte (born January 16, ) is an American sports journalist and author and former ombudsman for ESPN.

He is a member of the Board of Contributors for USA Today's Forum Page, part of the newspaper's Opinion section. He received the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association in for his contribution in writing for teens.^[1]

Personal background

Lipsyte was born on January 16, , in New York City, the son of Fanny (Finston) and Sidney I.

Lipsyte. He grew up in Rego Park, a neighborhood in the New York capital borough of Queens.^[2] Lipsyte's father was a school principal, his mother a teacher. Young Robert devoted his childhood to books rather than sports.

I've always had two writing lives, one as a journalist and one as an author of fiction. I love them both. They complement each other. My professional journalism life started in June,when I answered a classified ad in the New York Times for an "editorial assistant.

Instead of sharing a game of catch with his father, the two often visited the library. Robert's son, Sam Lipsyte, is also an author and lecturer at Columbia University in Recent York.

In the first chapter of his book SportsWorld, which considers the role of sports in American culture, Lipsyte points out that he did not even attend his first Major League Baseball game until he was thirteen years old, despite the fact that there were three major league teams in New York (the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers) during his childhood.

Lipsyte says he was “profoundly disappointed” with his experience at the game and so went to only one more game “as a paying customer.” His third major league game was as a sports reporter for the New York Times.

As a boy, Lipsyte did play Chinese handball against the sides of brick buildings and participated in street games such as stickball, but he felt acute pressure to succeed at sports which discouraged his interest.

This experience later developed into a major theme in some of Lipsyte's nonfiction works such as SportsWorld and novels like Jock and Jill () and his trilogy beginning with One Fat Summer (). The protagonist of One Fat Summer, Bobby Marks, is similar to Lipsyte: Bobby is an adolescent in the s, suffering from a weight problem, who does something about it.

In , Lipsyte took a summer profession as a lawn boy and lost forty pounds, ridding himself of the youthful stigma of excess weight.

Television

Lipsyte has done work as a correspondent for both CBS and NBC, in addition to an Emmy-winning stint as host of WNET/Thirteen's "The Eleventh Hour" in the overdue s.^[3]

Works of nonfiction

Much of Lipsyte's nonfiction deals with sports, but here again he rarely takes a conventional approach.

He is especially concerned that children are subjected to sports in negative ways.

He received the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association in for his contribution in writing for teens. Young Robert devoted his childhood to books rather than sports. Instead of sharing a game of catch with his father, the two often visited the library. In the first chapter of his book SportsWorldwhich considers the role of sports in American culture, Lipsyte points out that he did not even attend his first Major League Baseball game until he was thirteen years old, despite the fact that there were three major league teams in Fresh York the Yankeesthe Giantsand the Dodgers during his childhood.

Sports, he argues, should be entertaining and entertaining; winning need not be the only goal. Although he is not anti-sport, he is disillusioned by a identity of champions that he calls “Sportsworld.” SportsWorld, as Lipsyte points out in the book by that name, “is a grotesque distortion of sports.” It honors the winner more than the race.

As illustrated in The Contender, Lipsyte values the process more than the result; competing well is more important than winning itself.

Lipsyte was among the first to accept and respect the heavyweightboxing champ Muhammad Ali.

His agreement that Ali should be allowed to be himself is echoed in the title of his book on the complicated man: "Free to Be Muhammad Ali".

He co-authored comedian and social activist Dick Gregory's autobiography, Nigger.

He graduated in at the age of 19, and landed a career as a copy boy in the sports department of the New York Times. Lipsyte worked at the Times for 14 years — with a timeout to receive a master's degree from the Columbia School of Journalism in — becoming a sports reporter at 21 and then a sports columnist for the paper in During that time he also co-authored Nigger with the controversial comic and activist Dick Gregory; The Masculine Mystique ; and published an edited collection of his columns, Assignment: Sports Lipsyte's first and best-known novel for young people, The Contenderwon a children's novel award, and Lipsyte abandoned his journalism career in after columns to concentrate on writing novels.

In , Lipsyte was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Despite his eventual recovery from that first bout, he was diagnosed with cancer a second time in His experience with the illness led to another novel for young adults, The Chemo Kid (). In it, the protagonist, Fred Bauer, an ordinary lofty school junior in almost every way, discovers he has cancer and undergoes a series of experimental hormone treatments.

Miraculously, Fred acquires superpowers, apparently due to the treatments, and becomes “The Chemo Kid,” fighting for the environment and against drug dealers.

An adult consideration of cancer, and sickness in general, is Lipsyte's nonfiction work, In the Country of Illness.

Here, he speaks of infirmity as if it is a foreign territory, a place he calls “Malady . . . another land, scary and strange.” Basing his accounts on his own experiences, as well as those of other family members, he comforts, advises, warns, and informs the reader with tenderness, insight, and wit.

Lipsyte's second wife, Margie, learned that she had breast cancer after their divorce.

In a interview with SportsMediaGuide, Lipsyte said that he has reach to realize "that most jocks are sissies&#;".^[4]

Lipsyte's autobiography, An Accidental Sportswriter, looks back at his long, unconventional career as a sports journalist at The Unused York Times and other outlets.^[5]

In addition to the Emmy, Lipsyte's honors and awards include the Dutton Best Sports Stories Award, E.

P. Dutton, , , , , and ; the Mike Berger Award, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and ; Wel-Met Children's Book Award, ; New York Times remarkable children's book of the year citation, ; American Library Association best young adult book citation, ; and New Jersey Writer citation,

Lipsyte has been a resident of Closter, New Jersey.

He was inducted into the New Jersey Literary Hall of Fame in ^[6]

The ALA Margaret A. Edwards Award recognizes one writer and a particular body of work for "significant and lasting contribution to young individual literature".

Lipsyte won the annual award in , citing four books published from to According to the citation, "The Contender and its sequels, The Brave and The Chief transformed the sports novel to authentic literature with their gritty depiction of the boxing world.

An carried on theme is the struggle of their protagonists to seek personal victory by their continuing attempts towards a better life despite defeats.

Education: Columbia UniversityB. Has also worked as a journalism teacher and radio commentator. Military service: U. Army,

The alike theme appears in the humorous One Fat Summer, in which an overweight boy deals with the timeless angst of body image and which was adapted by David Scearce into the film Measure of a Man. Lipsyte's books focus on the search for self-definition by juvenile adults."^[1]

At one point, One Chubby Summer was removed from the syllabus of the Levittown, Brand-new York public school system after complaints were made about its depiction of its teenage protagonist's sexual fantasies.

The decision was criticized by educators, civil libertarians, and the author Judy Blume.^[7]

References

External links