Robert Lipsyte
Encyclopedia
Robert Lipsyte is an American
sports journalist
and author
. Lipsyte is a member of the Board of Contributors for USA Today
s Forum Page, part of the newspaper’s Opinion section.
. He grew up in Rego Park
, a neighborhood in the New York city
borough
of Queens
. Lipsyte’s father was a school principal, his mother a teacher. 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. Robert's son, Sam Lipsyte
, is also an author and teacher at Columbia University
in New York.
In the first chapter of his 1975 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. 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 excel 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 (1982) and his trilogy beginning with One Fat Summer (1977). The protagonist of One Fat Summer, Bobby Marks, is similar to Lipsyte: Bobby is an adolescent in the 1950s, suffering from a weight problem, who does something about it. In 1952, Lipsyte took a summer job as a lawn boy and lost forty pounds, ridding himself of the youthful stigma of excess weight.
Lipsyte was among the first to accept and respect the heavyweight boxing
champ Muhammad Ali
. His agreement that Ali should be allowed to be himself is echoed in the title of his 1978 book on the complicated man: "Free to Be Muhammad Ali".
He co-authored comedian and social activist Dick Gregory
's 1964 autobiography, Nigger
.
In 1978, Robert Lipsyte was diagnosed with testicular cancer
. Despite his eventual recovery from that first bout, he was diagnosed with cancer
a second time in 1991. His experience with the illness led to another novel for young adults, The Chemo Kid (1992). In it, the protagonist
, Fred Bauer, an ordinary high 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 1998 nonfiction work, "In the Country of Illness". Here, he speaks of infirmity as if it is a foreign land, a place he calls “Malady . . . another country, 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. Especially moving is the account of Lipsyte’s second wife Margie’s failing health, after being diagnosed with breast cancer, and the strength shown by Margie and their two young adult children.
Lipsyte's 2011 autobiography, "An Accidental Sportswriter," looks back at his long, unconventional career as a sports journalist at The New York Times
and other outlets.
In addition to the Emmy, Lipsyte’s honors and awards include the Dutton Best Sports Stories Award, E. P. Dutton
, 1964, 1965, 1967, 1971, and 1976; the Mike Berger Award, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, 1966 and 1996; Wel-Met Children’s Book Award, 1967; New York Times outstanding children’s book of the year citation, 1977; American Library Association
best young adult book citation, 1977; and New Jersey Author citation, 1978.
Lipsyte has been a resident of Closter, New Jersey
. He was inducted into the New Jersey Literary Hall of Fame in 1993.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
sports journalist
Sports journalism
Sports journalism is a form of journalism that reports on sports topics and events.While the sports department within some newspapers has been mockingly called the toy department, because sports journalists do not concern themselves with the 'serious' topics covered by the news desk, sports...
and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
. Lipsyte is a member of the Board of Contributors for USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
s Forum Page, part of the newspaper’s Opinion section.
Personal background
Robert Michael Lipsyte was born on January 16, 1938 in New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. He grew up in Rego Park
Rego Park, Queens
Rego Park is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens.-Geography:Rego Park is bordered to the north by Elmhurst and Corona, the east and south by Forest Hills and the west by Middle Village.-History:...
, a neighborhood in the New York city
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
borough
Borough (New York City)
New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, is composed of five boroughs. Each borough now has the same boundaries as the county it is in. County governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county...
of Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
. Lipsyte’s father was a school principal, his mother a teacher. 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. Robert's son, Sam Lipsyte
Sam Lipsyte
Sam Lipsyte is an American novelist and short story writer.The son of the sports journalist Robert Lipsyte, Sam Lipsyte was born in New York City and raised in Closter, New Jersey...
, is also an author and teacher at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York.
In the first chapter of his 1975 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. 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
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
.
As a boy, Lipsyte did play Chinese handball
Chinese handball
Chinese handball , is a form of American handball popular on the streets of New York City, Philadelphia, and Bridgewater, NJ during the 1960s,'70s, and '80s and is still played today, mostly in New York City, Philadelphia, and San Diego. Different variations are played around the world...
against the sides of brick buildings and participated in street games such as stickball
Stickball
Stickball is a street game related to baseball, usually formed as a pick-up game, played in large cities in the Northeastern United States, especially New York City. The equipment consists of a broom handle and a rubber ball, typically a spaldeen, pensie pinkie, high bouncer or tennis ball. The...
, but he felt acute pressure to excel 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 (1982) and his trilogy beginning with One Fat Summer (1977). The protagonist of One Fat Summer, Bobby Marks, is similar to Lipsyte: Bobby is an adolescent in the 1950s, suffering from a weight problem, who does something about it. In 1952, Lipsyte took a summer job 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 late 1980s.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. Sports should be fun and entertaining; winning need not be the only goal. Although he is not anti-sport, he is disillusioned by a culture 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 heavyweight boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
champ Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
. His agreement that Ali should be allowed to be himself is echoed in the title of his 1978 book on the complicated man: "Free to Be Muhammad Ali".
He co-authored comedian and social activist Dick Gregory
Dick Gregory
Richard Claxton "Dick" Gregory is an American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur....
's 1964 autobiography, Nigger
Nigger (1964 book)
Nigger: An Autobiography by Dick Gregory is an autobiography by comedian and social activist Dick Gregory, published in 1964 by E.P. Dutton, and reprinted by Pocket Books from 1965 to present. The book was co-authored by Robert Lipsyte...
.
In 1978, Robert Lipsyte was diagnosed with testicular cancer
Testicular cancer
Testicular cancer is cancer that develops in the testicles, a part of the male reproductive system.In the United States, between 7,500 and 8,000 diagnoses of testicular cancer are made each year. In the UK, approximately 2,000 men are diagnosed each year. Over his lifetime, a man's risk of...
. Despite his eventual recovery from that first bout, he was diagnosed with cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
a second time in 1991. His experience with the illness led to another novel for young adults, The Chemo Kid (1992). In it, the protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
, Fred Bauer, an ordinary high 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 1998 nonfiction work, "In the Country of Illness". Here, he speaks of infirmity as if it is a foreign land, a place he calls “Malady . . . another country, 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
Breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...
after their divorce. Especially moving is the account of Lipsyte’s second wife Margie’s failing health, after being diagnosed with breast cancer, and the strength shown by Margie and their two young adult children.
Lipsyte's 2011 autobiography, "An Accidental Sportswriter," looks back at his long, unconventional career as a sports journalist at The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and other outlets.
In addition to the Emmy, Lipsyte’s honors and awards include the Dutton Best Sports Stories Award, E. P. Dutton
E. P. Dutton
E. P. Dutton was an American book publishing company founded as a book retailer in Boston, Massachusetts in 1852 by Edward Payson Dutton. In 1986, the company was acquired by Penguin Group and split into two imprints: Dutton Penguin and Dutton Children's Books.-History:Edward Payson Dutton founded...
, 1964, 1965, 1967, 1971, and 1976; the Mike Berger Award, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, 1966 and 1996; Wel-Met Children’s Book Award, 1967; New York Times outstanding children’s book of the year citation, 1977; American Library Association
American Library Association
The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
best young adult book citation, 1977; and New Jersey Author citation, 1978.
Lipsyte has been a resident of Closter, New Jersey
Closter, New Jersey
Closter is a Borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 8,373. After the turn of the century, Closter changed from being sprawling estates and farms into a middle and upper middle class suburban town...
. He was inducted into the New Jersey Literary Hall of Fame in 1993.
External links
- RobertLipsyte.com, Lipsyte's home page
- Video interviews/conversations on Bloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers...