The Contender

by Robert Lipsyte

If you get Bob Lipsyte talking about how The Contender came to be, he will tell you that the seed was planted when he took a man named Cus D’Amato out to dinner, shortly before he covered a boxing match in 1964 in Miami. Lipsyte would later go on to be a sports columnist for the New York Times, but in 1964 he was a cub reporter sent to cover the fight between Sonny Lipton and a new kid whom everyone thought would get knocked out in the first round, Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali). Cus D'Amato told Lipsyte about a gym he once owned in a tough neighborhood in Manhattan, and about how he would listen for the footsteps of a kid who would climb the three flights of stairs to his gym, alone and maybe scared, but willing to be a contender, a fighter. That set Lipsyte to thinking about what kind of kid would walk up those stairs. Seventeen-year-old Alfred Brooks is the kid he imagines, and the teen’s challenges include more than just the physical stamina required to become a competitive boxer. Alfred must make some tough decisions in his neighborhood that could cause him to leave his best friend, James, behind. This book is likely to make boxing fans of even newcomers to the sport, and seasoned aficionados will appreciate Cus D’Amato’s influence here. (D’Amato, who trained the young Mike Tyson, died in 1985, just before a 20-year-old Tyson took the heavyweight title.)