Bert Randolph Sugar in Michigan of 1961 - Essay Example

Bert Randolph Sugar It was a fine sunny day in Michigan of 1961 when many students were getting their MBA degrees during a graduation ceremony at the University of Michigan. Quite understandably, no one from the audience was able to remember the names of all the graduates since there were just so many of them. However, every member of the audience would have remembered the name of at least one of those many graduates, if they would have the opportunity to travel in time to the future of that graduate. People would have stood up in respect for that for that 25-year-old boy if they would have any idea that exactly after forty-four years that boy would became a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame. They would have definitely remembered the name of that graduate if they had known that this boy would become a new chapter in the history of sports journalism. Nevertheless, the university and his teachers are proud of him because today world knows him with the title of “The Greatest Boxing writer of the 20th century.” Born on June 7, 1936 in Washington D.C., Bert Randolph Sugar is without any doubts a great icon in the history of sports journalism. Very few people have been able to attain the levels of success and popularity similar to that of Bert Randolph Sugar. In fact, it is not only him who is famous but also his cigar and fedora is equally famous and is a trademark under his name. His activeness and interest in sports and became evident to his teacher when he founded the first Rugby Football club of the University of Michigan. After graduating from the college, it was some moment of madness in which he decided that he wants to work for an advertising agency. Thank god, that he took a U-turn from his decision within seven to eight years and decided to pursue his career for what he had a natural gift; editing, writing and looking after sports magazines. He worked for “Boxing Illustrated” and “The Ring” (Sugar, pp. 52-59, 2005). However, what is more important is his writing career. He has written more than 80 books mostly on boxing and baseball. Moreover, his books are some great masterpieces of the boxing and baseball history. He lives in New York these days and is still working on many books. Moreover, he is also available for TV commercials, Cameo appearances, new product launch campaigns, spokesperson campaigns, corporate events and endorsement campaigns and others. He has appeared in a few films as well. In addition, he is a common sight at ESPN offering his expert insightful analysis on various sport developments. The rest of this paper discusses the contribution of Bert Randolph sugar as a sport journalist and its impacts. People often perceive that sport journalism is an easy business because these people have the simplest task of writing about and discussing things that are common and known to everyone. People think that sports are mere games and even a five-year-old kid knows it and plays it. However, this is not exactly the case. Sports are a multi dollar business these days. With huge amount of sponsorships, advertising, global viewers, emotions and nationalities and serious consequences make sports a complicated issue. Moreover, all these issues do not exist on the surface of the playground but exist deep down in the harts and minds of the players, deep down in the sand on the ground or the high profile offices (Torres, Sugar, & Mailer, pp. 5-7, 2009). Sports journalists have the task to dig them up and critically analyze them so that the viewers and readers can get access to a whole and wider picture of the situation. Bert Randolph Sugar was one of those few journalists who were able to provide with people the bigger picture of boxing. His books were full of critical and analytical view of boxing and provided his readers with a complete picture of discussed elements and situations (Albano, Sugar & Benson, pp. 85-97, 2000). As mentioned above that the biggest contribution of sugar was in the field of boxing. Now important here to note is that boxing is a fighting sport where death or fatal injuries are very common. Therefore, many conservatives do not recommend this sport for people. Moreover, people used to perceive it as sport of tough men and thought that it has nothing to do with literature and journalism. At the time when sugar came on the scene with pen and mike in his hands to talk and write about boxing and wrestling it was entirely a different experience. At that cricket was the only that was considered to be “gentle men’s sport” and only cricket had drawn a lot of attention from writers, speakers and literature review experts (Dundee & Sugar, pp. 3-7, 2007). Writing numerous books for boxing and wrestling was a bold step for sugar since writers just did not consider that people who would be interested in boxing would read these books and literature. Moreover, before the late 19th century boxing and wrestling was a sport restricted to certain specific western cultures. However, it was with the efforts of journalists like Bert Randolph Sugar that packed in books; this sport was carried to different parts of the country. In fact, many sport experts agree to the fact it was more due to journalism than the sport itself that the sport of boxing and wrestling was able to reach the hearts and minds of the people that they never thought it would reach (Dundee & Sugar, pp. 3-7, 2007). Moreover, the readers of sugar agree that he has the gift of capturing, seizing, and transforming the real life, live and sizzling drama happening in the boxing ring in form of words and store that on the pages of his books forever and ever. Therefore, sugar deservers all the credit of cross-cultural transferring of the boxing culture. Books like “100 years of boxing”, “505 Boxing Questions Your Friends Can't Answer”, “The Book of sports quotes” and others are some of his masterpieces in this regard (Sugar, pp. 52-59, 2005). It is very important for any journalist to be brave and be able to present his viewpoints regardless of any external pressures. A true journalist like sugar knows that his true examiners are his readers and they would rank him on his content and not any other people. Experts in the industry do praise Sugar boldness for his work in his books like “The Sport 100: A ranking of greatest athletes of all time” (Sugar, pp. 12-14, 2006). With his above-mentioned book of the year 1997, sugar had the courage to come up with something that nobody would have ever thought of. He ranked according to his understanding, the 100 greatest sportsmen of all times (Torres, Sugar, & Mailer, pp. 5-7, 2009). He provided justification of all his rankings however, this book created a heated debate in the industry (Albano, Sugar & Benson, pp. 85-97, 2000). Nevertheless, Sugar was again the winner to remain in the spotlight and get credit from the critics. Another daring and critical book of Sugar’s was “Boxing Greatest Fights” (Sugar, pp. 12-14, 2006). With this book, sugar told the world that he has the ability to see those things that others just do not have. Not only, had sugar rated the greatest fights in the history of boxing in order but also critically analyzed those fights (Torres, Sugar, & Mailer, pp. 5-7, 2009). For the first time, any author came up with the questions that what would have happened if some other wrestler has defeated Muhammad Ali. Sugar’s great contributions are not only restricted to the sports of boxing but he has also provided the world with his writings on baseball and some other cowboy sports. With his books, “I Hate the Dallas Cowboys: And Who Elected Them America's Team Anyway?”, “Baseball's 50 greatest games”, “Horse Sense: An Inside Look at the Sport of Kings”, “The Baseball Maniac's Almanac: The Absolutely, Positively, and Without Question Greatest Book of Facts, Figures, and Astonishing Lists Ever Compiled!” “The Great Baseball Players from McGraw to Mantle: With 248 Historic Photographs from the Archives of Photo and other he has shown the world a different side of the picture of these sports as well” (Sugar, pp. 12-14, 2006), he proved the point to the world that he is not only boxing man but very much a sportsperson as well. Moreover, as a public speaker and a commentator, many of his lines have gained a lot of prominence in the sports world. For example, Bert Randolph Sugar once said, “Ask a writer what he thinks about critics and the answer you get is similar to what you get when you ask a lamppost how he feels about dogs”, “There's a lot of money to be made by somebody, but I don't know who that somebody would be” (Patterson & Sugar, pp. 1-4, 2007). These words are his contribution towards making sure that people remember these sports until ages. References Albano, Lou, Sugar, Bert Randolph., & Benson, Michael. (2000). the complete idiot's guide to pro wrestling. Alpha. Dundee, Angelo, & Sugar, Bert Randolph. (2007). my view from the corner: a life in boxing. McGraw-Hill Professional. Patterson, Floyd, & Sugar, Bert Randolph. (2007). the International Boxing Hall of Fame's Basic Boxing Skills. Skyhorse Publishing Inc. Sugar, Bert Randolph. (2005). Bert Sugar on Boxing: The Best of the Sport's Most Notable Writer. The Lyons Press. Sugar, Bert Randolph. (2006). Boxing's Greatest Fighters. Lyons Press. Torres, José, Sugar, Bert Randolph., & Mailer, Norman. (2009). Sting like a Bee: The Muhammad Ali Story. Bison Books. Read More