Book report analysis and summary

Ron Rubin's "Anything for a T-Shirt: Fred Lebow and the New York City Marathon, the World's Greatest Footrace" is the impressive story of a man who managed to surpass his human limits in order to achieve his goals, and, in doing so, determined and crucially influenced the evolution of the greatest marathon in the world, the New York City Marathon.

The author is successful in portraying Fred Lebow's personal struggles and the way he overcomes them in a proper environment created by the historical perspective given by the development of the marathon movement which characterized the late 70's. At the same time however, Rubin combines the biographical details of Lebow's personal life with his professional achievements in the field of marketing strategies, an element that largely contributed to the success of Lebow's attempt to give an updated approach to the marathon in 1970. Finally, in the last chapters of the book, Ron Robin focuses on the drama to which Lebow succumbed and his fight to battle brain cancer. Still, he is presented as a winner indeed, both in his quest for marathon racing, and in his fight with worldly challenges. In spite of his death, he remains one of the great men that truly impacted the world of sport, both for his marketing innovations that were quite useful at the time in the process of promoting sporting events, and through the moral values he became an advocate of, and which had guided his entire life course. A proof of the appreciation Lebow enjoyed is the fact that Rubin's book was released exactly ten years after his death, as a sign of respect and gratitude for the contribution Lebow brought to the world.

The main idea of the book focuses on the detailed biography of Fred Lebow. At the same time, it deals with this issue in a parallel construction with the history of the New York Marathon and its coming of age. The character was a Romanian born Jew who tried to make his way into the American society. In doing so, he gave a totally new perspective on the New York marathon transforming it from a social event into a capitalist business enterprise.

The biographical aspect of the book traces the life of Lebow back to his birth place in Arad, Romania, all the way through the Holocaust era, up to his arrival in New York.(chapters 1-2) The focuses then shifts only to be again orientated on Lebow's life in the end of the book, as he is shown in his struggle to fight brain cancer. From one point-of-view, and analyzing the book from its biographical perspective, his battle with cancer is seen as the most important point of the story. Indeed, its crescendo build up tends to increase in the final stages the human drama Lebow was experiencing and to which he found a cure in the exact creation his life had produced: the New York Marathon. From this perspective, the approach dealing with Lebow's life is meant to reflect upon the power to overcome the treacheries of life and not to be defeated in attainting one's goal by any hardship met along the way.

Although the book has a dual parallel construction, both aspects of the subject manage to interlay and most of the times interact in a symbiotic relationship which offers unity to the literary piece of writing. Therefore, the segment dealing with the story of the New York Marathon plays a key role in defining the historical approach of the book and in creating a proper framework for Lebow's life to be revealed.

The New York City Marathon is considered nowadays to be an essential part of the environment which characterizes the traditional picture of the Big Apple. More and more people see as an emblematic symbol of what New York represents for the U.S. And for the sporting phenomenon. However, this was not always the case; in the early days of the competition, the event definitely lacked the glamour and universality it enjoys today and did not rely so heavily on a clear and fair play message it tries to convey nowadays at every edition.

Such an achievement was the result of certain measures that were taken in order to increase both the popularity of the event and to strengthen the message behind it. Lebow's Jewish origin played an important role in defining his determination for transforming what was in 1970 a 55 finishers' race to what today represents the biggest marathon in the world. His personal characteristics made him want to be part of an important community and belong to a certain group of the elites. However, the tag of success or elitism did not involve financial measures but rather symbolic ones, which included a sense of universality for the ideas promoted and for the environment they are promoted in. Thus, the New York City Marathon would stand for a sum of ideals that everyone is in fact a winner, through the simple participation no one can lose, because the gain is not necessarily described in numbers, but rather it is measured in terms of the sense of personal achievement. (Chapter 3) This lofty idea represented the moral argument for driving forward the project which had set in mind the reorientation of the marathon towards a wider and more numerous public.

In achieving this goal, for a few hours in the first Sunday in November, New York, the City that never sleeps, is completely closed to traffic; tens of thousands of people gather on Staten Island at the starting line in order to experience what is considered to be not only a running experience but also a unifying one, as most people engaged in the marathon do not take into consideration the eventuality of actually winning the race, but rather the experience to participate as a morally enriching one.

However, things did not evolve in this sense from the beginning; back in the 70's only the winners received recollection for their efforts and those who would not make it to the finish line in time, would not even be waited for. All these practices did change, as Lebow set in mind to create a race that would be opened to all categories of participants, independent of their physical fitness.

He took a different approach, which despite its moral motivation, had a capitalist support. He succeeded in transforming a race which took place only around Central Park into one that stretches on five boroughs of the city. However, it was hard to convince the authorities to extend the area which had to be shut down in order to ensure proper protection for the competitors. Therefore, Lebow argued his idea by pointing out the financial gains such a development would bring; through the increase of the number of participants, the sponsors who firmly supported the authorities in their activities would have better visibility in front of a wider audience and thus extra profit would be assured.

The numner of participants was however rather low from different reasons. On the one hand, in the early days of the marathon, competing was even dangerous, as the police did not offer adequate protection to the racers; moreover, the prizes did not represent an incentive for all those involved in the run, because only those who actually won the marathon would be rewarded. From this point-of-view, the marathon was relatively unattractive for the common people. Lebow, taking this into consideration, decided to deal with both issues. On the one hand, it worked out different arrangements with the authorities to ensure that roads are closed to traffic and that police cars insure the security of the racers; the funds for financially supporting these actions came from well off members of the New York Road Runners Club. This move transformed this organization from a leisure volunteer-based club into a business enterprise which worked with a profit target set in mind. Therefore, from this point on, the Marathon became a business.