While I certainly knew about Jim Lampley before reading this book, I admit to having forgotten that he covered so many different sports before he became known for his work in boxing that earned him enshrinement into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. This book has a story about that day and so much more. Here is my review of “It Happened!”
Title/Author: “It Happened! A Uniquely Lucky Life in Sports Television” by Jim Lampley with Art Chansky
Rating: 4 of 5 stars (very good)
Review: Jim Lampley had a long and mostly successful career in sports broadcasting, most notably for his work in boxing for HBO. He writes about his life and his ups and downs in both his professional and personal lives in this very good memoir.
Most memoirs and biographies will follow the timeline from childhood to either the present or death. This one does not do that at all, aside from the beginning, when Lampley describes his childhood and early adulthood. I found that the biggest drawback of the book because unless one is a fan of Lampley and followed his career closely, it was hard to determine where in his life or career he was at. It felt like he wanted to jump to the next story or topic that was on his mind, whenever it might have occurred relative to the last one.
But the stories he can tell are so good, especially those from his days of covering “Wide World of Sports” and the Olympics (both Summer and Winter Games). His accounts from his vantage points of Frank Klammer’s exciting downhill skiing gold medal run in 1976 and the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” in Lake Placid were two of my favorite stories in the entire book. But the excellent stories are not limited to the Olympics. His account of the George Foreman-Michael Moorer fight and the upset of Mike Tyson by Buster Douglas are also great. Especially the Foreman-Moorer bout where Foreman told Lampley before the fight what he was going to do to his opponent. That was the fight in which Lampley exclaimed his famous line whis is the title of the book, “It happened!”
What makes Lampley’s career even more interesting is the sheer variety of sports he has covered in his career: college and NFL football, Major League Baseball, college basketball, golf, tennis to name just a few as well as boxing. Just about any sport a reader enjoys could be covered in this book.
There is also plenty of material on his personal life, which is not quite as successful, starting with the fact he has been married four times. To his credit, no matter what happened in his relationships with those women or his children, he never criticized them or had anything bad to say about them. When it comes to stories about this part of his life, the best ones involve his daughter Brooke, whom he had with his second wife Joanne.
Overall, I felt this was a very good, entertaining and easy to read memoir even if it jumped around at times and felt like it needed more boxing since that is what Lampley is best known for. Nonetheless, if a reader wants to learn more about this very interesting and versatile broadcaster, it is highly recommended.
I wish to thank Ben Bella Books for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.
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