The Best Story Ever Written About Losing

In keeping with the day's theme, below is a classic Esquire profile of Floyd Patterson after his second devastating loss to Sonny Liston, which we reprinted a year ago on The Stacks. No athlete has ever talked so frankly about his own shortcomings as Patterson did with author Gay Talese. He confesses at one point to having worn a disguise after his first loss to Liston—fake mustache, fake beard, glasses, and a hat. "And it is nice, every once in a while, being somebody else," Patterson says, leading to a second remarkable confession:

Now, walking slowly around the room, his black silk robe over his sweat clothes, Patterson said, "You must wonder what makes a man do things like this. Well, I wonder, too. And the answer is, I don't know . . . but I think that within me, within every human being, there is a certain weakness. It is a weakness that exposes itself more when you're alone. And I have figured out that part of the reason I do the things I do, and cannot seem to conquer that one word—myself—is because . . . I am a coward. . . ."

He stopped. He stood very still in the middle of the room, thinking about what he had just said, probably wondering whether he should have said it.

"I am a coward," he then repeated, softly. "My fighting has little to do with that fact, though. I mean you can be a fighter—and a winning fighter—and still be a coward. I was probably a coward on the night I won the championship back from Ingemar. And I remember another night, long ago, back when I was in the amateurs, fighting this big, tremendous man named Julius Griffin. I was only a hundred fifty-three pounds. I was petrified. It was all I could do to cross the ring. And then he came at me, and moved close to me . . . and from then on I don't know anything. I have no idea what happened. Only thing I know is, I saw him on the floor. And later somebody said, 'Man, I never saw anything like it. You just jumped up in the air, and threw thirty different punches. . . .'"

The whole story is below.