Champion, written by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld and illustrated by Ed LaRoche. Ten Speed Graphic, 2025. ISBN 9780593835746. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/747045/champion-by-kareem-abdul-jabbar-and-raymond-obstfeld-illustrated-by-ed-laroche/
Five days prior to writing the first draft of this review, I turned 50 years old. For most of that half-century, I’ve been a fan of the Los Angeles Lakers. This means I’ve long been familiar with the life and career of Hall of Fame center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was a key part of five championship teams during his tenure with the Lakers from 1975 to 1989. As a fellow record collector, I’ve always been touched by this anecdote. When his house burned down in 1983, one of the things he lost was a massive collection of treasured jazz music. In the aftermath of the fire, fans presented him with many of the records the jazz aficionado lost. This is but one testament to how beloved a public figure he is.
This is but one relatively minor anecdote in a lifetime filled with serious political, cultural, and religious commitment off the basketball court. When he rose to fame as a basketball player at Power Memorial Academy in Manhattan as a high schooler, he was known as Lew Alcindor. During his three years as a starter at UCLA (1966-1969), during the reign of the legendary coach John Wooden, he led the team to three national championships and a record of 88-2. If one watches the first part of Ezra Edelman’s fantastic documentary O.J.: Made in America (2016), a stark contrast is marked between the UCLA center and his peer O.J. Simpson, then the star running back at crosstown rival USC. Simpson, also a young Black man, was a people-pleaser who sought fame and adulation while avoiding controversy (until 1994, that is). There is no way on Earth he would have attended the Cleveland Summit (as Edelman’s documentary makes clear). The event was organized by former NFL football player Jim Brown in June 1967. Eleven prominent Black athletes, including the 20-year-old Abdul-Jabbar, then still a college athlete, gathered to discuss the decision by heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali to declare himself a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, costing him his championship belt and income. The next year, Abdul-Jabbar took a big political stand himself, boycotting the 1968 Summer Olympics in protest of the long-standing racism against Blacks in the United States. These decisions could have affected his professional prospects. It was a risk he was willing to take, but he ultimately withstood any controversy these decisions generated. Three years later, after converting to Islam, he publicly changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. As a young man, he demonstrated he was unafraid to take controversial stances that he was committed to, and sincerely believed in.
Champion, written by Abdul-Jabbar with his long-time collaborator Raymond Obstfeld, might come as a surprise to those that only know him as a basketball player. In fact, Abdul-Jabbar has authored or co-authored over a dozen books, ranging from autobiography and memoir to history. Over the last decade, he has branched out into fiction, writing a series of books focusing on Sherlock Holmes’ brother, Mycroft. This resulted in the publication of his first graphic novel, Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook (2017). Champion focuses on an elite high school basketball player named Monk who gets caught vandalizing a rival school’s mural with original art of his own. This act could have a deleterious effect on his NBA prospects. As a result of his actions, he is tasked with giving a presentation on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s life off the basketball court, a presentation he must ace to escape punishment.
Abdul-Jabbar, Obstfeld, and Laroche have put together a page-turner with a simple, but effective message: be a complete person with a variety of interests. While his imaginary case study of Monk focuses specifically on student-athletes, few of whom make it to the pros, and, when they do, aren’t pros for very long, the book’s core message of having multiple interests and skills is something any reader can benefit from. This isn’t just about “career prospects.” Throughout the narrative, Monk repeatedly states that he has only one goal: to become a professional basketball player. However, his instinctual knack for art, a talent he takes for granted, could provide a realistic alternative to his dream career. His teammates, coaches, and family work to convince him to take his art seriously, which he refuses to do for much of the narrative.
Throughout the graphic novel, his peers and mentors have interests beyond sports, as shown by “trading card” profiles of the characters. These cards provide information about their lives, their athletic accomplishments (when relevant), and life outside of sports. The first of these trading card profiles focuses on Anthony B. Bagwell, whose “position” is listed as “Security Guard” in a curved triangle on the card’s upper left-hand corner. This is the security guard who catches Monk in the act of vandalizing the team mascot’s mural at a rival high school. His card lists the following facts about him:
● Ranks 3rd in security guards at Mountain Range Security.
● Is on his 4th attempt at being a vegan (his record is 6 days).
● Defeated in combat 3 times by wife, Ida, in Elden Ring.
● Calls his 3-year-old son “Donut.” (2)
Another card gives us information about Monk’s “High School Basketball Coach” Jefferson V. Blaine:
● Played center on Culver High School state championship team.
● Played point guard on UCLA national championship team.
● Has 4 “Best Dad in the World” mugs and 2 Teacher of the Year Awards. (9)
As we can see in both examples, Laroche’s trading card profiles sidestep the traditional statistics and career highlight fare that make up the bulk of the text on the back of sports trading cards, giving equal importance to the personal aspects of their lives. Coach Blaine’s card reveals him to be flexible and adaptable. He went from center to point guard when he transitioned from high school to college basketball. After college, he became a father and a teacher, identities he is proud of. As the narrative progresses, we get other testimonials from Monk’s mother, Wanda, who was a point guard on UCLA’s women’s basketball team, and who is currently an ICU physician’s assistant, and his aunt Sissy, who once sang backup for Stevie Wonder and the Four Tops, recorded her own solo album in 1980, and is currently a record store owner where Monk works part-time (19). Throughout the story, Monk denies or tries to suppress his interest in things outside of basketball, including art, history, music, and social justice. Abdul-Jabbar and Obstfeld do a good job of keeping Monk’s internal tensuion unresolved for much of the book’s duration, which serves to make his story more engaging.
Abdul-Jabbar's graphic novel is a pedagogical tool to express some of the reasons he wants a character like Monk to know his story as well as the story of Black America. Kareem appears as a figment of Monk’s imagination as he’s working on his assigned project about the man. He points out the 135th Street YMCA in Harlem, where Kareem grew up. At first, during his youth, he saw it as a “crappy old building.” Then he learned “that Malcolm X, Claude McKay, George Washington Carver, Jackie Robinson, and Paul Robeson had all stayed or performed here” (32). On the next page, we get trading card profiles of each of these historical figures. He also highlights that inside the building is the famous Aaron Douglas mural “Evolution of Negro Dance.” Kareem says:
Looking at that mural back then, I instantly felt connected to the evolution it portrayed. Like them, I had started in the dark about who I was, being the person everyone expected me to be without really knowing who I wanted to be. Then, through the physical discipline of basketball and the mental discipline of reading, I had stepped out of the shadows into the bright sunlight of finding myself. (34)
Through his research, Monk learns about the Harlem Riot of 1964, which began when an off-duty police officer shot a fifteen-year-old Black child, James Powell (59). Lastly, Monk learns about Kareem’s participation in the Cleveland Summit. These are three important parts of an aspect of American history that have either been erased or relegated to margins in most mainstream, conventional, whitewashed histories of the twentieth century. Abdul-Jabbar, with his graphic novel specifically directed at a young adult audience, successfully fills in some of these gaps by effectively blending them with a relatable story.The weird thing about Champion is that the sections delving into the life of Abdul-Jabbar reads as self-hagiography (even if it may be a well-deserved self-hagiography). When Monk complains to his girlfriend Lark about having to write a report about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, she replies, “You mean the Kareem who …,” and then rattles off two entire pages of Abdul-Jabbar’s accomplishments on and off the basketball court (including his small but memorable role in the 1980 comedy Airplane!) (15). Throughout the narrative, even more Kareem facts are presented.
Not surprisingly, Abdul-Jabbar and Obstfeld give us a graphic novel with a happy ending. Monk’s various interpersonal conflicts with Lark as well as his teachers, teammates, and family are resolved, and he gains a greater understanding of what it means to be a well-rounded young man. The narrative culminates with Monk and his community getting together to create a dazzling mural on the side of Aunt Sissy’s record shop titled “Evolution of a Champion,” which highlights eleven of Abdul-Jabbar’s accomplishments off the court. In this reviewer’s opinion, even if it does come off a bit strange and heavy-handed, as though Abdul-Jabbar is just patting himself on the back, there just aren’t too many people in this world who deserve that pat as much or as hard as he does!
You do not have to know much about Abdul-Jabbar to like Champion. He, along with his collaborators, have put together a very accessible story. It has history, dramatic tension, life lessons, good advice, a bit of mystery, and even a little romance. To be commended is the artistry of Ed Laroche, whose illustrations are precise and stylistically varied. He brings Monk’s graffiti art to life in a style different from the one that dominates the rest of the narrative. This is not always an easy thing to pull off, but Laroche navigates between these styles seamlessly. Even if we do get plenty of “Kareem facts” in Champion, his story is clearly one worth telling, and he also wants you to know about his culture, his people, and all those who helped him become the man he is. Its breezy mixture of history, biography, and fiction makes recommending Champion a slam dunk.
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