Lord of the Ring?

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Chris Rivers Puts Punch in His Scholarship
Him, a boxer?

Thin, utterly unathletic, and possessing skinny arms, a long neck, and a distinct lack of physical courage, according to his own self-deprecating assessment, Christopher Rivers may fit his role as a professor of French, but you would never take him for a boxer.

That's just the kind of expectation that Rivers likes to punch in the nose. A popular teacher of French at Mount Holyoke since 1990, Rivers has also been in training as a boxer for more than four years, and has even climbed into the ring to spar with a former ranked lightweight.

Among Rivers's scholarly interests is the story of Georges Carpentier, a French heavyweight from the early twentieth century whose Continental charm and classic features made him look more like a Hollywood film idol—which he also was—than a professional pugilist.

Did his discovery of the now forgotten Carpentier lead Rivers to lace up the gloves himself? No, he had already taken up boxing before he discovered a biography of heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, and its account of an incroyable 1921match between Dempsey and Carpentier.

Rivers spent much of a recent sabbatical in Paris scouring bookstores, flea markets, libraries, and archives for old newspapers and sporting magazines for mentions of Carpentier, material he plans to use in a scholarly work about the boxer.

Is there is a prizefighter lurking within? Absolutely not, says Rivers. "I feel that almost anything that I do in terms of boxing is a huge accomplishment. My ambitions are very, very modest. I don't have any kind of illusions about what I could 'really' do in this sport. I'm very clear about drawing the line between fantasy and reality."