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Title: “Going the Distance”

Author: Ken Norton, with Marshall Terrill and Mike Fitzgerald

Publisher: Sports Publishing, Inc.

Price: $22.95

More interesting than Norton’s boxing career is the presentation of his life with son Ken Jr.

For a period of years, after Ken Jr. had entered the NFL and established himself as one of the game’s top middle linebackers, the two did not speak. The senior Norton pulls no punches describing the incident that created the estrangement and its resolution.

As for his boxing career, there were tough times leading to Norton becoming a heavyweight contender and eventually gaining a piece of the world championship in 1978. After serving in the Marines in the 1960s, he became an auto worker in Los Angeles, aligning Ford front ends at an assembly plant. There was 5 a.m. road work, followed by his assembly shift, starting at 7 a.m. Then it was off to the Hoover Street Gym for schooling in hard knocks. During this time, Norton and his son lived in a three-room apartment off Manchester Avenue.

He finally got financial backers for his boxing career in San Diego who paid him a $100 per week allowance, which covered his rent, food, car and child-care expenses.

“A hot dog in those days was a gourmet meal,” Norton writes.

Norton credits trainer Eddie Futch for shaping career. The two parted early on, however, and of that decision Norton writes: “Letting Eddie Futch go was the biggest mistake of my career.”

It was Futch, Norton writes, who enabled him to beat Muhammad Ali in their first of three meetings in 1973 at San Diego.

Norton, who earned $50,000 to Ali’s $210,000 in that fight, said Futch had noticed Ali’s pectoral muscles would flex an instant before he threw a left jab. Norton, looking for that, countered successfully all night on Ali and broke his jaw in winning a 12-round decision.

Also compelling is Norton’s long, painful recovery from the 1986 auto accident that nearly killed him.