By Charles Westmoreland, Jr. If anything about professional wrestling can be called unusual, then the February 13, 1988 episode of Championship Wrestling fit that description. A one-hour production for the Memphis-based Continental Wrestling Association (CWA), Championship Wrestling aired every Saturday morning on WMC TV in Memphis and was syndicated in markets such as Nashville, Tupelo, Louisville,…
Hart, Jon. Man Versus Ball: One Ordinary Guy and His Extraordinary Sports Adventures. Lincoln: Nebraska University Press, 2013. Pp. 184. $24.95 clothback. Reviewed by Lindsay Parks Pieper As a graduate student in a sport finance class, I was assigned to cover the Women’s Football Alliance’s semi-professional team, the Columbus Comets. To get a closer look…
By Andrew D. Linden “Thanksgiving and football was the perfect blend of two great American creations,” explains ESPN reporter Sal Paolantonio. “Thanksgiving is our own holiday. And football is this great indigenous sport, created here, for Americans, so it was just this great blend of two great American creations.” Indeed, these purported American traditions helped…
Schultz, Jaime. Qualifying Times: Points of Change in U.S. Women’s Sport. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2014. Pp. xiv +280. Illustrations, notes, index. $95 cloth back, $26 paperback. Reviewed by Bieke Gils Yes, there are things to cheer about when considering the changes in U.S. women’s sport over the past century; however, as Jaime…
By Alex Parrish There are two topics to never bring up at a dinner party, so we’re told – politics and religion. Few things simultaneously unite and divide people quite like politics and religion. Yet Americans seem to have an innate passion for discussing and debating these topics, often vehemently. Most people are fine with…
by Craig Forrest, Guest Contributor Football played a crucial role, it appears, in the most recent student protests at the University of Missouri. Over the past few months, several incidents of racial taunting have been reported by African-American students on campus. The president of the Missouri Students’ Association described being called a “nigger” by passengers…
Hines, James R. Figure Skating in the Formative Years: Singles, Pairs, and the Expanding Role of Women. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2015. Pp. xv+262. Notes, index, appendices, 38 black and white photographs, 1 table. $29 clothback, ebook. Reviewed by Cat Ariail In my earliest sport watching memory, my mom, sister, and I sit…
By Adam Park Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s 1858 article, “Saints and Their Bodies,” named a problem, a problem that gave voice to a bourgeoning American physical culture movement then, and for years to come. So articulated, the problem concerned nothing less than the spiritual and physical health of the Creator’s most precious creations. “By spiritual laws,”…
By Wesley R. Bishop and Andrew McGregor This weekend the University of Missouri, or “Mizzou” as it’s commonly called, became the latest front in the ongoing national movement against racism. Following a string of steady and increasingly hostile acts of hate, Mizzou’s football players joined a campus wide protest, refusing to participate in athletic events…
Smith, Jay M., and Mary Willingham. Cheated: The UNC Scandal, the Education of Athletes, and the Future of Big-Time College Sports. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015. Pp. 304. Notes and Index. $26.95 hardback. Reviewed by Jorge Iber With the current brouhaha surrounding the purported prostitution scandal tied to the University of Louisville’s basketball program,…
Sport in American History 