By Jon Hart It’s arguably the biggest turnaround in college football history. The Columbia Lions football team – who had a 44-game losing streak in the 80s – are winning. They finished this season at 8-2, earning second place in the Ivy League. In 2015, Columbia had yet another losing streak going, albeit just 24…
Miracle, Jared. Now with Kung Fu Grip!: How Bodybuilders, Soldiers and a Hairdresser Reinvented Martial Arts for America: Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2016. 188 pp. $29.95 Paperback. Reviewed by Richard Ravalli As its attention-grabbing title implies, Jared Miracle’s Now with Kung Fu Grip!: How Bodybuilders, Soldiers and a Hairdresser Reinvented Martial Arts…
In its ranking of the top 100 North American athletes of the twentieth century, ESPN’s SportCentury included only 8 women. The recognition of only 8 female athletes (and 3 horses) demonstrates the all-too-frequent tendency to leave female sporting contributions out of the conversation. The Sport in American History’s three part-series, Top Ten Historically Significant Women…
In total, we collected 73 entries, including 70 athletes/coaches and 3 teams. These contributions came from scholars, casual readers, and one sport history classroom. This produced myriad descriptions of prominent female athletes from around the world and from many different sports. Below is a recap of Part I and Part II. Part I recognized 50…
Welter, Jen. Play Big: Lessons in Being Limitless from the First Woman to Coach in the NFL. New York: Seal Press, 2017. vii+266. Acknowledgements. Reviewed by Russ Crawford Jen Welter has been the first woman to do many things. She was a member of the first women’s football team to win an International Federation of…
Inspired in part by ESPN’s 1999 SportCentury, which in its ranking of the top 100 North American athletes of the twentieth century included only 8 women, we asked contributors to help recognize the important–and often overlooked–contributions of women in sport history. Readers and scholars were asked to provide “top ten” lists of historically significant women…
Snell, David Kingsley. The Baron and the Bear: Rupp’s Runts, Haskins’s Miners, and the Season That Changed Basketball Forever. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2016. Pp. xii + 312. 20 unnumbered pages of plates and index. $29.95 hardcover, $14.99 e-book. Reviewed by Tony Calandrillo In The Baron and the Bear: Rupp’s Runts, Haskins’s Miners,…
Inspired in part by ESPN’s 1999 SportCentury, which in its ranking of the top 100 North American athletes of the twentieth century included only 8 women, we asked contributors to help recognize the important–and often overlooked–contributions of women in sport history. Readers and scholars were asked to provide “top ten” lists of historically significant women…
Sport in American History 