By Kate Aguilar I spent the week leading up to the Super Bowl in El Paso, Texas. For a historian of race and sport, it felt quite fortuitous to be awaiting Super Bowl 50 while engrossed in the emotion surrounding the 50th anniversary celebration of Texas Western’s 1966 historic 72-65 win over the University of…
By Andrew McGregor This is one of two new posts today exploring race in the NFL. This piece looks at Whiteness, considering Peyton Manning as a Great White Hopes. Kate Aguilar’s post The Man in the Mirror: Black Culture, White Privilege, and Supermen in the Age of Cam Newton offers a contrasting view. Read in…
By Kate Aguilar This is one of two new posts today exploring race in the NFL. This article explores race, culture, and Blackness, looking at narratives surrounding Cam Newton. Andrew McGregor’s piece looks at Whiteness, considering Peyton Manning as a Great White Hopes. Read in tandem, we hope they offer context that helps frame the narratives surrounding…
By John E. Price My first real memories of the Super Bowl are from January, 1991. Bill Parcells, LT, and the backup Jeff Hostetler versus Marv Levy, Jim Kelly, and Thurman Thomas. My mother, a life-long NY Giants fan, made sure the whole neighborhood knew when Mark Bavaro was playing well. My dad, loyal to…
By Edward J. Gray, Guest Contributor On January 16th, 2010, Alabama head football coach Nick Saban made a promise to the Crimson Tide faithful. Coming off the heels of the Tide’s first national championship in nearly twenty years, a 37-21 win over the University of Texas Longhorns, Saban proclaimed that “this is not the end,…
By Nick Sacco In his 2014 publication on the history of the National Football League, historian Richard C. Crepeau declares that the game of football has become “America’s New National Pastime.” It’s easy to see why. Football has always been a popular sport in America, but the “New NFL” era—which began in the early 1990s…
By Mercedes Townsend As we neared the end of 2015, former NBA point guard Gilbert Arenas took to Instagram to offer business advice to the WNBA. On December 16, the self-proclaimed “Agent Zero” posted a video of two scantily clad women playing basketball in sports bras and thongs, and suggested that the women of the…
“Kareem: Minority of One” documentary, produced by Mike Tollin, Rick Bernstein, and Deborah Morales (HBO Sports, Mandalay Sports Media, 2015) Reviewed by Frank Andre Guridy My earliest basketball memory is of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar shooting his patented “skyhook” shot over rival centers Darryl Dawkins and Caldwell Jones of the Philadelphia 76ers during the 1980 NBA Finals.…
Guiliano, Jennifer. Indian Spectacle: College Mascots and the Anxiety of Modern America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015. Pp. 194. Notes and Index. $80.00 cloth. $27.95 paper. Reviewed by Andrew McGregor Most Americans are familiar with the controversy surrounding American Indian mascots, best exemplified by the current pushback against the NFL’s Washington Redskins. Few,…
By Mercedes Townsend In the same way defenders utilizing a “full court press” strategy limit the progression of their opponents across the court, hegemonic gender norms and expectations have historically and continuously stifled the progress of women’s basketball. Despite the gains of storied programs such as the UConn Huskies and University of Tennessee Lady Vols,…
Sport in American History 