By Russ Crawford, Guest Contributor Fiona Skillen and Carol Osborne recently wrote about the use of oral history in sport history for The International Journal of the History of Sport. In their article they argued that the method should be more widely employed.[1] This post leans heavily on two telephone interviews that I had with…
Hawkins, Billy; Cooper, Joseph; Carter-Francique, Akilah; Cavil, J. Kenyatta (eds.) The Athletic Experience at Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Past, Present, and Persistence. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Pp. 270. Index, About the Editors, About the Contributors. $75 hardcover, $64.49 e-book. Reviewed by Kristy L. McCray It is only appropriate to begin this post…
By Andrew D. Linden In early 2014, I received a Facebook notification about an upcoming initiative in sport history. Andrew McGregor posted a message to the North American Society for Sport History’s (NASSH) Grad Student Facebook page about a new academic blog he wished to launch. Promoted as a “place for junior faculty and graduate…
This post is a part of a new series, “Sport History Rewind.” In this series, contributors revisit and reevaluate important texts to determine the degree to which their analyses, arguments, research, and influence resonate in the field today. Of particular concern is how well the works fit into historiographical debates and compare with more recent…
By Samantha White “In Washington D.C., Chicago, Detroit, and several other cities former Black hockey players have started youth hockey clinics and teams for youngsters who want to play. If you check around there may be someone with a team right in your area.” –Ebony Jr.!, March 1982 The intersection of sport history and sport…
By Colleen English In the 1960s and 1970s, Jerry Seltzer led his father’s invention, roller derby, to renewed success. Formerly a Depression Era endurance sport (I have discussed the early origins of roller derby here), roller derby became an entertainment spectacle that featured drama, feuds, and athletic talent. Journalist Jack Fincher credited Seltzer with making…
By Andrew D. Linden Dissertations are hard. While writing a long piece of sport history, you uncover many stories about events of the sporting past, narratives of individual heroics on and off the playing fields, and many pieces of important contextualization. Yet, eventually you must decide what stays and goes. In my dissertation, I analyze…
Thomas, Damion L. Globetrotting: African American Athletes and Cold War Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012. 232 pp. $60.00 cloth. Reviewed by Andrew D. Linden In Globetrotting: African American Athletes and Cold War Politics, Damion L. Thomas analyzes the US government’s use of African American athletes as tools in the ideological battle between American…
By Kate Aguilar In the 2014 documentary Champs, director Bert Marcus interviews boxing legends Evander Holyfield, Bernard Hopkins, and Mike Tyson, providing an intimate look at how race, class, gender, and place converge in the making of a boxing superstar. The film begins with a voiceover from Philadelphia native Bernard Hopkins’ trainer, Naazim Richardson. Hopkins successfully…
By Michael T. Wood As 2015 comes to a close, we are entering the home stretch of the college football postseason. By the end of the day (or in the first moments of the New Year), thirty-one of the record forty bowl games will be completed, including the two semifinal games of the College Football…
Sport in American History 