By Andrew McGregor Next year college football — and all of major college sports — will look radically different. During the last few months conference realignment has dramatically reshaped the landscape, shifting traditional powers, disrupting rivalries, and eschewing geographic logic in the quest for media dollars and relevance. This is hardly new. Conference realignment has…
By Andrew McGregor The Dallas Mavericks chose not to play the national anthem before their first thirteen homes games. This decision flew under the radar until the team welcomed fans back to the American Airlines Center on Monday. No one missed the anthem, until it suddenly became controversial yesterday. The immediate question many fans and…
By Andrew McGregor Major League Baseball doesn’t care. If you have been paying attention to the sport over the last several months, it’s difficult to come to any other conclusion. Amidst the uproar and panic of the global COVID-19 pandemic and a summer of intense social unrest and protests against systemic inequality and police brutality,…
By Andrew McGregor Two news stories Monday laid bare the rotten core of American higher education and its unsavory alliance with big-time sports. They speak volumes about the core values of colleges and universities – exploitation – and the anxieties buried deep within administrators who desperately want to continue the status quo, even when it…
By Andrew McGregor “Athletics, as it is conducted in many colleges today, is not even good for the handful,” University of Chicago President Robert M. Hutchins wrote in 1938. He worried about the overemphasis on sports in higher education and what the pressure for athletic profits meant for the welfare of students. “It has been…
By Andrew McGregor Today I published a piece in the Washington Post’s Made by History section considering issues related to college football and how past reforms only temporarily addressed concerns about the sport’s safety. While I rely on some of my own research to make my argument, I mention a few developments in the history…
By Andrew McGregor It wasn’t a strike, but the crowd didn’t mind. The 17,688 in attendance on that gray, cloudy Tuesday afternoon could not contain their enthusiasm. As the ball sailed towards home plate, they stood and roared. Senator Stuart Symington had delivered on his promise, and now, with his first pitch, baseball had officially…
By Andrew McGregor Donald Trump is attending tonight’s College Football Playoff National Championship Game in Atlanta. Hosted by Georgia native Nick Ayers, the chief of staff for Vice President Mike Pence, the president will witness a championship game that features two Southeastern Conference (SEC) teams from the heart of Trump’s America, allowing him to connect…
Anderson, Daniel. The Culture of Sports in the Harlem Renaissance. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017. Pp. 220. Notes, bibliography, and index. $35.00 softcover. Reviewed by Andrew McGregor The Harlem Renaissance is frequently described as a flowering of African American social, cultural, and artistic expression. It also reflected an important intellectual moment, marked by radicalism and the…
By Andrew McGregor Recently the University of North Carolina (UNC) cancelled history professor Jay Smith’s class “Big-Time College Sports and the Rights of Athletes, 1956-Present.” The Daily Tar Heel reported that the department was “under pressure from the college to cancel the class to prevent students from learning about the University’s recent scandals.” His colleagues…
Sport in American History 