Young, William A. John Tortes “Chief” Meyers: A Baseball Biography. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012. Pp. 257. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $29.95 paperback. Reviewed by Andrew McGregor The stories of American Indians in baseball are often overlooked. During the first two decades of the twentieth century they were among the game’s biggest stars, annually playing in…
By Andrew McGregor “We have (re)entered the Revolt of the Black Athlete,” Louis Moore proclaimed on Twitter two weeks ago amidst a wave of protests and demonstrations by prominent professional football players following the lead of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Moore’s comment harkens us back to the original “Revolt of the Black Athlete”…
By Andrew McGregor “How does a third-rate college football team suddenly become one of the best in the country?” Paul Gardner asked in True magazine amidst OU’s 31-game win streak in October 1950.[1] The University of Oklahoma’s rise from obscurity to football power surprised college football observers. He believed something more than Bud Wilkinson’s coaching…
By Andrew McGregor Football found its way to Oklahoma during the 1890s. The game flowed naturally into the Sooner state, invading its borders like the schooners that raced in during the land rush. Students at the fledgling territorial university took up the activity alongside baseball, with the encouragement of chemistry professor Edwin DeBarr, when the…
This week we’re offering our thoughts and reflections on the recently completed Rio Olympics. Today is part two of our roundtable. It features a Q&A with four of our contributors — Cat Ariail, Josh Howard, Andrew McGregor, and Lindsay Parks Pieper — about their views on the Rio Olympics and its legacy as both scholars and sports fans. Feel…
Last night NBC aired the Closing Ceremony of the Rio Olympics, officially ending the Games of the XXXI Olympiad. The contributors to Sport in American History watched many of the 306 athletic events over the past 19 days with enthusiasm and interest. This week on the blog we offer our thoughts and reflections as both scholars…
By Andrew McGregor Teaching online is intimidating, but gauging by the audience in my NASSH panel “Teaching Sport History in the Digital Era,” it is a topic that many of us want to learn more about. In this post, I want to build off some of the ideas offered in that panel, on this blog,…
As part of ESPN’s 30 for 30, O.J.: Made in America examines O.J. Simpson’s movement through the American cultural, political, and social landscape of the past five decades. The five-segment documentary explores the significance of race, gender, celebrity, and violence in Simpson’s football career and later criminal trial. The Sport in American History blog will be reviewing all…
On May 25-27, 1973, scholars gathered at Ohio State University’s Center for Tomorrow for the first North American Society for Sport History (NASSH) convention. The inaugural group was largely comprised of scholars with physical education backgrounds and an interest in sport history. Not surprisingly then, the first convention showcased thirty papers with ancient Greek athletics,…
By Andrew McGregor During the fall of 1953 Bud Wilkinson, head coach of the University of Oklahoma, launched his own coach’s show. The fifteen-minute program initially aired live on Tuesday nights at 10:15 p.m. on Oklahoma City’s WKY-TV. Plainly titled “Bud Wilkinson’s Football,” newspapers simply described it as “OU’s famous coach discusses football.”[1] The show…
Sport in American History 