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 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…
By Leslie Heaphy Baseball is still America’s national pastime. You may not agree with me but there is much evidence to support this belief. Just look at the number of new books that came out in 2015 alone. Every day articles are written about the past, present and future of the game. Numerous sites exist…
“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.…
Vogan, Travis. ESPN: The Making of a Sports Media Empire. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2015. Pp. 256. Notes and Index. $95.00 clothback, $19.95 paperback. Reviewed by Kyle R. King What if I told you that the widening gyre of sports media has a centripetal force? That even as sports media ventures proliferate, they…
Cahn, Susan K. Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Women’s Sport (2nd edition). Urbana, Chicago, & Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2015. Pp. xiii+395. Notes, index, and black and white photographs. $95 hardcover, $25 paperback. Reviewed by Colleen English Susan Cahn’s first edition of Coming on Strong, originally published in 1994, serves as a…
Schultz, Jaime. Qualifying Times: Points of Change in U.S. Women’s Sport. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2014. Pp. xiv +280. Illustrations, notes, index. $95 cloth back, $26 paperback. Reviewed by Bieke Gils Yes, there are things to cheer about when considering the changes in U.S. women’s sport over the past century; however, as Jaime…
by Craig Forrest, Guest Contributor Football played a crucial role, it appears, in the most recent student protests at the University of Missouri. Over the past few months, several incidents of racial taunting have been reported by African-American students on campus. The president of the Missouri Students’ Association described being called a “nigger” by passengers…
By Paige Gadsby, Guest Contributor Since Congress instituted Title IX as part of the Education Amendments of 1972 and banned discrimination based on sex in educational programs and activities, there has been a tremendous increase of female athletes and women’s sports on all levels. In 1972, roughly 300,000 females competed in high school athletics. That…
Sport in American History 