By Jorge Iber, PhD Texas Tech University In my first two posts for this blog, the intention was to introduce the readers to the significance of the role of Latinos/as in US sports history, and then, to provide but one example of an individual whose life and career (Coach E.C. Lerma from Duval County, Texas)…
By Murry Nelson, Guest Contributor Murry Nelson is a Professor Emeritus of Education at the Pennsylvania State University. His research focuses on the history of basketball, and is the author of The National Basketball League: A History, 1935–1949 (2009) and Abe Saperstein and the American Basketball League (2013). He recently edited a multiple-volume encyclopedia on the history of…
While writing my book, The Bullets, The Wizards and Washington, DC Basketball on professional basketball industry and Washington, DC, a central question emerged about the city’s fans. From the origins in the late 1920s through the Bullets in Landover, Maryland, the city’s teams never drew very well. Even when they reached the National Basketball Association…
On Saturday, November 23, 1963, Oklahoma and Nebraska were schedule to meet in Lincoln. It was an important game in the Big 8 standings. The Sooners were 7-1 going into the game, 5-0 in conference play. Their only loss that season was to Darrell Royal and a pesky Texas team that seemed to always have…
Ever since humans invented motorized flight, they have attempted to race airplanes in the sky. This weekend, pilots from around the world convened at the Reno-Stead Airport in Reno, Nevada, to compete in the 2014 National Air Races. Tragically, in practice before the start of the races, retired fighter pilot, veteran air racer, and former…
By: Jorge Iber, PhD Texas Tech University In my first post, I provided an argument for the inclusion of Mexican Americans (and other Latinos/as) within the broader framework of the history of US sports. In that essay, I focused on the story of the only team from the Rio Grande Valley to ever win a…
By Andrew D. Linden and Lindsay Parks Pieper The first five men to cross the stage ranged in age from 60 to 69. As the caller announced the required bodybuilding positions—“front double biceps” or “back lat spread”—the men flexed, leaned, turned, tightened, and contracted on cue. After finishing the group poses, the individual athletes performed…
I’ve just returned from a month-long research trip to Oklahoma, where I was visiting archives and reading microfilm for my dissertation on Bud Wilkinson and the 1950s University of Oklahoma football dynasty. Like Stephen Townsend’s post last week, I’ll be reflecting on the process of research as it relates to writing sports history. This piece…
This post is about a number of different things. It’s about Muhammad Ali, cultural memory, names, the press, the civil rights era and racial discourse. More than anything however, the words that follow are about exploring new ways of doing historical work in the digital age. Michael Ezra, author of Muhammad Ali: the Making of…
by: Jorge Iber, PhD Texas Tech University Since this is my first post, it is necessary to provide readers with a sense of the development of this writer’s academic interest in the topic of Latinos and sport. My undergraduate degree is not in history, but rather in the area of business management. After a few…
Sport in American History 