Guinan, Stephen. We Are The Troopers: The Women of the Winningest Team in Pro Football History. New York: Hachette Books, 2022. Pp. vii + 288. Reviewed by Russ Crawford The stories of the pioneers of women’s tackle football are starting to make their way into print. Those who follow this site have had the chance…
De la Cretaz, Britni and D’Arcangelo, Lyndsey. Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women’s Football League. New York: Bold Type Books, 2021. Pp. vii, 290. Black and white photos, team list, bibliography, index. $28 hardcover. Reviewed by Russ Crawford In Hail Mary, de la Cretaz and D’Arcangelo have gathered fascinating stories of…
Serb, Chris. War Football: World War I and the Birth of the NFL. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. Pp. xviii, 275. Appendices, notes, bibliography, index. Reviewed by Russ Crawford In War Football, Chris Serb not only makes a strong case that football played during The Great War “created an environment where professional football could…
By Russ Crawford The International Women’s Flag Football Association (IWFFA) held their 15th annual P-Town Classic in Provincetown, Massachusetts over the long weekend of 17-20 September. Unfortunately, due to the climate surrounding the pandemic, only four of the eight teams that planned to compete made the trip. Despite the uncertainty of holding events during these…
By Russ Crawford The WFA held their championships on July 23rd and 24th at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio. The stadium, located just across the street from the Pro Football Hall of Fame, also hosts the annual NFL Hall of Fame game, and so the women were playing on a big…
By Russ Crawford The Women’s Football Alliance (WFA), the largest and longest running professional women’s tackle football league in the United States will be holding their national championships at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio the weekend of July 23-24. Since women’s professional football arguably started in Ohio in the 1930s, it…
Douglas, Andra. Black and Blue: Love, Sports, and the Art of Empowerment. New York: BookBaby, 2019. Pp. 310. $18 USD paperback. Reviewed by Russ Crawford Andra Douglas owned the New York Sharks, a women’s semi-professional football team, from 1999 to 2018. The Sharks began as a flag football team and won a national championship in that…
McClearen, Jennifer. Fighting Visibility: Sports Media and Female Athletes in the UFC. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press. 2021. Pp. 232. Acknowledgements, appendices, notes, references, index, introduction, photographs. $110 cloth, 24.95 paper, $14.95 ebook. Reviewed by Russ Crawford A common challenge that women’s sports faces is a lack of visibility. Numerous academic and popular books and…
Stell, Marion and Reid, Heather. Women In Boots: Football and Feminism in the 1970s. North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2020. xvii+167. 12 unnumbered pages of plates: illustrations, portraits. Acknowledgements, sources, notes, index. $24.95 paperback. $11.99 eBook. Reviewed by Russ Crawford In Women in Boots: Football and Feminism in the 1970s, Marion Stell and Heather Reid…
Elsey, Brenda and Nadel, Joshua. Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press. Pp. 271. Notes, bibliography, index. $24.95 paperback. Reviewed by Russ Crawford Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel have added an important volume to women’s sport history with Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin…
Sport in American History 