Tonight, the University of Alabama meets Clemson University in the college football playoff championship. It’s a rematch of last year’s game, and the third year of the playoff format. As you prepare for the game, our resident college football historians — Hunter Hampton, Andrew McGregor, and Michael T. Wood — reflect on the legacy and impact of…
Hawkins, Billy; Cooper, Joseph; Carter-Francique, Akilah; Cavil, J. Kenyatta (eds.) The Athletic Experience at Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Past, Present, and Persistence. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Pp. 270. Index, About the Editors, About the Contributors. $75 hardcover, $64.49 e-book. Reviewed by Kristy L. McCray It is only appropriate to begin this post…
Chudacoff, Howard P. Changing the Playbook: How Power, Profit, and Politics Transformed College Sports. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015. Pp. Xii+198. Notes and index. $95.00 clothback, $22.00 paperback. Reviewed by Alexander D. Hyres At the 1951 NCAA Convention, University of Pennsylvania athletic director Francis Murray observed, “This very dramatic part of our educational picture…
Austin, Brad. Democratic Sports: Men’s and Women’s College Athletics during the Great Depression. Fayetteville, AR: The University of Arkansas Press, 2015. Pp. 268. Notes, essay on sources, and index. $29.95 paperback. Reviewed by Cat Ariail In recent years terms such as “fairness” and “justice” have dominated debates about college sports. While defenders of the status…
Guiliano, Jennifer. Indian Spectacle: College Mascots and the Anxiety of Modern America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015. Pp. 194. Notes and Index. $80.00 cloth. $27.95 paper. Reviewed by Andrew McGregor Most Americans are familiar with the controversy surrounding American Indian mascots, best exemplified by the current pushback against the NFL’s Washington Redskins. Few,…
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…
