Wernicke, Luciano. Incredible World Cup Stories: Wildest Tales and Most Dramatic Moments from Uruguay 1930 to Qatar 2022. Sutherland House, 2022. Pp. 368. $24.95 paperback. Reviewed by Łukasz Muniowski Spanning almost 100 years, World Cup tournaments have been––without a doubt––some of the most exciting and popular sport competitions. Compiling just one book of stories about…
Conley, Sean. The Point After: How One Resilient Kicker Learned there was More to Life than the NFL. Lyons Press, 2020. Pp. 258. Acknowledgments, epilogue, index, photographs, pregame (prologue). $29.95 hardback. Reviewed by Bob D’Angelo There is nothing sentimental about the NFL. It is a business, and it chews up players and spits them out…
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…
Woods, Paul. Year of the Rocket: John Candy, Wayne Gretzky, a Crooked Tycoon, and the Craziest Season in Football History. Toronto: Sutherland House, 2021. Pp. 325. $19.95. Reviewed by Łukasz Muniowski Judging by the number of championships, the Toronto Argonauts are, arguably, the best team in the history of the Canadian Football League (CFL), with a…
Friedman, Lester D. Sports Movies (Quick Takes: Movies and Popular Culture). New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2020. Pp. 210. $ 17.95 paperback and ebook. Reviewed by Łukasz Muniowski Almost all of us consume professional sports indirectly, as a certain form of mediation is always involved when it comes to watching any type of athletic competition. It is…
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…
Price, Asher. Earl Campbell: Yards After Contact. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019. Pp. 344. 12 photos, notes, and index. $27.95 hardcover. Reviewed by Nicholas Evan Sarantakes It is difficult to explain how much Earl Campbell dominated American football in the late 1970s. For roughly three years, he was the player in the sport. In…
Sport in American History 