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…
Gems, Gerald and Pfister, Gertrude, eds. Touchdown: An American Obsession. Great Barrington, Ma: Berkshire Publishing Group LLC, 2019. Pp. 364. Appendices, notes, glossary, index. $49.95 paperback. $125 hardcover. Reviewed by Russ Crawford Gridiron football is the most popular team sport in the United States, and the history of the sport has been explored by a…
Pearlman, Jeff. Football for a Buck: The Crazy Ride and the Crazier Demise of the USFL.New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2018. $18.30 paperback. Review By Jon Hart This review originally appeared on Stadium Journey. Re-posted with author permission. Prolific author Jeff Pearlman, @jeffpearlman, has written eight books. By his own admission, he had the…
Editor’s Note: “Sport in American History” is excited to cross-post Richard C. Crepeau’s “Sport and Society” column. This post was originally published on December 4, 2018. A full archive of his Crepeau’s columns can be found by clicking here. Here we are once again at the end of the regular season in college football. The conference championship games have…
Editor’s Note: “Sport in American History” is excited to cross-post Richard C. Crepeau’s “Sport and Society” column. This post was originally published on November 8, 2018. A full archive of his Crepeau’s columns can be found by clicking here. Do you ever wonder if there is a bottom to the depths of decay and corruption within the American University?…
Gilden, Jack. Collision of Wills: Johnny Unitas, Don Shula, and the Rise of the Modern NFL. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018. Pp. 328. Afterword, index and bibliography. $29.95 hardback. Reviewed by Bob D’Angelo The Baltimore Colts of the 1960s could be called the National Football League’s underachievers — or, more charitably, unlucky. From 1963…
By Tanya K. Jones Whether one is playing or spectating, millions of people participate in one form or another. As springtime ends, it takes two sports in the U.S. with it; hockey and basketball. Despite the loss, American sports enthusiasts have baseball to lean on until the day comes when one sport rises above the…
Sport in American History 