Ross, Charles K. Mavericks, Money, and Men: The AFL, Black Players, and the Evolution of Modern Football. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2016 Pp. 212. Notes, bibliography, and index. $84.50 clothback, $19.95 paperback, $19.95 e-book. By Andrew D. Linden At Super Bowl I, then known as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, the Green Bay Packers easily…
By Russ Crawford Yesterday, two teams from the National Football League (NFL) will played the first of three scheduled games in England this season. Two games take place at Wembley Stadium, the venue for twenty-three previous NFL games played across the pond since 1983,[1] and the third is to be held at Twickenham Stadium. The Jaguars,…
Rowley, Christopher. The Shared Origins of Football, Rugby, and Soccer. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Pp. xi+248. Bibliography and index. $36.00 hardback, $35.99 electronic book. Reviewed by Zachary R. Bigalke My graduate advisor originally hails from Peru, and he is fond of telling a story from his earliest days as a graduate student in…
By Andrew D. Linden Amidst the ongoing Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in sport, highlighted by the recent protest led by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, many writers, pundits, and editorialists have looked back at the cultural peak of the 1960s “revolt of the black athlete” (See here, here, and here.) Many of the…
By Kate Aguilar “What is happening today amounts to a revolt by the black athlete against the framework and attitudes of American sport, and that such a thing could occur in his own pet province has astonished the white sports follower. The reason for the astonishment is that the man in the grandstand knows nothing…
Tonight, the Carolina Panthers will run onto the field at the Sports Authority Field at Mile High to take on the defending Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos. There are many on-the-field stories of interest. Can the Broncos continue their dominance from last season without the now retired quarterback Peyton Manning? How will Northwestern alum Trevor Siemian fare in…
By Thomas P. Oates, Guest Contributor I frequently teach about OJ Simpson’s public career. In fact, I have probably assigned Leola Johnson and David Roediger’s classic essay “Hertz, Don’t It: Becoming Colorless and Staying Black in the Crossover of O.J. Simpson” more often than any other reading. The authors interrogate Simpson’s purported “colorlessness,” arguing that…
By Russ Crawford After an indecisive first half in the Championship of the French National Challenge Féminin of American football, the persistent clouds and rain cleared and the big battalions began to assert their will, just as Napoleon’s columns had in 1805. It was the Argocanes of Aix-en-Provence, rather than the Russians and Austrians, who…
By Rwany Sibaja, Guest Contributor Last Friday, June 3rd, the United States Men’s National Team faced Colombia in the opening match of the 2016 Copa América at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. This is a special edition of the tournament – the “Centenario” – commemorating the 100th anniversary of the world’s oldest continental soccer competition.…
By Russ Crawford, Guest Contributor Fiona Skillen and Carol Osborne recently wrote about the use of oral history in sport history for The International Journal of the History of Sport. In their article they argued that the method should be more widely employed.[1] This post leans heavily on two telephone interviews that I had with…
Sport in American History 