By Cat Ariail Throughout this season, the NBA commentariat has sought to find the best historical comparison for the league’s newly-minted, unanimous MVP, Steph Curry. While many see Curry’s game as the evolutionary combination of Pete Maravich and Steve Nash, former NBA greats Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have expressed their lack of astonishment, comparing Curry to…
By Cat Ariail Tomorrow night, the University of Connecticut’s Breanna Stewart and Moriah Jefferson will attempt to make college basketball history. With a victory over Syracuse, Stewart and Jefferson will become the first athletes to complete a national championship grand slam, winning a title each of their four years (when UCLA won ten of twelve men’s…
By Colleen English In the 1960s and 1970s, Jerry Seltzer led his father’s invention, roller derby, to renewed success. Formerly a Depression Era endurance sport (I have discussed the early origins of roller derby here), roller derby became an entertainment spectacle that featured drama, feuds, and athletic talent. Journalist Jack Fincher credited Seltzer with making…
By Cat Ariail On June 25, 2013, Texas Senator Wendy Davis engaged in an eleven-hour filibuster to attempt to defeat Senate Bill 5, which severely would restrict access to abortion. Throughout her marathon filibuster session, Davis wore a pair of pink Mizuno Wave Rider 16 running shoes. In media coverage of the filibuster, Davis’s pink…
Henne, Kathryn E. Testing for Athlete Citizenship: Regulating Doping and Sex in Sport. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015. Appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. $90 clothback. $28.95 paperback, web PDF, and epub. Reviewed by Cat Ariail In my last blog post, I used the story of Carlota Gooden to introduce the possibility of athletic…
By Kate Aguilar In the 2014 documentary Champs, director Bert Marcus interviews boxing legends Evander Holyfield, Bernard Hopkins, and Mike Tyson, providing an intimate look at how race, class, gender, and place converge in the making of a boxing superstar. The film begins with a voiceover from Philadelphia native Bernard Hopkins’ trainer, Naazim Richardson. Hopkins successfully…
By Cat Ariail At the 1959 Pan-American Games in Chicago, Illinois, Carlota Gooden, a twenty-two year-old Panamanian sprinter descended from Barbadian canal workers, won two silver medals and a bronze. Her performances in the 100-meter sprint, 4×100-meter relay, and 60-meter dash entered her name in the official records of international track, a permanent inscription that…
Cahn, Susan K. Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Women’s Sport (2nd edition). Urbana, Chicago, & Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2015. Pp. xiii+395. Notes, index, and black and white photographs. $95 hardcover, $25 paperback. Reviewed by Colleen English Susan Cahn’s first edition of Coming on Strong, originally published in 1994, serves as a…
By Paige Gadsby, Guest Contributor Since Congress instituted Title IX as part of the Education Amendments of 1972 and banned discrimination based on sex in educational programs and activities, there has been a tremendous increase of female athletes and women’s sports on all levels. In 1972, roughly 300,000 females competed in high school athletics. That…
Sandwiched between pop culture quizzes and cat videos, fitspirational images litter the internet. These fitspirational images combine pictures of fit-looking white women clad only in short spandex shorts, sports bra, tank top, and long pony-tail with short “just do it”-type taglines to purportedly provide fitness motivation while ushering in a new era for women and their bodies. Fitspirational…
Sport in American History 