By Wesley R. Bishop and Andrew McGregor The smoke and ash of Baltimore has cleared in the magical land of cable news. With protests in Cleveland underway, the short attention span of corporate media discourse has found another tragedy to focus on, with many talking heads treating yet another “isolated” incident of police brutality as…
In the weeks following Bud Wilkinson’s resignation as head football coach at the University of Oklahoma and the announcement of his U.S. Senate campaign, John Cronley of The Oklahoman asked “For where do you go from Olympia?” Likening Wilkinson to the mythical Greek gods, Cronley eulogized Oklahoma’s “Golden Football Era.” The article was both forlorn…
Last week, Nike introduced a new commercial. Featuring National Basketball Association superstar LeBron James, “Together” shows the Cleveland community rallying around its local hero. In grand and gallant fashion, James returned to the city on the shores of Lake Erie to reclaim his rightful place on the throne of his Rust Belt kingdom. The black…
On Saturday, November 23, 1963, Oklahoma and Nebraska were schedule to meet in Lincoln. It was an important game in the Big 8 standings. The Sooners were 7-1 going into the game, 5-0 in conference play. Their only loss that season was to Darrell Royal and a pesky Texas team that seemed to always have…
There’s something curious about sports. Particularly, something curious about the way that the category of “sports” is used. It’s everywhere. It’s even in the opening quote of Andrew McGregor’s previous blog entry, which cited former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren claiming that he likes to read the sports page because it “records people’s…
Sport in American History 