Bar-On, Tamir. The World Through Soccer: The Cultural Impact of a Global Sport. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Pp. xxiii+307. Appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. $92.00 hardback, $89.99 electronic book. Reviewed by Zachary R. Bigalke Anyone who has watched soccer in recent years has seen a dizzying array of different formations and tactics being…
Reviewed by Alex Parrish Schultz, Brad, and Mary Lou Sheffer, eds. Sport and Religion in the Twenty-First Century. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016. Pp. xi+260. Bibliography, index, and contributor biographies. $95 hardback. Spend any time in the South during the fall, and you will likely hear the old cliché, “football is religion down here.” This…
Gaines, Bob. Christy Mathewson, The Christian Gentleman: How One Man’s Faith and Fastball Forever Changed Baseball. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Pp. x+218. Illustrations, notes, appendices, works cited, and index. $38.00 hardback. Reviewed by Paul Putz Renowned for his pinpoint accuracy and his “fadeaway” pitch, Christy Mathewson’s baseball exploits are well known. He ended…
Alpert, Rebecca T. Religion and Sports: An Introduction and Case Studies. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2015. Pp. x+209. Illustrations, notes, and index. $28.00 paperback. Reviewed by Hunter M. Hampton It is fellowship application season, and that means that over the past couple of weeks I have written a lot of syllabi. Some are easy to…
Grundman, Dolph. Dolph Schayes and the Rise of Professional Basketball. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2014. Pp. xix+163. Illustrations, notes, works cited, and index. $24.95 clothback. Reviewed by Paul Putz When Dolph Schayes passed away last December, the New York Times devoted two stories to the legacy of the basketball Hall-of-Famer. One described Schayes, who…
I only recently attended my first Liberty University (LU) athletic event. Although I have lived in Lynchburg, Virginia, for over two years, I typically avoid the ever-expanding school on the “other side of town.” On the one hand, the traffic surrounding Liberty is always a pain. LU’s campus is encircled by bypasses, strip malls, and…
Ladies and gentlemen, Timothy Richard Tebow is back!! Those of you with a high enough cable TV package can welcome him back into your living room on the SEC Network. The last time Tebow made a media splash was when he ran shirtless through the rain at the New York Jets training camp. Truth be told,…
Sport in American History 