In its ranking of the top 100 North American athletes of the twentieth century, ESPN’s SportCentury included only 8 women. The recognition of only 8 female athletes (and 3 horses) demonstrates the all-too-frequent tendency to leave female sporting contributions out of the conversation. The Sport in American History’s three part-series, Top Ten Historically Significant Women…
In total, we collected 73 entries, including 70 athletes/coaches and 3 teams. These contributions came from scholars, casual readers, and one sport history classroom. This produced myriad descriptions of prominent female athletes from around the world and from many different sports. Below is a recap of Part I and Part II. Part I recognized 50…
Inspired in part by ESPN’s 1999 SportCentury, which in its ranking of the top 100 North American athletes of the twentieth century included only 8 women, we asked contributors to help recognize the important–and often overlooked–contributions of women in sport history. Readers and scholars were asked to provide “top ten” lists of historically significant women…
By Katie Taylor In 2015, the Arizona Cardinals broke new ground in the NFL by hiring Jen Welter as a training camp assistant coach, the first woman to hold such a position. Less than a year later the Buffalo Bills hired Kathryn Smith as a full-time, quality control-special teams coach, though she unfortunately lost this…
Steidinger, Joan. Sisterhood in Sports: How Female Athletes Collaborate and Compete. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. xi+191. Notes, bibliography, and index. Reviewed by Russ Crawford Women like to talk. Women athletes like to talk to each other while practicing and competing. While there is a bit more to Joan Steidinger’s Sisterhood in Sports, the…
Sport in American History 