New Books In Sports

If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. However, if you’ve spent the last several years working on a PhD, or if you’re a faculty member whose career has basically consisted of higher ed, switching isn’t so easy. PhD holders are mostly trained to work as professors, and making easy connections to other careers is no mean feat. Because the people you know were generally trained to do the same sorts of things, an easy source of advice might not be there for you. Thankfully, for anybody who wishes there was a guidebook that would just break all of this down, that book has now been written. Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers (Stylus Publishing, 2020) by Kathryn E. Linder, Kevin Kelly, and Thomas J. Tobin offers practical advice and step-by-step instructions on how to decide if you want to leave behind academia and how to start searching for a new career. If a lot of career advice is too vague

The so-called Sabermetrics revolution in baseball that began in the 1970s, popularized by the book—and later Hollywood film—Moneyball, was supposed to represent a triumph of observation over intuition. Cash-strapped clubs need not compete for hyped-up prospects when undervalued players provide better price per run scored. Q.E.D., right? In Scouting and Scoring: How We Know What We Know About Baseball (Princeton University Press, 2019), historian of science Christopher J. Phillips rejects his titular dualism. He shows us that baseball can be, in the words of seminal anthropologist and noted Tampa Bay Rays fan* Claude Lévi-Strauss, “good to think with.” Both traditional amateur scouts and statistically-savvy scorers rely on metrics and bureaucracy to make their judgments count, as it were. Some like to say that baseball is quantitative at its core, but by tracing the co-evolution of the sport’s competing data sciences—with episodes that bear witness to the development of the modern press and digital computers—P

Today we are joined by Andrew R. M. Smith, author of No Way But To Fight: George Foreman and the Business of Boxing (University of Texas Press, 2020). In our conversation, we discussed Foreman’s career, the role of race in American sports, and how boxing helped give rise to athletic mega-events. In No Way But To Fight, Smith traces the intersections between Foreman’s life, the racial politics of sports during the Civil Rights era, the intensification of boxing’s commercialization, the complexities of black masculinities, and the internationalization of sports mega-events. He shows that from his upbringing in Houston’s Fifth Ward to his role as a spokesman for the Foreman Grill, Foreman always fought to redefine himself along with the times. Smith’s telescoping view showcases a Foreman that played with different personalities - including American patriot, soul man, and evangelical preacher - in order to achieve success at distinct stages of his life. Although Smiths work proceeds chronologically, it focuses he

College sport is a multi-billion dollar industry. The men and women who lead the teams in the most important conferences often make millions of dollars between their coaching salaries and endorsement deals. But what about the athletes themselves? Most get a “free ride” (tuition, food and board), but is that sufficient? Given that the majority of the athletes in the major sports (read that to be football and men’s basketball) are African American, what type of recompense are they getting for their toil and sweat on the gridiron and the hardcourt? Since the overwhelming majority of these men do not make it to the NFL or the NBA, are they benefiting from being student-athletes, or are they being taken advantage of by schools and universities that make money off of their efforts and provide little in return? It is important questions such as these that John N. Singer addresses in his book, Race, Sports, and Education: Improving Opportunities and Outcomes for Black Male College Athletes (Harvard Education Press, 2

Today we are joined by Maria Veri, Associate Professor of Kinesiology at San Francisco State University, and Rita Liberti, Professor of Kinesiology at California State University, East Bay. Together they are the authors of Gridiron Gourmet: Gender and Food at the Football Tailgate (University of Arkansas Press, 2019), one of the most compelling books on sports studies to come out this year. In our conversation, we discussed the origins of tailgating in the United States, the way that tailgate gender roles changed throughout the 20th century; the interplay between the gender of tailgaters, cooking technologies, and food ways of tailgating; and the future possibilities and current limitations of the tailgating community. In Gridiron Gourmet, Liberti and Veri trace the long history of American tailgate practices and use that history to unpack tailgating in several sites across the contemporary USA. They base their study on a wide range of sources, including newspaper, cartoon, television shows, cookbooks, and et

Today we are joined by Seán Crosson, leader of the Sport and Exercise Research Group at NUI Galway, co-director of the MA in Sports Journalism and Communication, and Professor at the Huston School of Film and Digital Media. He is also the author of Gaelic Games on Film: From Silent Films to Hollywood Hurling, Horror, and the Emergence of Irish Cinema (Cork University Press, 2019). In our conversation, we discussed the first depictions of Gaelic Games on film; American and British portrayals of hurling and Gaelic football that popularized and subverted Irish stereotypes; the role of the Gaelic Games in promoting Irish Nationalism, and the contemporary subversion of conservative notions of Irishness through representations of the games since the 1960s. Along the way, we discussed numerous popular films such as Knocknagow (1918), The Quiet Man (1952), and The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006). In Gaelic Games on Film, Crosson traces out the use of Irish sports in Irish, American, and British cinema. His analysi

Evan Friss, an associate professor of history at James Madison University, historicizes the bicycle’s place in New York City’s social, economic, infrastructural and cultural politics. On Bicycles: A 200-Year History of Cycling in New York City (Columbia UP, 2019) curates a history of the key moments and individuals who worked to integrate the bicycle and the bicyclist into the urban fabric. Friss explores the long-standing debate over what a bicycle is—cars and walkers, he contends, had specific places on city streets. The bicycle was a different story. New Yorkers strove to define and redefine the relationship among New York City, its people, and their bicycles. Beginning with the fad of velocipedes and the arrival of the first modern bicycles on city streets in the second half of the nineteenth century, On Bicycles highlights key moments in cycling history. With each era, a diverse cohort of cyclists and municipal officials tasked with integrating—or banning—bicycles from city streets. Cyclists turned to bi

The thriving metropolis of Chicago was the land of opportunity for a wide variety of ethnic groups. As individuals from nations where soccer reigned began arriving in the area, they instituted teams and leagues that supported “their” game. Ultimately the sport grew, and with the passage of time, eventually developed a following among native-born sons and daughters of these immigrants (including the development of high school teams throughout the city and leagues affiliated with the parks movement). The sport was also an attraction for athletes who worked at various corporations; a mechanism whereby employers often tried to increase the loyalty of their workers. Additionally, there were players and associations that challenged employer dominance by creating teams that favored unions and even radical political affiliations (such as the communists). Gabe Logan’s new book The Early Years of Chicago Soccer, 1887-1939 (Lexington Books, 2019) shows why the sport was significant to a substantial percentage of the pop

Earl Campbell was a force in American football, winning a state championship in high school, rushing his way to a Heisman trophy for the University of Texas, and earning MVP as he took the Houston Oilers to the brink of the Super Bowl. Asher Price's exhilarating blend of biography and history, Early Campbell: Yards After Contact (University of Texas Press, 2019) chronicles the challenges and sacrifices one supremely gifted athlete faced in his journey to the Hall of Fame. The story begins in Tyler, Texas, and features his indomitable mother, a crusading judge, and a newly integrated high school, then moves to Austin, home of the University of Texas (infamously, the last all-white national champion in college football), where legendary coach Darrell Royal stakes his legacy on recruiting Campbell. Later, in booming, Luv-Ya-Blue Houston, Campbell reaches his peak with beloved coach Bum Phillips, who celebrates his star runner’s bruising style even as it takes its toll on Campbell’s body. Drawing on new interview

We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if we don’t understand what we’re looking at? Social media has made charts, infographics, and diagrams ubiquitous―and easier to share than ever. We associate charts with science and reason; the flashy visuals are both appealing and persuasive. Pie charts, maps, bar and line graphs, and scatter plots (to name a few) can better inform us, revealing patterns and trends hidden behind the numbers we encounter in our lives. In short, good charts make us smarter―if we know how to read them. However, they can also lead us astray. Charts lie in a variety of ways―displaying incomplete or inaccurate data, suggesting misleading patterns, and concealing uncertainty―or are frequently misunderstood, such as the confusing cone of uncertainty maps shown on TV every hurricane season. To make matters worse, many of us are ill-equipped to interpret the visuals that politicians, journalists, advertisers, and even our employers present each day, enabling bad actors

All aficionados of baseball are familiar with the pathbreaking role of Jackie Robinson in reintegrating the game back in 1947. What many fans are less familiar with are the issues that Latinos of color endured both in the minor leagues and the Majors starting back in the 1950s. How difficult was it for a mulato, a person who had never endured (or even heard of) Jim Crow, to come to grips with the “peculiarities” of life in the United States, while simultaneously trying to learn a new language as well as trying play well enough in order to move up the various rungs of a particular franchise’s farm system? The story of Major League great (as a player and manager) Felipe Alou sheds light on this important topic. Alou started playing organized baseball late in life (early teens), endured poverty and hardship in his native Dominican Republic, and then helped to break down barriers of language and perception throughout his long career on the field and in the dugout. All the while, he played with skill, dignity, and

Rodeo is one of the indelible images of culture in the American West. The John Wayne-like cowboy tenaciously hanging on to the bucking bronc is a classic vision of what it means to be in the West. In Outriders: Rodeo at the Fringes of the American West (University of Washington, 2019), author and University of Idaho historian Rebecca Scofield argues that rodeo performance has also long-been a means of asserting “Western-ness” for people excluded from narratives about the region. From women rodeo riders to African American and gay performers, Scofield writes about the ways professional rodeo has been a means of inclusion into Western stories, and how professionalization of the sport has also excluded riders from its ranks. Among the stories Scofield tells are the incarcerated Texas rodeo performers who put their bodies on the line both for the coerced spectacle, as a means of entertaining visitors, and as a method of asserting their rights and humanity within a dehumanizing system. The meaning of rodeo has bee

1978 was the year that changed San Francisco forever, writes Lincoln A. Mitchell in San Francisco Year Zero: Political Upheaval, Punk Rock and a Third-Place Baseball Team (Rutgers University Press, 2019). After the long hangover from the heady 1960s and summer of love, San Francisco was, by the late ‘70s, a city in transition and a city in crisis. The election of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay American elected official, and the re-election of left-wing mayor George Moscone seemed to indicate a rejection of political centrism and an embrace of leftist municipal politics. That all changed in November when an assassin’s bullet killed both leaders, bringing Diane Feinstein to power and putting the city on a path to economic inequality and broadly liberal social politics. Behind the political chaos, the culture of the Grateful Dead was giving way to the punk rock scene, and a mediocre-yet-lovable Giants team was capturing the hearts of its fans and banishing all fears of a possible relocation to the east coast.

Dr. Derrick E. White's new book Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Jake Gaither, Florida A&M, and the History of Black College Football (University of North Carolina Press, 2019) chronicles the development of black college football in the twentieth century, and is among the first comprehensive histories of black college athletics. Using the biography of Alonzo “Jake” Gaither and the history of the football program at Florida A&M University (FAMU), Dr. White shows how black college football and its supporters created successful programs during segregation by relying on a network of athletic enthusiasts in the media, on campuses, and in the community. White is the author of The Challenge of Blackness: The Institute of the Black World and Political Activism in the 1970s (Florida, 2011) and has published articles in New Politics, The Journal of African American History, the C.L.R. James Journal, The Journal of African American Studies, and The Florida Historical Quarterly. He's also the co-host “The Black Athlete Podcast”

Today we are joined by Trevor Thompson, a journalist who has reported on association football in Australia and around the world since the 1980s. He is also the author of Playing for Australia: The First Socceroos, Asia, and World Football (Fair Play Publishing, 2018). In our conversation, we discussed the limitation of Australia’s connection with British football in the interwar period, Australia’s Asian football connections, and the future for Australian football in the Asia-Pacific. In Playing for Australia, Thompson investigates the Asian context of some of Australia’s earliest international soccer matches. He notes that Australia’s engagement with Asian football did not start in with their adherence to the Asian Football Confederation in 2006. Instead, Thompson illustrates the long durée history of Australian connections in Asia-Pacific football. In 1922, Australia competed in their first internationals against New Zealand. The next year, a side from China visited Australia touring Queensland, New South W

As you may know, university presses publish a lot of good books. In fact, they publish thousands of them every year. They are different from most trade books in that most of them are what you might called "fundamental research." Their authors--dedicated researchers one and all--provide the scholarly stuff upon which many non-fiction trade books are based. So when you are reading, say, a popular history, you are often reading UP books at one remove. Of course, some UP books are also bestsellers, and they are all well written (and, I should say, thoroughly vetted thanks to the peer review system), but the greatest contribution of UPs is to provide a base of fundamental research to the public. And they do a great job of it. How do they do it? Today I talked to Kathryn Conrad, the president of the Association of University Presses, about the work of UPs, the challenges they face, and some terrific new directions they are going. We also talked about why, if you have a scholarly book in progress, you should talk to

The things that make people academics -- as deep fascination with some arcane subject, often bordering on obsession, and a comfort with the solitude that developing expertise requires -- do not necessarily make us good teachers. Jessamyn Neuhaus’s Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers (West Virginia University Press, 2019) helps us to identify and embrace that geekiness in us and then offers practical, step-by-step guidelines for how to turn it to effective pedagogy. It’s a sharp, slim, and entertaining volume that can make better teachers of us all. Stephen Pimpare is Senior Lecturer in the Politics & Society Program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of The New Victorians (New Press, 2004), A Peoples History of Poverty in America (New Press, 2008), winner of the Michael Harrington Award, and Ghettos, Tramps and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen (Oxford, 2017

Today we are joined by Noah Cohan, Lecturer in American Culture Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, and the author of We Average Unbeautiful Watchers: Fan Narratives and the Reading of American Sport (University of Nebraska Press, 2019). In our conversation, we discussed the nature of sports narrative, the way that fictional and non-fictional accounts can illuminate the lived experiences of fans, and the role sports blogs have played in reshaping sports narratives beyond the capitalist and competitive frameworks promoted by major leagues such as the NBA and the MLB. In We Average Unbeautiful Watchers, Cohan investigates “the behavior of American sports fans to understand (its) cultural relevance beyond mere consumerism.” He argues that sports contain all the elements of traditional stories: beginnings, middles, ends, plots, characters, rising action, declension, and a causal trajectory. These narrative pieces allow fans to enact “consumptive, receptive, and appropriative” activities that are “funda

One. Two. Three.That’s as long as it took to sear the souls of a dozen young American men, thanks to the craziest, most controversial finish in the history of the Olympics—the 1972 gold-medal basketball contest between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the world’s two superpowers at the time.The U.S. team, whose unbeaten Olympic streak dated back to when Adolf Hitler reigned over the Berlin Games, believed it had won the gold medal that September in Munich—not once, but twice. But it was the third time the final seconds were played that counted.What happened? The head of international basketball—flouting rules he himself had created—trotted onto the court and demanded twice that time be put back on the clock. A referee allowed an illegal substitution and an illegal free-throw shooter for the Soviets while calling a slew of late fouls on the U.S. players. The American players became the only Olympic athletes in the history of the games to refuse their medals.Of course, t

Today we are joined by Rob Ruck, Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh, and the author of Tropic of Football: The Long and Perilous Journey of Samoans to the NFL (The New Press, 2018). In our conversation, we discussed the origins of football in American Samoa, the disproportionate representation of Samoans in Division 1 college football and the NFL, and the cultural origins of Samoan sporting success.In Tropic of Football, Ruck addresses the paradox of Samoan accomplishment in American football. Samoans are roughly forty times more likely than non-Samoans to compete in the NFL. Ruck argues that their capabilities do not come from any genetic predisposition, but from the particularities of the Samoan way, the so-called fa’a Samoa, which emphasizes a warrior mentality, strong work ethic, rigid social hierarchy, deep family ties, and competition without fear. At the same time, Ruck also finds influences from outside of Samoa, including: the US Armed Forces, the Church of Latter Day Saints, and a