870 books match the query 'Sports & Recreation' and 33 start with p

cover of Palestra Pandemonium: A History Of The Big 5

Palestra Pandemonium

A History Of The Big 5

Robert Lyons

Temple University Press, 2002

The most famous basketball tournament in the history of college basketball is the Big Five. And the Big Five was played in the most hallowed halls of college play: the Palestra. Now, for the first time, a complete story of this Philadelphia rivalry is revealed.

Robert Lyons offers the story of the Big Five from its very beginnings in 1955. At that time, many of the Big Five schools -- La Salle University, University of Pennsylvania, St. Joseph's University, Temple University, and Villanova University -- weren't even talking to each other, and everyone predicted the tournament would end before it began. Conducting interviews with  coaches and players -- including famed Temple coach Harry Litwack's last interview before his death -- Lyons offers the play-by-play on how the Big Five became an institution, and how it was ultimately undone by college basketball's own success.

Lavishly illustrated with photographs of players, teams, coaches, and the Palestra itself, Palestra Pandemonium is an immediate classic, offering a chronicle of the most monumental college basketball tournament. Anywhere.
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cover of Pan-Asian Sports and the Emergence of Modern Asia, 1913-1974

Pan-Asian Sports and the Emergence of Modern Asia, 1913-1974

Stefan Huebner

National University of Singapore Press, 2016

The history of regional sporting events in 20th century Asia yields insights into Western and Asian perspectives on what defines modern Asia, and can be read as a staging of power relations in Asia and between Asia and the West. The Far Eastern Championship Games began in 1913, and were succeeded after the Pacific War by the Asian Games. Missionary groups and colonial administrations viewed sporting success not only as a triumph of physical strength and endurance but also of moral education and social reform. Sporting competitions were to shape a ‘new Asian man’ and later a ‘new Asian woman’ by promoting internationalism, egalitarianism and economic progress, all serving to direct a “rising” Asia toward modernity. Over time, exactly what constituted a “rising” Asia underwent remarkable changes, ranging from the YMCA’s promotion of muscular Christianity, democratization, and the social gospel in the US-colonized Philippines to Iranian visions of recreating the Great Persian Empire.


Based on a vast range of archival materials and spanning sixty years and three continents, Sports and the Emergence of Modern Asia shows how pan-Asian sporting events helped shape anti-colonial sentiments, Asian nationalisms, and pan-Asian aspirations in places as diverse as Japan and Iran, and across the span of countries lying between them.
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cover of Paradise Below Zero: The Classic Guide to Winter Camping

Paradise Below Zero

The Classic Guide to Winter Camping

Calvin Rutstrum

University of Minnesota Press, 2000

Indispensable advice on enjoying the great outdoors in winter.

With the public’s growing interest in outdoor adventure and in simple pastimes, winter wilderness camping has again become an exhilarating alternative to sheltered urban life. Originally published in 1968, this classic guide for cold-weather enthusiasts by renowned wilderness expert Calvin Rutstrum is available again, now in an easy-to-pack paperback edition.

Paradise Below Zero provides essential information on wilderness adventure in subzero temperatures. Readers benefit from Rutstrum’s knowledge of winter clothing, from choosing the proper mittens to selecting the indispensable footwear; traveling methods, including running a dogsled team; and emergency techniques, such as treating snow blindness and caring for someone who has broken through the ice. Rutstrum affectionately reflects on winter life and enthusiastically gives examples of how native peoples of the north and trappers have fought the cold. This colorful book will be of interest to anyone who has ever survived a northern winter.
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cover of Parkour and the City: Risk, Masculinity, and Meaning in a Postmodern Sport

Parkour and the City

Risk, Masculinity, and Meaning in a Postmodern Sport

Kidder, Jeffrey L.

Rutgers University Press, 2017

In the increasingly popular sport of parkour, athletes run, jump, climb, flip, and vault through city streetscapes, resembling urban gymnasts to passersby and awestruck spectators. In Parkour and the City, cultural sociologist Jeffrey L. Kidder examines the ways in which this sport involves a creative appropriation of urban spaces as well as a method of everyday risk-taking by a youth culture that valorizes individuals who successfully manage danger.
 
Parkour’s modern development has been tied closely to the growth of the internet. The sport is inevitably a YouTube phenomenon, making it exemplary of new forms of globalized communication. Parkour’s dangerous stunts resonate, too, Kidder contends, with a neoliberal ideology that is ambivalent about risk. Moreover, as a male-dominated sport, parkour, with its glorification of strength and daring, reflects contemporary Western notions of masculinity. At the same time, Kidder writes, most athletes (known as “traceurs” or “freerunners”) reject a “daredevil” label, preferring a deliberate, reasoned hedging of bets with their own safety—rather than a “pushing the edge” ethos normally associated with extreme sports.  
 
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cover of Passing the Baton: Black Women Track Stars and American Identity

Passing the Baton

Black Women Track Stars and American Identity

Cat M. Ariail

University of Illinois Press, 2020

After World War II, the United States used international sport to promote democratic values and its image of an ideal citizen. But African American women excelling in track and field upset such notions. Cat M. Ariail examines how athletes such as Alice Coachman, Mae Faggs, and Wilma Rudolph forced American sport cultures—both white and Black—to reckon with the athleticism of African American women. Marginalized still further in a low-profile sport, young Black women nonetheless bypassed barriers to represent their country. Their athletic success soon threatened postwar America's dominant ideas about race, gender, sexuality, and national identity. As Ariail shows, the wider culture defused these radical challenges by locking the athletes within roles that stressed conservative forms of femininity, blackness, and citizenship.

A rare exploration of African American women athletes and national identity, Passing the Baton reveals young Black women as active agents in the remaking of what it means to be American.

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cover of Pathfinder: Blazing a New Wilderness Trail in Modern America

Pathfinder

Blazing a New Wilderness Trail in Modern America

Ron Strickland

Oregon State University Press, 2011

Ron Strickland has spent a good deal of time walking. He hiked the 1200 miles of the Pacific Northwest Trail in 1983. In 2004, he completed the Pacific Crest Trail, with a 1500-mile hike from the Mojave Desert to the Columbia River. In 2009, he hiked the length of the New England Trail.

He has also held a longtime dream of showcasing the best hiking of the Rockies, Purcells, Okanogan, Cascades, Olympics, and Wilderness Coast. He spent years raising funds, recruiting volunteers, cutting brush, digging dirt, and lobbying landowners, officials, and politicians—and in 2009, the Pacific Northwest Trail, which runs from the Continental Divide to the Pacific Ocean, traversing three National Parks and seven National Forests, was finally declared a National Scenic Trail.

In this adventurous and moving memoir, Strickland—known in the backcountry as “Pathfinder”—shares his insider view of the joys and adventures of long-distance hiking. He intersperses colorful portraits of memorable trail characters and lush descriptions of hikes he knows firsthand. He also describes the experience of conceiving and establishing the Pacific Northwest Trail, detailing the setbacks and triumphs along the way.

Pathfinder offers the rich insights and experiences of a longtime hiker, inspiring readers to the wonder of hiking and the outdoors.

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cover of Pay for Play: A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform

Pay for Play

A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform

Ronald A. Smith

University of Illinois Press, 2011

In an era when college football coaches frequently command higher salaries than university presidents, many call for reform to restore the balance between amateur athletics and the educational mission of schools. This book traces attempts at college athletics reform from 1855 through the early twenty-first century while analyzing the different roles played by students, faculty, conferences, university presidents, the NCAA, legislatures, and the Supreme Court.
 
Pay for Play: A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform also tackles critically important questions about eligibility, compensation, recruiting, sponsorship, and rules enforcement. Discussing reasons for reform--to combat corruption, to level the playing field, and to make sports more accessible to minorities and women--Ronald A. Smith candidly explains why attempts at change have often failed. Of interest to historians, athletic reformers, college administrators, NCAA officials, and sports journalists, this thoughtful book considers the difficulty in balancing the principles of amateurism with the need to draw income from sporting events.
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cover of Peak Experiences: Danger, Death, and Daring in the Mountains of the Northeast

Peak Experiences

Danger, Death, and Daring in the Mountains of the Northeast

Edited by Carol Stone White

University Press of New England, 2012

In the mountains, the difference between a pleasant day of hiking and a life-threatening disaster is as simple as a loose rock, a turned ankle, or a misjudged patch of ice. In an instant, even the most experienced and prepared of outdoorspersons can find themselves at the mercy of the elements (and their own choices) — and suddenly, sometimes tragically, the situation slips out their control. In this collection of over fifty tales of day hikes and long treks gone awry, the seasoned climber and writer Carol Stone White brings together some of her favorite tales of outdoor misadventure written by colleagues and fellow enthusiasts who have experienced the harsher side of climbing the peaks of New England and the Adirondacks. From freak falls to outrunning storms, from life-threatening hypothermia to the excitement of unlikely rescues, these tales inform as much as they entertain, teaching even the experienced climber that accidents can happen to anyone and that preparation and the ability to make split-second decisions can often mean the difference between life and death. Like sitting around the campfire sharing tales of terror and near death with your hiking buddies, this collection will appeal to the true outdoorsperson as well as the armchair adventurer.
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cover of Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities

Pedaling Revolution

How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities

Jeff Mapes

Oregon State University Press, 2009

Updated Edition includes a new epilogue by the author

In a world of increasing traffic congestion, a grassroots movement is carving out a niche for bicycles on city streets. Pedaling Revolution explores the growing bike culture that is changing the look and feel of cities, suburbs, and small towns across North America.

From traffic-dodging bike messengers to tattooed teenagers on battered bikes, from riders in spandex to well-dressed executives, ordinary citizens are becoming transportation revolutionaries. Jeff Mapes traces the growth of bicycle advocacy and explores the environmental, safety, and health aspects of bicycling. He rides with bicycle advocates who are taming the streets of New York City, joins the street circus that is Critical Mass in San Francisco, and gets inspired by the every-day folk pedaling in Amsterdam, the nirvana of American bike activists. Chapters focused on big cities, college towns, and America’s most successful bike city, Portland, show how cyclists, with the encouragement of local officials, are claiming a share of the valuable streetscape.

“A growing number of Americans, mounted on their bicycles like some new kind of urban cowboy, are mixing it up with swift, two-ton motor vehicles as they create a new society on the streets. They’re finding physical fitness, low-cost transportation, environmental purity—and, still all too often, Wild West risks of sudden death or injury.” —from the introduction

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cover of People of Prowess: Sport, Leisure, and Labor in Early Anglo-America

People of Prowess

Sport, Leisure, and Labor in Early Anglo-America

Nancy L. Struna

University of Illinois Press, 1996

Americans have revered prowess in sports going back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Nancy L. Struna explores the significance, meaning, and structure of competitive matches and displays of physical prowess for both men and women in colonial culture. Engrossingly written for the general reader as well as sport and leisure historians, People of Prowess is a pioneering work that explores a rarely examined area of colonial history and society.
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cover of People of the Sturgeon: Wisconsin's Love Affair with an Ancient Fish

People of the Sturgeon

Wisconsin's Love Affair with an Ancient Fish

Kathleen Schmitt Kline

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2012

People of the Sturgeon tells the poignant story of an ancient fish. Wanton harvest and habitat loss took a heavy toll on these prehistoric creatures until they teetered on the brink of extinction. But, in Wisconsin, lake sturgeon have flourished because of the dedicated work of Department of Natural Resources staff, university researchers and a determined group of spearers known as Sturgeon For Tomorrow. Thanks to these efforts, spearers can still flock by the thousands to frozen Lake Winnebago each winter to take part in a ritual rooted in the traditions of the Menominee and other Wisconsin Indians. A century of sturgeon management on Lake Winnebago has produced the world's largest and healthiest lake sturgeon population.
 
Through a fascinating collection of images, stories and interviews, People of the Sturgeon chronicles the history of this remarkable fish and the cultural traditions it has spawned. The authors introduce a colorful cast of characters with a good fish tale to tell. Color photos by the late Bob Rashid and images from the Wisconsin Historical Society evoke both the magical and the mortal. Weaving together myriad voices and examining the sturgeon's profound cultural impact, the authors reveal how a diverse group of people are now joined together as "people of the sturgeon."
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cover of People of the Sturgeon: Wisconsin's Love Affair with an Ancient Fish

People of the Sturgeon

Wisconsin's Love Affair with an Ancient Fish

Kathleen Schmitt Kline

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2012

People of the Sturgeon tells the poignant story of an ancient fish. Wanton harvest and habitat loss took a heavy toll on these prehistoric creatures until they teetered on the brink of extinction. But, in Wisconsin, lake sturgeon have flourished because of the dedicated work of Department of Natural Resources staff, university researchers and a determined group of spearers known as Sturgeon For Tomorrow. Thanks to these efforts, spearers can still flock by the thousands to frozen Lake Winnebago each winter to take part in a ritual rooted in the traditions of the Menominee and other Wisconsin Indians. A century of sturgeon management on Lake Winnebago has produced the world's largest and healthiest lake sturgeon population.
 
Through a fascinating collection of images, stories and interviews, People of the Sturgeon chronicles the history of this remarkable fish and the cultural traditions it has spawned. The authors introduce a colorful cast of characters with a good fish tale to tell. Color photos by the late Bob Rashid and images from the Wisconsin Historical Society evoke both the magical and the mortal. Weaving together myriad voices and examining the sturgeon's profound cultural impact, the authors reveal how a diverse group of people are now joined together as "people of the sturgeon."
[more]
cover of Perfect in Their Art: Poems on Boxing from Homer to Ali

Perfect in Their Art

Poems on Boxing from Homer to Ali

Edited by Robert Hedin and Michael Waters. Foreword by Budd Schulberg

Southern Illinois University Press, 2003

Two combatants, one ring, and a battle governed as much by determination and drive as by rules and referees: that’s boxing. Perfect in Their Art: Poems on Boxing from Homer to Ali spans the millennia to present more than one hundred of the finest in pugilism poetry from both oral and written traditions, celebrating the lasting literary, historical, and cultural significance of boxing’s storied heritage.

Editors Robert Hedin and Michael Waters pulled no punches in assembling the definitive poems and poets of the sport. Works by such classical poets as Homer, Virgil, and Pindar are gathered here side-by-side for the first time with the poems of Lord Byron, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This provocative collection also features more recent literary heavyweights, including Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Joyce Carol Oates, Philip Levine, Wislawa Szymborska, Ai, Yusef Komunyakaa, James Merrill, and Norman Mailer. Equally impressive is this anthology’s rich sampling of boxing music, including ballads, blues, marches, waltzes, and pop lyrics. Irving Berlin, Memphis Minnie, Leadbelly, Paul Simon, Warren Zevon, and Bob Dylan are only a few of the songwriters in this volume compelled to honor the sweet science.

Complemented by a foreword from On the Waterfront author Budd Schulberg, Perfect in Their Art offers glimpses into the boxing ring’s literal and metaphoric place as a popular stage for brutal but artful combat. Together these poems celebrate the heroes and traditions of this most primal competition across its many eras to provide an accurate, graceful, and spirited evocation of boxing’s cultural legacy as both sport and art.

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cover of Phil Jasner "On the Case": His Best Writing on the Sixers, the Dream Team, and Beyond

Phil Jasner "On the Case"

His Best Writing on the Sixers, the Dream Team, and Beyond

Andy Jasner

Temple University Press, 2017

Allen Iverson loved Philadelphia Daily News basketball beat reporter Phil Jasner, calling him “the best” in the world of sports journalism. From 1981 until his death in 2010, Jasner was always “on the case,” going to great lengths to track athletes down for a quote or a story. He was most known for covering the team’s famous players, including World B. Free and Bobby Jones, Julius Erving and Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, and, of course, Iverson. His tremendous output was beloved by players and fans alike, earning him many honors, including inductions into six Halls of Fame.

Phil Jasner “On the Case” collects the best of Jasner’s writing throughout his illustrious career. Jasner wrote about baseball, the Eagles, and the Philadelphia Atoms’ soccer with the same insight and aplomb he showed in his coverage of The Big 5, the 76ers’ championship season in 1983, and the Dream Team. Lovingly assembled—each chapter is introduced by some of the most prominent figures Jasner covered, from Vince Papale, Doug Collins, and Billy Cunningham to Iverson and Barkley—this collection recounts a distinguished sportswriter’s remarkable career.

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cover of Philadelphia'S Old Ballparks C

Philadelphia'S Old Ballparks C

Rich Westcott

Temple University Press, 1996

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cover of Phillies '93: An Incredible Season

Phillies '93

An Incredible Season

Rich Westcott

Temple University Press, 1994

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cover of Phillies Reader

Phillies Reader

Richard Orodenker

Temple University Press, 2005

An anthology of some of the best writing about the up-and-down history of the Philadelphia Phillies, this updated paperback edition features several new essays—including one about Citizens Bank Park—and the team's recent history. The stories herein provide fans with some of the best sportswriting about the woes and triumphs of Phillies baseball. The Phillies Reader features essays on the athletic achievements of such legendary players as Chuck Klein, Richie Ashburn, Dick Allen, and Mike Schmidt; the political turmoil surrounding the "ok" from manager Ben Chapman to "ride" Jackie Robinson about the color of his skin; the bizarre shooting of Eddie Waitkus; the heroics of the Whiz Kids; the heartbreak of '64; and the occasional triumphs and frequent travails of controversial managers Gene Mauch, Frank Lucchesi, and Danny Ozark. It asks why fans boo great players such as Del Ennis, but forgave Pat Burrell for his horrendous 2003 slump. Featuring essays by Red Smith, Pete Dexter, Roger Angell, and James Michener, among others, The Phillies Reader presents a compendium of Phillies literature that reveals what it is that makes legends.
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cover of Philly Hoops: How Philadelphia Transformed Basketball

Philly Hoops

How Philadelphia Transformed Basketball

Mike Jensen

Temple University Press, 2027

Sportswriter Mike Jensen would argue that Philadelphia has earned a unique place in basketball history. In Philly Hoops, he makes an incontrovertible case that the city contributed to the sport on and off the court. Jensen, who spent decades covering the game for The Philadelphia Inquirer, charts the strategies, players, coaches, and even some referees from the pre-Wilt Chamberlain days to the post-Kobe Bryant era to show the region’s impact and influence on the sport worldwide.

Philadelphia didn’t merely play the game. It shaped it through ahead-of-their-time approaches, such as the value of pushing the pace. Jensen chronicles Hall-of-Fame game changers, including Earl Monroe and Paul Arizin, and coaches John Chaney, Jack Ramsay, Jay Wright, and Geno Auriemma. He recounts how the powerhouse teams at Immaculata and Cheyney University, along with Dawn Staley’s landmark playing and coaching achievements, helped make Philadelphia ground zero for women’s basketball. Philly Hoops also celebrates the influence of the Big 5 glory days, Jewish teams like The SPHAS, and icons Kyle Lowry, Tom Gola, and Rasheed Wallace.

Jensen knows how and why Philly loves basketball. His Philly Hoops is all about that love of and for the game.  

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cover of Philly Sports: Teams, Games, and Athletes from Rocky's Town

Philly Sports

Teams, Games, and Athletes from Rocky's Town

Ryan Swanson

University of Arkansas Press, 2016

Philadelphia sports—anchored by the Eagles, Flyers, Phillies, and 76ers—have a long, and sometimes tortured, history. Philly fans have booed more than their share and have earned a reputation as some of the most hostile in the country. They’ve been known, so the tales go, to jeer Santa Claus and cheer at the injury of an opposing player.

Strangely though, much of America’s perception of Philadelphia sports has been shaped by a fictional figure: Rocky. The series of Hollywood films named after their title character has told and retold the Cinderella story of an underdog boxer rising up against long odds. One could plausibly make the argument that Rocky is Philadelphia’s most famous athlete.

Beyond the major sports franchises and Rocky, lesser-known athletic competition in Philadelphia offers much to the interested observer. The city’s boxing culture, influence on Negro Leagues baseball, role in establishing interscholastic sport, and leadership in the rise of cricket all deserve and receive close investigation in this new collection.  Philly Sports combines primary research and personal experiences—playing in the Palestra, scouting out the tombstones of the city’s best athletes, enjoying the fervor of a Philadelphia night with a local team in pursuit of a championship title. The essence of Philadelphia sport, and to a certain extent the city itself, is distilled here.

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cover of Pickleball for Life: Prevent Injury, Play Your Best, & Enjoy the Game

Pickleball for Life

Prevent Injury, Play Your Best, & Enjoy the Game

Jes Reynolds and Sanjay Saint

Michigan Publishing Services, 2022

Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in America, in large part because it is so accessible. It seems like everyone can play it, regardless of age or athletic ability. Bursts of high-intensity effort during a game, however, can lead to injuries. Overstretching to reach a ball, taking a tumble during a point, or not adequately warming up before a game is all too common. While it is easy to pick up a paddle and learn to play, it can be challenging to know how to prevent an injury. For this reason, PICKLEBALL FOR LIFE: PREVENT INJURY, PLAY YOUR BEST & ENJOY THE GAME is an important resource for all pickleball players. Coauthored by a personal fitness trainer and a physician, this book offers needed guidance to players at all skill levels and entry points. PICKLEBALL FOR LIFE helps readers through everything from a proper nutritional plan, pickleball training activities, and a head-to-toe approach for injury prevention to a brief pre- and postgame routine. The book also points to additional helpful resources, like videos that demonstrate appropriate exercises. With its easy-to-read conversational tone, readers will feel as though a personal trainer is helping them reach their unique pickleball goals.
"Reynolds & Saint share a totally engaging, personalized, honest and insightful guide to growing any players enjoyment of and benefit from pickle ball, with tools toward avoiding injury." -  Robert Hogikyan

“This short book is full of tips that will help you to improve your overall health, reduce chance of injury, and improve your game, while maximizing your enjoyment of this amazing sport!” -  Larry Junck

"Pickleball for Life is a concise guide to keeping you flexible and mobile not just for a better dinking game but to keep you on the court into your 80s." - Christy Howden, Co-owner of Wolverine Pickleball

"Reynolds & Saint place personal training at your fingertips. Their instruction not only improves your game but offers a safer solution to reduce pain after you play." -  Vineet Chopra
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cover of Pigskin Nation: How the NFL Remade American Politics

Pigskin Nation

How the NFL Remade American Politics

Jesse Berrett

University of Illinois Press, 2018

Cast as the ultimate hardhats, football players of the 1960s seemed to personify a crewcut traditional manhood that channeled the Puritan work ethic. Yet, despite a social upheaval against such virtues, the National Football League won over all of America—and became a cultural force that recast politics in its own smashmouth image. Jesse Berrett explores pro football's new place in the zeitgeist of the 1960s and 1970s. The NFL's brilliant harnessing of the sports-media complex, combined with a nimble curation of its official line, brought different visions of the same game to both Main Street and the ivory tower. Politicians, meanwhile, spouted gridiron jargon as their handlers co-opted the NFL's gift for spectacle and mythmaking to shape a potent new politics that in essence became pro football. Governing, entertainment, news, elections, celebrity--all put aside old loyalties to pursue the mass audience captured by the NFL's alchemy of presentation, television, and high-stepping style. An invigorating appraisal of a dynamic era, Pigskin Nation reveals how pro football created the template for a future that became our present.
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cover of Pitching Democracy: Baseball and Politics in the Dominican Republic

Pitching Democracy

Baseball and Politics in the Dominican Republic

April Yoder

University of Texas Press, 2023

How Dominicans contribute to Major League Baseball and what they receive in return.

From Juan Marichal and Pedro Martínez to Albert Pujols and Juan Soto, Dominicans have long been among Major League Baseball’s best. How did this small Caribbean nation become a hothouse of baseball talent? To many fans, the answer is both obvious and disconcerting: pro teams use their riches to develop talent abroad, creating opportunities for superhuman athletes and corrupt officials, while the rest of the population sees little benefit.

Yet this interpretation of history is incomplete. April Yoder traces how baseball has empowered Dominicans in their struggles for democracy and social justice. While the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo saw the sport as a means of cementing its power at home and abroad, the Dominican people fashioned an emancipated civic sphere by seeing their potential for democratic success in their compatriots’ baseball success. Later, Dominicans articulated demands for democracy, economic opportunity, and civil rights through successful calls for public support of amateur and professional baseball. Today, Dominicans continue to demand that incentives for the baseball industry foster human as well as economic development. A revelatory and innovative history, Pitching Democracy restores agency to the Dominican people and honors their true love of the game.

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cover of Players, Teams, and Stadium Ghosts: Bob Hunter on Sports

Players, Teams, and Stadium Ghosts

Bob Hunter on Sports

Bob Hunter

Ohio University Press, 2019

In Players, Teams, and Stadium Ghosts, sportswriter Bob Hunter has assembled a Hall of Fame collection of his best writing from the Columbus Dispatch. Fans will encounter some of the biggest names in sports and relive great moments from games played by amateurs and pros. They’ll encounter forgotten players and teams that struggled.

Hunter shows us LeBron James when he was a 15-year-old high school freshman, already capturing the world’s attention; 20-year-old Derek Jeter’s meteoric rise through the minors, including the Columbus Clippers; a strange encounter with Pete Rose hustling frozen pizzas; and the excitement of watching future WNBA star Katie Smith dominate a Columbus Quest championship game. The common thread is the personal touch that Hunter consistently uses to take readers beyond the final scores and the dazzle of lights. These are the people behind the athletes. They’re remembered for how they played, but Hunter reminds us who they were.

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cover of Playgrounds to the Pros: Legends of Peoria Basketball

Playgrounds to the Pros

Legends of Peoria Basketball

Jeff Karzen

University of Illinois Press, 2023

Howard Nathan. A. J. Guyton. Sergio McClain. Marcus Griffin. Frank Williams. Shaun Livingston. This dazzling constellation of talent helped make Peoria a prep basketball hotbed from the 1980s to the 2000s. Jeff Karzen takes readers inside the lives of the players, coaches, and others who defined an era that produced six state titles and four Illinois Mr. Basketball winners.

Drawing on dozens of in-depth interviews, Karzen tells the stories behind the on-court triumphs while providing a panorama of the entire Peoria scene--the rivalries and relationships, the families and friendships, the hopes and hard work. Karzen also follows the players into their Division 1 and NBA careers and pays special attention to the pipeline that, by connecting Peoria to Champaign-Urbana, powered one of the most successful periods in Fighting Illini basketball history.

Intense and intimate, Playgrounds to the Pros chronicles a basketball golden age in America’s quintessential blue collar town.

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cover of Playing Time: Boys, Coaches, and Parents in the Battle for Minutes in Youth Basketball

Playing Time

Boys, Coaches, and Parents in the Battle for Minutes in Youth Basketball

Scott N. Brooks

University of Chicago Press, 2027

An in-depth look at the timeless quandary of how average high school basketball players navigate their dreams of greatness with the adults who coach and support them.

We all admire the stories of famous athletes with humble origins who rose to the top through hard work and dedication. Michael Jordan and Steph Curry, after all, both started as second-string players. But their climbs to athletic dominance call to us because they seem to prove a message we all want to believe: Anything is possible with hard work and determination. But for most people, it simply isn’t. Most of us will end up being more or less average rather than extraordinary. 

In Playing Time, sociologist and sports scholar Scott N. Brooks introduces readers to young athletes who are middle-status players on their basketball teams—not the best, but not the worst—who often find themselves at odds with their coaches and teammates as they compete for playing time to show off their skills. Drawing on his extensive experience as a coach of middle and high school-age boys, Brooks invites us into the inner lives and daily experiences of kids, parents, and coaches, as players try to make sense of who they are and differentiate themselves on the court. These boys have been told by coaches, their parents, and society that hard work, effort, and attitude determine effectiveness, and Brooks reveals how that message affects them when it’s clear that their best efforts are not always enough. Middle-status boys often feel alone, alienated, socially stigmatized, and powerless to improve their fate. 

By focusing on the boys stuck in the middle, Brooks uncovers essential aspects of the formative years of adolescence when kids dream of and plan for a future. As many of us will recognize our own dreams of greatness in these kids, we can all learn to support them as they build their sense of self, both on and off the court.

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cover of Playing for Power: Black Resistance in Amateur Basketball and Football in Jim Crow Virginia

Playing for Power

Black Resistance in Amateur Basketball and Football in Jim Crow Virginia

Marvin T. Chiles

University of Alabama Press, 2025

Reveals the role of amateur Black football and basketball in Virginia before integration as a form of resistance to white supremacy

In Playing for Power, Marvin T. Chiles offers a fascinating account of amateur sports in Jim Crow Virginia, revealing how, in addition to churches, workspaces, and civil rights organizations, sports were also a key arena for Black resistance to white supremacy. Drawing from a rich trove of primary sources, Chiles recounts the development of Black football and basketball culture at the high school and college levels in Virginia from the 1890s to the early 1970s. Looking beyond their role as leisure pastimes, Chiles demonstrates how amateur sports strengthened education, neutralized class divisions, shaped Black masculinity, mentored Black male leadership, cultivated race pride, and reflected Black desires for urban modernity.

Illuminating the ways Black athletes created a world that pushed for racial progress through objective, meritocratic achievement anchored by masculine leadership and institutional success, Playing for Power traces how amateur sports coalesced into a key cultural institution that fostered Black Virginians’ collective sense of community, achievement, and purpose during segregation, cornerstones of later advances in the Civil Rights Movement. Playing for Power also contributes to a larger understanding of sports history and how amateur sports became favorite American spectacles and markers of Southern identity. Chiles’s groundbreaking work will interest historians, scholars, and individuals interested in the intersection of sports and civil rights and the history of Black sports during the Jim Crow era.

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cover of Playing in Time: Essays, Profiles, and Other True Stories

Playing in Time

Essays, Profiles, and Other True Stories

Carlo Rotella

University of Chicago Press, 2012

From jazz fantasy camp to running a movie studio; from a fight between an old guy and a fat guy to a fear of clowns—Carlo Rotella’s Playing in Time delivers good stories full of vivid characters, all told with the unique voice and humor that have garnered Rotella many devoted readers in the New York Times Magazine, Boston Globe, and Washington Post Magazine, among others. The two dozen essays in Playing in Time, some of which have never before been published, revolve around the themes and obsessions that have characterized Rotella’s writing from the start: boxing, music, writers, and cities. What holds them together is Rotella’s unique focus on people, craft, and what floats outside the mainstream. “Playing in time” refers to how people make beauty and meaning while working within the constraints and limits forced on them by life, and in his writing Rotella transforms the craft and beauty he so admires in others into an art of his own.

Rotella is best known for his writings on boxing, and his essays here do not disappoint. It’s a topic that he turns to for its colorful characters, compelling settings, and formidable life lessons both in and out of the ring. He gives us tales of an older boxer who keeps unretiring and a welterweight who is “about as rich and famous as a 147-pound fighter can get these days,” and a hilarious rumination on why Muhammad Ali’s phrase “I am the greatest” began appearing (in the mouth of Epeus) in translations of The Iliad around 1987. His essays on blues, crime and science fiction writers, and urban spaces are equally and deftly engaging, combining an artist’s eye for detail with a scholar’s sense of research, whether taking us to visit detective writer George Pelecanos or to dance with the proprietress of the Baby Doll Polka Club next to Midway Airport in Chicago.

Rotella’s essays are always smart, frequently funny, and consistently surprising. This collection will be welcomed by his many fans and will bring his inimitable style and approach to an even wider audience.

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cover of Practice Development in Sport and Performance Psychology

Practice Development in Sport and Performance Psychology

Jim Taylor

FiT Publishing, 2015

Practice Development in Sport and Performance Psychology is a practical guide with a step-by-step process for establishing and maintaining a consulting practice for today's sport and performance psychology professionals.

Editor Jim Taylor and a talented team of authors provide a foundation of knowledge and skills necessary to establish and maintain a consulting practice and explore the gamut of issues including understanding the progression of professional development, creating a performance model, writing a business plan, using social media, and much more.

Each chapter includes a summary and exercises to review and further explore relevant topics covered in the book.

“This book is both informative and practical. Two particular aspects are especially worth commending because they ground us in the lessons of the past, the current state of our field, and its certain future. First, though often relegated to the latter parts of a book as an afterthought, the chapter on ethics is placed front and center. Ethics should indeed be the starting point of any consulting business. Second, technology is the future of sport and performance psychology consulting. Appropriately located in the latter part of the book, but certainly critical to our work in the 21st century, is a chapter on consulting in the age of electronic and social media. “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” the old joke goes. Practice, practice, practice.”
–Kate F. Hays, Ph.D., CC-AASP, The Performing Edge

"Deftly organized into three major sections (Designing; Building; Expanding), Practice Development in Sport and Performance Psychology is comprised of ten erudite and informative articles by experts. The result is a seminal work of impressive scholarship and scope, making Practice Development in Sport and Performance Psychology very highly recommended for personal, professional, community, and academic library Sports & Athletics reference collections and supplemental studies reading lists."

–The Sports Shelf, Midwest Book Review

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cover of Press Box Red: The Story Of Lester Rodney,

Press Box Red

The Story Of Lester Rodney,

Irwin Silber

Temple University Press, 2003

Long before Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to a Brooklyn Dodger contract in 1945, Lester Rodney, the newly hired and first sports editor of the Communist Daily Worker, launched the campaign that proved decisive in eventually breaking baseball's color line. But in the hostile anti-Communist climate of those years and for many years after, Rodney's story remained largely unknown. It therefore came as a surprise to many when Arnold Rampersad, in his authoritative 1997 biography of Jackie Robinson, wrote: "In the campaign to end Jim Crow in baseball, the most vigorous efforts came from the Communist press, most notably from Lester Rodney." Now Press Box Red tells the story of that remarkable 11-year campaign and of Rodney's unique career covering sports for the Daily Worker until he left the Communist Party in 1958. Press Box Red is packed with first-hand accounts of Rodney's challenges to the high muck-a-mucks of professional and collegiate sports, and contains frank and frequently humorous encounters with owners, managers, and coaches like Branch Rickey, Larry MacPhail, Bill Veeck, Leo Durocher, Casey Stengel, Nat Holman, Clair Bee and numerous athletes including Robinson, Roy Campanella, Joe DiMaggio, Satchel Paige, Peewee Reese, Joe Louis, Henry Armstrong, and many others. It's a story every fan will love.
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cover of Principios del Mercadeo Empresarial Deportivo: First Edition Spanish

Principios del Mercadeo Empresarial Deportivo

First Edition Spanish

Brenda G. Pitts

FiT Publishing, 2023

La industria del negocio del deporte es vasta y diversa. Los estudiantes de hoy son los profesionales del mañana, y es inmensamente importante que estos estudiantes obtengan el conocimiento contemporáneo necesario para operar con éxito en una industria en constante crecimiento. Como ningún otro libro de texto en el campo, la 5ta edición (en inglés) y 1era edición en español de Principios del Mercadeo Empresarial Deportivo cubre los aspectos prácticos y marco teórico necesario para que los estudiantes comprendan y los profesionales comercialicen cualquier negocio relacionado con el deporte en una economía global. Las actualizaciones de esta nueva edición comienzan con un título que reconoce la contribución de billones de dólares del negocio del deporte a la economía global. Como el libro de texto de mercadeo empresarial deportivo más completo hasta la fecha, esta edición abarca la diversidad de espectadores y participantes, deportes y negocios deportivos que comprende la industria, mucho más allá del alcance de los deportes profesionales y universitarios para incluir la investigación de mercadeo deportivo, venta al por menor y fabricación de artículos deportivos, retransmisiones deportivas, negocios de deportes por Internet, turismo deportivo y paradeportes; en resumen, el espectro completo de empresas en las que los estudiantes de programas deportivos de todo el mundo buscarán carreras.

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cover of Professor Baseball: Searching for Redemption and the Perfect Lineup on the Softball Diamonds of Central Park

Professor Baseball

Searching for Redemption and the Perfect Lineup on the Softball Diamonds of Central Park

Edwin Amenta

University of Chicago Press, 2007

It happens every summer: packs of beer-bellied men with gloves and aluminum bats, putting their middle-aged bodies to the test on the softball diamond. For some, this yearly ritual is driven by a simple desire to enjoy a good ballgame; for others, it’s a way to forge friendships—and rivalries. But for one short, wild-haired, bespectacled professor, playing softball in New York’s Central Park means a whole lot more. It's one last chance to heal the nagging wounds of Little League trauma before the rust of decline and the relentless responsibilities of fatherhood set in.

Professor Baseball is the coming-of-middle-age story of New York University professor and Little League benchwarmer Edwin Amenta. As rookie manager of the Performing Arts Softball League’s doormat Sharkeys, he reverses softball’s usual brawn-over-brains formula. He coaxes his skeptical teammates to follow his sabermetric and sociological approach, based equally on Bill James and Max Weber, which in the heady days of early success he dubs “Eddy Ball.” But Amenta soon learns that his teammates’ attachments to favorite positions and time-honored (if ineffective) strategies are hard to break—especially when the team begins losing. And though he rejects the baseball-as-life metaphor, life keeps intruding on his softball season. Amenta here comes to grips with the humiliation of assisted reproduction, suffers mysterious ailments, and finds himself lingering at the sponsor’s bar, while his partner, a beautiful but baseball-challenged professor, second-guesses his book in the making. Can he turn his team—and his life—around?

Packed with colorful personalities, dramatic games, and the bustle of New York life, Professor Baseball will charm anyone who has ever root, root, rooted for the underdog.

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cover of Protect Yourself at All Times: An Inside Look at Another Year in Boxing

Protect Yourself at All Times

An Inside Look at Another Year in Boxing

Thomas Hauser

University of Arkansas Press, 2018

“Hauser is a treasure. Whatever he writes is worth reading. Boxing is blessed that he has focused so much of his career on the sweet science.”
—Booklist


Each year, readers, writers, and critics alike anticipate Thomas Hauser’s newest collection of articles about the contemporary boxing scene, where his award-winning investigative journalism is on display. The annual retrospective of the previous year in boxing is always a notable moment in the sport that no one knows better than Hauser.
Protect Yourself at All Times offers a behind-the-scenes look at Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor, dressing room reports from big fights like Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin, and compelling portraits of luminaries like Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Mike Tyson, and Don King, all filtered through the perspective of a true champion of boxing.
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cover of Psychological Bases of Sport Injuries: Fourth Edition

Psychological Bases of Sport Injuries

Fourth Edition

Andreas Ivarsson

FiT Publishing, 2020

The fourth edition of Psychological Bases of Sport Injuries brings together a diverse and global collection of expert chapter authors to provide insight into the complex intersection of sport psychology and sport injury research. Presenting both applied and theoretical recommendations, this comprehensive, updated textbook employs current research, case studies, and contributors’ real-life experiences to address an array of important topics including sport injury prevention, psychological factors influencing returning to sport, and ethical concerns when consulting with an injured athlete. New chapters examine contemporary concerns such as psychosocial risk factors for traumatic and overuse injuries, depression and mental health issues following a sport injury, mindfulness in injury rehabilitation, and discusses counseling strategies for each phase of sport injury rehabilitation.

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