Nearly half of all American high school students participate in sports teams. With a total of 7.6 million participants as of 2008, this makes the high school sports program in America the largest organized sports program in the world. Pruter’s work traces the history of high school sports from the student-led athletic clubs of the 1800s through to the establishment of educator control of high school sports under a national federation by the 1930s. Pruter’s research serves not only to highlight this rich history but also to provide new perspectives on how high school sports became the arena by which Americans fought for some of the most contentious issues in society, such as race, immigration and Americanization, gender roles, religious conflict, the role of the military in democracy, and the commercial exploitation of our youth.
Sport in Industrial America, 1850-1920 presents the second edition of Stephen A. Riess’s well-loved synthesis of the development of sport during one of the most transformational times in the nation’s history. New edition maintains the book’s acclaimed level of research, analysis, and readability Explores topics including urbanization, ethnicity, class, sport in educational institutions, women in sport, and sport’s role in manifesting city, regional, and national pride. Includes an entirely new chapter on the globalization of American sport Includes a new bank of photographs and images. Features a newly revised and updated Bibliographical Essay
Amos Alonzo Stagg (1862-1965) grew up one of eight children in a poor New Jersey family, graduated high school at 21 and worked his way through Yale. His goal was to become a Presbyterian minister, but he dropped out of Yale Divinity School because he felt he could have more influence on young men through coaching. He was hired as the first football coach at University of Chicago after its founding in 1892. Under Stagg's leadership, Chicago emerged as one of the nation's most formidable football teams during the early 20th century, winning seven Big Ten championships and two national championships. After Chicago forced him to retire at 70, Stagg found another coaching position at College of the Pacific, where he was forced to retire at 84. He found another job and never fully retired from coaching until he was 98. His marriage to his wife Stella--his de facto assistant coach--lasted almost 70 years. Sports Illustrated wrote of him, "If any single individual can be said to have created today's game, Stagg is the man. He either invented outright or pioneered every aspect of the modern game from...the huddle, shift and tackling dummy to such refinements as the T-formation strategy." This biography tells the story of his life and many innovations, which made him one of the great pioneers of college football.
The Routledge History of American Sport provides the first comprehensive overview of historical research in American sport from the early Colonial period to the present day. Considering sport through innovative themes and topics such as the business of sport, material culture and sport, the political uses of sport, and gender and sport, this text offers an interdisciplinary analysis of American leisure. Rather than moving chronologically through American history or considering the historical origins of each sport, these topics are dealt with organically within thematic chapters, emphasizing the influence of sport on American society. The volume is divided into eight thematic sections that include detailed original essays on particular facets of each theme. Focusing on how sport has influenced the history of women, minorities, politics, the media, and culture, these thematic chapters survey the major areas of debate and discussion. The volume offers a comprehensive view of the history of sport in America, pushing the field to consider new themes and approaches as well. Including a roster of contributors renowned in their fields of expertise, this ground-breaking collection is essential reading for all those interested in the history of American sport.
2022 Choice Outstanding Academic Title In Soccer in American Culture: The Beautiful Game’s Struggle for Status, G. Edward White seeks to answer two questions. The first is why the sport of soccer failed to take root in the United States when it spread from England around much of the rest of the world in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The second is why the sport has had a significant renaissance in America since the last decade of the twentieth century, to the point where it is now the 4th largest participatory sport in the United States and is thriving, in both men’s and women’s versions, at the high school, college, and professional levels. White considers the early history of “Association football” (soccer) in England, the persistent struggles by the sport to establish itself in America for much of the twentieth century, the role of public high schools and colleges in marginalizing the sport, the part played by FIFA, the international organization charged with developing soccer around the globe, in encumbering the development of the sport in the United States, and the unusual history of women’s soccer in America, which evolved in the twentieth century from a virtually nonexistent sport to a major factor in the emergence of men’s—as well as women's—soccer in the U.S. in the twentieth century. Incorporating insights from sociology and economics, White explores the multiple factors that have resulted in the sport of soccer struggling to achieve major status in America and why it currently has nothing like the cultural impact of other popular American sports—baseball and American football— which can be seen by the comparative lack of attention paid to it in sports media, its low television ratings, and virtually nonexistent radio broadcast coverage.
A Companion to American Sport History presents a collection of original essays that represent the first comprehensive analysis of scholarship relating to the growing field of American sport history. Presents the first complete analysis of the scholarship relating to the academic history of American sport Features contributions from many of the finest scholars working in the field of American sport history Includes coverage of the chronology of sports from colonial times to the present day, including major sports such as baseball, football, basketball, boxing, golf, motor racing, tennis, and track and field Addresses the relationship of sports to urbanization, technology, gender, race, social class, and genres such as sports biography Awarded 2015 Best Anthology from the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH)
“It seemed as if Theodore Roosevelt’s biographers had closed the book on his life story. But Ryan Swanson has uncovered an untold chapter” (Johnny Smith, coauthor of Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X). Crippling asthma, a frail build, and grossly myopic eyesight: these were the ailments that plagued Teddy Roosevelt as a child. In adulthood, he was diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition and was told never to exert himself again. Roosevelt’s body was his weakness, the one hill he could never fully conquer—and as a result he developed what would become a lifelong obsession with athletics that he carried with him into his presidency. As President of the United States, Roosevelt boxed, practiced Ju-Jitsu, played tennis nearly every day, and frequently invited athletes and teams to the White House. It was during his administration that America saw baseball’s first ever World Series; interscholastic sports began; and schools began to place an emphasis on physical education. In addition, the NCAA formed, and the United States hosted the Olympic Games for the first time. From a prize-winning historian, this book shows how Roosevelt fought desperately (and sometimes successfully) to shape American athletics in accordance with his imperialistic view of the world. It reveals that, in one way or another, we can trace our fanaticism for fitness and sports directly back to the twenty-sixth president and his relentless pursuit of “The Strenuous Life.” “Essential reading for anyone who cares about the history of sports in America.” —Michael Kazin, author of War against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914–1918
Winner of the 2017 NASSH Book Award for best edited collection. The hardening of racial lines during the first half of the twentieth century eliminated almost all African Americans from white organized sports, forcing black athletes to form their own teams, organizations, and events. This separate sporting culture, explored in the twelve essays included here, comprised much more than athletic competition; these “separate games” provided examples of black enterprise and black self-help and showed the importance of agency and the quest for racial uplift in a country fraught with racialist thinking and discrimination. The significance of this sporting culture is vividly showcased in the stories of the Cuban Giants baseball team, basketball’s New York Renaissance Five, the Tennessee State Tigerbelles track-and-field team, black college football’s Turkey Bowl Classic, car racing’s Gold and Glory Sweepstakes, Negro League Baseball’s East-West All-Star game, and many more. These teams, organizations, and events made up a vibrant national sporting complex that remained in existence until the integration of sports beginning in the late 1940s. Separate Games explores the fascinating ways sports helped bind the black community and illuminate race pride, business acumen, and organizational abilities.
This book showcases new research in sport business management around the world, offering a platform for the international exchange of ideas, best practices, and scientific inquiries in a globalized sport economy. Featuring work from leading sport management scholars from around the world – including North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia – the book addresses a variety of global, regional, national, and community issues that are central to successful sport management. Combining both qualitative and quantitative studies, it explores key themes such as the emergent environment, managing change, organizational transformation, application of technology, marketing and promotion, and research protocols. New case studies cover topics such as entrepreneurship and innovation, sport broadcasting, digital technologies, youth and college sports, and the development of the sport management curriculum. International Sport Business Management is a fascinating reading for all students and scholars of sport management, sport business, and sport marketing, as well as for any professional working in the sport and leisure industries.
