

New Books in Sports
New Books Network
Interviews with Scholars of Sport about their New BooksSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports
Episodes
Mentioned books

Feb 22, 2023 • 29min
The Business of the Early NHL
Greg Marchildon interviews J. Andrew Ross about his book Joining the Clubs: The Business of the National Hockey League, 1917-1945 (University of Syracuse Press). This podcast was produced Hugh Bakhurst in the Allan Slaight Radio Institute at Ryerson University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Feb 21, 2023 • 1h 10min
Pete Millwood, "Improbable Diplomats: How Ping-Pong Players, Musicians, and Scientists Remade US-China Relations" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
In 1971, Americans made two historic visits to China that would transform relations between the two countries. One was by US official Henry Kissinger; the other, earlier, visit was by the US table tennis team. Historians have mulled over the transcripts of Kissinger's negotiations with Chinese leaders. However, they have overlooked how, alongside these diplomatic talks, a rich program of travel and exchange had begun with ping-pong diplomacy. Improbable Diplomats: How Ping-Pong Players, Musicians, and Scientists Remade US-China Relations (Cambridge UP, 2022) reveals how a diverse cast of Chinese and Americans – athletes and physicists, performing artists and seismologists – played a critical, but to date overlooked, role in remaking US-China relations. Based on new sources from more than a dozen archives in China and the United States, Pete Millwood argues that the significance of cultural and scientific exchanges went beyond reacquainting the Chinese and American people after two decades of minimal contact; exchanges also powerfully influenced Sino-American diplomatic relations and helped transform post-Mao China.Grant Golub is an Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a PhD candidate in the Department of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research focuses on the politics of American grand strategy during World War II. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Feb 12, 2023 • 52min
Sara Petrosillo, "Hawking Women: Falconry, Gender, and Control in Medieval Literary Culture" (Ohio State UP, 2023)
Fantastic and informative talk with Sara Petrosillo of the University of Evansville about her new book, Hawking Women: Falconry, Gender, and Control in Medieval Literary Culture (Ohio State University Press, 2023). Listen all the way to the end for a great description of the process of hunting with birds! While critical discourse about falconry metaphors in premodern literature is dominated by depictions of women as unruly birds in need of taming, women in the Middle Ages claimed the symbol of a hawking woman on their personal seals, trained and flew hawks, and wrote and read poetic texts featuring female falconers. Sara Petrosillo's Hawking Women demonstrates how cultural literacy in the art of falconry mapped, for medieval readers, onto poetry and challenged patriarchal control. Examining texts written by, for, or about women, Hawking Women uncovers literary forms that arise from representations of avian and female bodies. Readings from Sir Orfeo, Chrétien de Troyes, Guillaume de Machaut, Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, and hawking manuals, among others, show how female characters are paired with their hawks not to assert dominance over the animal but instead to recraft the stand-in of falcon for woman as falcon with woman. In the avian hierarchy female hawks have always been the default, the dominant, and thus these medieval interspecies models contain lessons about how women resisted a culture of training and control through a feminist poetics of the falconry practice.Jana Byars is the Academic Director of Netherlands: International Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Feb 11, 2023 • 1h 13min
Mike Westhoff, "Figure It Out: My Thirty-Two-Year Journey While Revolutionizing Pro Football's Special Teams" (Mascot Books, 2022)
Simply put, Mike Westhoff is the greatest special teams coach in National Football League history. Sharp-witted, creative, and intensely focused, Westhoff spent 32 years working alongside and learning from some of the legends of the sport—including Don Shula, Dan Marino, Bear Bryant, and Woody Hayes—while revolutionizing the most misunderstood phase of the game.Over the course of 657 games, primarily with the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins, Westhoff was a relentless innovator—constantly figuring out new ways to help the individual skills of hundreds of players surface and develop.Interviews with dozens of his contemporaries and former players such as Sean Payton, Taysom Hill, and Zach Thomas provide a rare glimpse of NFL life beyond the field—inside the offices, meeting rooms, and locker rooms with one of the game’s most unforgettable personalities. But his story isn’t just about football. Westhoff also shares intimate details of his multiple battles with cancer and the life lessons learned through the fights.In Figure It Out: My Thirty-Two-Year Journey While Revolutionizing Pro Football's Special Teams (Mascot Books, 2022), Westhoff presents his one-of-a-kind experiences and unfiltered views in his trademark style—a refreshing blend of honest (sometimes brutally so), funny, and poignant. His deep insights into the workings of special teams—illustrated by 27 detailed original diagrams—and timely commentary on the current state of pro football reveal a critical side of the sport that very few truly understand.Paul Knepper covered the Knicks for Bleacher Report. His first book, The Knicks of the Nineties: Ewing, Oakley, Starks and the Brawlers That Almost Won It All was published in 2020. You can reach Paul at paulknepper@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @paulieknep. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Feb 5, 2023 • 56min
Adam Elder, "New Kids in the World Cup: The Totally Late '80s and Early '90s Tale of the Team That Changed American Soccer Forever" (U Nebraska Press, 2022)
In 1990, though no one knew it then, a fearless group of players changed the sport of soccer in the United States forever. Young, bronzed, and mulleted, they were America’s finest athletes in a sport that America loved to hate. Even sportswriters rooted against them. Yet this team defied massive odds and qualified for the World Cup, and made making possible America’s current obsession with the world’s most popular game.In this era the U.S. Soccer Federation’s preceding head coach had a better-paying day job as a black-tie restaurant waiter. Players earned $20 a day. The crowd at home games cheered for their opponent and the fields were even mismarked.In Latin America the U.S. team bus had a machine gun turret mounted on the back, locals would sabotage their hotel, and in the stadiums spectators would rain coins, batteries, and plastic bags of urine down on the American players.The world considered the U.S. team to be total imposters — the Milli Vanilli of soccer. Yet on the biggest stage of all, in the 1990 World Cup, this undaunted American squad and their wise coach earned the adoration of Italy’s star players and their fans in a gladiator-like match in Rome’s deafening Stadio Olimpico.From windswept soccer fields in the U.S. heartland to the CIA-infested cauldron of Central America and the Caribbean, behind the recently toppled Iron Curtain and into the great European soccer cathedrals, Adam Elder's New Kids in the World Cup: The Totally Late '80s and Early '90s Tale of the Team That Changed American Soccer Forever (U Nebraska Press, 2022) is the origin story of modern American soccer in a time when power ballads were inescapable, and mainstream America was discovering hip-hop. It’s the true adventure of America’s most important soccer team, which made everything possible that’s come since—including America finally falling in love with soccer.Robert Sherwood is a professor of history at Georgia Military College. He works on Swiss, Swiss-American and Sports History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Feb 5, 2023 • 1h 6min
Tim Harte, "Faster, Higher, Stronger, Comrades!: Sports, Art, and Ideology in Late Russian and Early Soviet Culture" (U Wisconsin Press, 2020)
Dr. Tim Harte's Faster, Higher, Stronger, Comrades!: Sports, Art, and Ideology in Late Russian and Early Soviet Culture (U Wisconsin Press, 2020) looks at sport as artistic subject matter, in late Imperial and early Soviet Russia. In sport, artists found inspiration that could be applied both to improvement of the self and to social progress as artists defined it. In the long run, the constraints of the Socialist Realist aesthetic came to constrain the creative freedom of artists, but until the late 1920's, sport served as a focus of genuine artistic interest, for its own sake and for its ability to provide a reservoir of metaphors that artists could use to make broader, more ideological commentary.Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Feb 4, 2023 • 1h 9min
Matthew Taylor, "Sport and the Home Front: Wartime Britain at Play, 1939-45" (Routledge, 2020)
Today we are joined by Matthew Taylor, Professor of History at De Montfort University, and author of Sport and the Home Front: Wartime Britain at Play, 1939-1945 (Routledge, 2022). In our conversation, we discussed why studies of British sport histories have frequently neglected the Second World War, how various arms of the British state attempted to mobilize sport during the conflict, and how and why ordinary people included sport in their everyday life despite the deprivations of the era.In Sport and the Home Front, Taylor uses a range of historical sources, including state documents, newspapers, diaries and memories, and most especially reports from Mass Observation, in order to better understand why and how people played sport in Britain during the Second World War. He shows that sport was both more commonplace and more meaningful than previous historians have assumed. Sport thus provided a lens to examine whether, in what ways, and to what extent the Second World War was a people’s war that unified the nation at a time of great threat.The book is organized thematically, with seven chapters analysing everything from state interventions into sport, the difficulties faced by clubs, and sport and the radio. These chapters cover a range of sports including popular games such as football, rugby, and cycling, but also less commonly discussed competitions including greyhound and horse racing. In each chapter, Taylor eschews any top-down analysis. Indeed, his work shows that the British government had a range of different views about sports – different ministries were more or less favourably disposed towards different sporting practices. Athletes and sporting officials also fought to help define what appropriate sport during the wartime might be and what value sports can bring to a country at war. Greyhound racing faced a possible ban. School children learned resilience through games. The War Ministry worried about football stadiums being bombed. Factory workers preserved their morale playing on Sundays. Newspapers reported on Civil Defence teams using too much petrol travelling to matches.Taylor’s narrative includes the sporting activities of groups typically marginalized within histories of sport and wartime. Every chapter covers the ways that British women’s sport expanded and faced challenges, unevenly, during the war as sportswomen across the country asserted their right to play to the state, businesses and local clubs. Taylor also covers the sporting activities of children, foreign soldiers, and colonial subjects in the metropole.His final chapter, “Sport, War and Nation,” offers the most compelling case for how British sport contributed to national unification during the war. In an era where Britain was beset by friends and foes, British sport provided a means of bringing people together. While frictions remained – notably over who could play sport and sporting life changed due to the deprivations of the war – British sport remained resolutely British and a way for British people to understand their sacrifices and to define themselves against their allies and enemies.Taylor’s rich account of wartime British sport will be required reading for scholars interested in Britain during the Second World War, British sport, and will open doors for additional research into local sport in the United Kingdom across the war years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Jan 27, 2023 • 1h 21min
Shaun M. Anderson, "The Black Athlete Revolt: The Sport Justice Movement in the Age Of #BlackLivesMatter" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)
In the age of social media, athletes have a powerful influence like never before. Many Black athletes have used that power in positive ways, galvanizing their platforms to create impactful educational opportunities, donate to Black social causes, and raise political awareness on important issues. In The Black Athlete Revolt: The Sport Justice Movement in the Age Of #BlackLivesMatter (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023), Shaun M. Anderson examines the Black athlete's rise in advocating for social justice and how today's athletes have moved beyond protesting to create substantial change for Black Americans. Anderson reflects on the history and evolution of Black athlete activism, breaking down its importance during the civil rights movement, the commodification of athletes during the 1990s, and how twenty-first century athletes have utilized their wealth and influence to create lasting societal change in the age of #BlackLivesMatter. With fascinating portraits of notable individuals in the history of Black activism, as well as insights from athletes and allies who discuss the future of athlete activism, The Black Athlete Revolt reveals the ever-evolving and crucial role of Black athletes beyond the world of sports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Jan 25, 2023 • 48min
Sheri Brenden, "Break Point: Two Minnesota Athletes and the Road to Title IX" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)
In Break Point: Two Minnesota Athletes and the Road to Title IX (University of Minnesota Press, 2022), Sheri Brenden examines how two teenage girls in Minnesota jump-started a revolution in high school athletics Peggy Brenden, a senior, played tennis. Toni St. Pierre, a junior, was a cross country runner and skier. All these two talented teenagers wanted was a chance to compete on their high school sports teams. But in Minnesota in 1972 the only way on the field with the boys ran through a federal court--so that was where the girls went. Break Point tells the story, for the first time, of how two teenagers took on the unequal system of high school athletics, setting a legal precedent for schools nationwide before the passage of Title IX. As Peggy's younger sister, author Sheri Brenden is uniquely positioned to convey the human drama of the case, the stakes, and the consequences for two young women facing the legal machinery of the state, in court and in school. In an account that begins with Peggy painstakingly typing her appeal to the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union and concludes with a long view of what Brenden v. Independent School District 742 set in motion, Sheri Brenden summons the salient details of this landmark case as it makes its way through the courts. Peggy and Toni, coaches, administrators, and experts testify before Judge Miles Lord, whose decision, upheld in a precedent-setting appeal, would change these girls' lives and open up athletic opportunities for innumerable others. Grounded in newspaper coverage, court records, and interviews, Brenden's deeply researched, scrupulously reported book is at heart the story of two talented teenage girls whose pluck and determination--and, often, heartache--led to a victory much greater than any high school championship.Rebekah Buchanan is a Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Jan 13, 2023 • 59min
Harald Koberg, "Free Play: Digital Gaming and the Longing for Effectiveness" (Büchner-Verlag, 2021)
What needs are satisfied in digital gaming? And what does the shift of these need satisfactions into the digital space say about the social realities in which they are embedded?Harald Koberg lets gamers themselves have their say and follows their traces of the described fascinations and passions in his latest book Free Play: Digital Gaming and the Longing for Effectiveness (Freies Spiel: Digitales Spielen und die Sehnsucht nach Wirkmächtigkeit). The answers found aim at experiences of efficacy: digital games and the communication spaces around them offer particular opportunities to experience one's own decisions and actions as relevant and effective. It is not only about narrated stories and interactions with the game, but also about the rules and limits of communication, spaces of unfolding, self-dramatization, and norm-setting.Using the examples of adolescent search for free spaces, insecure masculinity, and achievement society overload, Harald Koberg shows why critique of the medium of video games must focus on people and how much can be determined about larger social contexts along the way.Rudolf Inderst is a professor of Game Design with a focus on Digital Game Studies at the IU International University of Applied Science, editor of “Game Studies Watchlist”, a weekly messenger newsletter about Game Culture and curator of @gamestudies at tiktok. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports