sports 
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SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
4/3/2021
Women’s College Sports Was Growing. Then the NCAA Took Over
The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women was pushed aside by the NCAA as universities dedicated more resources to women's sports to comply with Title IX. Critics say that the NCAA has not followed through on the need for equity while squeezing out women coaches and athletic administrators.
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3/28/2021
Will the Supreme Court Uphold the NCAA's Version of Amateurism?
by Ronald A. Smith
A pending Supreme Court case will test whether the NCAA can bar student athletes from making money from products that make use of their images, a form of property right of "Name, Image, or Likeness." A historian who wrote an amicus brief says the NCAA's claim to protect the amateurism of the athletes is selective and hypocritical.
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SOURCE: Tampa Bay News Weekly
3/3/2021
Historian Unjustly Forced to Walk the Plank
by Michael E. Carter
When a historian published an editoral about the history of piracy near Tampa Bay during Super Bowl Week, right-wing media took an effort to present historical knowledge as evidence of a liberal culture war, subjecting them to harassment and threats in their own cancel culture campaign. Is the goal to intimidate historians from weighing in?
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SOURCE: Texas Tribune
3/1/2021
“UT Needs Rich Donors”: Emails Show Wealthy Alumni Supporting “Eyes of Texas” Threatened to Pull Donations
A number of wealthy University of Texas alumni have threatened to withhold donations unless "The Eyes of Texas," a song with roots traced to blackface minstrelsy and the Lost Cause mythology, is reinstated as the Longhorns' postgame anthem.
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SOURCE: The Nation
2/23/2021
Japanese Internment, Football, and a Legendary Team
Dave Zirin's Edge of Sports podcast hosts Bradford Pearson, the author of "The Eagles of Heart Mountain," the story of a group of interned Japanese American teens whose football team dominated the state of Wyoming.
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SOURCE: Black Perspectives
2/8/2021
Henry Aaron and American Memory
by Robert Greene II
"The memories of Jackie Robinson and Henry Aaron, two Americans reviled by many of their compatriots during their playing days but embraced by virtually everyone now, are but the sports phase of a nationwide problem—the problem of properly remembering a painful past."
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SOURCE: Washington Post
1/24/2021
Babe Ruth’s Record was a Mythical Monument of White Superiority. Hank Aaron Tore it Down
by Kevin B. Blackistone
Sports have long served as a projection screen for white angst over challenges to racial supremacy. Hank Aaron's 715th home run was one of a line of Black athletic challenges to white racism and was met with similar hostility.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
1/25/2021
What Hank Aaron Told Me
by Sandy Tolan
The author received a touching reply to a fan letter he wrote Hank Aaron in 1972. Writing a book about Aaron years later, he realized he didn't know the half of the burdens Aaron carried in pursuit of baseball immortality.
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1/22/2021
Historians Pay Tribute to Hank Aaron
by HNN Staff
Hank Aaron, an all-time great of baseball and for many years its all-time leader in home runs, passed away at age 86 on January 22. Historians recall him as a player, an advocate for civil rights inside and outside the game, and a man who was uneasy being made into a symbol of progress against racism.
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SOURCE: YouTube
1/22/2021
Hank Aaron's 715th, Called by Vin Scully
The baseball Hall of Famer and one-time home run leader died at age 86 on January 22. Here, watch his record-breaking 715th home run, as announced by broadcasting legend Vin Scully.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
1/13/2021
‘World’s Greatest Athlete’ Jim Thorpe Was Wronged by Bigotry. The IOC Must Correct the Record
A fellow Olympic winner contends that the IOC must restore medals and recognition stripped from Jim Thorpe; his violation of amateurism rules was encouraged officials of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and the American Olympic Committee who made the Native American athlete a fall guy.
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SOURCE: New York Times
12/16/2020
M.L.B. Will Add Negro Leagues to Official Records
Major League Baseball will include player statistics from the seven African American baseball leagues operating between 1920 and 1948 in the major league record books in recognition of the quality of play and the opportunity denied the best Black players in the game's segregated era.
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SOURCE: ESPN
12/14/2020
Barcelona, Lionel Messi and the Napkin: Oral History of his Transfer, Arranged 20 Years Ago
Revisiting the negotiations that brought a 13 year-old Argentine soccer prodigy to Barcelona and launched the career of (arguably!) the greatest player of the world's game.
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SOURCE: New York Times
12/13/2020
Cleveland’s Baseball Team Will Drop the Name "Indians"
“Oh no!” Trump tweeted. “What is going on? This is not good news, even for ‘Indians’. Cancel culture at work!”
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SOURCE: The Guardian
11/15/2020
Michael Holding: 'This is something I’ve had inside of me for years'
A legendary Jamaican cricketer and broadcaster has recently gone public to share his experiences of racism and support current protests for racial justice.
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SOURCE: National Trust for Historic Preservation
10/5/2020
Hinchliffe Stadium’s Comeback is a Home Run
For Black Americans, the amphitheater-style stadium was home to and embodied the incredible spirit of Negro Leagues baseball. It will now be renovated so its story can be preserved.
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SOURCE: TomDispatch
9/17/2020
Taking the Next Knee Is this Athletic Revolt For Real and Is It a Danger to Donald Trump?
by Robert Lipsyte
Today's protests by pro athletes, with the WNBA leading the way, appear to be advancing beyond past waves of activism in the world of sports.
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
9/9/2020
The Players’ Revolt Against Racism, Inequality, and Police Terror
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
The radicalization of young Black professional athletes is a stunning development in this unfolding, raucous movement, one that demonstrates the sheer scale of racial inequality and a deep need to do something about it.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
9/1/2020
John Thompson Led Black America’s Basketball Team
Today's racial justice activism by prominent Black athletes has roots in the influence of the late Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson.
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SOURCE: Kansas City Star
9/2/2020
Don’t Rename Jackson County — But Let’s Honor Royals Great Bo, Not Slave Owner Andrew
We can keep calling it Jackson County, but instead of Andrew we can all agree it honors Bo. Put up a statute of Bo Jackson snapping a hickory bat over his knee, and let’s call it a day.
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