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football



  • Masculinity and Trauma in War and Football

    by Sarah Handley-Cousins

    Sports have been cast as a (relatively) peaceful way of inculcating a set of masculine virtues otherwise associated with war. But the experience of injury and grief will continue to confound the rules of manhood—and football fans and citizens should pay attention. 



  • The Dangerous Myth that Pop Warner was Jim Thorpe's Savior

    by David Maraniss

    Most people understand the relationship of the star athlete and his football coach through the story told by a 1951 movie. A biographer says the coach chose hypocrisy and self-protection when Thorpe needed him most – when his Olympic medals were stripped for having played professional baseball with Warner's knowledge.



  • The Century-Long History of the College Football Coaching Carousel

    by Andrew McG

    Mass media helped build the lucrative world of college sports by establishing sports as a news beat; today's highly-paid and transient coaches ride the wave of an economy that thrives on making a splash in the headlines. 



  • Texas and Oklahoma's Move to the SEC is a Major Blow to the NCAA

    by Andrew McGregor

    The move by two power programs in college football will create a Southeastern Conference that rivals the NCAA in power, part of a longstanding battle between individual colleges and the NCAA that may overthrow the rules of amateurism in college sports. 



  • Conservative Donors Have Their Own Cancel Culture

    "In 1903, the two students premiered their song at an annual campus minstrel show, where white musicians performed it in blackface. It became a tradition at subsequent minstrel shows and was soon embedded in the university’s culture. Some people apparently want to keep it there forever."



  • 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. 



  • The Buccaneers Embody Tampa’s Love of Pirates. Is that a Problem?

    by Jamie L.H. Goodall

      "Perhaps time has dulled us to the atrocities committed by these 17th and 18th century outlaws. Or perhaps it’s the fact that if pirates of the Golden Age were bloodthirsty, so too were the nations who opposed them."



  • As College Football Grapples with the Coronavirus, it also Confronts its Racist History

    by Bennett Parten

    It's no coincidence that the south is the heartland of college football. The region first embraced the game as an expression of southern honor culture. While southern colleges were slow to adopt integrated rosters, today's Southeastern Conference teams rely heavily on the unpaid labor of Black players.