American Sports History 美國運動史 Fall 2020. Wednesdays 4:10-6 季陶340108 Joe Eaton, PhD [email protected] Office – 340527, office hours Wednesdays 2-4 pm, and by appointment

Course description: We examine the historical development of sports in the United States from a societal and cultural viewpoint. The course provides opportunity to examine the relationship between sports and nationalism, sports and politics, sports and the economy, sports and society change, and sports and gender. We will emphasize the origins and development of popular American sports.

Course contents include lecture, secondary readings, primary source readings, and film. We will examine the gradual development of an American sports culture and the changing attitudes towards sports. Emphasize will be given to the challenges faced in the creation and development of a uniquely American sports culture. The course will be especially valuable to students who wish to develop their English-language reading, speaking, and writing skills while studying the social/cultural history of sport in the United States.

Knowledge of sports is not a prerequisite for the course.

Please, no food during class. Please, no use of cell phones during class. I discourage the use of laptops in class. Please, no FB, internet browsing, or other non-class related computer use.

You will need to access course material on the NCCU course e-learning (WM5) site and on Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1RDxS- ulSoGVabV-2OyYS777ZLg1UhAPr

Method of Evaluation and important dates:

- Attendance and participation, occasional pop quizzes (‘perfect attendance’ 0 or 1 absences) – 10% - Mid-term Exam November 11 – 30% - Essay – 30% (4-6 pages, typed, double-spaced. Topic: “A Significant Moment in American Sports.” Due December 23 in class (please do not email your essay). More details to be announced in class. Late essays (10% grade reduction per week – December 30, 10% reduction; January 6, 20% reduction) - Final – January 13 – 30%

Course outline (Subject to change):

1 - September 16 – Introduction to the course, Colonial and Early National Sports Culture

2 - September 23 – Baseball’s Origins and Early Development

3 – September 30 – Cobb, Ruth, and Baseball's Golden Age – Steve Tripp, “”The Most Popular Unpopular Man in Baseball”: Baseball Fans and Ty Cobb in the Early 20th Century,” Social History (2009) – “Babe Ruth: A Hero to Save the Game” 4 - October 7 – The Early Development and Growth of American Football: The College Game – “Football Unfit Game says President Eliot,” New York Times (February 3, 1906) – John S. Watterson III, “Political Football: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and the Gridiron Reform Movement,” Presidential Studies Quarterly (1995)

5 - October 14 – A Game for a Purpose: Basketball’s Invention and Early Development – “Where Basketball was Invented: The History of Basketball” – Jon Entine, The “Scheming, Flashy Trickiness” of Basketball’s Media Darling, The Philadelphia “Hebrews”

6 - October 21 – The Depression, War, and Sport

7 – October 28 – The Color Line and American Sport – Jules Tygiel, “The Negro Leagues,” OAH Magazine of History (1992)

8 - November 4 – Sports Protest: 1968 and Beyond – David K. Wiggins, “’The year of awakening’: black athletes, racial unrest and the civil rights movement of 1968” The International Journal of the History of Sport (1992) – Andrew Maraniss, “The Mexico City Olympics Protest and the Media,” The Undefeated (2018)

9 – November 11 – Midterm examination

10 - November 18 – The NFL at 100: Origins and Rise of America’s Favorite League – “Colts' 1958 championship win over Giants voted greatest game,” USA Today (October 2019) – Jeff Pearlman, “When Trump Made the U.S.F.L. Great Again,” New York Times (October 9, 2018) – Anthony Gulizia and Jeremy Willis, “How the NFL took over America in 100 years,” ESPN (2019)

11 - November 25 – Ali, Boxing, and America – David Remnick, “The Outsized Life of Muhammad Ali,” New Yorker (2016) – Lewis A. Erenberg, “Rumble in the Jungle”: Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman in the Age of Global Spectacle,” Journal of Sport History (2012)

12 - December 2 – Documentary: “When We Were Kings” (Leon Gast, 1996)

13 - December 9 – Basketball ABA-Style, the Rise of the NBA – Michael Murphy, “Remember the ABA,” Houston Chronicle (1996) – Walter LaFeber, Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism (1999) chapter VI “The Greatest Endorser of the Twentieth-Century” or “An Insidious Form of Imperialism”?”

14 - December 16 – Fitness: From the “Soft American” to Arnold Schwarzenegger – John F. Kennedy, “The Soft American,” Sports Illustrated (1960) – Merrell Noden, “#33 Jim Fixx,” Sports Illustrated (1994) – Benjamin G. Rader, “The Quest for Self-Sufficiency and the New Strenuosity: Reflections on the Strenuous Life of the 1970s and the 1980s,” Journal of Sport History (1991) – Richard W. Johnston, “Men and the Myth,” Sports Illustrated (1974) 15 – December 23 – Women and Modern Sport: Different Rules/Battle of the Sexes – Jane Curry and Marjorie Bingham, “American Women and Sport,” OAH Magazine of History (Summer, 1992) – Curry Kilpatrick, “There she is, Ms. America,” Sports Illustrated (1973) Essay due in class

16 – December 30 – The US and the Olympics – John Soares, “The Cold War on Ice,” The Brown Journal of World Affairs (2008)

17 - January 6 – American Soccer: The US and the World’s Game – Scott Salter, “How Pelé and the New York Cosmos Changed Soccer,” These Football Times (2015) – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, “Soccer will never be a slam dunk in America,” Time (June 30, 2014)

18 - January 13 – Final Examination