ABSTRACT Title of Document: NARRATING TRAGEDY: FROM KENNEDY TO KATRINA, FROM SPORTS TO NATIONAL IDENTITIES Michael Helt Gavin, Ph.D., 2007 Directed By: Nancy L. Struna, Chair, American Studies On September 11, 2001, Major League Baseball commissioner Allan ‘Bud’ Selig postponed the baseball season to offer proper respect to that day’s terror victims. On September 16, 2001, when the major league season resumed, sports columnists across the nation-state referred to the New York Yankees as ‘America’s team.’ When the Yankees made their run to the World Series, many columnists argued they ‘healed the wounds of the nation.’ Likewise, as water settled in the French Quarter after Hurricane Katrina, columnists suggested the New Orleans Saints were ‘capable of healing the nation’ and referred to them as ‘America’s team.’ When the Saints returned to the Superdome in 2006, many columnists suggested the region and nation were both healed. This dissertation uses discourse analysis to reveal the constructions of and contestations for dominant versions of national identity and memory in which sports columnists engaged in the context of tragedies like the John F. Kennedy assassination, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina. In examining sports columnists’ work over five decades, I offer a historical overview of sports columns and their relationship to dominant discourses of race and national identity. In the process, I contend that the voices comprising mainstream sports columnists through the 1960s generally constructed a mythological national identity that privileged whiteness. By the late 1990s, however, the voices comprising mainstream sports columnists included both those who constructed and confronted white hegemony. Interestingly, some of those columnists supporting whiteness were minorities; and some of those confronting whiteness were themselves white. Hence, I argue that whiteness is a standpoint, not a condition of skin color. Likewise, I contend that mainstream sports columnists confronting whiteness work within a system often identified as producing hegemony in order to dismantle it, and potentially exert a great amount of cultural power. NARRATING TRAGEDY: FROM KENNEDY TO KATRINA, FROM SPORTS TO NATIONAL IDENTITIES By Michael Helt Gavin Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2007 Advisory Committee: Professor Nancy L. Struna, Chair Associate Professor Myron Lounsbury Associate Professor Sheri Parks Professor Maurine Beasley Dr. Steven Gietschier © Copyright by Michael Gavin 2007 Acknowledgements This is for my daughter. I wrote this as you slept on my shoulder. It is for my wife, without whom I would not have pursued excellence; and love would be a distant stranger. It is for my mother, who showed me the import of stories. It is for my father, whose morality is something to which I aspire. It is for my sister, whose compassion is enviable. It is for Matt, whose friendship extends beyond brotherhood. It is for my E- town boys, who I miss everyday. It is for Kathy Galvin, whose interest and support in my academic career has been a foundation of strength for me. It is for Sellars House and the people who lived in it, who never let me forget that life can be better than good. And it is for a better world. Thank you so much, Charlotte Cummings, for all your help and support the year in which I wrote this. I would like formally to thank Nancy Struna, my advisor. Throughout my doctorate studies, you supported this project and trusted my instincts as a scholar. I value your teaching more than I could say. Thank you Steve Gietschier, as well. It is a treat to have you on this committee and your comments have strengthened my insights. More than your expertise, I value your patience and support. Myron Lounsbury, thank you for your interest in my work and life. Thank you also for your unique teaching style that has influenced my classes at Prince George’s Community College. Maurine Beasley, your questions during the proposal process and drafting stage allowed me to better articulate my ideas. Without your questions, some of the ideas with which I began pursing this project would have been left out. Thank you, Sheri Parks and Michael Silk. Your comments have been overwhelmingly helpful, and I know we will run into each other in the future. Likewise, to my colleagues at Prince George’s Community College’s English department: You have made these last years of my professional life so enjoyable. The support you have offered in my life, both professional and personal, is the reason PGCC has a home in my heart. I would like to thank Jeffrey Snodgrass, Michele Hardy, Ryna May, Melinda Kramer, and Robert Barshay especially. Finally, I want to thank the scholars, friends, and teachers I had in the past who led me to this dissertation. From Mr. Crotty at Evanston Township High School; to Wendy Moffat, Thomas Reed, and Susan Perabo at Dickinson College; to Keith Leonard, Roberta Rubenstein, Charles Larson, Betty Bennett, and Kermitt Moyer at American University: You all had a part in this project. Thank you for your inspiration. ii Table of Contents Table of Contents...............................................................................................................iii Chapter 1: Narrating Tragedy: From Kennedy to Katrina, From Sports to National Identities.............................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction..................................................................................................................... 1 Sport, Imagined Nations, Legitimate Memories............................................................. 8 White National Identity and Sports Pages .................................................................... 13 Trauma and Memory..................................................................................................... 19 The Discourse of Tragedy: Trauma and Sport, Substitution and Place........................ 23 Relationship to American Studies: Theorizing Whiteness and Sport........................... 27 Methods and Sources .................................................................................................... 37 Limitations of the Study................................................................................................ 41 Outline of Dissertation.................................................................................................. 43 Chapter 2: War Games...................................................................................................... 46 (White) National Bodies ............................................................................................... 49 The Elegy...................................................................................................................... 56 A Loss of Innocence ..................................................................................................... 65 Chapter 3: White National Tragedies ............................................................................... 70 Colorblind Nation ......................................................................................................... 71 American Religions ...................................................................................................... 84 The All-American Family............................................................................................. 93 Lipsyte’s Resistance.................................................................................................... 101 National Memories...................................................................................................... 107 Chapter 4: Bombs Bursting, but Not Here...................................................................... 111 White Diversity........................................................................................................... 116 A Trick of Memory..................................................................................................... 120 Avoiding Memory of Terror ....................................................................................... 126 Remembering White Terror........................................................................................ 130 Chapter 5: Counter Wars: Cracking the Mythology....................................................... 136 Sport’s Myths and its Nation ...................................................................................... 138 A Diversion, but not a Mythology.............................................................................. 150 Counter Narrative: Making the War Visible............................................................... 156 Chapter 6: Patrons of the Saints...................................................................................... 166 The Tragedy in the Dome and the Myths Afterward.................................................. 167 When the Saints Came Home: The Normal Economics of it All ............................... 174 Re-Membering New Orleans: A Counter-Narrative................................................... 180 Chapter 7: Conclusion..................................................................................................... 189 Appendix........................................................................................................................