Americans love sports. We are fanatics who dress in team colors, root, root, root for the home team, and live and die with the success and failure of our favorite athlete. But if we take the time to look beneath the surface and beyond the simple factual question of who won and who lost, we are also presented with some of the most fascinating stories from our nation’s past.
In this new podcast series Professor Matt Andrews goes beyond telling entertaining tales of races won, touchdowns scored, players rounding the bases, and highlights the historical significance of sports in the United States. He explains to us why sports have mattered so much in this country and he reveals how sports have actually changed the course of American history.
Sports are a highlight reel of history. Join us as we explore the stories that are more than just exciting tales of athletic competitions. American Sport is about some of the most compelling moments and significant turning points in American history.
American Sport is created by Professor Matt Andrews and is an original podcast by Trailblazer Studios, Executive Produced by Katye Rone, and Co-produced by Aurelia Belfield and Casey Helmick.
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Return of the Great White Hope In the 1980s, many white Americans invested their emotions in a handful of white athletes—athletes both real and fictional. In the last episode of Season One, we explore the popularity of Larry Bird, Gerry Cooney, and Rocky Balboa in the 1980s—three “Great White Hopes” competing in professional sports that were dominated by black Americans. Bibliography: Todd Boyd, Young, Black, Rich, and Famous: The Rise of the NBA, the Hip Hop Invasion, and the Transformation of ...
Adam v. Eve The story of the Women’s Sport Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s is really two stories—it is the story of women pushing for access in the American sports world; and it is the story of many men opposing their participation and pushing back. In “Adam v. Eve,” Professor Matt explores what happened when the Modern Feminist Movement and the masculine American sports culture collided. Bibliography: Amy Burfoot, First Ladies of Running: 22 Inspiring Profiles of the Rebels, Rule Breakers, an...
The Russians Are Coming The Cold War was a military contest, a fight to secure economic markets, a race for scientific breakthroughs—and it was an athletic competition. Every four years, the Olympic Games provided an arena where American and Soviet athletes could meet and wage a battle for international supremacy. “The Russians are Coming” is the story of hotly contested medal counts, secret political defections, how heroes are made, and why you did the standing broad jump in elementary school. ...
Man is a Free Agent For over a century, professional athletes in the United States were the exclusive property of the team that signed them first. In baseball, team owners called it the “reserve system” and they said it was essential for the good of the game. The players called it something else—they said it was “slavery.” In this episode of American Sport, we explore the battle between owners and players that culminated with the birth of free agency in the 1970s (someone, who shall remain anony...
The Fight of the Century On July 4, 1910, in a makeshift wooden boxing arena in Reno, Nevada, a white man named Jim Jeffries climbed into the ring to fight a black man named Jack Johnson, and the nation held its breath. Taking place in an era of Darwinian thought and murderous racial anxieties, the outcome of the “Fight of the Century” caused the death of dozens of Americans and sparked the first nationwide race riot in American history. Bibliography: Jack Johnson, My Life: In the Ring and Out (...
USA v. All Y’All Where did the Modern Olympic Games comes from? Why do athletes have to compete as representatives of nations? And what would happen if the United States hosted an Olympic Games and nobody showed up? [Spoiler alert: people died] Bibliography: Jules Boykoff, Power Games: A Political History of the Olympic Games (New York and London: Verso, 2016). Mary Dyreson, Making the American Team: Sport, Culture, and the Olympic Experience (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 19...
“Civil War on the Racetrack” In the years leading up to the Civil War, North and South put their pride and prestige on the line in a series of intersectional horse races. Fueled by the passions of the debate over slavery in the United States, these were the events that sparked our modern American mania for sport. Bibliography: Melvin Adelman, A Sporting Time: New York City and the Rise of Modern Athletics, 1820-1870 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinoi Press, 1990). John Eisenberg, The Gre...
Americans love sports. We are fanatics who dress in team colors, root, root, root for the home team, and live and die with the success and failure of our favorite athlete. But if we take the time to look beneath the surface and beyond the simple factual question of who won and who lost, we are also presented with some of the most fascinating stories from our nation’s past. In this new podcast series, American Sport, Professor Matt Andrews goes beyond telling entertaining tales of races won, to...
