Sport & Popular Culture – serie
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2 produkter
2 produkter
Walter Byers and the NCAA
Power, Amateurism, and Growing Controversy in Big-Time College Sport
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
392 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
Walter Byers, the first executive director of the NCAA, oversaw the organization’s transformation from a small rule-making body into a billion-dollar enterprise that wielded immense power over collegiate athletics. In Walter Byers and the NCAA, historian Ronald A. Smith delves into the complexities of Byers’s leadership during a period of great cultural and institutional change. Under Byers’s guidance, the NCAA navigated significant milestones, such as the racial integration of college sports and the passage of Title IX, which mandated gender equality in athletics. At the same time, the commercialization of college football and basketball during his tenure led to skyrocketing coaching salaries and television contracts, pushing the NCAA into a new, profit-driven era. Smith provides a nuanced portrait of Byers, showing him as a man who remained committed to the ideal of the nonprofessional athlete, even as college athletics evolved around him. Yet Byers’s perspective shifted later in his career, as he began to question the fairness of this system. In his book, Unsportsmanlike Conduct, Byers publicly criticized the exploitation of student athletes, a stance that foreshadowed today’s debates about athletes’ rights and NIL compensation. Smith's work not only offers an in-depth look at Byers’s role in the NCAA's expansion but also critiques the institution’s long-standing emphasis on amateurism. The book underscores how the tension between amateur ideals and the increasing commercialization and professionalization of college sports has persisted, both during and after Byers’s tenure. Ultimately, Smith provides a compelling study of one of the most influential and controversial figures in the history of American sports governance.
380 kr
Kommande
Women have long participated in the game of American football. From informal, secret games, to educators' use of touch football for female students, to attempts at professional leagues, women's experiences in the sport have continuously evolved throughout the gridiron game's history.In Gridiron Invasion, author Katie Taylor traces the hidden history of women and girls playing football, revealing that their progress has not been straightforward. At times, their breakthroughs are hard won and then lost mere years later. Contextualizing women's participation within changes in society and the norms to which girls and women were expected to adhere, this book covers the lives of the pioneering players that contravened expectations. By scouring decades of newspaper reports and other primary sources, Taylor reveals that while there was occasional outrage at women's football, far more often the public accepted the sport. Coverage differed based on the type of outlet. Local newspapers and reports from syndicated material were usually supportive of the participants, whereas articles in national magazines frequently contained stereotypes or expressed indignation.Few books delve into the long history of women's football before the first official leagues were developed in the 1960s, making Gridiron Invasion an invaluable account. In presenting this largely unrecorded narrative, Taylor shows that women have been playing the sport for almost as long as men, and she hopes the book will further normalize women's participation today.