Pigskin Nation

Pigskin Nation PDF

Author: Jesse Berrett

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2018-04-11

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0252050371

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Cast as the ultimate hardhats, football players of the 1960s seemed to personify a crewcut traditional manhood that channeled the Puritan work ethic. Yet, despite a social upheaval against such virtues, the National Football League won over all of America—and became a cultural force that recast politics in its own smashmouth image. Jesse Berrett explores pro football's new place in the zeitgeist of the 1960s and 1970s. The NFL's brilliant harnessing of the sports-media complex, combined with a nimble curation of its official line, brought different visions of the same game to both Main Street and the ivory tower. Politicians, meanwhile, spouted gridiron jargon as their handlers co-opted the NFL's gift for spectacle and mythmaking to shape a potent new politics that in essence became pro football. Governing, entertainment, news, elections, celebrity--all put aside old loyalties to pursue the mass audience captured by the NFL's alchemy of presentation, television, and high-stepping style. An invigorating appraisal of a dynamic era, Pigskin Nation reveals how pro football created the template for a future that became our present.

Pigskin

Pigskin PDF

Author: Robert Peterson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0195076079

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Traces the roots of professional football, from its organization in the 1880s, to the formation of the National Football League in 1920, to its surge in popularity with the pivotal Bears-Redskins championship game of 1940, through the highly lucrative tel

42 Today

42 Today PDF

Author: MichaeL G Long

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2021-02-09

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1479805610

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Explores Jackie Robinson’s compelling and complicated legacy Before the United States Supreme Court ruled against segregation in public schools, and before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, Jackie Robinson walked onto the diamond on April 15, 1947, as first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, making history as the first African American to integrate Major League Baseball in the twentieth century. Today a national icon, Robinson was a complicated man who navigated an even more complicated world that both celebrated and despised him. Many are familiar with Robinson as a baseball hero. Few, however, know of the inner turmoil that came with his historic status. Featuring piercing essays from a range of distinguished sportswriters, cultural critics, and scholars, this book explores Robinson’s perspectives and legacies on civil rights, sports, faith, youth, and nonviolence, while providing rare glimpses into the struggles and strength of one of the nation’s most athletically gifted and politically significant citizens. Featuring a foreword by celebrated directors and producers Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon, this volume recasts Jackie Robinson’s legacy and establishes how he set a precedent for future civil rights activism, from Black Lives Matter to Colin Kaepernick.

How White Men Won the Culture Wars

How White Men Won the Culture Wars PDF

Author: Joseph Darda

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2021-05-25

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 0520381459

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CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, 2022 A cultural history of how white men exploited the image of the Vietnam veteran to roll back civil rights and restake their claim on the nation “If war among the whites brought peace and liberty to the blacks,” Frederick Douglass asked in 1875, peering into the nation’s future, “what will peace among the whites bring?” The answer then and now, after civil war and civil rights: a white reunion disguised as a veterans’ reunion. How White Men Won the Culture Wars shows how a broad contingent of white men––conservative and liberal, hawk and dove, vet and nonvet––transformed the Vietnam War into a staging ground for a post–civil rights white racial reconciliation. Conservatives could celebrate white vets as raceless embodiments of the nation. Liberals could treat them as minoritized heroes whose voices must be heard. Erasing Americans of color, Southeast Asians, and women from the war, white men with stories of vets on their mind could agree, after civil rights and feminism, that they had suffered and deserved more. From the POW/MIA and veterans’ mental health movements to Rambo and “Born in the U.S.A.,” they remade their racial identities for an age of color blindness and multiculturalism in the image of the Vietnam vet. No one wins in a culture war—except, Joseph Darda argues, white men dressed in army green.

Pigskin Dreams

Pigskin Dreams PDF

Author: Stephen Below

Publisher: Byrd & Bull Pub

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 0615311288

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A collection of stories written by 22 pro-football hall of famers -- including Mike Ditka, Johnny Uni-tas, Howie Long, and Steve Young—that reveal the people, places, and events that made them great. Features: Instant appeal for football players, coaches, parents, and fans. Coaches, teachers, and parents will find this book a refreshing reminder of the true role models in professional sports; aspiring players will find invaluable advice on what it takes to be a pro, in the words of the pros themselves; An illustration of how good parenting and coaching can build character. Through these personal accounts of what drove them to their achievements both on and off the field, these NFL pros show parents and coaches the importance of strong character in sports, and in life; Some of the biggest names in professional football. The twenty-two contributors to Pigskin Dreams are some of the most recognisable figures in the history of football, and fans will appreciate this chance to get a glimpse inside their lives. Each section begins with a brief biographical introduction and wrap-up written by authors Below and Kalis.

America's Game

America's Game PDF

Author: Michael MacCambridge

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2008-11-26

Total Pages: 610

ISBN-13: 0307481433

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It’s difficult to imagine today—when the Super Bowl has virtually become a national holiday and the National Football League is the country’s dominant sports entity—but pro football was once a ramshackle afterthought on the margins of the American sports landscape. In the span of a single generation in postwar America, the game charted an extraordinary rise in popularity, becoming a smartly managed, keenly marketed sports entertainment colossus whose action is ideally suited to television and whose sensibilities perfectly fit the modern age. America’s Game traces pro football’s grand transformation, from the World War II years, when the NFL was fighting for its very existence, to the turbulent 1980s and 1990s, when labor disputes and off-field scandals shook the game to its core, and up to the sport’s present-day preeminence. A thoroughly entertaining account of the entire universe of professional football, from locker room to boardroom, from playing field to press box, this is an essential book for any fan of America’s favorite sport.

Speed Capital

Speed Capital PDF

Author: Brian M. Ingrassia

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2024-02-06

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 0252055217

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How a speedway became a legendary sports site and sparked America’s car culture The 1909 opening of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway marked a foundational moment in the history of automotive racing. Events at the famed track and others like it also helped launch America’s love affair with cars and an embrace of road systems that transformed cities and shrank perceptions of space. Brian Ingrassia tells the story of the legendary oval’s early decades. This story revolves around Speedway cofounder and visionary businessman Carl Graham Fisher, whose leadership in the building of the transcontinental Lincoln Highway and the iconic Dixie Highway had an enormous impact on American mobility. Ingrassia looks at the Speedway’s history as a testing ground for cars and airplanes, its multiple close brushes with demolition, and the process by which racing became an essential part of the Golden Age of Sports. At the same time, he explores how the track’s past reveals the potent links between sports capitalism and the selling of nostalgia, tradition, and racing legends.