Product Description

Product Description
The Ultimate Jewish Sports History and Trivia Book.


Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone about exactly how many National Basketball Association teams the great Larry Brown took to the playoffs?

Would you know the answer if someone asked whether Daniel Mendoza was a flamenco dancer or the world s first Jewish boxing champion? Do you know which major league venue was the first to offer kosher food?
If you ve ever wondered about Jews in sports and who hasn t this is the book for you. And it s not just Mark Spitz, Sandy Koufax, and Hank Greenberg. Covering every day of the year to include thousands of names, records, events, and achievements of all kinds, from virtually every sport you can think of and some you can t, this book is the definitive picture of the role Jews have played in world sports informative, enlightening, easy to read, and entertaining in a 432-page calendar book format. You ll never wonder again. It gives you all the basic information and statistics, from baseball to figure skating, from boxing to track and field, from hockey to bowling, tennis, gymnastics, soccer, Olympic winners including 160 sports quiz questions and sports you never heard of, American and international, amateur and professional. Day by Day in Jewish Sports History, by sportswriter Bob Wechsler, tells it all. It s a fascinating book. You ll never regret reading and owning this book. .

Day by Day in Jewish Sports History, by sportswriter Bob Wechsler, tells it all.

About the Author Bob Wechsler is a sports editor at The Express-Times of Easton, Pa. He is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University and lives in Bethlehem, Pa. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Great Book
This book was more detailed & more interesting than I expected.Well worth the money.

Definitely Definitive
This book is an incredible collection of fascinating and and esoteric facts - truly definitive (although it's not an encyclopedia).
My criteria for "definitiveness" are:
1. range of sports covered
2. number of countries with noteworthy Jewish athletes represented
3. years covered - from the 1700s to Fall 2007

You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy this book, and unlike many sports books, you also don't have to be male. Included are many women from all over the world in a wide array of sports.

Collections strong in Jewish history and culture will find this packed with facts and statistics.
Over 400 pages packed with thousands of entries about Jewish sportsmen and women covers nearly every day of the year profiling records set, achievements, and participation in all kinds of events around the world, refuting the joke that Jewish sports heroes don't exist. Collections strong in Jewish history and culture will find this packed with facts and statistics.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

A must buy!
This book completely changed my life.It may save Western Civilization if we can make it required reading in schools.Generations of future historians will devote their lives to studying the depth and implications of Wechsler's achievement.We owe this man. ... Read more

Product Description
This extraordinarily rich collection of primary sources charts the significant, intertwining histories of African Americans and sport. "The Unlevel Playing Field" contains more than one hundred documents on both pioneering and modern-day athletes, ranging chronologically from a challenge issued by prizefighter Tom Molineaux in the "London Times" in 1810 to contributions from commentators like Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Eldridge Cleaver, as well as contemporary observers such as Nikki Giovanni, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and bell hooks. Introductions and headnotes by David K. Wiggins and Patrick B. Miller place each document in context, shaping a compelling narrative. David K. Wiggins teaches sport history at George Mason University. He is the author of "Glory Bound: Black Athletes in a White America." Patrick B. Miller teaches history at Northeastern Illinois University. He is the editor of "The Sporting World of the Modern South." A volume in the series "Sport and Society", it is edited by Benjamin G. Rader and Randy Roberts. ... Read more

Product Description
This history traces the origins of the multi-million-pound international spectator sport industry back to the beginnings of the British empire and discovers how soccer, cricket, rugby, boxing and other games were carried overseas by the British. It proves that such apparently all-American pursuits such as baseball and ice hockey were in fact British in their origin. ... Read more

Product Description
In The 30 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All Time, long-time TV sports statistician and self-professed skeptic Elliott Kalb examines the most notable conspiracies in sports history, from Major League baseball, the NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA, Olympics, NASCAR, the horse track and the prize ring.Separating fact from myth, Kalb attempts to determine which of these long-held conspiracy theories hold water, and which ones fall flat under scrutiny. Ranking the conspiracies from 1 to 30 and the likelihood of each conspiracy from 1 to 5, Kalb boldly asks:

• Did baseball avoid integration in the 1930s and 1940s with an unwritten agreement?
• Was Super Bowl III a fixed game?
• Did Sonny Liston throw both of his fights vs. Muhammad Ali?
• Was the NBA’s first-ever draft lottery fixed?
• Why did Michael Jordan really retire from basketball the first time?
• Are some NASCAR race outcomes too good to be true?
• Did the New England Patriots cheat their way to a dynasty?
• What really happened at the 1921 Kentucky Derby?
• Why weren’t any Japanese players signed to major league contracts from 1965-1995?
• And much more!

Customer Reviews (1)

Fascinating Insider's take on sports' greatest conspiracies
Awesome. One of the best books on sports I've read in years.Kalb and Weinstein take you through some of the biggest moments in sports that you've always wondered about and manage to introduce you to some conspiracy scenarios that you never knew about before.The writing style is fun, yet authoritative and leaves you thinking, "Wow, could that really have happened that way?" The chapters on the Patriots and UNLV/Duke are particularly outstanding.I highly recommend this to both conspiracy nuts and sports nuts alike.It's also a great read for lovers of truth and non-fiction. ... Read more

Product Description

In Winning Is the Only Thing, Randy Roberts and James Olson take a hard look at the dark side of American sports. The scandals. The role of organized crime. How politicians and businessmen exploit the Olympics. Who gets rich and who goes broke. Why the fitness craze has nothing to do with fitness. And how TV sports czars like Roone Arledge -- inventor of the "instant replay" -- actually dictate how games are played.

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Deal
This was a great buy! I recieved the item in a fast manner and was please with the condition of the book, thanks again. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (6)

Great Book!
I really enjoyed this book. I found this particular book very informative and alive with action. The writer certainly has a way to keep the reader close at hand with his flowing stories and history laced together. I have never read a book like this one, I thought the writer did a great job staying balanced without being overly critical on either side, he let the facts and history tell the story.
It was very easy to read, which I like, so many books on history are so heavy that it's hard to stay interested. I did not feel like the Author was leaving anything out, I thought his story telling and factual accounts articulated what he was trying to convey very powerful.
If you are looking for an exciting read about Gladiators, and their times, this is the book for you!

Jeff

Readable, current, exciting
Having been a fan of ancient Rome and gladiators for some time now (primarily due to Hollywood), I decided to go out and try and learn more about both of those subjects.This book gives a wonderful insight to the world of Gladiators.Mr. Meijer does an excellent job of breaking the book down into informative sections.Anything you could have been curious about in terms of gladiators, he explains.Why they came to be, where they fought, what happened during the fights, myths of gladiatorial combat, and repercussions of the sport.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with even the slightest bit of interest in the sport or history of.

BLOOD, GLORY, FAME AND RICHES
I liked this short book. It was well researched, well written, easy to read and contains almost everything you'd ever want to know about the ancient Roman gladiators and "history's most deadly sport," including who they were, how and where they fought, and how they lived and died. The author discusses emperors in the arena such as Caligula and Commodus, extravagant sea battles, condemned prisoners, gory executions, men and women against wild beasts, and even women gladiators battling it out for glory and fame, all in realistic and spine-tingling detail. The author also discusses why the ancient Romans were so keen on promoting and hosting this horrific activity, which by modern standards of morality seems an impossible concept. Yet he points out that boxing, wrestling, football and other professional contact sports are really just a modern version of this ancient gladiatorial sport. Whether it's in the Superdome, or the Colosseum, it arouses the same basal human drives. It's all fascinating stuff, credible, and well worth the read. I highly recommend this book for casual readers as well as serious students and researchers.

A Comprehensive Book
Of the several works that have appeared on the topic of the gladiator and his world, I have found this particular one the most comprehensive without being written in the pretentious style that most writers on aspects of the ancient world go in for.

In light of the popularity of the Starz series "Spartacus: Blood and Sand", this book is and absolute "must read".

A captivating read
It was loaded with interesting facts interspersed throughout little known stories of the everyday life of a gladiator.It was a fun read and worth the purchase price. ... Read more

Product Description
The Detroit Tigers covers the history of major league baseball in Detroit from its beginnings in 1881 through the 2007 season. With over 500 carefully selected photographs, most of which have not been published before, William M. Anderson presents the highlights and lowlights of each season and gives a context for appreciating the Detroit careers of the players whose images grace the pages of the book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A book for True Tiger Fans
This is an excellent book for all true fans of the Detroit Tigers. It includes the history of the club along with plenty of photos, stories and anecdotes of the great and not so great players and their achievements. A few color photos would have been a nice touch. All pictures are in black and white.

The Detrfoit Tigers: A Pictorial Celebration of the Greatest Players and Moments in Tigers History
This book is very interesting and well written.For the true Detroit Tiger fan, it is a must read.

Tiger fan
This book makes a great gift for a Detroit Tiger fan.Loaded with history and pictures.

Now in an updated fourth edition
The Detroit Tigers are the pride of Detroit baseball fans. Now in an updated fourth edition, "The Detroit Tigers: A Pictorial Celebration of the Greatest Players and Moments in Tigers History" is a complete and comprehensive guide to the team's roots and history, from their formation in 1881 through the 2007 season. Enhanced with hundreds of black and white photographs and notable player statistics, "The Detroit Tigers" is an ideal gift for any Tigers fan, and highly recommended for community library sports collections. ... Read more

Product Description
Continuing its series of spectacular coffee-table books for the holiday season, Sports Illustrated presents The College Football Book, the ultimate gift for America's most passionate fans.

SI launched this series in 2005 with The Football Book, devoted to the professional game. A New York Times best-seller that year, the book has taken root as a perennial, selling more than 200,000 copies to date. Now the editors of Sports Illustrated return to the gridiron, this time to serve the most avid football fans of all.

With the best words and pictures SI has to offer, The College Football Book, brings to life the game's unparalleled excitement and pageantry, its legendary players, historic teams and epic rivalries.

In 288 pages of the greatest photography and writing available anywhere, The College Football Book spans the sport's history, from its infancy in the 1800s right up to the postseason showdowns of 2008. The book is packed with stunning pictures, award-winning stories, original stats, decade-by-decade all-star teams and iconic artifacts photographed exclusively for this book at the College Football Hall of Fame--the same exciting mix of elements that makes each book in the SI series a must-have for sports fan. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Great book for all College Football Fans
This book is so amazing!My wife and I are huge college football fans and I was excited when I first heard about this book because of our love for college football.We knew it would be a great addition to our coffee table books and it is a great book to have on the table during the fall because of all the rich history of college football that is in the book.I would highly recommend buying this book if you are a huge college football fan and enjoy learning about the early years of college football and how it has transformed into the sport it is today.

gift
Purchased as gift for grandson.

Sports Illustrated publications are a wonderful way to motivate both children and adults.

Great
Great service
Book was new
Lower cost than borders even with shipping
Order and had within 6 days

Great service

College football fans should love it
This coffee-table book is a more-or-less pictorial history of college football, and contains many great full-color pics along with info and stories, and should make a great gift for a college football fan! While not the comprehensive history of college football such as say Ken Burn's is for baseball it contains many great full-page pictures from the last 100 years.In addition it includes summaries by decade of the great college football teams, epic games, "all-decade team,"Heisman winners, and innovative figures of the decade (although I'd personally say listing the conference Commissioner who created the "BCS" is a suspect honor...).

Also listed are fun "Campus Culture" tidbits by decade including major books, movies, news stories of the day, and other - everything from "the foxtrot" and Thomas Edison in the early part of the century to "facebook" and the O.J. verdict in the latter part.But the book is mainly devoted to college football - throughout the book are also featured great pieces on such legendary figures as Bear Bryant, Ernie "The Express" Davis, Dick Butkus, Knute Rocke, and stories such as the "U," the Flutie-comeback game, and more. In addition to pictures also featured are many classic game-program covers; one other creative feature is a large illustrated foldout of the "all-century" team - greatest players/coaches.

Overall, a very enjoyable collection of pics and information. One thing I found quirky - the book lists the national champs from each decade up to 30's, when they then are replaced by the Heisman award trophy winners. I suppose SI couldn't fit both on one page so just they stopped listing the national champs - but it seems strange they consider the individual award more important than team championships (in any event a listing of national champs can easily be found on-line, if one cares to, in tandem with reading this book). Overall, this book will provide college football or American sports fan plenty of enjoyment, and lives up to its title of "THE College Football Book!"

Great Product
My son loved the book, but for the same price I found it in BJs and could have saved on the shipping. ... Read more

Product Description
Hawai'i Sports: History, Facts, and Statistics is the most comprehensive compilation of statewide sports information published in a single volume. The book covers fifty-nine sports in alphabetical order from adventure racing, a newly introduced sport, to wrestling. The major sports are given coverage at all levels: youth/amateur, college, and professional. Each sport begins with a history of that sport in Hawai'i: when it was introduced, the major events surrounding the sport, and the key figures-organizers and players-who contributed to the sport. Interesting facts and records are highlighted to recognize significant persons and events involved in Hawai'i's sporting community. The final section provides detailed statistics since the sport's introduction in Hawai'i as well as the records that stand today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Hawaiian Sports Bible
This is pretty much the Hawaiian sports bible as it is all encompassing it just about every respect. Great for reference use to find out who won what and by how much in just about every sporting event in Hawaiian history, jammed packed with stats and numbers. What makes the book great is not the detailed trivia of who won what and in what time, but the highly researched history of the beginnings of each sport covered. Not only is "just about" every sport you can think of covered, many sports that are nearly unheard of are covered also. One flaw is the fact that some sports early years are very detailed as others, as others aren't. To the authors defense the source material probably just isn't there. Secondly bicycle racing has not one word in the book, even though it has a long history in Hawaii, this a glaring omission. As the cycling leg of the Hawaiian Ironman, was based a race around the island with a long history. Thankfully Triathlon and Ironman are fully coved. Hopefully soon there will some be an updated book covering the last 10 years.

The Best in Sports Books
I love sports but never thought I would enjoy reading a book on sports as much as I enjoyed Hawai'i Sports.I didn't realized there was so much to learn.It was a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone with eventhe slightest sports interest.Congratulations to the author for his fineresearch and extensive knowledge!

The sports Bible!
I am an avid sports fan.This book gives a great sports history and champion information.I was surprised an enlightened.It is also great for touring Hawaii and knowing the key spots for optimum sportingadventure.Good job!

The most information ive ever seen on sports
This book has mor information on any sport than i have ever seen it really lets you know whats going on in hawaii, sportswise. it tells about over 59 different sports that ive never heard of before. I verymuch reccomend thisbook to anyone who likes sports!!!

Hawaii's sports bible!!
I am a big sports fan. Hawaii Sports is the greatest! This is the most comprehensive book about sports in Hawaii. It is thorough, meticulously researched, and fun to read. 59 sports are covered highlighting famousathletes from high school, college, and pro teams. The bookbrings backmemories of Honolulu Stadium when we used to greet the high school footballplayers at the end of the game with juice and leis. The chapters on boxing,roller derby, and pro wrestling and other sports at the old CivicAuditorium were especially fun to read. I heartily recommned this book tosports fans who love Hawaii. Aloha. ... Read more

Product Description
Sport in Latin America and the Caribbean is the most comprehensive overview to date of the development of modern sports in Latin America. This new book illustrates how and why sport has become a central part of the political, economic, and social life of the region and the repercussions of its role. This highly readable volume is composed of articles on a wide variety of sports-basketball, baseball, volleyball, cricket, soccer, and equestrian events-in countries and regions throughout Latin America. Broad in scope, this volume explores the definition of modern sport; whether sport is enslaving, liberating, or neutral; if sport reflects or challenges dominant culture; the attributes and drawbacks of professional versus amateur sport; and the difference between sport in capitalist and socialist nations. ... Read more

Product Description
In this volume, which was originally published in 1989, nine distinguished historians look at the origins, growth and organisation of the major mass-participation sports in Britain. They combine academic expertise with the enthusiasm of the true sports devotee in considering such vital issues as the social background of players and spectators, gambling, public popularity, media coverage and the impact of television, professionalisation and of course the age-old divide between 'gentlemen' and 'players'. Richly illustrated with rarely seen period photographs, the ten essays combine academic research with entertaining anecdotal evidence derived from the folklore of each game. Of interest both to the student of modern British history and serious sports fans everywhere Sport in Britain: A Social History is a fascinating and wide-ranging contribution to its subject. ... Read more

Product Description
In a history spanning more than 500 years, a Scottish seaside pastime has become the passionate pursuit of 60 million players and 10 times as many fans worldwide. Along the way, golf has provided heroes, heroines and moments that live forever in the hearts of those who follow the sport. In its 296 stirring pages, THE GOLF BOOK offers a spectacular tribute to an old game that never runs short of surprises--a celebration of the grand, still-unfolding story of golf. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Sports Illustrated Golf Book
This is a beautiful book.Just full of golf tidbits.It was a gift for my golfing husband and he said it would take him a long time to read it all;there ws so much in it.He was very pleased.

A Golfer's Must
I gave this as a Christmas gift to a golfing buddy of mine and he can't stop talking about it.

Gorgeous golf book
I bought this as a gift for my husband who loves it. It is a great coffee table book which is primarily excellent photos and some commentary. Anyway a great price and a great gift to keep for golf fanatics.

Great Conversation Piece!
Beautiful, coffee table type book. Lovely, LARGE pictures. Definitely a conversation piece for the golfer in your life. It's a book that will be leafed through repeatedly.

A "must-have" compendium for golf fans
Sports Illustrated: The Golf Book is a coffee-table compendium of golf stories from the award-winning magazine Sports Illustrated. The absolutely stunning photography combined with insightful articles makes for an engaging chronology of the sport's highlights over the decades. From golf's finest and most challenging courses, to the golf legends of the past century (including Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Nancy Lopez, Tiger Woods, Annika Sorenstam, and more), to cherished artifacts and stories highlighting great moments, Sports Illustrated: The Golf Book is a "must-have" compendium for golf fans. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
Sport history now provides a burgeoning literature, exploring themes from aerobics to yachting. Though the field is in good health Douglas Booth argues that in comparison to most mainstream history, sport history has rarely been called upon to question the foundations of its historical knowledge.
In The Field: Truth and Fiction in Sport History, Booth offers a comprehensive assessment of sport history as an academic discipline, exploring the ways in which professional historians can gather materials, construct and interrogate evidence and arguments, and present their stories about the sporting past.
- Part I examines theories of knowledge in sport history.
- Part II examines the uses of historical knowledge in popular and academic studies of sport history.
In advocating greater reflexivity and openness, The Field makes clear the need for a new rationale within sport history, and sets the agenda for the debate to come.
With a clear structure, sport-specific examples, summary tables and a detailed glossary of terms, The Field provides students, teachers and researchers in sport history with an unparalleled resource to tackle issues that are fundamental to the future of their subject. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

"Solid Throwback Piece of Work"
Great book, I actually read this book during the All-Star Break and it conjured up reminants of nostalgia from my own Little League days. Rader examines a "semi-comprehensive" look at Baseball's flucuating stages, touching economical and social issues, while recounting memorable games. Rader's compelling account of Ruth's "called shot" of the 1932 World Series made me feel as if I was at Wrigley! He also reminds us that American History and Baseball will forever remain synonomous, remembering the Great Depression and how the game once struggled as well. The "War Years" also serve as a testament to Baseball's effect on American society and how the game diverted many fellow Americans attention. Throughout the book, Rader illustrates graphs and charts, highlighting a club's attendance, realignment issues, and salary-cap/player income. Solid piece of historic literature on the development of the game and American history as well, his objective sold me completley, moreover, rekindled my passion for the game on all levels.
AllotofVision
-Marshall University-

THIS HISTORY IS ON THE BALL. AND, YES, IT SCORES. BIG.
Benjamin Rader's second edition of his definitive history of America's favorite national pastime continues to score. Big. The lively, compact history has been expanded, now including baseball in the 1990s, the Latino invasion, the building of retro parks, the dizzying race for home runs (think Sosa and McGwire), the return (again) of the New York Yankees and team dynasties. This may be a somewhat scholarly analysis of the sport, but it's also highly approachable and highly readable and rich in detail. Rader takes readers into the game both inside and outside the foul lines; he also corrects errors he made the first time 'round, most notably in chapters 14 and 15. (Readers of the first edition will know exactly what we mean, and can start whooping it up now.) As for the rest of you, all together now: Take me out to the ballgame ....

Baseball history the way it should be written
I am currently taking a course at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux,Louisiana, entitled: The History of Baseball. Thus far, Benjamin Rader'sbook has provided valuable insight into the complete early history of therise of baseball. Anyone seeking to explore the beginnings of the game, andwhat the game has become from its beginning, should use "Baseball: AHistory of America's Game" as the primary source. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A quick and easy read for sports trivia buffs
The collaborative effort of Timothy Jacobs and Russell Roberts, 100 Athletes Who Shaped Sports History is a compilation of one hundred single-page biographies summarizing the lives and achievements of great athletes ranging from Ted Williams, Patty Berg, and Sugar Ray Leonard, to Jackie Robinson, Michael Jordan, and Wayne Gretzky. A black-and-white photograph or a simple sketch of each of the great sports figures accompanies the brief narrative describing their role in the particular sport they embraced. 100 Athletes Who Shaped Sports History is recommended as a quick and easy read for sports trivia buffs, as well as being a great book to introduce young people to the varied and diverse world of sports legends. ... Read more

Product Description

From the myth of William Webb Ellis to the glory of the 2003 World Cup win, this book explores the social history of rugby union in England.

Ever since Tom Brown’s Schooldays the sport has seen itself as the guardian of traditional English middle-class values. In this fascinating new history, leading rugby historian Tony Collins demonstrates how these values have shaped the English game, from the public schools to mass spectator sport, from strict amateurism to global professionalism.

Based on unprecedented access to the official archives of the Rugby Football Union, and drawing on an impressive array of sources from club minutes to personal memoirs and contemporary literature, the book explores in vivid detail the key events, personalities and players that have made English rugby.

From an era of rapid growth at the end of the nineteenth century, through the terrible losses suffered during the First World War and the subsequent ‘rush to rugby’ in the public and grammar schools, and into the periods of disorientation and commercialisation in the 1960s through to the present day, the story of English rugby union is also the story of the making of modern England.

Like all the very best writers on sport, Tony Collins uses sport as a prism through which to better understand both culture and society. A ground-breaking work of both social history and sport history, A Social History of English Rugby Union tells a fascinating story of sporting endeavour, masculine identity, imperial ideology, social consciousness and the nature of Englishness.

Customer Reviews (1)

Informative but ultimately disappointing
There is something wrong with "A Social History of English Rugby Union". It is serious, well-researched, and fairly terse; it does present valuable information; just in virtue of its solid grounding in research, it does deserve three stars.

Yet I was struck reading this book by the lack of understanding (empathy might be too strong a word) Collins evinces of the players and executives whose actions he describes. To my mind, the mark of an excellent historian is the ability to inhabit, so to speak, the minds of those whose acts he depicts, and reveal the world as they experienced it. This is not to say that such historians need agree with their subjects; they may personally detest what they stood for. Yet if history is to be of value as a discipline, it must put understanding and revelation before score-settling, editorializing, or in extreme cases, demonization.

Oddly for a tenured historian of sport, Collins writes like a man who has no idea why any well-balanced human being would ever play, or even appreciate, rugby. The behaviour of rugby union players and administrators over the years (the embrace of violence in the sport, the linking of rugby to martial glory, the reluctance to introduce professionalization, the kinship felt by rugby players with white apartheid-era South Africans, the preoccupation with masculinity, the identification with political conservatism, etc.) seem to strike him as either unfathomable or worthy of disdain. The entire "social history of rugby", as presented here, might be summarized as a bunch of stupid, control-freak, misogynistic, racist, nostalgic toffs who somehow manage in spite of themselves to not destroy the sport they're supposed to be protecting. While there is no doubt some truth to this, as a storyline it just rings too superficial. It also doesn't make for a compelling read...

Collins mentions that the social side of rugby is nearly as important as the matches themselves. Given that this is supposed to be a social history, I would have loved to have read a deep, detailed exploration (not just a mention that rugby can be like freemasonry) of how that works for those involved. What does the sport really mean to those who play it? Why does it command life-time allegiance from those who played it as school boys? How do its cultic features function? Other than snobbery, what was really going through the heads of rugby administrators? What did they get right?

Rugby needs a historian who gets *inside* those who play and run the game, who understands how things are from their perspective. When that is the goal and starting point, criticism by the historian is even more devastating. But where a writer seems always on the outside looking in, observing with a disdainful eye without being able to summon any emotional resonance with his subjects, the picky criticism ends up just sounding like a constant stream of tacks hitting a tin roof. Unfortunately, despite all the good research he's done here, Collins in my opinion just never "breaks through". The result is an informative, but sometimes dry, and often snippy and critical, history, which could have, and should have, been better.

I hope this review helped someone.

Good luck,

Tal ... Read more

Product Description
In an era when college football coaches frequently command higher salaries than university presidents, many call for reform to restore the balance between amateur athletics and the educational mission of schools. This book traces attempts at college athletics reform from 1855 through the early twenty-first century while analyzing the different roles played by students, faculty, conferences, university presidents, the NCAA, legislatures, and the Supreme Court. Pay for Play: A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform also tackles critically important questions about eligibility, compensation, recruiting, sponsorship, and rules enforcement. Discussing reasons for reformoto combat corruption, to level the playing field, and to make sports more accessible to minorities and womenoRonald A. Smith candidly explains why attempts at change have often failed. Of interest to historians, athletic reformers, college administrators, NCAA officials, and sports journalists, this thoughtful book considers the difficulty in balancing the principles of amateurism with the need to draw income from sporting events. Ronald A.Smith is professor emeritus of sports history at Penn State University and the author of several books, including Sports and Freedom: The Rise of Big-Time College Athletics and Play-by-Play: Radio, Television, and Big-Time College Sport. ... Read more

Product Description
Politics has always been an integral part of the Olympics - not an occasional intruder in the form of a boycott, protest, or act of terrorism. In this probing social history, distinguished by a lively mix of journalism and scholarship, Allen Guttmann discusses the intended and actual meaning of the modern Olympic Games, from 1896 to 2000. Recounting the memorable and significant athletic events of the Olympics in terms of their social and political impact, Guttmann demonstrates that the modern games were revived to propagate a political message and continue to serve political purposes. This second edition of Guttmann's critically acclaimed history includes coverage of the controversial tenure of Juan Antonio Samaranch as president of the International Olympic Committee, a period tainted by rising drug use among athletes and scandals accompanying the awarding of sites and marked by the debut of openly professional athletes and the significantly increased role of female athletes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Skims the surface
This is a frustrating book.On one hand, there is a lot of good detail and information on the inception and growth of the modern Olympic games.On the other, just when you think Guttmann is going to delve deeper into a topic he simply skips right on by and gives a quick recap of the medal winners in a given year.He barely even mentions the travesty of 1972 in Munich, and makes only passing mentions of some of the iconic moments of the last 50 years.Instead, he seems much more concerned with the behind the scenes wrangling amongst the various members of the IOC.Indeed, the subtitle of the book should be "A history of the IOC leadership."

Thus, a definitive history of the Olympic games remains to be written.Although the blurbs on the back claim this is a landmark in social and political history, it is anything but.Babe Didrickson, Billy Mills, etc are mentioned, but that's about it.Even his discussion of South Africa and the associated boycotts related to Apartheid are fractured and incomplete.

It's worth a read...but I wish I had visited the library for this one rather than spent my money on it.I recommend you do the same. ... Read more