sports

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• SOURCE: Defector
  4/26/2023
  

  FBI Releases Bill Russell's File, Which Includes Allegation of Betting Against Own Team

  The Bureau's file on the late NBA star demonstrates their suspicion of the civil rights movement and disdain for politically engaged Black athletes. It also contains a memo alleging Russell placed a significant wager against the Celtics as player-coach, although many known facts and lack of follow-up make that allegation doubtful. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/17/2023
  

  New York State Faces Local Backlash for Ban on Native Team Names

  New York's state Board of Regents estimates that 60 school districts still use Native-related nicknames or iconography. Under new policies, those schools would lose funding if they don't change the names. 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  3/21/2023
  

  Historian's Book on 1970s NBA Shows Racial Politics around Basketball Have Always Been Ugly

  by Jay Caspian Kang

  The decade saw Black players become dominant in the league and assert their rights as skilled workers. Owners pushed back through the media, smearing the players as entitled drug abusers, as historian Theresa Runstedtler's new book explains. 

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  3/6/2023
  

  The NBA Embraced Blackness in the 1970s—Moral Panic Ensued

  Theresa Runstedtler looks at the NBA's key transitional decade as a time when Black players didn't simply change the style of play but demanded fair treatment for the value created by their skilled labor, following the ethos of civil rights and Black Power. 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  2/11/2023
  

  Medical Historians: We've Been Taught to Forget What We Used to Know about Head Injuries in Sports

  Stephen Casper, Emily Harrison and Jeremy Greene argue that league-affiliated researchers who claim the jury is out about whether head injuries in competition contribute to long-term cognitive and mental deterioration are ignoring a long archive of medical studies that solidifies the link. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  2/12/2023
  

  Why Did it Take Until 2023 for Two Black QB's to Start the Super Bowl?

  by Kate Aguilar

  While Patrick Mahomes bested Jalen Hurts in Sunday's Super Bowl, historically the game signified the slow eclipse of prejudices keeping Black players from the all-important quarterback position.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/12/2023
  

  Why Won't Her College Honor "Queen of Basketball" by Renaming its Arena?

  Luisa Harris didn't just lead the Delta State Lady Statesmen to three consecutive championships in the early 1970s. She helped integrate the basketball program and the college. Is that the reason why her name and image are so conspicuously absent today? 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  12/18/2022
  

  The Qatar World Cup is History

  by Laurent Dubois

  The World Cup, more than any previous version, symbolizes the contradictions of the joy of play being entangled with nationalism, global capitalism, and repressive theocratic autocracy. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/9/2022
  

  Is Messi the Avatar of a Post-Macho Argentina?

  by Brenda Elsey

  Lionel Messi's tenure at the top of the soccer world has coincided with an upsurge of feminism in Argentina and its sports culture, changes Messi has quietly supported. 

• 
• 12/11/2022
  

  Kyrie Irving Just the Latest Outspoken Athlete to Go Rogue

  by Greg Kaliss

  It's entirely fair for the Nets' guard to face criticism for his boosting of an antisemitic film, but the uproar carries the risk of silencing athletes who might otherwise use their public platforms for political advocacy. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/24/2022
  

  Despite Defeat, Iran's Footballers Won

  by Golnar Nikpour

  Iranian players' show of solidarity with protesters facing government repression has been more important than the results on the pitch. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/22/2022
  

  Eastern Europe Brought Soccer Into the Modern Age. Why is it a Wasteland Now?

  A legacy of innovation spurred by Hungarian clubs in the 1930s and 1950s sustained high quality soccer in eastern Europe through the fall of communism, but changing economic and social currents have diminished the competitiveness of former eastern bloc countries in today's big-money game. 

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• SOURCE: Jacobin
  11/20/2022
  

  Qatar Isn't The First Regime to Polish its Image With a World Cup

  Despite "disappearing" 30,000 political opponents, FIFA allowed Argentina's military dicatorship to host the 1978 World Cup. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/9/2022
  

  Ora Washington was a Champion in the Segregated World of Tennis, But Died in Obscurity

  Dominant in African American tennis (and basketball) competition, Washington never had the opportunity to test her ability against the champions of the white tennis establishment. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/4/2022
  

  Corporate America Copied the NFL's "Rooney Rule"—But Also its Lack of Enforcement

  The NFL teams' agreement to interview minority candidates for coaching jobs always had a fault: nothing happened to teams who abused the process and interviewed candidates with no intention of hiring them. 

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• SOURCE: Al Jazeera
  9/28/2022
  

  "Misogynoir" Exemplified in the Degradation of Black Women Athletes

  by Donald Earl Collins

  The treatment of basketball star Brittney Griner by Russian authorities (and the indifference to her case by many Americans) shows that Black women athletes still have to navigate a world of racism and sexism that diminishes their achievements and their security. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/20/2022
  

  National Archives Exhibition Challenges the Meritocratic, Democratic Myths of American Sports

  Sports have long served as a means of inculcating the values of the dominant groups in American society, and sometimes to challenge them. The first sports-related exhibition at the National Archives Museum curates documents and artifacts to tell the story. 

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• SOURCE: Christianity Today
  9/20/2022
  

  "Passion Plays": The Overlap of Sports Fandom and American Christianity

  by Paul Emory Putz

  A reviewer notes that a new book by a leading interpreter of American evangelical culture may raise important awareness about the wonderment and faith inherent in sports fandom, but leaves out some discussion of how sports support an increasingly masculinist Christianity. 

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• SOURCE: Athletic Director U
  8/1/2022
  

  The Power 5 Conferences Should Split Revenues with College Football Players

  by Victoria Jackson

  Another college football season means another chance to demand that universities and the NCAA recognize a fundamental fact about the dangerous and isolating work performed by players: they are not student-athletes, but employees of the football team. 

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• SOURCE: YouTube
  8/3/2022
  

  Remember Vin Scully With His Classic Call of the Last Outs of Sandy Koufax's Perfect Game

  The legendary broadcaster's ability to say just enough to frame the drama of a moment without overshadowing it was on full display on September 9, 1965 at Dodger Stadium.