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15, No.1
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What's the perfect Father's Day gift for the NASCAR dad? How about a subscription to American Thunder, a new magazine dedicated to "the man who is as devoted to your way of life as you are to racing. Covering everything from hunting and fishing to music and the military, American Thunder helps you make the most of your weekend." The premiere edition, which features Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the cover, provides a column on useful decorating tips. For instance, the North Carolina-based Racing Furniture company manufactures all-leather sofas designed to look like the red flames painted on Jeff Gordon's car. The flames are "handcut by skilled craftsmen with an embroidered edge to create this outrageous glow." The sofas sell for $2,295. Also available are NASCAR-themed barstools for $79 (minimum order — two stools); Goodyear tires used in actual races ($49.95) and a reading lamp with a checkered-flag shade ($42.99). Add Thunder . . . The magazine also addresses whether the U.S. Army should spend over $10 million in taxpayer money to sponsor NASCAR Nextel Cup teams. Editor-in-chief Lucas Mast feels that investment is a good one because "What other event provides overwhelmingly patriotic fans who sing 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' the presentation of the colors by an honor guard, and the fly-over by military aircraft from local air bases — as part of a regular ceremony? In addition, what other audience is filled with veterans and supporters of America's passionate determination to protect our country and other nations?" Add Thunder . . . Columnist Jonathan Last contributes an article titled "The Decline and Fall of ESPN." He blames the "fall" of ESPN partly on "liberal politics," noting that, "Around the time ESPN started airing WNBA games, the network developed a fetish for Title IX, the government quota program that feminists have used to dismantle men's college athletics." Add Thunder . . . Last laments that "the network that functioned as the hub of man-culture for a quarter century has wussified. ESPN is no longer a 'sports' channel in any meaningful way." In other words, if we understand Last's "logic," women's sports really are not sports. Final Thunder . . . Maybe Last is referring to the poker tournaments and spelling bees on ESPN when he says ESPN is no longer a sports channel. If so, we are with him on that. Of course, you also could argue that a guy sitting in a car, gripping a steering wheel and turning in one direction mile after mile does not constitute a sport either.
The polar opposite of American Thunder is Her Sports, a new magazine for "strong, independent women who regard active sports as an important part of their life and self-image." The first two issues of the San Diego-based bi-monthly included feature articles on alternative medicine and rock climbing. Publisher Dawna Stone told her alma mater, the UCLA Anderson School of Management, that "I personally felt that I was left out by the magazines on the market today. There wasn't a magazine for people who were into individual sports like running and hiking and biking. A lot of my friends felt the same way, that there was a huge void in the market." Final magazine . . . Stone says that she is well aware of the many failures in this niche, including Women's Sports, Women's Sports and Fitness, and Sports Illustrated for Women. Said Stone: "SI for Women was wonderful, I was sad to see it go. But it covered professional athletes, and many women couldn't relate. Her Sports readers are real women, with kids and jobs and a very full schedule." The early word on the magazine? According to the Anderson School, "Her Sports occupies the niche between a fitness book like Shape and a sports magazine like Runner's World." Grossing some $120 million — and garnering a whopping seven Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture) — the movie "Seabiscuit" hogged headlines in 2003. Lost in the hoopla was the selection of another horse-themed film, "National Velvet," to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Each year, under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act, Librarian of Congress James Billington names 25 "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant motion pictures to the Registry. "National Velvet," the 1944 MGM classic that made a star of Elizabeth Taylor (and featured Mickey Rooney and a very young Angela Lansbury), is one of just eight sports-themed films to be included in the National Registry's 375 films, joining "The Black Stallion" (1979), "The Endless Summer" (1966), "The Freshman" (1925), "Hoosiers" (1986), "The Hustler" (1961), "Knute Rockne, All-American" (1940), and "Raging Bull" (1980). Add films . . . Meanwhile, the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000 established the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress "to maintain and preserve sound recordings and collections of sound recordings that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and for other purposes." In 2003, its second year of existence, the Registry added the radio broadcast of Game Four of the 1941 World Series, made famous by Brooklyn Dodgers' catcher Mickey Owens' dropped third strike. Two other sports-related recordings are included in the Registry: vaudevillian DeWolf Hopper's rendering of "Casey at the Bat" (1915), and Abbott and Costello's first radio broadcast of "Who's on First?" (1938). Add films . . . According to USA Today, 2004 is shaping up to be a huge year for sports films: "No fewer than nine sports films are on the horizon in 2004." The slate includes: "Dodgeball" (starring Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller), "Wimbledon" (starring Kirsten Dunst), "Friday Night Lights" (starring Billy Bob Thornton), and "Cinderella Man" (starring Russell Crowe as boxer James Braddock). According to director Charles Dutton, "When you do a sports movie right, it's great. But when they're bad, they're god-awful. People have high expectations, particularly when it's a sport they love." Apparently, Dutton didn't take his own advice: "Against the Ropes," a boxing-themed film that Dutton directed with Meg Ryan, opened in February and grossed just $5.8 million. Final films . . . A June 8 Los Angeles Times article profiled actor Jack Nicholson as "Laker fan." The article pointed out that, in the film "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," Nicholson had a brief, but memorable, scene on the basketball court. But, the Times neglected to mention Nicholson's other hoops-film connection. In 1971, he directed "Drive, He Said," a film about a rebellious college basketball player that featured Bruce Dern and Karen Black. Nicholson's debut directorial effort, "Drive, He Said" was the U.S. representative at Cannes 1971 and has become a cult classic.
The latest Olympic competition? That would be the "ROBOlympics," held in March at the Herbst Pavilion in San Francisco, featuring the burgeoning "sport" of robot competition. According to the Robotics Society of America, competitions included "Robot Soccer, Combat Robots (just like TV), Robot Triathlon, Ribbon Climber, Maze Solving, Ant Weight Combat, Robot Sumo, Hexapod Challenge, Biped Race, The Line Slalom, Lego Mindstorms Challenge, BEAM Competition, Aibo Performer, Best Of Show, and others!" A weekend VIP pass for the event went for a cool $500, while the top prize offered was $3,400 in the heavyweight "combat" competition. These folks can expect some additional heavy combat once the U.S. Olympic Committee gets wind of the use of the "Olympic" name.
Add cover . . . The Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, in January, published a profile and critique of Sports Illustrated senior writer and National Public Radio contributor Frank Deford. Glenn Bunting took Deford to task for a series of "factual errors or embellishments" in Deford's articles and broadcasts. One such error involved Deford's statement that "No major championship has ever been contested in Africa." When Bunting cited the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman heavyweight championship fight in Zaire in 1974, Deford replied: "Oh, I was thinking of a team championship . . . I think you're really nit-picking here. I really do." Add nits . . . Like Bunting, SportsLetter has questioned the veracity of some of Deford's grand pronouncements. And, we just cannot help ourselves on this Africa team thing. In the past decade, South Africa has hosted two major team championships: the 1995 Rugby World Cup and the 2003 Cricket World Cup. Final nits . . . The rugby championship attracted 1 million live spectators and a worldwide television audience of 2.67 billion. The host country won the 16-nation tournament, defeating New Zealand, 15-12, in the final before a crowd of 63,000. Fourteen nations played in the 2003 cricket championship. Some 626,845 spectators attended matches, while an estimated 1.2 billion television viewers watched around the world. Sounds pretty major to us. In fact, the success of the rugby and cricket championships was a factor in the decision to award South Africa the FIFA 2010 World Cup, the world's biggest sports event other than the Olympic Games.
It's been a banner twelve months for books about California-based high schools. Don Wallace wrote about the rivalry between the state's two winningest football teams, Long Beach Polytechnic and De La Salle, in "One Great Game: Two Teams, Two Dreams, in the First Ever National Championship High School Football Game" (Atria Books), while Neil Hayes concentrated on De La Salle in "When the Game Stands Tall: The Story of the De La Salle Spartans and Football's Longest Winning Streak" (Frog Ltd.). Now comes Michael Sokolove's "The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw" (Simon & Schuster), about the vaunted 1979 baseball team from Los Angeles' Crenshaw High School.
A new project in Toronto, called Olympic Spirit, is scheduled to debut in August. Approved by the International Olympic Committee and run by the International Spirit Development Organisation, "Olympic Spirit Centers are designed to embody the heart, soul and global achievements of the Olympic Games, bringing the Olympic ideals directly to the people of the world in an inspiring and participatory entertainment and educational attraction." A previous center operated in Munich, on a trial basis, in 1999-2000. The $40-million Toronto structure, designed as an Olympic-themed entertainment attraction, features numerous interactive exhibits, with the Winter Games-themed displays on the third floor, and the "summer" sports on the fourth. Wrote the Toronto Star's Neco Cockburn: "On the ground floor, a large torch display will meet visitors, along with a retail store and a virtual bobsleigh ride." Add Bob . . . Action sports rides and attractions are turning into big business. Outside Magazine, in its June issue, reports that, in the last two years, a dozen U.S. cities have constructed or re-modeled whitewater parks on downtown waterways. Meanwhile, thrill seekers in Utah — and we know who you are — can pony up $65 to ride "The Comet" bobsled at Utah Olympic Park. According to the non-profit Utah Athletic Foundation, which runs the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic legacy facilities (including Soldier Hollow and Utah Olympic Oval), "Bobsled passengers travel up to 70 miles per hour with 4 G's of force from the top of the Olympic track with the equivalent of a 40-story drop in just over a minute." Last Bob . . . In an effort to increase revenues, Utah Olympic Park recently broke ground on two "ziplines," one atop the K120 ski jump hill, the other on the winter freestyle aerial hill. According to the Utah Athletic Foundation, the ZipRider is "the word's most exciting no-sweat adrenaline ride." It mimics the sensation of ski jumping, as riders "fly through the air in a harness along one of eight cable lines," with a maximum speed of 55 mph. The "zip" rides, due to open on July 23, cost $15 and $20. In the last edition of SportsLetter, we noted that Bowlers Journal celebrated the 90th anniversary of the sport with a feature story titled "90 Defining Moments" in bowling history. Another "moment" occurred on April 10, when the University of Nebraska won the first-ever NCAA-sanctioned women's bowling championships, defeating New Jersey City University and Central Missouri State. Nebraska won in dramatic fashion as the title matches were completed despite delays caused by a power outage and tornado warning. According to the Omaha World-Herald, "ESPN . . . used its emergency generator to get its spotlights working around the two lanes used in competition. The rest of the Emerald Bowl was dark. A big fan was brought in to help keep the teams cool." Add bowling . . . Nebraska is a women's bowling powerhouse. It adopted bowling as a varsity sport in 1997 and has won six national titles (including those won at club level). Bowling, in NCAA parlance, is classified as an "emerging sport," one "intended to provide additional athletics opportunities to female student athletes." The NCAA requires 40 sponsoring institutions before a sport can hold a national championship. Last year, 42 schools sponsored women's bowling. Other emerging sports are: archery, badminton, equestrian, rugby, squash, synchronized swimming, and team handball. Final bowling . . . According to the NCAA, women's bowling is one of the fastest-growing sports at traditionally African-American colleges and universities. Of the 42 schools involved in NCAA bowling, 33 are historically black colleges in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, and the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association "It's hard to say whether that trend will maintain momentum," said Brian Graham, former director of collegiate bowling at College Bowling USA, "but it's tremendous that (historically black colleges and universities) took the initiative in developing bowling programs. Those coaches and athletics directors are very pleased with the results they've seen so far." The debate over the top American sports town continues. The Sporting News has ranked the "Best American Sports City" since 1993. The magazine takes a "12 month snapshot" of each city, putting a heavy premium on such criteria as "regular-season records; playoff berths, bowl appearances and tournament bids; overall fan fervor, measured in part by attendance as a percentage of stadium/arena capacity; franchise ownership; and marquee appeal of athletes." In its most recent survey (August 2003), the honor went to the hybrid region of Los Angeles-Anaheim, despite the fact that the area has not had an NFL franchise since 1995, followed by New York City-New Jersey, Oakland-San Francisco-San Jose, Philadelphia, and Dallas Fort-Worth. Not everyone agreed with the decision. Los Angeles-based talk-show host Jim Rome noted that "You can't merge LA and Anaheim into a single sports town: that implies one town, with one set of fans cheering on the home teams. But nothing could be further from the truth: There are two sets of fans and they hate each other. Well, Anaheim hates LA. Of course they do, everyone hates LA. And understandably so . . . . Best sports town in America? Uh-uh. Worst? Probably." Add ranking . . . Meanwhile, Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal, in March, published its own rankings, weighing such criteria as attendance per population, attendance per winning percentage, attendance per unemployment rate, franchise tenure, and TV score. SSSBJ ranked Denver number one, followed by San Francisco-Oakland, New York, Seattle, and Phoenix. SSSBJ ranked Los Angeles 16th. Add ranking . . . ESPN: The Magazine, February 16, takes a different approach in an article written by Peter Keating. Using fan survey data and a financial analysis by Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon, the magazine produces the "Ultimate Standings." This system ranks individual franchises from the pool of 121 MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL teams, and evaluates "which clubs truly give back to their fans — emotional and financially, as well as on the field, court or ice." According to ESPN, the top professional sports franchise is the San Antonio Spurs, followed by the Dallas Mavericks, the Green Bay Packers, the Detroit Pistons, and the Kansas City Chiefs. Final ranking . . . The Magazine noted, "for the moment, small-market teams have the edge in the battle to learn the mind — and earn the heart of the fan." Indeed, writes Keating, "big cities across the country are littered with franchises that corporations gobbled up during the Roaring '90s, then ran into the ground with no real appreciation for fans: Time-Warner in Atlanta, Fox in Los Angeles, Cablevision in New York City." It may or may not be true that these corporations failed to appreciate the fans, we question this "ran into the ground" claim. According to the 2003 Forbes MLB Valuations list, the Dodgers and Braves ranked fourth and sixth in value among the 30 Major League teams. The Braves were the epitome of on-field excellence during the 1990s, winning five National League titles and one World Series. The 2003 Forbes NBA Team Valuations put the Knicks in second place among 29 teams. Department of bad timing . . . When the editors of the "2004 Sports Illustrated Almanac" elected to begin their track and field section with a full-page photo of sprinter Kelli White, they had no way of knowing that she would draw a two-year suspension for doping violations. However, they probably should have anticipated the event coming up in Athens in August. The almanac includes a list of more than 50 major sports events in 2004. Somehow the 2004 Olympic Games didn't make the list.
Lynne Cox Long-distance swimming is gender-blind. One of the sport's first superstars was Gertrude Ederle, who set the record for swimming the English Channel (14 hours, 30 minutes) at the age of 20 and returned home to a ticker-tape parade. Previously, Ederle won two bronze medals in individual events and one gold medal in a relay at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games. In 1950, Florence Chadwick earned headlines when she broke Ederle's record in becoming the first woman to swim the Channel in both directions. Both are members of the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame. More recently, Diana Nyad capped her brilliant, decade-long career in 1979 with the longest swim in history, a 102.5-mile, two-day journey from the island of Bimini (Bahamas) to Florida. Lynne Cox may just be the greatest of them all. Born in New Hampshire, Cox grew up in Southern California. Before she had enrolled in high school, she was training daily in the Pacific Ocean. It was the beginning of a life-long love of open-water swimming. At age 14, she swam from Catalina Island to the California mainland. At age 16, she not only swam the English Channel, but shattered the men's world record. After graduating from University of California, Santa Barbara, Cox went global. She became the first person to swim the Strait of Magellan and the first to navigate the Bering Strait, from American territory to Russia, in 38-degree water. She also swam in the disease-infested waters of the Nile River, in the shark-infested waters off the Cape of Good Hope, and in 32-degree water in Antarctica. That's right: Antarctica. Having survived these and other aquatic adventures, Cox entered the rough-and-tumble waters of book publishing. Some 20 years after starting her first book, she emerged with a smart, entertaining memoir about her astonishing achievements. In "Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer" (Alfred Knopf), as she details her training methods, she also attempts to answer the question that many people ask her: "Why do you do what you do?" The answer, it seems, is both very simple and very complex: Lynne Cox swims because that means she's alive. Now 47, Cox spoke with SportsLetter by phone from her parents' home in Los Alamitos, Ca. —David Davis SportsLetter: Each of the swims you write about is so vivid, even though many of them took place years ago. Did you keep a journal? Lynne Cox: I kept notes and kept a journal. But there are many moments that I can never forget, that are imprinted in my brain. When you train so much and are so focused on one thing, you remember a lot. On the last re-write of the book, I cut things to the essence. I'd be swimming and thinking: 'Explain night swimming. Oh, black-and-white photography.' When you're swimming, you have so much time to stretch your imagination. SL: When did you decide to write this book? LC: I always wanted to be a writer. I was an avid reader as a kid, since I was nine-years-old. I remember just being in awe of people who could write and move me. I wanted to be able to do that, too. I started writing this book 21 years ago. It took incredible tenacity to get the book published. There were so many obstacles and rejection. It's just like on a swim when you thought you'd lined up a sponsorship and then it didn't come through. You just have to keep going. I went through 11 major re-writes. I went through four agents and I don't know how many rejections from publishers. One publisher told me, 'I love the story, but we think you should have a ghost-writer.' Well, I didn't want a ghost-writer. I felt that this is my story and I should be the one to tell it. Finally, I sent a 60-page outline to Anne Rice [author of, among others, "Interview with the Vampire" and a distant relative]. I basically asked her, 'Should I pursue this, or is it time to pursue something else?' She loved it — she said, 'This is a fantastic story,' — and asked me if it was okay to send it to her publisher. What was I going to do: say, 'No'? That helped me line up with my agent — and she got it . . . I brought it up to date — I condensed certain sections and added the part about the Antarctica swim — before it was published. SL: What did you learn from your experience? LC: I've learned to trust my own voice. I know that it's different from other writers. Really, the book is a metaphor for holding true to the dream. The essence of this process is having goals and dreams and then continuing to pursue them. SL: What else did you do during this time? LC: I would go and do another swim. I worked a lot of different jobs to raise money. I taught swimming. I was a massage therapist and a water therapist in Seal Beach. I worked as a substitute reference librarian in Orange County. I spent years trying to arrange the Bering Strait swim. I would ask the librarians advice about how to get a hold of [former U.S.S.R. President Leonid] Brezhnev and how to get my book published. SL: There have been several famous female long-distance swimmers, including Gertrude Ederle. Growing up, was she an idol of yours? LC: I knew about Gertrude, but I never met her or talked to her. I did get a chance to speak with Florence Chadwick before her death. I wrote her a note about my training methods, and she called and encouraged me. She said, 'You are right on track. Go for it.' Later, I met her at the La Jolla Rough Water Swim. She was both a great athlete and a great person. SL: When was the first time that you remember swimming and enjoying the water? LC: At Snow Pond in Maine — at my family's summer home — when I was 4 or 5 years old. Just the sense of looking at my hands under water and seeing them magnified. I remember looking at a leaf — and how it was green above the water and silver below the water — and seeing little flies skim across the water, looking like spiders. I had this instant fascination with the whole changing environment of the water. SL: You played water polo in high school and college: what was that experience like compared with competing solo. LC: I was actually the first girl in California to play high-school water polo — I played for the boys' team [at Los Alamitos High School]. The coach encouraged me to play, but the boys weren't convinced that they wanted a girl on the team. But when they saw that I worked just as hard as they did they began to accept me. My attitude was always positive. I was never 'one of the guys,' but I was a teammate. SL: Some of your swims — like the English Channel and Catalina — were established routes. Others — like the Bering Strait — were unique. What is the difference between being the first in something and attempting to break a record? LC: Doing a swim like the Bering Strait crossing is like climbing an unclimbed mountain — there's similar motivation to trying something new. It's just a horizontal challenge instead of a vertical one, and instead of climbing in stages over a week, you have to do it in one day. Either way it's challenging. With routes that had never been swum before, there's so much that is unknown. With the Antarctica swim I didn't know what the tides would do and how fast would they change. I had to deal with icebergs, killer whales, and leopard seals. You can only control certain things with your preparation, and then you just have to go. SL: Which swim do you consider your greatest? LC: Each one because I could not have done the next one without the one before. Bering Strait did open borders between the U.S. and Russia and elevated sport to a bigger level. I worked on that — I stuck with that idea — for 11 years. Antarctica was huge for me because I had to train in an entirely different way. I had to be in the greatest shape of my life because that was a situation where I could have hit the water and died. SL: Many of your swims — like to Antarctica — seem about setting personal challenges for yourself. Why do you keep extending yourself? What is the challenge for you? LC: I just know that I need to work out daily — I need to be doing that to be healthy — but I also need some focus when I work out. Having a goal focuses my attention and makes me productive. I think that pertains to my writing — I need to have a goal. The swim itself is important, of course, but part of the reason I do what I do is because it gives me a chance to go to these places. I want to see what it's like to be in Belize or wherever. I want to explore the world. SL: Your body — and its capacity to withstand extreme cold — has been the subject of medical research: What have scientists discovered about your body that is different than "normal" people's bodies? How have these studies helped scientific research? LC: They found that I'm able to close down the blood flow to the peripheral area — to skin, to fingers. I take that blood and throw it into the core of my body. My body says, lose the feet and hands. With other people, their blood eventually rushes out to protect their extremities. That way, they lose a lot of body heat. When I'm swimming, I'm working at 70-80 percent of my maximum. When you work at the maximum, you create heat. I have the muscle mass to create a lot of heat. I've got body fat well distributed over my body, and the body fat acts like an internal wet-suit. I'm not really proud of that, but it allows me to do this stuff. SL: What is it like to swim in 40-degree water? LC: Forty-degree water will take your breath away. You have to move your arms very fast, and you do not like putting your face into the water. SL: What about 38-degree water? LC: It's the next leap. Once you go below 40, the feel of the cold is exponential. It's more like 40 degrees lower than 2 degrees. SL: How do you train mentally for the swims? LC: I do what I need to do. When I was in Argentina, I trained for eight days down there. I took me all day to psyche myself up for my daily swim. But I knew that there was going to be no time to hesitate when I did the swim, so that became part of my preparation. I would go to the edge of the water, take my shoes off, and jump into the water. When you saw me walking down to the water with my goggles on, ready to jump in, that was my mental training. I was ready, I was focused. SL: What is the most difficult part of long-distance swimming for you: the physical aspect or the mental aspect? LC: I can't really separate them. People have said, 'Oh, it's 90 percent mental.' Well, if you're not physically ready, you can't do it. It's all together. One of the parts that is hard comes when you're tired and sore and hitting bad weather. You think: how long can I continue? Can I go further? Can I make progress? I mean, in the English Channel, I ended up swimming in place for an hour, making no progress because of the currents. It was liquid hell. Actually, I try to teach people about their body's limits. Early on, when I swam in the Nile River, I got sick and nearly died. I had to stop swimming. I was disappointed for a long time, but it taught me a great lesson. You need to listen to your body. You need to know when to stop, because you can always come back. SL: What is the most enjoyable part? LC: That moment when it all starts happening. You train hard for months, you plan the trip, you line up sponsors, you organize the local crew, and then you jump in the water. That's when it's most enjoyable: you have the whole experience to go through. SL: What is your training regimen? LC: These days I spend an hour in gym doing weights and cardio-vascular work. Then I spend an hour walking Cody, my yellow lab. I'll also do occasional swimming. SL: Are you training for a swim now? LC: There's no next swim right now. These things take time to plan, to research how to afford this. I have other books in mind and other swims. I want to take on new challenges, do new things. Last year, I learned how to scuba dive because a lot of my friends do that. It was awkward at first, but it was neat to look at everything below the surface of the water. SL: You still live in Southern California, near the Pacific: Could you ever live away from water? What is the attraction of water for you? LC: No, I don't think I could. I guess I'm attracted to the sense of wide open space that doesn't have any boundaries. It's what can be. There's nothing in the way, and it's always changing depending on the wind, the light, the weather. It's the place where we're buoyant, free of earth. I never realized the attraction until I went to visit a friend in Tulsa for ten days. I loved it, but it was . . . oh my God, so far from the ocean.
Recent scholarship on The Globalization of Cricket, Steve Prefontaine - Nineties Guy, French Canadian Hockey Salaries, Homophobia and Sports Talk Radio. The Globalization of Cricket: The Rise of the Non-West. Amit Gupta. International Journal of the History of Sport. 21 (2) 2004 The globalization of sport has involved a consolidation of talent, resources and influence in North America and Europe. Organizers plan major international events at times and places designed to maximize television audiences in these regions. The financial wealth of professional teams in "the North" draws talented athletes away from other parts of the world. The policy decisions that affect most international sports are made in Europe and North America. Cricket, however, represents an exception to this trend. Non-Western nations have begun to dominate not only on the field, but "more importantly, in shaping the economics and politics of the sport." This has happened because of "transnational" South Asian immigrant communities who support teams "across frontiers," technology that provides "real time coverage of the sport" and a decline of cricket in Britain that enables other centers of power to emerge. Steve Prefontaine: From Rebel With a Cause to Hero With a Swoosh. Theresa A. Walton. Sociology of Sport Journal. 21 (1) 2004 Steve Prefontaine, who died in 1975, was a media favorite. In the Seventies, the media framed Prefontaine as a working-class rebel who failed to achieve material significant success while calling for "structural changes" in the governance of track and field. During the 1990s, Prefontaine reemerged as an object of media attention largely through the efforts of Nike, which played a key role in shaping a documentary and two feature films about the runner. The reconstruction of the Prefontaine media persona "recontextualized and coopted" his rebelliousness. Prefontaine became a "commodified maverick celebrity . . . supporting the ideology of individualism in late consumer capitalism." The documentary and films "serve as extended commercials for Nike." Competition and Pay for National Hockey League Players Born in Québec. Michael A. Curme and Greg M. Daugherty. Journal of Sports Economics. 5 (2) 2004 Recent studies have suggested that Canadian NHL teams outside Quebec engage in "salary discrimination" against French Canadian players. This study confirms that a "wage penalty" exists, but is unable to determine why this is so. It may be due to anti-French Canadian prejudice, or other factors. Future research may resolve the issue. When in Rome: Heterosexism, Homophobia, and Sports Talk Radio. David Nylund. Journal of Sport & Social Issues. 28 (2) 2004 Sports talk radio shows generally "reinscribe dominant ideologies, namely, hegemonic masculinity." The popular "Jim Rome Show," while reinforcing many aspects of traditional sexism, also demonstrates that the discourse heard on sports talk radio and the audience perceptions of the program are more complex than first appearances would suggest. For example, Rome, despite his aggressive and confrontational style, has been critical of homophobia in sport. Based on an analysis of the show's content and interviews with patrons of sports bars, the author concludes that the "Jim Rome Show" is a "mediated site where men can negotiate and reconfigure masculinity in contemporary postmodern times."
No need to read between the lines on this one. Meet "Bookie" the mascot of the May 2004 African University Games in Bauchi, Nigeria.
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