Best Joshua Ballantine Podcasts (2025)

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Scott Beekman, "The Last Gladiator: William Muldoon and the Making of American Sports" (U Texas Press, 2025) 41:21

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4d ago41:21

41:21

William Muldoon was an infamous athlete whose prowess, savvy, and chicanery across his six-decade career led him to wealth, cultural importance, and political power. Muldoon, the child of poor Irish immigrants, began wrestling in the 1870s and quickly became one of the most famous athletes of the post–Civil War era. He started acting and modeling a…

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Aaron L. Miller, "Basketball in Japan: Shooting for the Stars" (Routledge, 2024) 1:03:34

9d ago1:03:34

1:03:34

Today we are joined by Aaron Miller, Lecturer in Kinesiology at California State University, East Bay and the author of Basketball in Japan: Shooting for the Stars (Routledge, 2025.) In our conversation, we discussed the beginnings of basketball in Japan, the ongoing legacy of Samurai culture in Japanese sport, and what Japanese basketball’s succes…

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Wade Davies, "Native Hoops: The Rise of American Indian Basketball, 1895-1970" (UP of Kansas, 2020) 55:41

1M ago55:41

55:41

The game of basketball is perceived by most today as an “urban” game with a locale such as Rucker Park in Harlem as the game’s epicenter (as well as a pipeline to the NBA). While that is certainly a true statement, basketball is not limited to places such as New York City. In recent years scholars have written about the meaning of the game (and tri…

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Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football 58:04

1M ago58:04

58:04

Big-time college football promises prestige, drama, media attention, and money. Yet most athletes in this unpaid, amateur system encounter a different reality, facing dangerous injuries, few pro-career opportunities, a free but devalued college education, and future financial instability. In one of the first ethnographies about Black college footba…

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Doug Levy, "Hero Redefined: Profiles of Olympic Athletes Under the Radar" (Clever Cleever, 2025) 56:33

1M ago56:33

56:33

Heroes aren’t just the ones who bring home medals. Hero Redefined: Profiles of Olympic Athletes Under the Radar (Clever Cleever, 2025) delves into the lesser-known stories of Olympic athletes—and a couple of special Olympic venues—that challenge the conventional narrative of glory and gold. In riveting personal profiles exploring herculean feats of…

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Matthew Goodman, "The City Game: Triumph, Scandal, and a Legendary Basketball Team" (Ballantine Books, 2019) 50:28

2M ago50:28

50:28

The 1949-50 CCNY Beavers basketball team were one of the unlikeliest of champions in sports history. CCNY was a tuition-free in Harlem, New York, intended to give working class students the best education possible. The school was comprised of minorities, many of whom were the immigrants or children of immigrants. In 1949-50, the CCNY squad, led by …

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César Brioso, "Last Seasons in Havana: The Castro Revolution and the End of Professional Baseball In Cuba" (U Nebraska Press, 2019) 42:49

2M ago42:49

42:49

Today we are joined by César Brioso, author of the book Last Seasons in Havana: The Castro Revolution and the End of Professional Baseball In Cuba (University of Nebraska Press, 2019). Blending the love for baseball fans in Cuba had during the 1950s with the political upheaval that led to Fidel Castro’s rise to power in 1959, Brioso weaves a fascin…

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Brendan O'Meara, "The Front Runner: The Life of Steve Prefontaine" (HarperCollins, 2025) 54:28

3M ago54:28

54:28

In the fifty years since his tragic death in a car crash, Steve Prefontaine has towered over American distance running. One of the most recognizable and charismatic figures to ever run competitively in the United States, Prefontaine has endured as a source of inspiration and fascination—a talent who presaged the American running boom of the late 19…

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Joseph Darda, "Gift and Grit: Race, Sports, and the Construction of Social Debt" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 1:10:15

3M ago1:10:15

1:10:15

In 1998, Bill Clinton hosted a town hall on race and sports. 'If you've got a special gift,' the president said of athletes, 'you owe more back.' Gift and Grit shows how the sports industry has incubated racial ideas about advantage and social debt since the civil rights era by sorting athletes into two broad categories. The gifted athlete received…

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Julia Brock, "Closed Seasons: The Transformation of Hunting in the Modern South" (UNC Press, 2025) 51:23

3M ago51:23

51:23

In a unique and personal exploration of the game and fish laws in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi from the Progressive Era to the 1930s, Julia Brock offers an innovative history of hunting in the New South. The implementation of conservation laws made significant strides in protecting endangered wildlife species, but it also disrupted traditional…

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Christopher Clarey, "The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay" (Grand Central Publishing, 2025) 1:11:22

3M ago1:11:22

1:11:22

In The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay (Grand Central Publishing, 2025) Christopher Clarey illuminates the skill and determination it took to accomplish Rafael Nadal’s most mind-blowing achievement: 14 French Open titles. Nadal has won big on tennis's many surfaces en route to becoming one of the greatest players of all time: securing…

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Jack Black and Joseph S Reynoso eds., "Sport and Psychoanalysis: Sport and Psychoanalysis: What Sport Reveals about Our Unconscious Desires, Fantasies, and Fears" (Lexington Books, 2024) 1:03:32

3M ago1:03:32

1:03:32

Sport and Psychoanalysis: What Sport Reveals about Our Unconscious Desires, Fantasies, and Fears (Lexington Books, 2024) explores the intersection of sport and psychoanalysis, emphasizing the often-overlooked psycho-social dimensions underpinning the experience of sport. In this podcast, Jordan Osserman speaks to editors Jack Black and Joseph S. Re…

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Harrison Browne and Rachel Browne, "Let Us Play: Winning the Battle for Gender Diverse Athletes" (Beacon Press, 2025) 40:58

4M ago40:58

40:58

The debate over the inclusion of gender diverse people in sport has become the latest battleground in the fight for basic human rights and equality. Trans and nonbinary people around the world are facing physical harm and violence—including death—at unprecedented rates. In Let Us Play: Winning the Battle for Gender Diverse Athletes (Beacon Press, 2…

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Joshua K. Wright, "The NBA's Global Empire: How the League Became an International Powerhouse" (McFarland, 2025) 1:08:17

4M ago1:08:17

1:08:17

Joshua K. Wright, The NBA's Global Empire: How the League Became an International Powerhouse (McFarland, 2025) During the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, the Dream Team, a collective of the National Basketball Association's top talent led by Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Charles Barkley, shook up the world as they amazed spectato…

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Andrew Forbes, "McCurdle's Arm: A Fiction" (Invisible Publishing, 2024) 57:58

4M ago57:58

57:58

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Andrew Forbes about his phenomenal novella, McCurdle’s Arm: A Fiction (Invisible Publishing, July 16, 2024). Southern Ontario, 1892. The Ashburnham Pine Groves are a semi-professional baseball club in the South Western Ontario Base-Ball Players’ Association, sponsored by the Grafton Brewery, make…

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Gennifer Weisenfeld, "The Fine Art of Persuasion: Corporate Advertising Design, Nation, and Empire in Modern Japan" (Duke UP, 2025) 42:44

4M ago42:44

42:44

Commercial art is more than just mass-produced publicity; it constructs social and political ideologies that impact the public’s everyday life. In The Fine Art of Persuasion: Corporate Advertising Design, Nation, and Empire in Modern Japan (Duke University Press, 2025), Gennifer Weisenfeld examines the evolution of Japanese advertising graphic desi…

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Dionne Koller, "More Than Play: How Law, Policy, and Politics Shape American Youth Sport" (U California Press, 2025) 31:52

5M ago31:52

31:52

Tens of millions of children in the United States participate in youth sport, a pastime widely believed to be part of a good childhood. Yet most children who enter youth sport are driven to quit by the time they enter adolescence, and many more are sidelined by its high financial burdens. Until now, there has been little legal scholarly attention p…

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Elyssa Ford and Rebecca Scofield, "Slapping Leather: Queer Cowfolx at the Gay Rodeo" (U Washington Press, 2023) 1:17:41

5M ago1:17:41

1:17:41

What would a rodeo open to anyone and everyone look like? In their new book, Slapping Leather: Queer Cowfolx at the Gay Rodeo (U Washington, 2023), history professors Elyssa Ford (Northwest Missouri State) and Rebecca Scofield (University of Idaho) argue that the International Gay Rodeo Associaton (IGRA) provides a template. Founded in the 1970s as…

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Courtney M. Cox, "Double Crossover: Gender, Media, and Politics in Global Basketball" (U Illinois Press, 2025) 1:02:06

5M ago1:02:06

1:02:06

As they compete in leagues around the world, elite women’s basketball players continually adjust to new cultures, rules, and contracts. Courtney M. Cox follows athletes, coaches, journalists, and advocates of women’s basketball as they pursue careers within the sport. Despite all attempts to contain them or prevent forward momentum, they circumvent…

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Brian M. Ingrassia, "Speed Capital: Indianapolis Auto Racing and the Making of Modern America" ( 37:31

5M ago37:31

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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…

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Katie Rose Hejtmanek, "The Cult of CrossFit: Christianity and the American Exercise Phenomenon" (NYU Press, 2025) 1:05:28

5M ago1:05:28

1:05:28

CrossFit in the United States has become increasingly popular, around which a fascinating culture has developed which shapes everyday life for the people devoted to it. CrossFit claims to be many things: a business, a brand, a tremendously difficult fitness regimen, a community, a way to gain salvation, and a method to survive the apocalypse. In Th…

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Jonathan D. Cohen, "Losing Big: America's Dangerous Sports Gambling Boom" (Columbia Global Reports, 2025) 56:01

5M ago56:01

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In 2018, the United States Supreme Court opened the floodgates for states to legalize betting on sports. Eager for revenue, almost forty states have done so. The result is the explosive growth of an industry dominated by companies like FanDuel and DraftKings. One out of every five American adults gambled on sports in 2023, amounting to $121 billion…

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Maurice Jackson, "Rhythms of Resistance and Resilience: How Black Washingtonians Used Music and Sports in the Fight for Equality" (Georgetown UP, 2025) 55:35

6M ago55:35

55:35

In the Nation's Capital, music and sports have played a central role in the lives of African Americans, often serving as a barometer of social conflict and social progress―for sports clubs and ball games, jam sessions and concerts, offered entertainment, enlightenment, and encouragement. At times, they have also offered a means of escape from the h…

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Christian Sheppard, "The Ancient Wisdom of Baseball: Lessons for Life from Homer's Odyssey to the World Series" (Greenleaf, 2025) 58:28

6M ago58:28

58:28

Who are you, how are you supposed to live, and what about happiness? Answers to age-old questions are offered in classic myths about heroes, gods, and monsters, and at the ballgame. In The Ancient Wisdom of Baseball (Greenleaf, 2025), author Christian Sheppard interweaves Homer’s epics with glorious stories from the green fields of America’s pastim…

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Jason Cannon, "A Time for Reflection: The Parallel Legacies of Baseball Icons Willie McCovery and Billy Williams" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025) 1:04:24

6M ago1:04:24

1:04:24

Professional baseball has featured a bevy of superstars over the past century and a half, but only a few of them have impacted their sport and cities as deeply as Willie McCovey and Billy Williams. Born just a handful of miles apart in 1938, they grew up in and around one of the sport’s true cradles, Mobile, Alabama, on their way to producing two i…

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D. D. Miller, "Eight-wheeled Freedom: The Derby Nerd's Short History of Flat Track Roller Derby" (Wolsak and Wynn, 2016) 1:01:17

6M ago1:01:17

1:01:17

NBN host Hollay Ghadery chats with author D. D. Miller about the fascinating sport of roller derby. As the Derby Nerd, Miller covered roller derby since 2009, travelling to games across Canada and the United States, including two world championships, reporting back to an ever-growing audience the details of the sport. In this entertaining and thoro…

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Tracie Canada, "Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football" (U California Press, 2025) 1:11:16

6M ago1:11:16

1:11:16

Big-time college football promises prestige, drama, media attention, and money. Yet most athletes in this unpaid, amateur system encounter a different reality, facing dangerous injuries, few pro-career opportunities, a free but devalued college education, and future financial instability. In one of the first ethnographies about Black college footba…

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Mike Sielski, "Magic in the Air: The Myth, the Mystery, and the Soul of the Slam Dunk" (St. Martin's Press, 2025) 55:16

7M ago55:16

55:16

The evolution of basketball, and much of the social and cultural change in America, can be traced through one powerful act on the court: the slam dunk. The dunk's history is the story of a sport and a country changed by the most dominant act in basketball, and it makes Magic in the Air: The Myth, the Mystery, and the Soul of the Slam Dunk (St. Mart…

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Stan Bunger, "Mornings with Madden: My Radio Life With An American Legend" (Triumph, 2024) 1:04:33

8M ago1:04:33

1:04:33

John Madden is synonymous with football. He was the television face and voice of the nation's most popular sport, the namesake of its best-selling sports video game, and the man with the highest career winning percentage of any NFL coach. Despite his international fame, there was a side of Madden known only to those who listened to morning radio br…

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Michael Ray Richardson, "Banned: How I Squandered an All-Star NBA Career Before Finding My Redemption" (Sports Publishing, 2024) 57:04

9M ago57:04

57:04

Michael Ray Richardson was a star in the making. After a stellar collegiate career at the University of Montana, where he was voted first team All-Big Sky Conference as a sophomore, junior, and senior, the future seemed bright. Taken fourth overall in the 1978 NBA Draft by the New York Knicks, Richardson was billed as “the next Walt Frazier.” In ju…

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John Eglin, "The Gambling Century: Commercial Gaming in Britain from Restoration to Regency" (Oxford UP, 2023) 53:42

9M ago53:42

53:42

John Eglin talks with Jana Byars about The Gambling Century: Commercial Gaming in Britain from Restoration to Regency (Oxford UP, 2023). Gambling captures as nothing else the drama of the "long eighteenth century" between the age of religious wars and the age of revolutions. The society that was confronted with games of chance pursued as commercial…

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Neil Atkinson, "Transformer: Klopp, the Revolution of a Club and Culture" (Canongate, 2024) 43:42

9M ago43:42

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How did Jurgen Klopp change Liverpool? In Transformer: Klopp, the Revolution of a Club and Culture (Canongate, 2024), Neil Atkinson, host of The Anfield Wrap tells the story of Klopp’s time at the football club and in the city. The book ranges widely, from socio-cultural history, through personal memoir, to tactical analysis and contemplations on t…

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Bob Kuska, "Balls of Confusion: Pro Baskelball Goes to War (1965-1970)" (From Way Downtown, 2024) 1:11:55

10M ago1:11:55

1:11:55

Balls of Confusion: Pro Basketball Goes to War(1965-70) is the first of a two-part story about one of the most transformative events inpro basketball history: the war between the National Basketball Association and its challenger the American Basketball Association (ABA).From this nine-year battle for the heart of the game, modern pro basketball em…

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Postscript: Violence, Consent, and Coercion in American Football 1:17:26

10M ago1:17:26

1:17:26

Last week, the press focused on what the press repeatedly characterized as an “ugly” fight between American college football players that broke out after the University of Michigan beat The Ohio State. But another story received less attention. Medrick Burnett Jr., a 20 year old from Southern California was playing his first season as a linebacker …

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Voices Part 1: Hut-Hut-Hike 31:27

10M ago31:27

31:27

In this first episode of a three-part series called Voices, we’re listening to the sound of American football—specifically the role of voices in the NFL. We start with a rather quirky story from NFL history that speaks to how the voice intersects with our ideologies around both disability and gender. It’s about a player whose voice stopped working …

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Daniel S. Goldberg, "Tackle Football and Traumatic Brain Injuries: Law, Ethics, and Public Health" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024) 1:00:15

10M ago1:00:15

1:00:15

Football is the national game in the United States – and many families and friends bond over their love of the sport. While few people play professional football, many participate in tackle football as children and adolescents. In the last decades, more attention has been paid to the dangers of playing tackle football, including traumatic brain inj…

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Angelique Chengelis, "Michigan Vs. Everybody: Inside the Wolverines’ 2023 National Championship Season" (Triumph Books, 2024) 1:10:02

11M ago1:10:02

1:10:02

In Michigan Vs. Everybody: Inside the Wolverines’ 2023 National Championship Season (Triumph Books, 2024), The Detroit News' Angelique Chengelis expertly retraces an unforgettable championship season. Featuring in-depth reporting and an unforgettable cast of characters including Jim Harbaugh, J.J. McCarthy, Roman Wilson, and Junior Colson, this is …

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Seth E. Jenny et al., "Routledge Handbook of Esports" (Routledge, 2024) 33:37

11M ago33:37

33:37

The Routledge Handbook of Esports (Routledge, 2024) offers the first fully comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of esports, one of the fastest growing sectors of the contemporary sports and entertainment industries. Global in coverage, the book emphasizes the multifaceted nature of esports and explores the most pressing issues defining the compet…

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Mirin Fader, "Dream: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon" (Hachette, 2024) 44:32

11M ago44:32

44:32

It’s now the norm for NBA and collegiate teams to have international players dotting their rosters. The Olympics are no longer a gimme for Team USA. Both via fans streaming from all over the globe and leagues starting in countries throughout the world, the international presence of the game of basketball is a force to be reckoned with. That all sta…

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Richard Moss, "Tale of Two Halves: The History Of Football Video Games" (Bitmap Books, 2024) 36:28

11M ago36:28

36:28

Painstakingly researched and written by football-obsessed writer and experienced game journalist, historian, and documentarian Richard Moss – author of Bitmap's own The Secret History of Mac Gaming – A Tale of Two Halves: The History Of Football Video Games stays keenly on the ball as it shares the rich and influential history of video game footbal…

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Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek Silva, "The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game" (UNC Press, 2024) 1:08:05

11M ago1:08:05

1:08:05

In The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game (UNC Press, 2024), Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek Silva offer an existential challenge to one of America's favorite pastimes: college football. Drawing on twenty-five in-depth interviews with former players from some of the country's most prominent college football teams, Kalma…

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Larry E. Holmes, "Win or Else: Soviet Football in Moscow and Beyond, 1921–1985" (Indiana UP, 2024) 38:45

11M ago38:45

38:45

In Win or Else: Soviet Football in Moscow and Beyond, 1921-1985 (Indiana University Press, 2024), Larry E. Holmes shows us how Soviet football culture regularly disregarded official ideological and political imperatives and skirted the boundaries between socialism and capitalism. In the early 1920s, the Soviet press denounced football as a bourgeoi…

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Brad Balukjian, "The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Wrestlemania" (Hachette, 2024) 59:45

12M ago59:45

59:45

In 2005, Brad Balukjian left his position as a magazine fact-checker to pursue a dream job: partner with his childhood hero, The Iron Sheik (whose real name was Khosrow Vaziri), to write his biography. Things quickly went south, culminating in the Sheik threatening Balukjian’s life. Now seventeen years later, Balukjian returns to the road in search…

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Jamie Michaels and Doug Fedrau, "Christie Pits" (Dirty Water Comics, 2019) 46:09

12M ago46:09

46:09

A gritty ride through Toronto's immigrant neighbourhoods, Christie Pits (Dirty Water Comics, 2019) tells the incredible true story of when young Jewish and Italian immigrants squared off against Nazi-inspired thugs on the streets of Toronto. This is the history of a gruff and unrecognizable Canada - one of 'swastika clubs' and public bigotry.A home…

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Uroš Kovač, "The Precarity of Masculinity: Football, Pentecostalism, and Transnational Aspirations in Cameroon" (Berghahn Books, 2022) 1:13:27

1y ago1:13:27

1:13:27

A compelling work that explores the lives and aspirations of young footballers with deep nuance and insight, The Precarity of Masculinity: Football, Pentecostalism, and Transnational Aspirations in Cameroon (Berghahn Books, 2022) shows how precarious masculinity, Pentecostal spirituality, and aspirations of prosperous futures are intertwining and i…

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Jennifer Domino Rudolph, "Baseball as Mediated Latinidad: Race, Masculinity, Nationalism, and Performances of Identity" (Ohio State UP, 2020) 1:03:25

1y ago1:03:25

1:03:25

In her incisive study Baseball as Mediated Latinidad: Race, Masculinity, Nationalism, and Performances of Identity (Ohio State University Press, 2020), Jennifer Domino Rudolph analyzes major league baseball’s Latin/o American players—who now make up more than twenty-five percent of MLB—as sites of undesirable surveillance due to the historical, pol…

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Julie Kliegman, "Mind Game: An Inside Look at the Mental Health Playbook of Elite Athletes" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) 43:35

1y ago43:35

43:35

In growing numbers, athletes are speaking up about their struggles with mental illness—including high-profile stars such as Michael Phelps, Kevin Love, Simone Biles, and Naomi Osaka. More disclosures are surely on the way, as athletes recognize that their openness can help others and inspire those around them. In Mind Game: An Inside Look at the Me…

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Ben Kaplan and Danny Parkins, "Pipeline to the Pros: How D3 Small-College Nobodies Rose to Rule the NBA" (Triumph Books, 2024) 54:13

1y ago54:13

54:13

Today I talked to Ben Kaplan about his new book (co-authored with Danny Parkins) Pipeline to the Pros: How D3 Small-College Nobodies Rose to Rule the NBA (Triumph Books, 2024). Jeff Van Gundy. Brad Stevens. Frank Vogel. Mike Budenholzer. Tom Thibodeau. Sam Presti. Leon Rose. Before you knew his name, before he drafted your favorite player, before h…

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Kristin J. Jacobson, "The American Adrenaline Narrative" (U Georgia Press, 2020) 55:56

1y ago55:56

55:56

Kristin J. Jacobson In her new book, The American Adrenaline Narrative (University of Georgia Press), Kristin Jacobson considers the nature of perilous outdoor adventure tales, their gendered biases, and how they simultaneously promote and hinder ecological sustainability. To explore these themes, Jacobson defines and compares adrenaline narratives…

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Adam Berg, "The Olympics that Never Happened: Denver '76 and the Politics of Growth" (U Texas Press, 2023) 44:50

1+ y ago44:50

44:50

If you don't recall the 1976 Denver Olympic Games, it's because they never happened. The Mile-High City won the right to host the winter games and then was forced by Colorado citizens to back away from its successful Olympic bid through a statewide ballot initiative. In The Olympics that Never Happened: Denver '76 and the Politics of Growth (Univer…