Class+Plans

Week 1 (Jan. 3-6 1. Course Intro (See Home, Pre-Game Warm-Up); complete Pre-Game Warm-Up in class. Watch these two Sports and Society YouTube Glimpses. 2. Discuss Pre-Game Warm-Up Questions 1 and 2: How and why do sports matter so much to us? Discuss "In My Tribe." What are the elements that have made sports so meaningful to us?
 * HW: read Terry McDonnell, "In My Tribe" (//SI// 28 Nov. 2011).**

Choose Digital Poster Project topics. media type="youtube" key="xffOCZYX6F8" height="315" width="420" 3. MEET IN GLOVER MAC LAB! We'll get an introduction to the making of digital posters. Work on your project. Find great sources!
 * HW: Begin topic research (get some background, identify potentially useful sources).**
 * HW: read "Huron Country, 1637" from //American Indian Lacrosse: Little Brother of War.//**

Week 2 (Jan. 9-12) 1. Consider Pre-Game Warm-Up question 4 ( What sports/teams do you pay attention to the most? How much time do sports occupy in your life? How do you spend that time (attending, watching, reading, talking, participating)? How would young Huron Indians answer these questions? What are the differences between American Indian Lacrosse and modern American sports? 2. Colonial case studies: "Old" England, Puritan New England, the middle colonies, and colonial Virginia. In class, read Benjamin G. Rader, "Sports in Early America," //American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Televised Sports// (pp. 1-15) What are the similarities and differences between the treatment of sports and recreation in these various societies? 3. Definitions. What's a sport? Can we come up with a useful definition? What counts as a sport and what doesn't? 4. Discuss "Gander Pulling." How does this fit into our conception of sports? How is this activity similar to and different from sports as we know them in our lives?
 * HW: Work on Digital Poster Project**
 * HW: Work on Digital Poster Project**
 * HW: "Gander Pulling"**
 * HW: Work on Digital Poster Project**

Week 3 (Jan. 18-19) 1. In the Mac Lab: Finish Digital Poster Porject 2. Discuss Adelman's harness racing article. What elements made trotting a "modern" sport? What factors contributed to the modernization of harness racing? In what ways did changes in harness racing reflect changes in American society from 1825 to 1870?
 * HW: Read Melvin L. Adelman, "The First Modern Sport in America: Harness Racing in New York City, 1825-1870"**
 * HW: Read first half of Harold Peterson, "Baseball's Johnny Appleseed" (//Sports Illustrated//, 14 Apr 1969)**

Week 4 (Jan. 23-26) 1. Work through Alexander Cartwright's story. How does the Abner Doubleday myth differ from reality? How do the beginnings of baseball relate to the modernization of harness racing? Review "Henry Chadwick" glog. 2. Consider how baseball spread across the country and how it has changed (up to 1969 and beyond). Review "Cincinnati Redstockings" glog. 3. The "evolution" of baseball. Why did the Abner Doubleday myth persist? Which story is more fulfilling? Why? 4. Consider Walter Camp's contributions to the evolution of college football; what differentiated football at Yale and at Harvard? why? what have been the longer term repercussions? how do the changes in college football reflect changes in American society in the late Gilded Age?
 * HW: Finish Harold Peterson, "Baseball's Johnny Appleseed" (//Sports Illustrated//, 14 Apr 1969)**
 * HW: Stephen Gould, "This View of Life: The Creation Myths of Cooperstown" (//Natural History//, Nov. 1989)**
 * HW: David Westby and Allen Sack, "The Commercialization and Functional Rationalization of College Football" (//The Journal of Higher Education//, Nov/Dec 1976)**
 * HW: Richard Hoffer, "Fisticuffs: John L. Sullivan and Jake Kilrain in the Outlaw Brawl That Started It All" (//Sports Illustrated//, 6 May 2002)**

Week 5 (Jan. 30-Feb. 2) 1. Discuss the Sullivan-Kilrain fight. What's so different about this event? How does it compare to the changes we've seen in baseball and football? If Sullivan is the real story, what are the themes and ideas he represents? What if he's not the real story, though? What happens if you twist this narrative and put Richard Kyle Fox at the center? What themes and ideas emerge from that perspective? 2. Review Jim Thorpe glog. Watch ESPN's Jim Thorpe episode. What "sports and society" issues are developed by the Jim Thorpe story? 3. Slight change of plans: today in the Mac Lab looking at Teaching Project Reading List. 4. The Golden Age of Sports: what contributed to the passions for sports in the 1920s? What made this a "golden age"? Review multiple glogs (Jack Johnson, Red Grange, Harlem Rens)
 * HW: Joseph Bruchac, "The Life of Jim Thorpe," //Jim Thorpe: The World's Greatest Athlete—Study Guide// (Lillian Lincoln Foundation, 2006)**
 * HW: Douglas A. Noverr and Lawrence E. Ziewacz, "The Heroic Age: The Sports Explosion of the 1920s," //The Games They Played: Sports in American History, 1865-1980// (Nelson Hall, 1983)**
 * HW: Review Reading List; Review or finish "The Heroic Age"**
 * HW: Daniel Coyle, "Invisible Men" (//Sports Illustrated//, 15 Dec. 2003); have //Title IX// with you for class Monday**

Week 6 (Feb. 6-9) 1. What were sports like "behind the veil" for African Americans? What seem to be the similarities and differences between the Harlem Rens and the New York Brown Bombers? What is the power of history as it emerges in this story? 2. WINTER TEST #1 3. What are the most useful, most compelling, most revealing sources you found on the Jackie Robinson / Branch Rickey story? How do we best answer these questions: What factors—societal and personal—contributed to Jackie Robinson's breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball? What motivated Branch Rickey to make the move? What made Robinson an attractive candidate? What made the experiment successful? 4. Wrap the Jackie Robinson discussion. Begin //Ali//.
 * HW: TEST PREP!**
 * HW: Jackie Robinson Mini-research**
 * HW: Enter Sources on our Jackie Robinson Wiki Page**
 * HW: Complete Teaching Project Proposal, due Monday**

Week 7 (Feb. 13-16) 1. Teaching Project Proposal due; continue //Ali//. 2. Continue //Ali//. 3. Continue //Ali//. 4. Discuss race and sports with focus on Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Hank Aaron.
 * HW: Chris Mead, "Black Hero in a White Land" (//Sports Illustrated//, 16 Sep. 1985)—finish by Wednesday**
 * HW: Chris Mead, "Black Hero in a White Land" (//Sports Illustrated//, 16 Sep. 1985)—finish by tomorrow**
 * HW: Tom Verducci, "The People's King" (//Sports Illustrated//, 23 July 2007)**
 * HW: //Title IX//, pp. 1-18**

Week 8 (Feb. 22-23) 1. Discuss the introduction and early developments of Title IX. Why and how did this law come to pass? What were the immediate expectations? What have been the intended and unintended consequences? What issues have been (and sometimes remain) controversial? What are the illusions and the realities about the law? View "League of Their Own" and "Battle of the Sexes" glogs. 2. Discuss reactions to Title IX and Bernice Sandler's account of Title IX's genesis.
 * HW: //Title IX//, pp. 18-27; 35-42**
 * HW: //Title IX//, in groups: 1 (pp. 48-60); 2 (pp. 60-79); 3 (pp. 80-96)**

Week 9 (Feb. 27-Mar. 1) 1. Football's fears; court cases; 2. Differences between men's and women's sports. Fan interest, expectations, changing perceptions. 3. Watch //A Hero for Daisy//. 4. WINTER TEST #2
 * HW: //Title IX//, in groups: 1 (pp. 115-128); 2 (pp. 129-147); 3 (pp. 147-168)**
 * HW: None**
 * HW: Test Prep**