Calling Sports Sociology Off the Bench
Page 3
into the fray
Burgos and Kane both demonstrate how research can begin to breach the higher echelons of the athletic industrial complex. But much more humble, grassroots methods can accomplish this as well.
Sports sociologists and sports sociology programs—be they ghettoized on campuses in Cultural Studies or Kinesiology—should fight to have a sports and society column in their college paper. Every sports sociology student should try to intern in his or her school’s athletic department. Professors should actively seek to intervene in local sports radio. Book proposals should be submitted to non-academic, commercial presses. The art of blogs should continue, as it has started, to be integrated into a curriculum.
In fact, sociologists interested in sports should take a cue from Providence College and actively liaison with athletic directors to break down divisions on campus between the jocks and those studying them.
The athletic industrial complex keeps throwing pitch after juicy pitch down the middle of the plate. It’s time for sports sociologists to get the bats off their shoulders and begin to shape debates within the sports world.
more dave zirin
- You can read Zirin’s weekly column at his website, edgeofsports.com.
- Zirin hosts a weekly radio show, Edge of Sports Radio, every Saturday at 12 noon (ET) on XM Channel 167. In a regular segment on the show, “Ask a Sports Sociologist,” Zirin talks with sociologists of sport about their research. You can listen to the show online here.
- The Nation interviews Zirin on politics, sports and sports journalism.
sports journalism today
Here are links to some of the blogs and articles Zirin discusses in the article:
- deadspin.com: the sports blog that took on Bob Costas and Buzz Bissinger
- Does sports journalism suck?, by Michael Rowe in the Utne Reader
- Watch Buzz Bissinger and Will Leitch on Costas Now arguing about the value of blogs in sports commentary:
sports sociologists
Here are some of the sociologists of sports mentioned in Zirin’s article:
- Ben Carrington, University of Texas at Austin
- Doug Hartmann, University of Minnesota
- Grant Farred, Cornell University
- CL Cole, University of Illinois
- Damion Thomas, University of Maryland
- Mary Jo Kane, University of Minnesota
- Adrian Burgos, Jr., University of Illinois
I agree with most of what David has to say here, but would expand the call to all those in sports studies programs, history departments, anthropology, philosophy, religion, and literature in U.S. and worldwide.
I have been writing a column for the Sport Literature Association for about twelve years which started as a radio commentary in 1991 and ended its radio life in 1998. The column as a very limited audience as it goes out on the SLA listserve to about 400 people and to perhaps another 100 people who get the column directly from me.
As a historian I try to give some historical context or perspective to most of the pieces I do although I suspect some of what I write would qualify as rant.
I know that these essays get some additional circulation through the forward button on the computer, and I know also that some get use in classrooms in the U.S. and Canada. This has been an interesting writing and thinking exercise for me, particularly when feedback comes from readers.
The oclumn started as a weekly and now is done more irregularly when the spirit moves me. But the point is I do think there is an audience for semi-intelligent writing on sport and social issues and would encourage others to take up the keyboard and join the dialogue, or even the monologue.
Richard Crepeau
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:43 amHistory Department
University of Central Florida
Orlando, Florida
Thanks for this article. I hadn’t had much prior exposure to the sociology of sports, and it’s fascinating.
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:15 pm[...] Zirin, Calling Sports Sociology Off the Bench “The job of the sports sociologist is to be a professional debunker of accepted [...]
October 8th, 2008 at 6:53 am