Amateur Athletics

Readings

 

Extra readings: Saints and Their Bodies (T. W. Higginson, Atlantic Monthly, March, 1858), and Philsophy in the Bleachers (Santayana, Harvard Monthly, July, 1894).

Students should buy six books. Ample used copies are available inexpensively through Amazon and Alibris. Other readings are available on the web or through Harvard's library electronic resources or through Lexis-Nexis. I am avoiding use of other materials for which students would have to pay. Copies of a few articles that are beyond the reach of copyright will be distributed in class. There is no sourcebook.

Recommended for Purchase:

  1. David C. Young, The Olympic Myth of Greek Amateur Athletics (Ares, 1984)
  2. Harry Lewis, Excellence Without a Soul (Perseus, 2007, paperback)
  3. Ronald A. Smith, Sports and Freedom, Oxford University Press, 1988.
  4. Bowen and Shulman, The Game of Life (Princeton, 2002)
  5. Allen Guttman, The Olympics (Illinois, 2002)
  6. Andrew Zimbalist, Unpaid Professionals (Princeton, 2001)

These books are available used through Amazon or Alibris, some for as little as $1 and all for less than $15. Be a smart shopper -- look at all editions -- sometimes the hardcover is cheaper than the paperback because it is an older edition. #2 is also in the Coop, and I'd be glad to lend a copy to anyone who doesn't want to buy it.

Some other articles, books, and sources from which specific articles will be assigned (in no particular order, this list is preliminary):

  1. James L. Shulman and William G. Bowen, A Gladiator Class?, Yale Alumni Magazine, April 2001.
  2. Bruce Fellman, Scholarly Athletics, Yale Alumni Magazine, February 1996.
  3. Themes in the History of Sport up to the Twentieth Century, from British Studies Web Pages
  4. Craig Lambert and John Bethell, First and 100, Harvard Magazine, September-October 2003.
  5. The Harvard Book, accessible via the Narrative Histories section of the University Archives website.
  6. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Saints and Their Bodies, Atlantic Monthly, March 1858, 582-595.
  7. Annual Reports of the Presidents of Harvard
    1. 1859-60, 31-34
    2. 1881-82, 16-19
    3. 1887-88, 10
    4. 1892-93, 14-15
    5. 1901-02, 131-134
    6. 1904-05, 52-53
  8. Archives of The Harvard Crimson
    1. October 10, 1873: Sophomore ball club
    2. November 7, 1873: Base ball
    3. May 22, 1874: No headline ("There seems to be some indications ...")
    4. May 22, 1874: The foot-ball match
    5. October 6, 1876, Brevities
    6. March 8, 1878, No headline ("A petition has been sent ...")
    7. May 3, 1878, Our sporting column: Boating
    8. May 17, 1878, Our sporting column: Rowing
    9. October 14, 1881: Short history of football at Harvard
    10. October 9, 1882: Amateur or professional?
    11. March 8, 1883: Fact and rumor
    12. February 14, 1884: The resolutions adopted by the conference committee on athletics
    13. February 20, 1884: No headline ("It is frequently said ...")
    14. February 21, 1884: Professor Richards on the proposed regulations
    15. February 22, 1884: No headline ("The time has come ...")
    16. February 22, 1884, The athletic question
    17. February 23, 1884: No headline ("The air is filled with denunciations ...")
    18. January 18, 1989, Grappling with the burdens of a dual life
  9. J. P. Mahaffy, The olympic games at Athens in 1874, MacMillan's Magazine, XXXII, 1875, 324-327
  10. J. P. Mahaffy, Old Greek athletics, MacMillan's Magazine, XXXVI, 1877, 61-69
  11. The Harvard Graduates Magazine
    1. October 1892, p. 31. Harvard's loss of athletic prestige
    2. January 1893, p. 209. The constution, authority, and policy of the committee on the regulation of athletic sports
    3. September 1893, p. 1. College athletics
    4. March 1897, 340-343
    5. March 1903, 350-355. Football
    6. June, 1904, 607-617. The physicque of scholars, athletes, and the average student
  12. George Santayana, Philosophy on the bleachers, Harvard Monthly, XVIII (July 1894), 181-190
  13. Gary Andrew Poole, Ruffled feathers in birding, New York Times, April 16, 2004
  14. Articles by Caspar Whitney in old Harper's Magazines, available through Harvard Library Electronic Resources
  15. Richard Mandell, Sport: a Cultural History, Columbia University Press, 1984.
  16. Craig Lambert, The Professionalization of Ivy League Sports, Harvard Magazine, Sept-Oct 1997.
  17. Harry Lewis, Sports (manuscript under construction)
  18. William G. Bowen and James Shulman, Playing Their Way In, New York Times, February 22, 2001.
  19. Willaim G. Bowen and Sarah A. Levin, Reclaim college athletics - for all, Christian Science Monitor, September 18, 2003.
  20. Mary Beth Marklein, Athletics push academics to the sideline, authors say, USA today, March 20, 2001.
  21. Karen Arenson, Study of elite colleges finds athletes are isolated from classmates, New York Times, September 15, 2003.
  22. Simon Kuper, Race for athletes makes colleges dumber and dumber, Financial Times, June 11, 2005.
  23. Sally Jenkins, Education, athletics: the odd couple, Washington Post, September 13, 2003.
  24. Doug Lederman, What Price Victory? Princeton Alumni Weekly, December 17, 2003.
  25. Louis Menand, Sporting Chances, The New Yorker, January 22, 2001, p. 84 ff.
  26. Hal S. Scott, What game are they playing? A review of The Game of Life by James L. Shulman & William G. Bowen, Journal of College and University Law, 28, 3, 2002, p. 719ff.
  27. Authors respond, 29, 1, 2002, 189 ff.

Return to home page