Provides an investigation of the influence of sports in America from the founding of Jamestown and Plymouth Plantation in the early 17th Century to the present.
Goals, Topics, and Objectives
- Sports in Colonial America
- The Making of a Modern Sport Culture
- Sports, Higher Education, and the Rise of the Industrial City
- Sports and Class
- The Commercialization and Professionalization of Sports
- Gender and Sport in Modern America
- Race and Ethnicity in early 20th Century American Sports
- Sports Heroes and American Culture
- Sports and Race since 1930
- Sports and Gender since 1930
- The role of sports in 20th Century American Warfare
- The Business of Sports in post-World War Two America
Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to:
1. Outline time and chronology in American Sports History.
2. Identify, summarize, and analyze major elements of American Sports History.
3. Analyze cause and effect in American Sports History.
4. Trace elements of change and continuity in American Sports History.
5. Emphasize parallelism by describing the impact of major events, personalities, and places upon American Sports History.
Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to:
1. Identify the various sports and games in both the Colonial and Native American societies.
2. Trace the evolution of sports during the antebellum period and the social norms placed on these sports.
3. Trace the growth of professional sports in the growing urban environment and how local politics influenced their development at the turn of the 20th Century.
4. Describe the rise and purpose of amateur athletics in modern America.
5. Analyze the commercialization and professionalization of sports in modern America.
6. Explain the role of gender in sports in modern America prior to 1930.
7. Describe the role of race and ethnicity in modern American sports prior to 1930.
8. Outline the role that sports heroes have played in 20th Century America.
9. Describe the impact of race on sports in American sports since 1930.
10. Analyze the role of gender in American sports since 1930.
11. Analyze the role of warfare in 20th Century American sports.
12. Identify the major aspects of business in American sports since World War Two.
Assessment and Requirements
Assessment of academic achievement will be identified and implemented by the class instructor. Methods will include, but will not be limited to, individual projects, vocabulary, class participation (discussion and critiques), and tests.
These texts are suggestions. Individual instructors may choose other texts. All American: The Rise and Fall of Jim Thorpe, by Bill Crawford, John Wiley & Sons Publishing. ISBN: 0 – 471 – 55732 – 3 War As They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and America in a Time of Unrest, by Michael Rosenberg, Grand Central Publishing. ISBN: 978 – 0 – 446 – 69865 – 8 Major Problems in American Sport History, by Steven A. Reiss and Thomas G. Paterson, Houghton-Miflin Publishing. ISBN: 0 - 669353809
Outcomes
- Social Sciences
- Humanities and Fine Arts
- Civil Society and Culture - U.S. and Global
- Category 4: Social Sciences
- Category 5: Humanities and Fine Arts