Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 272

December 23-25, 2016: Wishes for the AmericanStudies Elves: My Sons

[Each of the last few years, I’ve made a number of holiday wishes to the AmericanStudies Elves, things I’d love to see happen in the coming year. As you might have always known, the Elves are really all of us—so let’s work to make these and other great things happen in 2017! I’d love to hear your wishes, and causes or individuals or projects I can support as well, in comments!]Three 2017 wishes for and through my two favorite AmericanStudiers and best reasons for hope:1)      Consistent Creativity: My older son is one of the most creative people I know. He’s also obsessed with maps and mazes and charts, so I can see a future as an architect or engineer for sure. But while some of his creativity finds its expression in those particular forms, a great deal of the time he’s just adding his creative perspective to his everyday world: creating acrostic poems on the required pamphlet for his 4thgrade insect project; adding decorative pictures and details to his Christmas list; turning his and his brother’s love for football and favorite restaurants into a newspaper; sharing puns and wordplay he’s thought up during long drives; writing his own songs to play on the violin; and so much more. Too often, we as a society treat creativity as an add-on, a neat talent but not a vital skill to teach and cultivate and celebrate (hence arts programs in our schools being the first to be cut). But my son reminds me daily of the centrality of creativity to a life well lived, and I wish him and all of us still more consistent creativity in the year to come).2)      Athletic Commitment: It’s going to seem, here, like I’m defining my older son as the creative one and my younger son (they’re one grade apart) as the athletic one in some categorical or contrasting way. It’s definitely nowhere near that simple: my younger son is both whip-smart and sensitive (and a great budding violinist in his own right), and my older son loves watching and playing sports as well. But by 10 and 9 years old they certainly each have their distinct identities, and part of my younger son’s is the fundamental joy he finds in being on a field, being part of a team, giving his all in every moment to work toward that individual and collective success. I’ve always scoffed a bit at the idea of “grinders” in sports, especially at the level of professional athletics where everyone is blessed with natural talent; but in my son I’ve seen how someone can combine natural gifts (far more than I ever had at any sport) with a relentless dedication and drive, and most importantly how much fun that can produce. That seems like a lesson we can all learn and apply, well beyond the world of sports, in 2017.3)      Empathy for All: My boys have that vital and difficult perspective, really, really genuinely. I’d like to take credit for how entirely unable they are to understand any and all forms of bigotry, prejudice, bullying, or hierarchical thinking. But while we certainly talk a lot about such things, the truth is that I learn as much from those talks as they do, and always come away inspired and rejuvenated by how naturally they come to and share this empathetic perspective on the world and their fellow humans. There are a lot of reasons why my sons give me hope, for 2017 and for the world, but in many ways they can be boiled down to how easily, how much, and how powerfully they model empathy. May they continue to do so, and may we all learn before it’s too late.Happy holidays to all! Special end of year series starts Monday,BenPS. So one more time: what do you think? Wishes or causes you’d share?

December 22, 2016: Wishes for the AmericanStudies Elves: Colleagues

[Each of the last few years, I’ve made a number of holiday wishes to the AmericanStudies Elves, things I’d love to see happen in the coming year. As you might have always known, the Elves are really all of us—so let’s work to make these and other great things happen in 2017! I’d love to hear your wishes, and causes or individuals or projects I can support as well, in comments!]Two years ago, I highlighted a handful of FSU colleagues as part of my wishes series, both because they make FSU English Studies exactly the kind of place I’d wish to work, and because I wish for all the success for their own writing and work. I’d reiterate those sentiments and wishes here, not least because all of them—Steve Edwards, DeMisty Bellinger-Delfeld, Elisabet Takehana, and Heather Urbanski, along with our online magazine Detour and my former student Harrison Chute’s blog—have continued to do so much meaningful and inspiring work in the years since.But we’re a big department with lots of other great folks too, so here are five more whose work and voices are well worth your engagement and support:1)      Kisha Tracy, whose work with technology and pedagogy is reflected in this Guest Post but who is also a hugely talented medievalist;2)      Joe Moser, who likewise has contributed a great Guest Post and whose upcoming second project on post-World War II films is one of my most eagerly anticipated scholarly books;3)      Doris Schmidt, who has single-handledly kept our newspaper The Point going and who just retired to pursue vital environmental activist writing and work out West;4)      Katy Covino-Poutasse, one of two new faculty I’ve helped hire in the last two years, and as dynamic an educator and scholar of education and literacy as I’ve known;5)      And Diego Ubiera, the other new faculty member I helped hire, a teacher and advisor who’s become a huge influence on our students in his first semester, and a Latin American lit specialist from whom I’ve already learned a great deal.Special holiday weekend wish tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Wishes or causes you’d share?

December 21, 2016: Wishes for the AmericanStudies Elves: Liberation’s List

[Each of the last few years, I’ve made a number of holiday wishes to the AmericanStudies Elves, things I’d love to see happen in the coming year. As you might have always known, the Elves are really all of us—so let’s work to make these and other great things happen in 2017! I’d love to hear your wishes, and causes or individuals or projects I can support as well, in comments!]On a few levels to arriving at a very 21st century wish.1)      I haven’t yet had the chance to meet David Perry, the Medieval history professor who’s also become one of our leading public scholars and journalists on disability rights. But thanks to our mutual friend, my FSU colleague Kisha Tracy, I connected with David with Facebook, where he shared his own wish related to …2)      This Amazon wishlist for Chicago’s Liberation Library. Like a lot of charitable and activist organizations, Liberation Library depends on donations and financial support—and thanks to the intertubes and concepts like Amazon’s wishlist, it’s possible to offer such support from anywhere, and through connections like that provided by David (or now, y’know, me in this post). Which is great, because ...3)      Liberation Library does really really important work, at the intersection of education, young Americans, and mass incarceration. I’ve thought a lot about those issues, including this past semester in my Seminar’s conversations about The New Jim Crow . But I’m ashamed to admit that I hadn’t heard of Liberation Library until David linked to their wishlist. So I wanted to make up for lost time, and make good on that multi-part 21st century connection, with a wish of my own for the AmericanStudies Elves: that we all both support this great organization and keep sharing our own knowledge and passions with all those to whom we’re connected. Deal, Elves?Next wish tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Wishes or causes you’d share?

December 20, 2016: Wishes for the AmericanStudies Elves: EmergingUS

[Each of the last few years, I’ve made a number of holiday wishes to the AmericanStudies Elves, things I’d love to see happen in the coming year. As you might have always known, the Elves are really all of us—so let’s work to make these and other great things happen in 2017! I’d love to hear your wishes, and causes or individuals or projects I can support as well, in comments!]On the latest important and inspiring initiative from a crucial 21st century voice.I dedicated one of my AmericanStudies wishes four years ago to José Antonio Vargas and his (at the time) new Define American project. As that last hyperlink reflects, Define American is still ongoing and growing, and I would repeat everything I said in that post for sure (but won’t, and just will ask you to check it out and to support Define American if you have the chance).But of course Vargas has continued to do new and just as impressive work in the years since, a list that would include the MTV documentary White People I mentioned in yesterday’s post and the project on which I want to focus today: #EmergingUS. Emerging is partly a complement to Define American, another space in which to, as the site’s subtitle notes, share stories and voices that are “exploring race, immigration and the emerging American identity.” But as its About page highlights, the site’s emphasis on “emerging” is also explicitly framed as a response to and contrast with the mainstream media: that’s true both in terms of content (“the public space where we tell our stories — the news media — isn’t keeping up. And, too often, when these stories are told, they lack the necessary nuance and context”) and form (“since video is the emerging currency of digital publishing, #EmergingUS stories are told primarily through short, documentary-style videos, complemented by essays, graphics, and other original content”).My simplest wish for #EmergingUS would be that it get as many readers as possible, including I hope all you fellow AmericanStudiers. So I’ll mostly leave this short and sweet enough that you can head back over thereand check out some of the many great pieces!  But I’ll add one more layer to the wish: that sometime, in the not too distant future, a site like Vargas’ will be just as (if not more) frequently described as part of the “mainstream media” as, to name one of this election season’s most frustrating players, CNN). While of course it’d be possible instead to do away entirely with the concept of the mainstream, I don’t have a problem with the idea that some media voices are particularly central to our cultural conversations—but I do have a significant problem with what and who comprise those voices in late 2016. So, AmericanStudies Elves, by this time next year I’d love for #EmergingUS to be part of a new and, yes, emerging mainstream.Next wish tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Wishes or causes you’d share?

December 19, 2016: Wishes for the AmericanStudies Elves: Student Films

[Each of the last few years, I’ve made a number of holiday wishes to the AmericanStudies Elves, things I’d love to see happen in the coming year. As you might have always known, the Elves are really all of us—so let’s work to make these and other great things happen in 2017! I’d love to hear your wishes, and causes or individuals or projects I can support as well, in comments!]On how you can support a young filmmaker, now and moving forward, and why it matters.Through my Honors Literature Seminar on the Gilded Age last semester, I had the chance to get to know Christine Coutts, a Fitchburg State University Honors student and Film/Video Major who is also a budding documentary filmmaker. At the end of the semester, Christine and her crew premiered Praying for Change , her 30-minute documentary about homelessness in America; I wasn’t able to make the premiere but have heard very good things, and she’s looking to expand the documentary into a feature-length film and take it to film festivals. As of right now there are still a few days left in her IndieGoGo pledge drive for supporting that documentary and those efforts, and I’d say it’s a very worthy cause on multiple levels. (And if you watched the trailer hyperlinked at the film’s title above, I think you’ll agree with me that this is a seriously professional project on every level too, one belying any stereotypes we might have about student films.)I also had the chance at the end of the semester to hear Christine’s presentation on her next film, which will also fulfill her Honors Senior Thesis project. Another documentary, this film, inspired by Jose Antonio Vargas’ MTV documentary White People, will be entitled I’m Not Racist … But, and will feature Christine herself taking part in numerous conversations about race, racism, and culture in America. Christine plans another IndieGoGo page to support the making, publicizing, and distribution of this film, and when that page is up I’ll hyperlink it here. But I wanted to mention it now because, quite frankly, I think it’s extremely brave to make a film on racism—and in particular to talk to white Americans about racism—at a time when we’re seeing a resurgence of racist and bigoted rhetoric and hate crimes. The day that I’m writing this post, a Fitchburg area colleague shared on Facebook pictures of swastikas that had been drawn all over the city, just one of so many such crimes. The product of a biracial, Asian and European American family, just like my sons are, Christine knows full well what such rhetoric and crimes might mean for so many Americans, and is engaging directly with the issue in this new project.Both that personal identity and perspective and that shared communal moment make Christine’s new film well worth our support. But I think she and her work also emblematize the overarching role and importance of student art. In the English Studies department where I teach, we’ve got great such art appearing regularly in both our online magazine Detour and our literary journal Route 2; I’m proud of all the students who have worked on and contributed to those efforts, as well as colleagues like Steve Edwards and Elise Takehana (and our past colleague Ian Williams) who have helped make it all happen. But Christine helps me highlight the wide variety and depth of quality of work being produced by student artists at Fitchburg State, as well as at institutions of higher education around the country. As with Christine and so many of those student writers, I’m quite sure that much of this student art is taking risks, experimenting, pushing their genres in new directions, engaging directly with some of the most difficult and important questions facing our society and world. So, AmericanStudies Elves, I wish that this vital and vibrant art in general, and Christine’s films in particular, can get the support they need to continue doing their crucial cultural work.Next wish tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Wishes or causes you’d share?

December 17-18, 2016: Crowd-sourced BasketballStudying

[On December 15th, 1891, James Naismith invented the game of basketball. So for the sport’s 125thbirthday, this week I’ve BasketballStudied five histories, figures, and stories connected to one of our most enduring pasttimes. This crowd-sourced post is drawn from the responses and thoughts of fellow BasketballStudiers—add yours in comments, please, and don’t forget to call glass!]First, sample basketball-related posts from three of the SportsStudiers I read most avidly:A review of the book Wartime Basketball at the great Sport in American History blog (where you can search for “basketball” to find lots more posts and book reviews).Dr. Lou Moore has stopped blogging at his The Professor and the Pugilist site, but there’s still tons of great work there, including this last post on Derrick Rose and police brutality.And at Dave Zirin’s wonderful Edge of Sports site, a recent column on San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich.Andrew McGregor, founder and co-editor of Sport in American History, shares this rare radio interview with Monday’s focal subject James Naismith. He also adds that he’s “currently reading thisfor a future Sport in American History review,” shares this piece on Dean Smith, Kansas, and basketball history, and writes, “to be honest, basketball history has been slower to develop than some other sports. But it's starting to come along.”Andrew Hartman, one of the biggest basketball fans and best cultural historians I know, shares this clip from the ground-breaking 1966 championship game between Texas Western and Kentucky. He writes, “Basketball remains my favorite sport because it seems to be the most creative, and this creativity shifts in really fun ways, just in my lifetime from Magic to MJ to Steph Curry. So fun.” And he adds, “First player I fell in love with was David Thompson of my hometown Denver Nuggets.”Guest Poster Robert Greene II writes, “The story of the Harlem Rens is a great one.” He adds, “Don't watch it all but this was the first time an NBA team played against the Soviet Union in the USSR--and it was my Atlanta Hawks!” And he concludes, “the biggest basketball game not involving the USA was arguably between Maccabi Tel Aviv and CSKA Moscow in the European Championship semifinals in 1977,” adding, “here is footage of the actual game--it was played in Belgium because the Soviets refused to play in Israel or to allow the Israelis to play in the USSR. And I thought SEC football was vicious.”Beazley Kanost, one of our true experts on the concept of “cool,” shares, “Walt Frazier and his book on cool were noted in the American Cool show at the National Portrait Gallery.”Dave Grubb writes, “Given today's sad news [Sager passed on Thursday], it might be appropriate to do some kind of Craig Sager spotlight. From literally following Hank Aaron around the bases after his record breaking dinger, to his outlandish outfits and philanthropy efforts, to his well documented battle and ultimate passing. A pretty interesting guy that will be greatly missed.”Matt Linton notes, “This old clip of Wilt's summer job in the Catskills is a personal favorite.”Kelly Johnson highlights this 2012 story, about an NCAA investigation into a Massachusetts prep school famed for its basketball players.Cynthia Lynn Lyerly shares this amazing story: “My dad coached the first integrated Varsity men's team at Hickory High School (NC). Many of the teams they played were not yet integrated, including an all-black team from Charlotte and rural teams that were all-white. In one game that first year in a rural school, the referees kept calling dad's black players epithets, but in a low voice that folks in the stands couldn't hear. Still, my dad's team was leagues better than this county team, and kept advancing. Then the refs started calling fouls on dad's players. His best player, who was black, started getting ridiculous fouls called on him. Then, at a crucial moment in the game, the refs called another made-up foul on his player and this player said "Come on!" and they called a technical on him. This was at a crucial moment, like under a minute to go. Three uncontested foul shots and if the other team made two of them, the game would go to them. Hickory High's fans that traveled to this game were all white. (African Americans knew they would not be welcome at this rural school.) They weren't clued into the racist refs (and let's face it, many of them had opposed desegregation all along) and they were VERY upset with dad's player for "mouthing off to the ref." So my dad...not caring about the game any more...he stands up and walks up to the ref, gets in his face and says "Are you dumb or are you just blind" (in a high school game....this sort of thing was NEVER EVER done)...and the ref tells him to sit down, but dad keeps on, knowing what will happen....and the ref calls a technical on my dad and he was thrown out of the game. The fans all turned on my dad. Many people demanded that the principal fire my hot-heated father for his outburst, for setting a bad example, and for losing a game that Hickory should have won. My dad was pleased with the outcome, as nobody remembered the technical his black player had had called on him.—This story is not about anybody famous (though there was a player on this team who is now a leading NCAA coach, but he wasn't involved), but I know you care about the history of American race relations so I thought you might find it interesting.”Guest Poster Tim McCaffrey shares one of his early columns, about a brotherly basketball rivalry.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Other basketball stories or histories you’d share?

December 16, 2016: Basketball’s Birthday: LeBron and Activism

[On December 15th, 1891, James Naismith invented the game of basketball. So for the sport’s 125thbirthday, I’ll BasketballStudy five histories, figures, and stories connected to one of our most enduring pasttimes. Add your responses and thoughts for a slam-dunk crowd-sourced weekend post, please!]On what’s crucial, and what’s complicated, about the superstar’s public activisms.I’ve written before in this space about athlete activists: a couple posts on the University of Missouri football players who protested the university’s president; and this recent post on San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest (in the context of the 1968 Mexico City protest). Without intending the slightest bit of disrespect to those athletes, I would argue that they were relatively unknown on the national level prior to their famous protests: certainly no individual Missouri football player from that group had achieved any national prominence (nor have any even in the aftermath of their controversy); and while Kaepernick was already well-known to serious NFL fans, I think it’s fair to say that he had never reached a level of wide cultural recognition or fame (and was by the time his protests started a back-up quarterback). That doesn’t lessen either the bravery or the potential effects of their protests, but it nonetheless means that those protests were responded to and have functioned differently than would have been the case if they had been undertaken by more already-prominent athletes.I’m sure you could make the case for other figures, particularly given the worldwide prominence of soccer and thus of athletes like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, but I believe any short list of the most famous athletes in the world, circa December 2016, would have to include LeBron James. James has been famous since his high school days, and that fame has only grown over his long and groundbreaking NBA career. And for at least the last few years of that career, James has undertaken a series of very public, and controversial, activist efforts: from his leading the Miami Heat in taking a 2012 photo to honor Trayvon Martin and protest his murder; to his recent campaign stops and speeches in support of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Whatever your feelings on LeBron (up here in Massachusetts he has been persona non grata for a long time, but full disclosure, I’m a fan), these public stances have represented a striking and inspiring risk for an athlete who was, by the time he undertook them, one of the most recognizable and marketable brands in sports (for a contrasting and I would argue more typical case, note Cam Newton’s complete lack of willingness to engage with #BlackLivesMatter). While I could imagine cynical readings of LeBron’s activist efforts, to my mind they reflect a superstar athlete willing to take risks in support of what he believes.So I’m a serious fan of LeBron’s activism efforts—but as I said, I’m also a fan of LeBron himself. And therein lies a potential complication—like many prominent athletes (indeed, like nearly all of them in this age of hot takes and internet trolling and hyper-polarization), LeBron is a polarizing figure, one who has inspired as much derision and hate as admiration and accolades in his career to date. Our 2016 politics are already plenty polarized in any case, of course, but I don’t know that adding athletes or celebrities who bring their own polarizing effects into the mix necessarily helps. Again, I’m not suggesting that he shouldn’t pursue these activisms, but am rather just wondering if there might be an unexpected and ironic effect of pushing people away from just as much as it might draw people into certain efforts and causes. That doesn’t mean that only universally beloved folks should enter political conversations, of course—not only because that’s a very short list these days (Tom Hanks comes to mind, and even he has faced backlash for his vocal opposition to Donald Trump), but also because politics isn’t and shouldn’t be a safe or muted space. But it’s just one more layer of complexity to this compelling and controversial side to a superstar like LeBron.Crowd-sourced post this weekend,BenPS. So one more time: what do you think? Other basketball stories or histories you’d share for the weekend post?

December 15, 2016: Basketball’s Birthday: Magic Johnson

[On December 15th, 1891, James Naismith invented the game of basketball. So for the sport’s 125thbirthday, I’ll BasketballStudy five histories, figures, and stories connected to one of our most enduring pasttimes. Add your responses and thoughts for a slam-dunk crowd-sourced weekend post, please!]On genuine low and high points for the legendary Lakers star, and what they both exemplify.I’ve written before, in this post as well as in the chapter on AIDS epidemic histories and literature in my new book, that Magic Johnson’s 1991 announcement of his HIV-positive status marked a pivotal turning point in public conversations about the disease. I certainly believe that’s the case (and am of course not alone in arguing the point), but at the same time it’d be important not to let a desire to consider the historical big picture lead us to skip too quickly past what the moment meant for Johnson and his family. Even if we leave aside the moment’s personal (such as Johnson’s subsequent confessions of serial infidelity) and professional (his immediate, if not permanent, departure from the NBA) ramifications for Johnson, his wife Cookie, and their young family, in 1991 HIV and AIDS were still (and understandably, given the statistics) perceived as death sentences. While Johnson has been able to battle the disease quite successfully (it seems) for the quarter-century since his announcement, that subsequent history shouldn’t cloud our perspective on what his diagnosis and situation meant, for him and everyone around him, in 1991. It was as painful and frightening a moment as any faced by an American athlete or celebrity in the era.While Johnson’s battle against that HIV diagnosis has continued for these 25 subsequent years, his moves forward from that moment and toward another career high point began much more rapidly than that. In 1994, less than three years after his announcement, Johnson and his Johnson Development Corporation announced their plan for Magic Johnson Theatres, a line of movie theaters that would open in and provide entertainment options, as well as jobs and revitalization, for urban communities. The first such theater, the Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15, opened in South Central Los Angeles in 1995; a second, the AMC Magic Johnson Harlem 9, opened in New York in 2000, and more followed in Cleveland, Atlanta, and other cities. While Johnson’s achievements will always be defined first by his basketball stardom and successes, it’s fair to say that on the court he was one of a number of great players, present and past (if a unique one to be sure)—whereas his theaters represent a more distinctive and singular vision and achievement, within their communities and in American business overall. Although many of the theaters have changed ownership in the decades since, they established a new model for both locations and styles of movie theaters (and other urban developments)—and in any case, as with Johnson’s HIV announcement, subsequent events shouldn’t elide what this moment in Johnson’s life and career meant at the time.So for Johnson, these two moments and stories reflect contrasting yet nearly concurrent low and high points, a particularly striking spectrum in a life that’s been consistently mercurial. If we take a step back and examine them in relationship to the African American community, however, I would argue that they together represent a period of extreme social and cultural shifts on both destructive and productive levels. Johnson’s theaters offer one illustration among many—alongside films like Boyz in the Hood (1991), New Jack City (1991), and Menace 2 Society (1993) and the explosion in popularity of gangsta rap, among other examples—of how African American urban communities were becoming central to American popular culture in the 1990s. Yet at the same time, such communities were facing significant new threats, from the war on drugs and the rise of mass incarceration to, yes, the AIDS epidemic; while the disease was largely associated with gay communities at the time of Johnson’s announcement, by the end of the 90s it would be just as fully linked to impoverished, and often African American, inner city communities. While Johnson’s personal battle with HIV certainly differs from that communal epidemic, the presence in his life and career of both that battle and an economic and cultural transformation of urban spaces reflects a similar spectrum of danger and possibility for the African American community in this same period.Last BasketballStudying tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other basketball stories or histories you’d share for the weekend post?

December 14, 2016: Basketball’s Birthday: Rudy, Hoosiers, and Race

[On December 15th, 1891, James Naismith invented the game of basketball. So for the sport’s 125thbirthday, I’ll BasketballStudy five histories, figures, and stories connected to one of our most enduring pasttimes. Add your responses and thoughts for a slam-dunk crowd-sourced weekend post, please!]On the appeal of underdog champions, and the untold sides to their stories.If heroic losers like Rocky Balboa and lovable losers like the Bad News Bears and Kevin Costner’s characters in Bull Durham and Tin Cup occupy two spots along a spectrum of sports movie protagonists, then heroic underdog champions occupy a third, even more inspiring slot. Such characters are as admirable and heroic in their personal qualities as Rocky, but seek something more than just going the distance—they want to achieve the unlikeliest of victories, to knock off the seemingly unbeatable champion. Perhaps the most striking such underdog champions in both sports and sports movie history are the Miracle on Ice hockey gold medalists of 1980—but since that group was still an Olympic team for one of the most successful nations in Olympic history, I would argue that the midwestern protagonists of Hoosiers (1986) and Rudy (1993), both films directed by David Anspaugh and written by Angelo Pizzo, provide even more clear examples of this type.It’d be hard to decide which of those inspired-by-a-true-story underdog victories is more unlikely and more inspiring. The Hickory high school team in Hoosiers (based loosely on Milan High’s 1954 championship season) is coached by two men as collectively flawed as Buttermaker in Bad News Bears—Gene Hackman’s Norman Dale has been dismissed from his prior job for losing his temper and striking a student; Dennis Hopper’s Shooter Flatch is an alcoholic town outcast—and has barely enough players to field a team, yet goes on to win the state championship against a vastly more deep and talented South Bend team. Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger, whose life and events are portrayed relatively close to accurately by Sean Astin and company, is the undersized son of an Illinois factory worker who refuses to give up on his dream of playing football for Notre Dame, overcoming numerous challenges and obstacles and finally making his way onto the team and into the final game of the season, in which he sacks the quarterback on the final play and is carried off the field by his teammates. Having critiqued lovable loser films for their merely pyrrhic victories, it’d be hypocritical of me not to applaud films that depict underdog victories, and such stories are indeed undeniably appealing and affecting. Yet in order to tell their stories in the way they want, these films also have to leave out a great deal, elisions that are exemplified by the way racial issues are not addressed in Hoosiers. For one thing, Hickory’s opponent in the championship game, South Bend, is intimidating in large part because it features a racially integrated team, which would have been a significant rarity in 1952 and which would seem to make them a team worth our support. And for another, as James Loewen has written in his groundbreaking book Sundown Towns (2005), southern Indiana in the early 1950s was a hotbed of overt and violent racism; to quote Loewen, “As one Indiana resident relates, ‘All southern Hoosiers laughed at the movie called Hoosiers because the movie depicts blacks playing basketball and sitting in the stands at games in Jasper. We all agreed no blacks were permitted until probably the '60s and do not feel welcome today.’ A cheerleader for a predominantly white, but interracial Evansville high school, tells of having rocks thrown at their school bus as they sped out of Jasper after a basketball game in about 1975, more than 20 years after the events depicted so inaccurately in Hoosiers.” Such histories don’t necessarily contrast with those featured in these films—but it would be important to complement the films with fuller engagement with their perhaps less triumphant contexts.Next BasketballStudying tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other basketball stories or histories you’d share for the weekend post?

December 13, 2016: Basketball’s Birthday: Chamberlain and Russell

[On December 15th, 1891, James Naismith invented the game of basketball. So for the sport’s 125thbirthday, I’ll BasketballStudy five histories, figures, and stories connected to one of our most enduring pasttimes. Add your responses and thoughts for a slam-dunk crowd-sourced weekend post, please!]On a clear distinction between two iconic greats—and why it’s not quite so clear as that.Between 1956 (when Bill Russell was drafted by the Boston Celtics; Wilt Chamberlain was officially drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors three years later) and 1973 (when Chamberlain finished his last season with the Los Angeles Lakers; Russell had ended his playing career with the Celtics four years earlier), the National Basketball Association might as well have been renamed the Russell-Chamberlain Association. Russell and the Celtics won 11 NBA titles in those 18 years (1957, 1959-66, and 1968-69), while Chamberlain and his teams won 2 (with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1967 and the Lakers in 1972). The discrepancy between those two championship totals, and the fact that Russell’s teams often beat Chamberlain’s in the playoffs en route to their titles (the Celtics were 7-1 in playoff series against Chamberlain teams), has led many NBA fans and basketball pundits to opine that Russell clearly got the best of this truly unique rivalry. But while such debates are fun for fans and historians alike, the truth is that these are two of the all-time great NBA players, and there must be room in any account of the sport for acknowledging and engaging with both men’s achievements and successes.Those on-court achievements are the most important part of Russell and Chamberlain’s careers and legacies—but if we turn our attention to their lives and personalities off the court, it would be difficult to imagine a more contrasting pair. Russell was (and has largely remained in the decades since his retirement) notoriously prickly and private, not only with the media but with fans and the public more generally, as illustrated (if in a particularly divisive way) by his description of Boston as a “flea market of racism” and his initial desire to have his jersey retired in an empty Boston Garden. Chamberlain was (and largely remained until his 1999 death) famously gregarious and social, as exemplified (if in a particularly controversial way) by his claim (in his 1991 autobiography A View from Above) that he had slept with roughly 20,000 women in his life. Those differences might help explain why Chamberlain only coached for a year (with the San Diego Conquistadors of the American Basketball Association), while Russell not only coached the Celtics for the final four years of his playing career (becoming one of the first African American coaches in professional sports in the process), but went on to coach two other teams in the next two decades (the Seattle Supersonics in the mid-1970s and the Sacramento Kings in the late 1980s).Yet I would argue that those seemingly divergent details and lives also reveal a similar influence and factor for both men. In the interview at that last hyperlink, Russell argues that his time as the Celtics’ player-coach had nothing to do with race or racial progress; yet as his comments on Boston and its fans reflect, Russell has consistently become—whatever his own overall goals—a lightning rod of racial attitudes and debates in both the city and the sport. For his side, Chamberlain denounced the Black Panthers and openly supported Richard Nixon in both 1968 and 1972, separating himself very distinctly from African American social movements of the era; yet from his college days at the University of Kansas on through every subsequent stage of his career and life, Chamberlain both experienced direct instances of racism and was defined as a stereotypical black man (never more so than in the aftermath of his sexual claims). Neither of these two titans of the sport can or should be reduced to his race, but neither is it possible to separate them from that aspect of their identity, even when each has in some ways expressed a desire for such separation. Indeed, Russell and Chamberlain’s careers marked a significant step in the NBA’s continued evolution toward being the most centrally African American sports league and community in America—one more reason to remember their iconic presences and legacies.Next BasketballStudying tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other basketball stories or histories you’d share for the weekend post?