Revisiting Our Stories
Countering the Sanitization of Football History in the Southeastern Conference: The University of Alabama's First Five Before Integration - the Overlooked Truth View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Cassandra Simon, Andrew Pernell
College football, especially that of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) is steeped in tradition and considered a staple of the culture. The current day understanding of football in the South, its significance and its growth often overlook the socio-cultural and political factors that influenced the game, especially those related to race. Hence, the dominant narratives about the sport and its integration, like much of history, is told by those in power, often providing a skewed presentation. A just society must be paired with accurate history, and meaningful critique of those involved in the development of that society. The same can be said to be true regarding the integration of what some may arguably call the South's sport, football. Using The University of Alabama as a case study, this paper addresses the questionable aspects of UA's dominant football narrative regarding race and integration. The study further illustrates how one of the First Five (five young Black men who walked on to the team before it was integrated) joined forces with the UA Black Faculty and Staff Association to highlight, honor and work towards the telling of a more complete and accurate version of this history. The emotional toll of having the story of the First Five unacknowledged is discussed. Additionally, strategies and tactics used to counter the dominate narrative while speaking power to truth in collegiate sports regarding race is provided.
Athletic Identity Work: A Systematic Review of the Literature
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Yoonki Chun, Elodie Wendling, Michael Sagas
While athletes' degree in which they identify with their athletic identity have received much attention, the process of developing, maintaining, and revising their self-perceptions (i.e., identity work) has only been broadly acknowledged. Given the importance of identity work in reducing identity threats, a thorough assessment of the concept can help athletes navigate between conflicting roles, recover lost selves following injuries, and reform their identity upon retirement from sports. Therefore, this systematic review provides an assessment of the literature on athletic identity work and discusses future direction of studies. Under the PRISMA guidelines, this review identified 54 international studies from the Web of Science, APA PsychNet, and PubMed. Studies underwent full-text reviews for data extraction. With the data, the following are analyzed and discussed. First, an overall characteristics of the literature is provided, including publication years, theoretical frameworks, population, and methodological approaches. Second, a bibliographic coupling analysis was performed to provide the overall structure of the literature and how connected research on athletic identity has been thus far. Third, a sum code classification on quantitative studies was performed to accumulate empirical findings on the relationship between athletic identity and relevant predictors and outcomes. Lastly, analysis on identifying triggers and identity work modes (activities) that are involved with athletic identity work provides in-depth overview of the literature. Overall, the review discusses the how the athletic subcultures influence the development of athletes' identities and how they impact their holistic development.
What Could Professional Soccer Players Contribute to Children’s and Youth’s Sport Education? : The Case for Stewardship View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tamba Nlandu
Many scholars have discussed the ethical dilemmas raised by Maradona’s 1986 “Hand-of-God” goal, Lionel Messi’s handball for Barcelona against Espanyol on June 9, 2007, Thierry Henry’s handball for France against the Republic of Ireland on November 18, 2009, Roy Carroll’s “save” for Manchester United against Tottenham Spurs on January 4, 2005, Miroslav Klose’s handball goal for Napoli on September 27, 2012, and Arne Larsen Okland’s “goal” for Bayer 04 Leverkusen against Bayern München in 1981. What is intriguing about these cases is the contrasting behaviors displayed by the players involved in these incidents both during and after the events. One wonders what world soccer would be like if children, youth, and amateur players around the world were taught to approximate the sportsmanlike behaviors displayed by Klose and Okland while avoiding emulating the behaviors displayed by the likes of Maradona, Messi, Carroll, and Henry during the events mentioned above. What would have happened to world soccer if Maradona, Messi, Carroll, and Henry had acknowledged their unethical behaviors right after they had committed them and demanding that the referees restore the integrity of the game that they had violated perhaps instinctively? In this paper, we suggest that, if such celebrated soccer players could regularly act as stewards or exemplars of the game, perhaps most of the issues that have led to the inclusion of in-game referee assistance technological devices in sports could be resolved by the players themselves.
