Can Exercise Make You Feel More Full?

exercise-decreases-hunger_1By Katherine Harmon, in Scientific America

By a simple food-in/energy-out model, a run on the treadmill or swim in the pool should make you want to eat more. But recent findings have suggested that exercise can actually help to slow overeating. And a new study presents evidence that the body’s physiologic response to exercise can help retune the nervous system’s cues and make the body feel less hungry, rather than more so.

Hunger is a complex sensation, but it is determined in part by neurons located in the hypothalamus, which send signals to the brain telling it that you’re either hungry or sated.

To read more…

Can’t Make Your Child’s Game? Break Out the Laptop

ylittleleague-articleinlineBy Mark Hyman, in The New York Times

South Williamsport, Pa. — This week, after notching its only victory at the Little League World Series, the team representing Europe went to an interview room under Lamade Stadium. Only a few reporters turned out to speak with the manager, Gary Harrington, and two of his players.

Still, thousands probably saw Harrington’s grin and heard him say, “Our goal was to come here and have fun, which we definitely did.” The interview was available live on broadband. It was carried by an emerging Web site, based in Alpharetta, Ga., called Youth Sports Live.

To read more…

The 15 Best Traditions In Sports

bleacher-reportBy Bryan Sakakeeny, in Bleacher Report

People love sports traditions because they unite an entire fanbase. Traditions transcend individuals and connect the owners to the players to the fans to the security guards.

Each tradition is special in its own way. Whether it was started long ago or came about by accident or just by chance, each tradition keeps a special place in sports fans’ hearts and remains an expression of loyalty to their team, or to athletics in general.

To read more…

Latest Sport & Society Journal papers

sport

The latest issue of  The International Journal of Sport and Society includes:

Third issue of Sport and Society Journal now available

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The third issue of  The International Journal of Sport and Society is now available.

Volume 1, Number 3 contains:

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Sport and Society Journal - Become an Associate Editor

As part of the process of publishing The International Journal of Sport and Society. all submissions are sent for peer refereeing, prior to publication. Assessment, comments and guidance by the referees are an essential part of the publication process and invaluable to the authors of the submitted papers.

In recognition of the important role of referees, the international advisory board acknowledges all referees who have refereed papers as an ‘Associate Editor’ in the volume of the journal they have contributed to.

If you would like to referee papers submitted to The International Journal of Sport and Society, please email journals@sportandsociety.com, with your professional details, areas of expertise and contact details. If we feel you are qualified and we require refereeing for papers within your expertise, we will contact you.

Sport and Society Journal Submissions Open

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We are accepting submissions for the 2011 volume of The International Journal of Sport and Society.

The International Journal of Sport and Society provides a forum for wide-ranging and interdisciplinary examination of sport, including: the history, sociology and psychology of sport; sports medicine and health; physical and health education; and sports administration and management. The discussions in the journal range from broad conceptualisations of the fundamental logics of sport, to highly specific readings of sporting practices in particular times and places.

Refereeing of submitted papers will commence shortly so start the submission process early by submitting your proposal.

Paper submission guidelines and timelines are available online.

Series: Sport and Society

We are accepting book proposals for the imprint Sport and Society.

Common Ground is setting new standards of rigorous academic knowledge creation and scholarly publication.

Unlike other publishers, we’re not interested in the size of potential markets or competition from other books. We’re only interested in the intellectual quality of the work.

If your book is a brilliant contribution to a specialist area of knowledge that only serves a small intellectual community, we still want to publish i

FIFA’s Foul Play

fifafoulplay

By Tim Parks, in The New York Review of Books

For any practitioner of Zen who imagines he has achieved a state of detached equanimity, the ultimate test must be to watch his national side play at soccer’s World Cup. That England’s team is dull, I tell myself after the first game, I can handle; that they are truly dire, I reflect after the second and third, is perhaps only par for the course. When, in their first knockout match, England goes 2–0 down to a fluent and attractive Germany, it seems the perfect opportunity for resignation and acceptance.

To read more…


Eli Evans celebrates Spain, translates Millás

elievansFrom Eli Evans, in n + 1

In honor of Spain’s World Cup victory, n+1 contributor Eli S. Evans introduces and translates a Juan José Millás column from El País:

On Sunday Spain’s soccer team won the World Cup for the first time, initiating a nationwide party that will probably last through the week. While such a victory, and the resulting celebration, may indeed lift spirits from Barcelona to Madrid, it will not change the fact that, thanks to some two decades of rampant real estate speculation and unregulated lending, Spain finds itself in the midst of arguably its worst economic crisis since the end of the Franco dictatorship. With that rather cruel irony in mind, I offer a translation of an El País column by Juan José Millás, published exactly one week before the World Cup opening ceremony. Among Spain’s most celebrated contemporary novelists, Millás is no less celebrated for his work as a literary journalist. He is known for his deceptively simple, mercilessly incisive commentaries on politics and daily life.

To read more…

Cricket and Baseball Find Common Ground in Show

15cricket-cnd-articleinlineBy John F. Burns, in The New York Times

London - There was a time when the discreet men in blazers who run Lord’s cricket ground in London would have considered it an abomination to equate baseball with cricket in any fashion. Yet, there it is, an exhibition behind the famed Lord’s pavilion, cricket’s holy of holies, celebrating the similarities — and, in case anybody thought cricket’s traditionalists had run up the white flag, the differences — between cricket and baseball.

In witness of how much has changed in English attitudes toward America’s national game, the exhibition is being jointly hosted by the Marylebone Cricket Club, for more than 200 years the rule maker in worldwide cricket, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. The Hall of Fame will host the exhibit beginning next April, representing baseball’s own start on coming to terms with a game that many baseball enthusiasts have long loved to disparage.

To read more…

Make Soap from the Ref!

edelmanspartakReview by Simon Kuper, in London Review of Books

One night in 1942, Nikolai Starostin, founder of the Spartak Moscow football club, woke to find a torch shining in his eyes and two pistols pointed at his head. He had spent years waiting for his arrest; Lavrenty Beria, head of Stalin’s secret police and director of Dinamo Moscow football club, did not like him. He was taken to the Lubianka for long interrogations. Among other things, he was accused of conspiring with the German Embassy to assassinate Stalin and set up a Fascist state. In the end he and his three brothers were convicted of theft, swindling and bribery. They each got ten years in Siberia – such a mild sentence that it was practically a let-off. ‘The future seemed not so gloomy after all,’ Starostin wrote in a memoir. He knew why he’d been so fortunate. The Starostins ‘personified Spartak. Beria had to deal with the hopes of millions of fans, ordinary Soviet people.’

For more…

Latest Sport & Society Journal papers

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The latest issue of  The International Journal of Sport and Society includes:

Announcing Location for 2011 Sport and Society Conference

kolkataLocation and Date

The 2011 Sport and Society Conference will  be held in Kolkata, India at Unitedworld School of Business from 28 February - 2 March. For more information, please visit www.sportconference.com

Kolkata has been selected as the location for the 2011 conference as it is one of the host cities for the 2011 Cricket World Cup. As such participants will be immersed in the experience of the tournament. The dates also have been set to include the option of attending the India v. England match in the world famous Eden Gardens Stadium.

Call for Papers

If you intend to present a paper at the conference, your participation begins with submission of a paper proposal. For information on proposals, presentation types, and other options, please click here. To submit a proposal click here and follow the online instructions. If your proposal is accepted, you will then need to register for the conference.

Registration

Those who submit paper proposals should register following the acceptance of the proposal.  Conference delegates who do not intend to present may register at any time. For registration options, or to register for the 2011 Sport and Society Conference, click here.

Themes

The themes for the International Sport and Society Conference are loosely grouped into five categories:

  • Theme 1: Sport’s Motivations
  • Theme 2: Identities in Sport
  • Theme 3: Sport and Health
  • Theme 4: Sports Education
  • Theme 5: Sports Organization
More details on these themes can be seen online here.

Scope and Concerns

The Sport and Society Conference scope and concerns is outlined here.

Communities

Please join us at our online conversation by subscribing to our monthly email newsletter, and subscribe to our Facebook, RSS, or Twitter feeds at http://sportandsociety.com . You can also find links there to our YouTube channel and our Flickr page.

Contact

Please feel free to contact us with any questions that you may have. We can be reached by email at support@sportandsociety.com or by phone at +1 (217) 328-0405.

Second issue of Sport and Society Journal now available

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The second issue of  The International Journal of Sport and Society is now available.

Volume 1, Number 2 contains:

Continue reading ‘Second issue of Sport and Society Journal now available’

How Did Sport Get So Big?

sportsleadFrom Intelligent Life Magazine

On a long July afternoon in 1966, in north-west London, England’s footballers won the World Cup. By the time they beat West Germany, after extra time, with the help of a dubious goal, it was too late for the early editions of the Sunday papers. Only on the Monday was Fleet Street able to register the moment in its full glory. The Mirror, then the most popular daily ever published in Britain, with sales of 5m, knew a piece of history when it saw one. Its front-page splash proudly announced: A BOUNCING BABY GIRL FOR PRINCESS ALEX. Winning the World Cup was not as big as the birth of Marina Ogilvy, the Queen’s first cousin once removed.

The Sun didn’t lead with the football either, preferring a story about a pay squeeze; for weeks there had been a sterling crisis, and the prime minister, Harold Wilson, had loomed far larger than any footballer. Even the two papers’ sports pages, which in those days were tucked inside, went less than crazy. The Mirror had two pages reflecting on the final, the Sun a little less. In the broadsheets, two-thirds of a page did the job, as it had done throughout the tournament. Three months earlier Time magazine had run its famous cover on Swinging London. And yet, even as London swung, and Britain’s bright young things, led by the Beatles, conquered the Western world, it was as if the national mood was still being dictated by Rudyard Kipling: if you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those twin impostors just the same…

To read more…

Vuvuzela! The Sound of South Africa

By Imraan Coovadia, in n + 1

The vuvuzela is the symbol of the 2010 World Cup. It’s a one metre plastic trumpet, something like the Brazilian corneta, really loud and raucous. At its best a vuvuzela sounds like a fog horn.

Everyone has a vuvuzela. In their tens of thousands, in the beautiful new soccer stadiums, they have the sonic effect of massed rocket launchers, deafening foreign players and commentators. The locals are already deaf. You also hear vuvuzelas blown on the streets everywhere in Cape Town, and in houses, in hotel rooms, on the upper floor balconies of the bars on Long Street as the procession of fans goes by every evening.

To read more…

Playing for the Cup

By A.A. Gill, from Vanity Fair

Look, can we get this straight, right from the get-go, from the first whistle: It’s football, O.K.? Football. Not soccer. It’s never been soccer. Nobody but midwestern cougars calls it soccer. Soccer is a late-19th-century English-university slang word that’s an abbreviation of “association,” as in “association football,” to distinguish it from “Rugby football,” which, incidentally, is the origin of the game Americans call football, first played by Ivy League toff boys in 1867. In French, it’s le football. In German, it’s Fuβball. In Spanish, it’s fútbol. In Russian, it’s фymбoл. Though, weirdly, in Italian it’s calcio, from the Latin for “heel.” You may, if you really insist, call it “footie.” It also universally, and without contradiction or cultural snobbery, answers to the appellation “the Beautiful Game.”

The football World Cup is, by a country mile, a long hop, an eagle, a furlong, and the whole nine yards, the greatest sporting event in the world, ever. It’s been estimated that more than 715 million people watched the cup final in 2006. By the way, that’s almost 10 times the number that watched the Super Bowl that year. Two hundred and four nations tried to qualify for this year’s World Cup (for 32 spots). To put that in perspective, there are only 192 in the United Nations.

To read more…

Research explores ‘development and dreams’

From Karen MacGregor, in University World News

The 2010 FIFA world cup inspired one of the largest consolidated research exercises in South Africa in years. Culminating in a 2009 book, Development and Dreams, the research found the economic benefits of the global tournament had been wildly over-stated but its infrastructure and social legacies would be considerable, said co-editor Dr Udesh Pillay.

Development and Dreams: The urban legacy of the 2010 World Cup pulled together four years of research co-funded by the Development Bank of Southern Africa and led by the Centre for Service Delivery of the Human Sciences Research Council, or HSRC, which published the book. Pillay is the centre’s director.

To read more…

The NYTimes Visualization of Live World Cup Football Statistics

nytimes_football_statisticsFrom Information  Aesthetics

Last week was one mainly dominated by the introduction of compelling data visualizations depicting real-time football statistics, with entries such as VisualSport, Adidas Match Tracker, a real-time World Cup Visualiser iPad app and a Total Football 2010 iPhone app.

Today, infographic powerhouse The New York Times has entered this emerging arena as well: their blog “Goal” [goal.blogs.nytimes.com] now features a new data analysis module that delivers detailed football match information in real-time, after which it acts as a detailed interactive archive once the game has finished. A live module also appears on the homepage of The New York Times - Global Edition.

To read more…

Latest Sport & Society Journal papers

sport_frontThe latest issue of  The International Journal of Sport and Society includes:

    Embodying Dixie: Studies in the Body Pedagogics of Southern Whiteness

    dixie_cover_frontEmbodying Dixie: Studies in the Body Pedagogics of Southern Whiteness by Joshua I. Newman is now available from the Sport and Society imprint.

    Embodying Dixie offers a critical exploration into how race-based identities are formed in and around the educative bodies of the US South. Using historiographic and ethnographic methods to analyze the pedagogies and practices at the University of Mississippi (more reverently known as ‘Ole Miss’), the interrelated studies within this book bring into focus how transformational episodes such as the US Civil War, the Great Depression, World War II, Brown v. Board, and the Civil Rights Movement—as well as more recent events such as September 11, 2001 and Hurricane Katrina—have influenced the physical and social relations on the campus and beyond.

    This book canvases a university defined by a history of slavery, segregation, and exclusion; a university that has in recent years brought international notoriety for preserving symbols (i.e. the Confederate flag or the school sporting mascot, ‘Colonel Reb’), practices (i.e. the ‘Confederate Lawn Party’ or songs of the Old South), and spaces (i.e. campus monuments) of the Confederate South. Through this detour deep into the heart of Dixie, we learn important lessons about citizenship, power, and politics in US cultural life. In sum, Embodying Dixie tells the story of an institution still wrestling with an exclusionary past on its way toward a more inclusive future.

    Worldcup Finale 1930

    From YouTube - 1930 Worldcup Finale of Uruguay v. Argentina

    For related videos…

    Castrol 2010 Football World Cup Cup Live Tracker Dashboard

    castrol_worldcupFrom Information Aesthetics

    In what seems to be a simple re-skin of the Sprint Widget Mosaic Dashboard, the Castrol 2010 Football World Cup Cup Live Tracker [castrolfootball.com] displays all sorts of real-time soccer trivia and sports statistics about the current tournament. From the “total amount of goals” so far, over the “amount of energy burnt by all players”, to the “number of cards issued”, Castrol claims there a lot of “live insights” to be made through exploring this uber-widget dashboard.

    To read more…

    Excitement and Tension Run High in South Africa

    SOCCER-WORLD/By Karl-Ludwig Günsche, in Cape Town

    Only days before the start of the World Cup, South Africans seem as anxious about the planet’s biggest soccer festival as they are excited. In a torn country, threats of strikes and uprisings by the poor have put a damper on euphoria. Some groups may use the spectacle to further their own interests.

    Peter is a gas station attendant in Springbok, the capital of South Africa’s Namaqualandes region, which is famous for its wildflowers. It’s only a short distance from the border with Namibia, but you get the first sense here of the football fever that’s about to explode across the nation. Hardly any flags can be seen, only a few fans have decorated the mirrors of their cars in the country’s colors, and there aren’t many people passing through with Bafana-Bafana shirts — Springbok is not like the big cities.

    To read more…

    Sport & Society Journal: Recently Published

    sport

    The latest issue of  The International Journal of Sport and Society includes:

    Who Will Win the World Cup?

    DV91197

    By Alex Thomas On wold Sports Blog at CNN

    Although many consider football to be a global sport, a look at the history of the World Cup shows only a handful of nations have mastered it. FIFA – the game’s world governing body – recognizes 208 national associations but just seven have celebrated having the best team on the planet.

    South Africa 2010 will be the 19th football World Cup. Of the previous 18 tournaments, five have been won by Brazil, four by Italy and three by Germany. Argentina and Uruguay have claimed two each and France and England one apiece. So, four European and three South American countries have triumphed but the world champions have never come from North America, Asia or Africa.

    To read more…

    London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Mascots Announced

    dzn_london2012_mascots_wenlock_mandeville_both_sq

    In Design Magazine

    Creative agency iris has unveiled Wenlock (right)  and Mandeville (left), the mascots for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

    The two characters are based on blobs of steel used to make the girders for the Olympic stadium, and feature headlights derived from the hire light on London taxis.

    Wenlock, the mascot of the Olympic Games, is named after the English town of Much Wenlock, which inspired Baron Pierre de Coubertin to found the modern Olympic movement.

    Mandeville, the mascot of the Paralympics, is named after the town of Stoke Mandeville, the birthplace of the Paralympic Games.

    To read more…

    Sport & Society Journal, Volume 1, Number 1

    sport

    The first issue of  The International Journal of Sport and Society is now available.

    Volume 1, Number 1 includes:

      The Sports Economists Answer Your Questions

      stumbling-on-wins-articleinline

      By Stephen J. Dubner, in The New York Times

      We recently solicited your questions for sports economists David Berri and Martin Schmidt, whose new book, Stumbling on Wins, explores the statistics of sports vicory and the mistakes that teams make.

      Your questions were particularly good for this Q&A, and Berri and Schmidt avidly took the bait, covering topics like draft strategy, inefficient scoring in the NBA, and salary caps. Thanks to all for your participation.

      To read the Q&A…

      The Brain: Why Athletes are Geniuses

      By Carl Zimmer, in Discover Magazine

      The qualities that set a great athlete apart from the rest of us lie not just in the muscles and the lungs but also between the ears. That’s because athletes need to make complicated decisions in a flash. One of the most spectacular examples of the athletic brain operating at top speed came in 2001, when the Yankees were in an American League playoff game with the Oakland Athletics. Shortstop Derek Jeter managed to grab an errant throw coming in from right field and then gently tossed the ball to catcher Jorge Posada, who tagged the base runner at home plate. Jeter’s quick decision saved the game—and the series—for the Yankees. To make the play, Jeter had to master both conscious decisions, such as whether to intercept the throw, and unconscious ones. These are the kinds of unthinking thoughts he must make in every second of every game: how much weight to put on a foot, how fast to rotate his wrist as he releases a ball, and so on.

      In recent years neuroscientists have begun to catalog some fascinating differences between average brains and the brains of great athletes. By understanding what goes on in athletic heads, researchers hope to understand more about the workings of all brains—those of sports legends and couch potatoes alike.

      To read more…

      Lesbian Athletes Just Can’t Win

      basketball

      By Anna Clark, in Salon

      If you go by the official record, Sherri Murrell of Portland State University is the only lesbian coach in Division I women’s basketball. She is, after all, the first and only coach to come out. The first and only, out of more than 350 teams.

      One lesbian coach. Do you believe it?

      Coach Murrell herself said that fear is thick for other gay coaches. “There’s a lot of negative recruiting going on right now,” she said in a recent interview. That is, coaches competing for the best talent will dismiss another program as being a haven for dykes, playing on the homophobia of prospective athletes and their families, and so make their own program supposedly more appealing.

      To read more…

      The Underdog Effect: Why Do We Love a Loser?

      underdog

      From Daniel Engber, in Slate

      Fans of sports underdogs have had an amazing run these past few months. In February, the New Orleans Saints won their first-ever Super Bowl, an upset victory over the invincible Colts. At the beginning of April, a little-known college from the Midwest made it to the NCAA basketball title game against the hated Blue Devils. (When the kids from Butler finally lost, the papers called them “triumphant in defeat.”) And more recently, the Oklahoma City Thunder very nearly forced the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers to a seventh game in the first round of the NBA playoffs.

      Reason tells us this run will soon be over—underdogs are underdogs because they usually lose. I wasn’t the only one whose heart sank when Butler’s final shot rimmed out, and I won’t suffer alone when Oklahoma City gets bumped from the playoffs. We all share in the occasional joy—and more frequent misery—of rooting for the improbable.

      To read more…

      Biden Announces Change to Controversial Title IX Loophole

      save-the-date_0

      From Mary Bruce, at ABC News

      Surrounded by women athletes and Olympians Vice President Biden announced today that the Obama administration is rolling back a controversial Title IX compliance requirement enacted under the Bush administration.

      “Making Title IX as strong as possible is a no-brainer,” Biden said this afternoon at an event at George Washington University. “What we’re doing here today will better ensure equal opportunity in athletics, and allow women to realize their potential - so this nation can realize its potential.”

      To read more…


      Phoenix Suns Mix Sports and Politics at NBA Playoffs

      0507suns

      From Michel Martin, in NPR

      The Phoenix Suns sported a different type of jersey Wednesday night while playing in the NBA playoffs. The black jerseys were emblazoned with the words “Los Suns”. It was the team’s way of protesting the recently-signed controversial Arizona immigration law. Host Michel Martin speaks with Sports Illustrated writer Pablo Torre about last night’s game and the unprecedented mix of sports and politics on the court.

      MICHEL MARTIN, host:

      Last night, the debate over Arizona’s tough new immigration law shifted to the courts, or I should say the court the basketball court, that is. The Phoenix Suns protested the immigration restrictions in their home state by sporting a new jersey that reads Los Suns during last night’s playoff game. They won, by the way. They defeated the San Antonio Spurs.

      Sports Illustrated writer Pablo Torre joins us now from New York to talk about this unusual mix of sports and politics. Welcome back. Thanks for joining us.

      Mr. PABLO TORRE (Writer, Sports Illustrated): Thanks, Michel.

      To read or listen to the interview…

      First issue of Sport and Society Journal now available

      sport_front

      The first issue of  The International Journal of Sport and Society is now available.

      Volume 1, Number 1 contains:

      Continue reading ‘First issue of Sport and Society Journal now available’

      Beyond the Playing Field: ESPN and the Future of Sports Filmmaking

      tt_espn450From Tribeca Film

      In two short years, ESPN Films has become an industry heavyweight in the genre of sports filmmaking. Beginning in 2008 with the Peabody-winning documentary Black Magic and continuing with the ambitious launch of 30 for 30, the unprecedented documentary series featuring 30 of today’s finest storytellers bringing to life 30 of the most remarkable sports stories from 1979 to 2009. ESPN Films has been able to break away from what was traditionally thought of as a sports film. They’ve reimagined the genre, and by showcasing stories of passion, triumph, and loss the resurgence of sports-themed films has never been stronger.

      To read more…

      U.S.A. Hockey Goalie Ryan Miller: After the Olympics

      ryanmillersilver

      From Jessica Flint, in Vanity Fair Daily

      The tough thing about winning a silver medal in the Olympic ice-hockey tournament is that, unlike the gold- and bronze-medal teams, the second-place team earns its spot on the podium by losing a game.

      “I don’t know how I’m going to deal with the loss,” Team U.S.A. hockey goalie Ryan Miller told me when I met up with him yesterday in New York City. “I’m still sort of right in the middle of it. I’m going to keep working towards my next goal, which is helping the Buffalo Sabres make the play-offs.”

      To read more…

      White Men Can’t Jump?

      From William Saletan, in Slate

      A few days ago, I wrote about a test, now being marketed in the United States, that predicts whether your toddler has more potential as a power athlete or as an endurance athlete. The test examines ACTN3, a gene that affects fast generation of muscular force. Fray poster Andrea Freiboden isn’t impressed. “What a lot of crap. Just look at the race of the athlete,” she writes:

      “Generally, people of West African origin have more fast twitch muscles which allow intense bursts of power. This is why running backs, defensive linemen, and receivers are almost all black. We don’t need any expensive test…”

      To read more…

      Christopher Hitchens: Sporting Fool

      From Dave Zirin, in The Nation

      Nuance is the mortal enemy of essayist Christopher Hitchens. Whether it’s his rapturous support for Bush’s Iraq invasion or his best-selling dismissal (God is NOT Great) of religion, Hitchens will always eschew a surgical analysis for the rhetorical amputation. Beneath the Oxford education, he has become Thomas Friedman in an ascot, with all the subtlety of a blowtorch.

      Now Hitchens has turned his attention to sports and the ensuing essay in Newsweek, called “Fool’s Gold: How the Olympics and other international competitions breed conflict and bring out the worst in human nature” is everything you might fear. I’m no fan of the politics that surround the Olympic games but when Hitchens takes out his dull saw, nothing connected to sports is spared.

      As he writes, “Whether it’s the exacerbation of national rivalries that you want or the exhibition of the most depressing traits of the human personality (guns in locker rooms, golf clubs wielded in the home, dogs maimed and tortured at stars’ homes to make them fight, dope and steroids everywhere), you need only look to the wide world of sports for the most rank and vivid examples. As George Orwell wrote in his 1945 essay ‘The Sporting Spirit’ after yet another outbreak of combined mayhem and chauvinism on the international soccer field, ‘sport is an unfailing cause of ill-will.’ “

      As Girls Become Women, Sports Pay Dividends

      16well01-articleinline

      By Tara Parker-Pope, in The New York Times

      Almost four decades after the federal education law called Title IX opened the door for girls to participate in high school and college athletics, a crucial question has remained unanswered: Do sports make a long-term difference in a woman’s life?

      A large body of research shows that sports are associated with all sorts of benefits, like lower teenage pregnancy rates, better grades and higher self-esteem. But until now, no one has determined whether those improvements are a direct result of athletic participation. It may be that the type of girl who is attracted to sports already has the social, personal and physical qualities — like ambition, strength and supportive parents — that will help her succeed in life.

      To read more…

      After Summer Olympics, Empty Shells in Beijing

      From Michael Wines, in The New York Times

      07wines01-articlelargeBEIJING  — If you build it, he will come,” Ray Kinsella, the farmer in the 1989 film “Field of Dreams,” hears, mystically, as he walks through his cornfield. So at seemingly ruinous cost, he razes the cornfield and builds a ball field, and is rewarded with an endless stream of ticket buyers stretching to the rural Iowa horizon.

      In 2008, the Chinese built a ball field — boy, what a ball field — known worldwide for its lattice-like architecture as the Bird’s Nest. Alas, after the 2008 Olympics, the ticket buyers haven’t come. Right now, the Bird’s Nest serves as a winter amusement park known as the Happy Ice and Snow Season. In April, a promoter may stage a celebrity rock concert to “establish China as a world leader for global peace and a healthier planet.” Or not.

      To read more…

      Graduate Scholar Recipients Announced

      We are very pleased to announce our eight graduate scholar recipients for the Inaugural International Conference on Sport and Society!  We are very excited to have their assistance with running the conference and eagerly welcome them to Vancouver!

      Our Scholarship Winners:

      Nancy Anderson

      Curtis Suver

      Anne-Marie Bourgeois

      Cindi Textor

      Rook Campbell

      Jesse Wagner

      Colin McGuire

      Jun Yue

      Please click here to find out more about each of these recipients!

      The Mild West

      From The Economist

      vancouver-olympicsTHE Winter Olympics begin in Vancouver in three weeks’ time. An audio guide from our local correspondent tells visitors what to expect of this diverse, temperate city.

      “You need to recognise that while we may seem very similar in many respects, Canadians are not exactly like Americans. American executives, for example, are commonly inclined to move quickly and cut right to the chase when advancing a project or coming to a decision. Canadians generally don’t do that.”

      To read more…

      Spartacus and Pulling Gods: This is your very breakable brain on NFL Sunday

      helmentsFrom Sam Kean in 3 quarks daily:

      Head injuries have dogged the National Football League since its very early days, since even before facemasks. But, donning the proud mantle of tobacco scientists everywhere, the NFL’s experts refused to admit until just a few months ago that it wasn’t a coincidence so many former players ended up with neurological damage by the time they turned fifty. The word going around is that a few skeptical medical men in charge of the NFL’s official investigation into the matter, a team led by one Dr. Ira Casson, had been dismissing the link between concussions and cognitive difficulties. Casson seemed obviously full of crap, and after Congress hog-piled onto the issue to scold the league, the NFL finally dismissed Casson and reevaluated the evidence. It was damning. In one study, coroners discovered that twelve of thirteen former NFL players had a buildup of a plaque in their brains—a plaque—called tau, a snarl of protein that disrupts neuronal function and that has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. Many of the NFL players died in their forties; another autopsy revealed the beginning of tau tangles in an 18-year-old.

      For more…

      Vancouver 2010 Olympics Watch: Hockey Player Milan Lucic

      From Jessica Flint, in Vanity Fair

      milanlucic1

      Will Vancouver-born Milan Lucic make Canada’s 2010 Olympic hockey team when the roster is announced on Wednesday? Pray that the Zamboni gods will be so kind: the world wouldn’t want to be denied of what could be an epic Olympic rivalry between the 21-year-old Boston Bruins winger and the Toronto Maple Leafs’ defenseman Mike Komisarek, 27, a contender for a spot on Team U.S.A. In November 2008, when Komisarek was playing for the Montreal Canadiens, the two players exchanged such monster blows that Lucic literally dismantled Komisarek, whose shoulder popped out of its socket, forcing the Habs bruiser to the bench for more than a dozen games. Komisarek retaliated the following April by cross-checking Lucic in the face.

      “Hypothetically speaking, let’s say you have a rival in the National Hockey League,” I said to Lucic when I met up with the six-foot-three-inch brawler a few weeks ago at the N.H.L. offices in New York City. “Would that carry over onto an Olympic stage if you are playing for Team Canada and your league rival is playing for, say, Team U.S.A.?”

      Lucic’s toothy grin suggested he knew exactly to whom I was alluding. But then again, I could have been referring to any number of players: Lucic got into 13 fights in 2007, his rookie year, leading the Bruins in roughhousing. In his sophomore regular season, his fight card totaled 10. (By comparison, Komisarek, whom Sports Illustrated nominated one of the 12 most rugged players in N.H.L., recorded a total of six fights in the 2007 and 2008 regular seasons.)

      To read more…

      Vancouver 2010 Olympics Watch: Snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler

      From Jessica Flint, in Vanity Fair

      gretchenbleilerolympicswatchThe first thing that struck me when I met 2006 Turin silver medalist Gretchen Bleiler earlier this year was how much bad ass is contained in such a little frame. After all, the five-foot-five-inch half-pipe snowboarder is best known for a daredevil trick called the Crippler 540—an inverted aerial move with one and a half rotations and a backflip. “But new for this year will be a Crippler 720,” the 28-year-old e-mailed me last week, “where you rotate 180 degrees more.” Yowsers.

      Bleiler was in New York City last summer unveiling her winter 2010 Oakley snowboarding outerwear and clothing line. After having skied Park City wearing her faux-fur-trimmed jacket, flattering snow pants, and super-soft organic T-shirts a few months before, I was looking forward to seeing her new pieces. From the playful urban hints on this season’s coat—including a graffiti graphic and toggle buttons—to snowboarding pants with an adjustable gathered cuff, I nearly forgot that the blonde sartorialist walking me through her stylish collection is also a three-time X Games gold medalist who can throw down tricks that put the word “extreme” in the term “extreme sports.”

      To read more…

      Game, Set and Match — Agass

      From Michael Mewshaw, in The Washington Post

      ph2009110601567Pro tennis could teach the mafia about omertà. Although dozens of champions have chattered away to ghostwriters, their memoirs have generally remained silent about the game’s seamy realities. Presented to the public as clean family fun, an upscale entertainment for the country-club set, top-level tennis is actually played by the physical and emotional mutants of a misery machine that leaves them too ill-educated or psychically damaged to understand what has happened to their lives. Like most victims of abuse, they’d rather not talk about it.

      So it’s both astonishing and a pleasure to report that Andre Agassi, who was castigated for an ad campaign saying “Image is everything,” has produced an honest, substantive, insightful autobiography. True to the genre of jock hagiography, it has its share of stock footage — total recall of famous matches, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat and an upbeat ending. But the bulk of this extraordinary book vividly recounts a lost childhood, a Dickensian adolescence and a chaotic struggle in adulthood to establish an identity that doesn’t depend on alcohol, drugs or the machinations of PR.

      To read more…

      No Sprinting Advantage With Prosthetic Limbs

      Unfair advantage?  Because they produce less force with each step, lightweight sprinting prostheses probably don't give amputee athletes a leg up.  Credit: Orthopedic Specialty Hospital

      Unfair advantage? Because they produce less force with each step, lightweight sprinting prostheses probably don't give amputee athletes a leg up. Credit: Orthopedic Specialty Hospital

      From Michael Torrice in ScienceNOW Daily News.

      In 2007, South African double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius became the first disabled athlete to compete against able-bodied runners, placing seventh in the British Grand Prix. But his J-shaped carbon-fiber prostheses, called the Össur Flex-Foot Cheetah, sparked a debate within the athletic world: Do the devices give him an unfair advantage over able-bodied competitors? The answer, according to a new study of six amputee sprinters, is no.

      Scientists debate whether the Össur Cheetah boosts performance. Some experts believed that Pistorius’s setup would allow him and other amputee sprinters to move their legs faster than able-bodied runners and reach high speeds more easily. But last summer, a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge showed that Pistorius’s prosthetic limbs didn’t generate as much force against the ground as biological legs.

      To read more…

      New History of Sport Psychology

      212-673303-product_largetomediumimage-thumbChristopher Green of York University and Ludy Benjamin of Texas A&M University are editors of Psychology Gets in the Game: Sport, Mind, and Behavior, 1880-1960, a new book from the University of Nebraska Press.

      Although sport psychology did not fully mature as a recognized discipline until the 1960s, pioneering psychologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, making greater use of empirical research methodologies, sought to understand mental factors that affect athletic performance. Though the psychologists behind the studies described here worked independently of one another and charted their own distinct courses of inquiry, their works, taken together, provided the corpus of precedents and foundations on which the modern field of sport psychology was built. The essays collected in this volume tell the stories not only of these psychologists and their subjects but of the social and academic context that surrounded them, shaping and being shaped by their ideas.

      OFFENSIVE PLAY- How different are dogfighting and football?

      From Malcolm Gladwell at The New Yorker

      One evening in August, Kyle Turley was at a bar in Nashville with his wife and some friends. It was one of the countless little places in the city that play live music. He’d ordered a beer, but was just sipping it, because he was driving home. He had eaten an hour and a half earlier. Suddenly, he felt a sensation of heat. He was light-headed, and began to sweat. He had been having episodes like that with increasing frequency during the past year—headaches, nausea. One month, he had vertigo every day, bouts in which he felt as if he were stuck to a wall. But this was worse. He asked his wife if he could sit on her stool for a moment. The warmup band was still playing, and he remembers saying, “I’m just going to take a nap right here until the next band comes on.” Then he was lying on the floor, and someone was standing over him. “The guy was freaking out,” Turley recalled. “He was saying, ‘Damn, man, I couldn’t find a pulse,’ and my wife said, ‘No, no. You were breathing.’ I’m, like, ‘What? What?’ ”

      More…

      Bubbletecture Stadium Popping Up in Melbourne

      Inhabitat.com’s Bridgette Meinhold reports:

      A bubbly new soccer and rugby stadium is popping up in Melbourne that will feature a highly engineered exterior structure combined with many sustainable features. Designed by Cox Architects, the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium is a marvel of architecture and engineering with it’s bubble-like facade inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome. Construction is fully underway, allowing a glimpse into how the cantilevered structure is being put together.

      When completed in 2010, the stadium will seat 30,000 spectators as they watch both the Melbourne Victory Soccer Team and the Melbourne Storm Rugby Club. The stadium will also house a sports medicine facility and many administrative offices for the city’s sports organizations. The stadium’s design was inspired by the geodesic dome and it features a unique cantilever design that provides shelter for the spectators without inhibiting their view of the game below. More…

      Hunt for Cheats Has Political Hue

      The New York Times‘ Rob Hughes writes:

      Cheating in sports has been around a very long time, but is there more of it in the world today? And if there is, surely with modern science we can deal with it?

      The sports pages Tuesday were indicative of the trend: The jockey banned for providing inside information to bettors, the motor racer allegedly instructed to deliberately crash to alter the outcome, the rugby player who feigned a blood injury, the dopers in athletics, and, of course, the furor in soccer over top players simulating fouls to obtain penalties by deceit.

      On Tuesday, UEFA, which oversees soccer in Europe, banned Eduardo da Silva, the Arsenal forward, for two matches. A disciplinary panel decided to over rule the match referee, by concluding from video evidence that Eduardo deceived the referee into thinking he was tripped by Celtic’s goalkeeper Artur Boruc in the Champions League last week. More…

      Richard Pound - Vancouver 2010 Olympic/Paralympic Winter Games - at Sport and Society Conference

      Richard Pound, 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Vancouver Organizing Committee, Montréal, Canada
      www.SportConference.com

      Richard Pound is director of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and, since 2007, has been a member of the International Council Arbitration for Sport. He is the founding Chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency (1999-2007) and remains a member of its Foundation board. In February 2008, he was awarded the Laureus “Spirit of Sport” Prize for his work as head of the World Anti-Doping Agency. In addition, Mr. Pound has been named to Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world for his relentless efforts to rid sport of performance- enhancing drugs. More…

      2010 Sport and Society Conference - Accommodation

      Accommodation for the 2010 Sport and Society Conference in Vancouver, Canada may now be booked. Please see the Conference Accommodation webpage for more information.

      2010 Sport and Society Conference - Plenary Speaker Added

      Patricia Vertinsky, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
      www.SportConference.com

      Patricia Vertinsky is a Professor in the School of Human Kinetics, with the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Her specializations include social and cultural history of the body: gender, race, aging and disability; gender relations, health, sport and exercise; social history of women and health; social and cultural aspects of sport and physical activity; health education; health promotion; and health policy
      She received her B.A. (Hons) and Dip.Ed. in History and Physical Education from Birmingham University, UK; her M.Sc. in Sociology and Kinesiology at the University of California at Los Angeles, USA; and her Ed.D in Social Foundations of Education from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

      2010 Sport and Society Conference - Plenary Speaker Added

      Professor Barbara Evans, University of British Columbia, Canada
      www.SportConference.com

      Professor Barbara Evans commenced her present appointment as Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the University of British Columbia in early November 2007. Prior to this Professor Evans was Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Training) at The University of Melbourne, with particular responsibilities for the oversight of policy, management and quality assurance for research higher degree programs, postgraduate generic skills training and research supervision.

      Since 1997, she had also been Dean of the School of Graduate Studies (SGS). Professor Evans has been an invited speaker at many international conferences in the US, Canada, Europe and Asia focused on graduate and research higher degree education, and has been invited to review Graduate Programs at several Australian and international universities due to the School’s excellent reputation. More…

      2010 Sport and Society Conference - Plenary Speaker Added

      Sir Philip Craven, International Paralympic Committee, UK
      www.SportConference.com

      Sir Philip Craven MBE was elected President of the International Paralympic Committee in 2001. Under his Presidency the International Paralympic Committee has developed to become one of the leading sports organizations in the world. Sir Philip is also a member of the International Olympic Committee and a Board Member of the London 2012 Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

      In addition, Sir Philip serves as the International Paralympic Committee representative in several international organizations including the Foundation Board of the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Administration Council of the International Committee for Fair Play. More…

      ‘On This Tour, No Breakaways’

      Samuel Abt of the New York Times reports…

      No jokes, please, about that extraordinary bicycle race, the Penal Tour de France, that is wending its way around the country in a pack composed of convicts, prison officials and policemen. Hold the wheezes about how, if a low-ranked rider wins, it will be highway robbery, or, as a tumultuous sprint to the finish develops, somebody will get away with murder. Nothing about how, instead of a yellow jersey, the leader will wear one with black and white stripes. Above all, no references to a breakaway, in French an echappée or, shudder, an escape. Well, maybe one. It comes from Daniel, a 48-year-old prisoner in Nantes, whose last name was not given when the Tour de France Pénitentiaire was announced there last month. More…

      ‘NBA gets combined A for race, gender’

      Matt Poms of USA Today reports…

      A report from the Orlando-based Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport has given the NBA an “A” on its 2009 Racial and Gender Report Card, but showed the league could improve in a few areas. The group, directed by Dr. Richard Lapchick of the University of Central Florida, concluded the league “remains the industry leader on issues related to race and gender hiring practices.” The NBA received a score of 94.9 in the race category, down slightly from its record high of 96.2 last year, and an 89 for gender. That mark was the highest in league history and rose from 84.5 last year. The report praised NBA commissioner David Stern, noting he has “taken the lead on diversity issues in sports.” Under Stern’s watch this past season, 35% of employees in the NBA league offices were people of color, and 43% were women. More…

      London 2012 Olympic Staduim Construction Update

      More than 700 rooms will be based below the podium level of the Stadium, including eight changing rooms and an 82m track in the west stand for athletes to use when warming-up. Since last May, construction has included installing more than 4,500 reinforced concrete columns into the ground, up to 20m deep, to provide the foundations for the Stadium structure. Twelve of the 85-tonne steel roof sections have been lifted into place and the remaining 16 will be in place by the end of 2009. The first permanent footbridge to the Stadium ‘island’ has been lifted into place and work on the supports of the other four bridges has begun. More…

      US Sports and Freedom of Speech?

      A Texas Rangers fan sporting a “Yankees Suck” t-shirt, claims she was almost ejected from Tuesday’s game against the Bronx Bombers at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Texas.

      Kristen Knapp-Webb, of Carrollton, said a security guard approached her and demanded that she turn her t-shirt inside out, or face being kicked out of the game altogether. She says the guard told her that the Texas Rangers organization considered the shirt to be inappropriate because of the profanity. More…

      “Women’s Pro Sports: Can Gender Really be Taken ‘out of the equation’?”

      The seven teams in the newly launched Women’s Professional Soccer league are about two months into their inaugural season, playing in front of crowds that average about 5,400 and in front of viewers tuning into the Fox Soccer Channel. The league’s initial success is just part of the reason for high hopes that this league will thrive, according to Commissioner Tonya Antonucci, who spoke to the annual convention of the Association for Women in Sports Media in Philadelphia on Saturday.

      To read more…http://sportsmediasociety.blogspot.com/2009/05/womens-pro-sports-can-gender-really-be.html