Sports as a Field of Academic Study

Sports history as a field of academia has dramatically increased over the past thirty years.  Recently, historians and sociologists have managed to look past the celebratory aspects of sports to uncover broader themes about times periods, race, gender roles, and identity.  Allen Guttmann’s 1978 From Ritual to Record: The Nature of Modern Sports was one of the first major works on sports by a professional historian.  This book promoted the significance of studying sports as a method of understanding structures of societies.  Since then, many historians have followed in Guttmann’s footsteps including Benjamin G. Radar.  Radar’s 2009 American Sports: from the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Televised Sports considers the influence of sports on race, gender, class, and religion.  Similarly, Michael Oriad’s 2004 King Football: Sport and Spectacle in the Golden Age of Radio and Newsreels, Movies and Magazines, the Weekly and Daily Press examines the Americanization of football and the effects of widespread media coverage.  Finally, Pamela Grundy’s 2001 Learning to Win: Sports, Education, and Social Change in Twentieth-Century North Carolina, provides a valuable resource to this project as it covers the social impact of sports in North Carolina, particularly.  Grundy examines the Graham Plan briefly, but does not describe the 1936-1937 controversy at NC State.  This project provides an in-depth look at one particular school and time period, not previously researched, to interpret broad themes related to the role of college football.