Sports in American Life

A History

Richard O. Davies

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781118912546
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Nordamerikanische Geschichte

The third edition of author Richard O. Davies' highly praised narrative of American sports, Sports in American Life: A History, features extensive revisions and updates to its presentation of an interpretative history of the relationship of sports to the larger themes of U.S. history.

Updated include a new section on concussions caused by contact sports and new biographies of John Wooden and Joe Paterno.

• Features extensive revisions and updates, along with a leaner, faster-paced narrative than previous editions
• Addresses the social, economic, and cultural interaction between sports and gender, race, class, and other larger issues
• Provides expanded coverage of college sports, women in sports, race and racism in organized sports, and soccer's sharp rise in popularity
• Features an all-new section that tackles the growing controversy of head injuries and concussions caused by contact sports

1
The Emergence of Organized Sports, 1607–1860

There is substantial evidence to indicate that games and contests were an integral part of everyday life in colonial America, but it was not until the nineteenth century that the playing of games began to reflect the structure and organization that we associate with modern American sports. Colonists participated in a myriad of activities that are best described as folk games, meaning that they were characterized by their spontaneity and absence of standardized rules and bureaucratic organization. Many varied games were played in the English colonies, but the most popular spectator event in colonial America was horse racing, much of which occurred in the Tidewater region of Maryland and Virginia. Colonial games and recreations were characterized by their casual nature, more or less governed by informal rules of local origin and subject to constant revision and argument. Team games were unheard of, and participation in any activity that included physical competition was limited to a small percentage of the colonial population.

Although the many games and contests that absorbed the attention of colonial America incorporated many New World variations – including adaptation of Native American games – their roots could be found in rural England. Immigrants to the New World naturally brought with them the customs, values, and vices of the Old World. The Puritan leaders who came to Massachusetts Bay Colony were determined to build a new order – a shining “city on a hill,” as John Winthrop eloquently expressed it in 1630 – that placed emphasis on the creation of a theocratic state in which pious men and women responded to God's calling to a life of discipline and productivity as farmers, seamen, and craftsmen. Similarly, the Anglicans who gravitated to the Chesapeake Bay region were equally determined to replicate the social norms of the landed gentry of rural England, replete with the pleasures of lavish balls and banquets, riding to hounds, the playing of billiards and card games, and hell-bent-for-leather horse races, all of which were accompanied by gambling.

The era of folk games began to give way to a new era of organized sports in the decades following the American Revolution, but it was not until the 1850s that a new era of organized team games, complete with written rules, structured play, and measurable outcomes, became commonplace. These changes reflected the vast technological and economic changes that trended toward urbanization, manufacturing, and heavily capitalized commercial development. By 1860, a vast network of canals and 30,000 miles of railroads had connected a burgeoning urban network that stretched from Boston and New York to as far west as Chicago and St Louis. Telegraph lines made it possible to send and receive messages with incredible speed, and coal-powered ships carried raw materials and finished products up and down America's rivers and across the Great Lakes.

The Census of 1860 revealed just how far the young nation had come since the presidency of George Washington. In 1790, over 95 percent of the people derived their livelihood from agriculture, and New York City and Philadelphia were the two largest cities with populations of 33,000 and 28,500 respectively. By 1860, 20 percent of the American people lived in urban places and New York City had a population in excess of 1 million. In 1830, fully 80 percent of the American people were classified as farmers, a figure that fell to just 53 percent 30 years later. The urban and industrial transformation of America, however, was barely visible in the South, a region hamstrung by the “peculiar institution” of slavery that slowed social and economic innovation and discouraged the development of manufacturing and the building of vibrant urban centers. The United States entered a new modern era characterized by standardization, organization, hierarchical decision-making, mass production, efficiency, and electronic communications.

Games in Colonial New England

The harsh environment of colonial America was not conducive to playing games. Mere survival was an everyday fact of life. Puritan skepticism about the worth of nonproductive games was inevitably intensified by the unrelenting frontier environment in which colonists found themselves. What they referred to as the “howling wilderness” proved to be a powerful influence upon their thoughts and actions; in such an environment, the development of a substantial leisure ethic was necessarily circumscribed. If a game encouraged participants to shirk their essential obligations for work and worship, then it was deemed inappropriate. Focus on the serious nature of life was especially pronounced in New England where powerful public pressure gave primacy to the importance of an individual's dedication to a life of productive labor and worship. The Puritans did not abolish games and recreational activities, but they made clear distinctions between games and other diversions that tended to restore clarity of mind and refresh the body so that one could return to the field or shop reinvigorated. Actually, much of the Puritans' concerns about games and play grew out of memories of England, where unseemly social behavior routinely occurred in conjunction with activities that were closely associated with excessive drinking, and gambling. As historian Bruce Daniels concludes, “colonies did not pass laws against ball and blood sports; public contempt sufficed to bar them.” As he observes, the pervasive lack of attention to ball games by New Englanders in their sermons, diaries, correspondence, and newspapers throughout the entire colonial period “speaks volumes” about their absence from the daily lives of colonists of New England.¹

To their credit, the Puritans adamantly sought to suppress “butcherly sports” such as the brutalizing of animals that regularly occurred in England. Puritans struggled to control and even abolish animal baiting, cockfighting, and violent human competitions such as pugilism and a primitive game of “foot ball” that revolved around the advancement of an inflated pig's bladder across a goal by the means of kicking or running. These contests sometimes involved hundreds of participants and serious injuries were not uncommon. New England leaders, however, permitted practical activities that promoted fitness and health, such as hunting and fishing. New England's massive forests contained a bounteous array of game that provided food for the family table. However, the successful hunting of big game – bear, deer, and moose – proved a difficult task due to the lack of accurate firearms, so New Englanders tended to focus their attention on the many ponds, lakes, and streams that teemed with fish. Fishing enjoyed widespread popularity as an approved recreational activity; it was, in fact, one of a small number of recreations that Harvard College officially sanctioned for students. Given the considerable attention devoted to fishing in the writings of colonial New Englanders, it is safe to conclude that most males at one time or another cast a line into the streams and lakes of the region. And of course many adults made their living as fishermen in the waters of the North Atlantic. Fishing was, as Daniels concludes, the “ideal pastime for men and boys” because of its utility and lack of association with untoward social behaviors.²

The relatively diverse and cosmopolitan population of the New York City region dictated a less constrictive view of games and recreation. Originally settled by the Dutch, the city of New York provided an environment in which residents found time to relax and play games suggestive of modern-day croquet, cricket, tennis, lawn bowling, and badminton. To the anguish of many, animal baiting and cockfights were also instituted – often at fairs and other community-wide social events – and they enjoyed widespread popularity among the lower classes in part because these sports were conducive to wagering.

The dominant Quaker population of Philadelphia and its environs resulted in the banning of most forms of leisure activity, including dancing, card playing, animal baiting, and maypole celebrations. Young people were encouraged to learn to hunt and fish as part of the struggle for subsistence in the rugged colonial environment, and such activities as running and swimming were seen as helpful to the physical development of young girls and boys. Like the Puritans, the Quakers of Pennsylvania viewed the playing of games within the larger context of whether the activity promoted general community welfare, economic growth, military skills, physical fitness, and spiritual growth.

Thus recreational activities in the colonies north of the Chesapeake Bay region generally had to be rationalized within the context of the larger issues of protecting the Sabbath, preventing cruelty to animals, responding to one's secular calling, providing food for the table, and maintaining health and fitness. Gambling in the regions controlled by the Puritans and Quakers was generally minimal and not a matter for serious concern. In fact, churches, schools, colleges, and other public agencies themselves encouraged a widely accepted form of gambling to finance major projects. Public lotteries were frequently offered by authorities to raise monies to build new churches, school buildings, or other public facilities, a practice that local governments would abandon early in the nineteenth century after a wave of scandals discredited the integrity of lotteries. In the latter half of the twentieth century, political leaders in 37 states resurrected the lottery as a means of raising revenue for such purposes as funding public education and to avoid the political risk of increasing taxes.

In both New England and the Middle Colonies, colonists interacted regularly with Native Americans. This interaction, however, does not seem to have greatly influenced the development of games and recreations engaged in by the colonists, although some of the games played by Indians were similar to those enjoyed by the colonists, and included ample symbolism related to fertility, healing, and warfare. Often the games played by Native Americans included preparation through elaborate rituals, dances, and sacred chants intended to ward off evil spirits and to help ensure victory in the upcoming contest. The most common of the games played by the natives was a game involving the use of a small ball and sticks equipped with small leather nets. The Cherokee called their version of the game “the little brother of war” because it involved hundreds of players engaged in advancing the ball over several miles of rugged terrain. Some games could last for days. Because of the vast numbers of players it was difficult for many of them even to get close to the ball, so they contented themselves with attempts to injure their opponents with their sticks. In what is now upper New York and Ontario, early French explorers witnessed a similar game being played by the Iroquois, although typical sides numbered about 20 with two goals set up about 120 feet apart. The French thought that the sticks resembled a bishop's crozier, spelled la crosse in French, so the name of the game that remains yet today an important sport in the eastern United States carries the name given to it by the French.

Recreations in Southern Colonies

In 1686, an aristocratic Frenchman visited Virginia and recorded his observations of everyday life in hi...