1. Adding sports to the standard history curriculum 1.What popular/culture sports can and cannot do in history teaching. 2. A 7 point overview of the history of sports in the U.S. 3. Some stories that provide valuable teaching anecdotes 4. Democracy and rights in U.S. sports

2. Popular culture in the classroom Strengths: appeal to interests; get students thinking about the historical moment, and living thoughtfully in their own time. Weaknesses: getting students (and parents) to take it seriously; the standards do not take it seriously; certain ahistorical continuities; frustratingly fuzzy because of questions about consumers taste and intent

3. Popular Culture and Sports: some interpretative questions Are sports and popular culture merely escapes from more serious activities? What do they reflect about society? How significant are they historically?

4. Sports: possibilities for classroom use 1.5 th grade: colonial games as a way of contributing to understanding of life; biographical approach to sports heros Jim Thorpe, Gertrude Ederle, Joe Louis, Babe Didrikson, Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens, John Wooden Billie Jean King, etc. etc. Try to get them to put sports triumph in social context. Why were there individual successes socially significant? 1. 8 th grade: baseball as an example of urbanization, sports role in sectional conflict and the civil war, industrialization, immigration and the rise of spectator sports: How did sports reflect other aspects of the mid-nineteenth century? 1.11 th grade: Industrialization, baseball and imperialism, sports and race/genderCivil Rights; Sports and mass media Can now move beyond the hero approach, and consider sports as an independent Example: Why was baseball segregated for so long? Who benefitted? Were women hurt by the rise of the macho ideal represented by Teddy Roosevelt, football, and celebration of male muscularity?

5. Brief overview of sports history 1.Colonial America: Puritan restraint, Colonial Va. status anxiety sports generally drunken, bloody and brutal 2.1830s Cities become the center of sport: boxing, baseball, harness racingimportance of gambling 3.1860s College students begin to play sports institutionally (rowing, football, track); baseball becomes Americas game. 4.1890s key periodbasketball, volleyball invented, major leagues in baseball emerge; masculinity becomes central, women start playing in earnest, racial barriers solidifiedspectatorship thoroughly established. 5.1920s: mass media (newspapers, magazines, radio, movies) create and exploit sports celebrities, including women and ethnic/racial heros 6.1950s: t.v., youth sports leagues, rise of NFL, NBA 7.1980s: internationalization of sports, 1979 enforcement ruling finally gives Title IX teeth, so new opportunities for young women in sports; ESPN, sports 24/7