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In The Beginning There Was No Beginning
Did basketball begin the night Naismith finished writing up the thirteen rules or did it begin the next day, when his class of unruly students played the game for the first time? * * * This may seem,...
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When, Why, and How There is an "I" in "Team"
Early on in Hoops Culture class, my students read an essay by an established philosopher of sport, Professor R. Scott Kretchmar. He begins an essay on the moral qualities of different styles of...
View ArticleOn Mitch McGary, Nietzsche, and Ressentiment
I’m coming at this thing as a fan and as an educator, and as an educator who is a fan of those he educates. Yes, I’m talking about UM men’s basketball players, but not only about them. I’m a fan and...
View ArticleWhat is a Foul Anyway? (Excerpt from Ball Don't Lie! Intro, Pt 1)
I knew I wanted to call my book “Ball Don’t Lie!” before I knew why I wanted to call it that. Some of you might already know that the phrase comes from retired NBA player Rasheed Wallace. He used to...
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What 'Sheed Says When He Says "Ball Don't Lie!"
“Pistons Sheed” (Nathan McKee, 2014, Giclee Print, 13 x 19) In my post yesterday, I analyzed the structure of a foul call in an NBA game to show that a foul doesn’t cause the whistle to blow (as the...
View ArticleFor More, and Better, Sports Narratives
Is the sports media sphere being overrun by narratives? Are they getting in the way of facts and the truth? A couple of recently published essays (one by Phil Daniels, writing in The Cauldron, and the...
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Writing the Sporting Body
This semester, I’m excited to be teaching two sports-related courses in the same semester for the first time. First, I’ll once again be teaching “Cultures of Basketball.” I taught it for the first...
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Phil Jackson and the Essence of Basketball
Yesterday, Howard Beck published a fine profile of New York Knicks President Phil Jackson. Jackson, a former player (on the championship teams of the Knicks in 1970 and 1973) and coach (of 11...
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“Athletics” (Reading In Praise of Athletic Beauty, Post 4)
Having arrived at definitions of “beauty” and “praise,” Hans Gumbrecht moves in the final section of the “Definitions” chapter of In Praise of Athletic Beauty to the question to the task of defining...
View ArticleSomaesthetics and Sports: Call for Papers
Call for Papers: Special Volume on “Somaesthetics and Sport” Sport offers opportunities for the integrated experience of human embodiment. At the same time, sport occurs within, shapes and is shaped...
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