The antagonists—oiled, shaved, pierced, and tattooed; the glaring lights; the pounding music; the shouting crowd: professional wrestling is at once spectacle, sport, and business. Steel Chair to the Head provides a multifaceted look at the popular phenomenon of pro wrestling. The contributors combine critical rigor with a deep appreciation of wrestling as a unique cultural form, the latest in a long line of popular performance genres. They examine wrestling as it happens in the ri...

For more than eighty years, The New Yorker has been home to some of the toughest, wisest, funniest, and most moving sportswriting around. The Only Game in Town is a classic collection from a magazine with a deep bench, including such authors as Roger Angell, John Updike, Don DeLillo, and John McPhee. Hall of Famer Ring Lardner is here, bemoaning the lowering of standards for baseball achievement—in 1930. John Cheever pens a story about a boy’s troubled relationship with h...

In this eBook exclusive essay, Pulitzer Prize–winning sports journalist George Dohrmann follows a father and son separated by prison bars—but bonded by their pursuit of basketball glory.The dream of playing big-time basketball never came true for Bruce Nelson, so he passed it on to his son Roberto. His every waking moment as a father was devoted to securing Roberto a Division I scholarship. Oftentimes he worried that his son’s lack of competitive fire might put tha...

Powerful stories about the way sports can bring together fathers and sons, to work out their differences and express their love for each other.Fathers & Sons & Sportspresents apowerful lineup of real-world stories about fathers and sons playing one-on-one in the game of life, written by such great sportswriters and authors asHenry Aaron, as told to Cal Fussman • Michael J. Agovino • Buzz Bissinger • Jeff Bradley • John Ed Bradley • James Brown • Da...

Grappling is a smash-mouth activity. It is a put your beer down and let’s settle this type of martial art. Man vs. man, woman vs. man, child vs. man, it is one of the ultimate ‘prove it’ combat sports. Yet, once you get past the rough and challenging aspect of submission wrestling it’s easy to see that grappling is much more than that. It is also a very cerebral activity.Psychology is the study of mental processes and behaviors. By studying our psyches we hope to learn how to succe...

38 pieces that will be remembered for seasons to comeFor 25 years, sports journalists south of the border have been collected in best-of anthologies. With Best Canadian Sports Writing, editors Stacey May Fowles and Pasha Malla offer a long overdue rejoinder from the North, showcasing top literary sports writing from diverse homegrown talent.This extraordinary anthology of recent writing mixes columns and long-form journalism, profiles and reportage...

Once deemed an unworthy research endeavor, the study of sports fandom has garnered the attention of seasoned scholars from a variety of academic disciplines. Identity and socialization among sports fans are particular burgeoning areas of study among a growing cadre of specialists in the social sciences. Sports Fans, Identity, and Socialization, edited by Adam C. Earnheardt, Paul Haridakis, and Barbara Hugenberg, captures an eclectic collection of new studies from accomplished scholars in t...

In recent years the ‘body’ has become one of the most popular areas of study in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Bodybuilding, in particular, continues to be of interest to scholars of gender, media, film, cultural studies and sociology. However, there is surprisingly little scholarship available on contemporary bodybuilding. Critical Readings in Bodybuilding is the first collection to address the contemporary practice of bodybuilding, especially the way in which the acti...

For a quarter century, the annual Best American Sports Writing has showcased the greatest sports journalism of the previous year. This year’s guest editor, acclaimed author Howard Bryant, continues the tradition, seeking out writing that best captures the unpredictable journey of sports. Triumphantly and painfully, these stories reflect on that journey, asking difficult questions about who we are, as individuals and as a nation: What does it mean when a football player takes a knee during ...

'How much risk is worth taking for so beautiful a prize?'The Magician's Glass by award-winning writer Ed Douglas is a collection of eight recent essays on some of the biggest stories and best-known personalities in the world of climbing.In the title essay, he writes about failure on Annapurna III in 1981, one of the boldest attempts in Himalayan mountaineering on one of the most beautiful lines – a line th...

There's a battle being fought. It's raging on the sports fields, in the newsrooms and behind the scenes at every major broadcaster. Women in sport are fighting for equality with more vigour than ever, but are they breaking down the barriers that stand in their way?Sarah Shephard looks behind the headlines to see whether progress is really being made and tells the stories that can no longer be ignored. It's time for women to switch their focus from the battlefield t...

To read a sample chapter, visit www.uapress.com.Baltimore is the birthplace of Francis Scott Key’s “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the incomparable Babe Ruth, and the gold medalist Michael Phelps. It’s a one-of-a-kind town with singular stories, well-publicized challenges, and also a rich sporting history. Baltimore Sports: Stories from Charm City chronicles the many ways that sports are an integral part of Baltimore’s history and identity and part of what mak...