sports history essay

A Brief History of Sports

From Rocks and Spears to Laser Tag

• Famous Inventions
• Famous Inventors
• Patents & Trademarks
• Invention Timelines
• Computers & The Internet
• American History
• African American History
• African History
• Ancient History and Culture
• Asian History
• European History
• Latin American History
• Medieval & Renaissance History
• Military History
• The 20th Century
• Women's History

The documented history of sports goes back at least 3,000 years. In the beginning, sports often involved the preparation for war or training as a hunter, which explains why so many early games involved the throwing of spears, stakes, and rocks, and sparring one-on-one with opponents.

With the first Olympic Games in 776 BC—which included events such as foot and chariot races, wrestling, jumping, and discus and javelin throwing—the Ancient Greeks introduced formal sports to the world. The following by no means exhaustive list takes a look at the beginnings and evolution of some of today's most popular sporting pastimes.

Games with Bats & Balls: Cricket, Baseball, and Softball

• Cricket: The game of cricket originated in south-east England sometime in the late 16th century. By the 18th century, it had become the national sport, making inroads globally in the 19th and 20th centuries. The prototype for the modern cricket bat featuring a willow blade and a cane handle layered with strips of rubber, and then tied with twine and covered with another layer of rubber to form a grip was invented around 1853. (The longest recorded game of cricket took place in 1939 and spanned a period of nine days.)
• Baseball : Alexander Cartwright (1820-1892) of New York invented the baseball field as we know it in 1845. Cartwright and the members of his New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club​ devised the first rules and regulations that became the accepted standard for the modern game of baseball.
• Softball: In 1887, George Hancock, a reporter for the Chicago Board of Trade, invented softball as a form of indoor baseball that was first played on a cold winter day inside the warm Farragut Boat Club.

The first formal rules for basketball were devised in 1892. Initially, players dribbled a soccer ball up and down a court of unspecified dimensions. Points were earned by landing the ball in a peach basket. Iron hoops and a hammock-style basket were introduced in 1893. Another decade passed, however, before the innovation of open-ended nets put an end to the practice of manually retrieving the ball from the basket each time a goal was scored. The first shoes specifically designed for the game, Converse All Stars, were introduced in 1917 and were soon made famous by legendary player Chuck Taylor who became an early brand ambassador in the 1920s. 

Rugby and American Football

• Rugby: The origins of rugby can be traced back over 2000 years to a Roman game called  harpastum (from the Greek for “seize”). Unlike soccer, in which the ball was propelled by means of the foot, in this game, it was also carried in the hands. The game made its modern debut in 1749 at a newly built school in Rugby in Warwickshire, England, which boasted “every accommodation that could be required for the exercise of young gentlemen.” The eight-acre plot on which the game evolved was known as "The Close." Between 1749 and 1823, rugby had few rules and the ball was kicked rather than carried to move it forward. Games could go on for five days and often more than 200 students participated. In 1823, player William Webb Ellis was the first to took pick up the ball and run with it. This was the beginning of the modern version of the sport as it’s played today. 
• Football: American football is a descendant of rugby and soccer. While Rutgers and Princeton played what was then billed as the first college football   game on November 6, 1869, the game did not come into its own until 1879 with rules instituted by Walter Camp, a player/coach at Yale University. On November 12, 1892, in a game that pitted the Allegheny Athletic Association football team against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, AAA player William (Pudge) Heffelfinger was paid $500 to participate—marking him as the first-ever professional football player.

The game of Golf is descended from a game that originated in the Kingdom of Fife on the eastern coast of Scotland in during the 15th century. While there were similar games in other parts of Europe at the time that involved swatting a rock with a stick around a predetermined course, the game as we know it—including the innovation introduction of the golf hole—was invented in Scotland.

• During the mid-15th century, the games of golf and soccer suffered something of a setback. As Scotland prepared to defend its borders against English invasion, the rising popularity of the games was thought to be responsible for men neglecting more useful pursuits such as archery and swordsmanship. Golf and soccer were officially banned in Scotland in 1457. The prohibition was lifted in 1502 with the signing of the Treaty of Glasgow.
• In the 16th century, King Charles I popularized the golf in England and Mary Queen of Scots, who was French, introduced the game to her homeland. (In fact, it’s possible that term “caddie” is derived from the name given to the French cadets who attended Mary when she played).
• The first reference to golf at Scotland's most famous golf course, St Andrews, was in 1552. The clergy allowed public access to the links the following year.
• The golf course at Leith (near Edinburgh) was the first to publish a set of rules for the game, and in 1682, was also the site of the first international golf match during which a team pairing the Duke of York and George Patterson playing for Scotland beat two English noblemen.
• In 1754, the St Andrews Society of Golfers was formed. Its annual competition relied on the rules established at Leith.
• Stroke play was introduced in 1759.
• The first 18-hole course (now standard) was constructed in 1764.
• In 1895, St Andrews inaugurated the first women's golf club in the world.

While the exact origin of ice hockey is unclear, the game likely evolved from the centuries’ old Northern European game of field hockey. The rules of modern ice hockey were created by Canadian James Creighton. The first game was played in  Montreal, Canada 1875 at Victoria Skating Rink between two nine-player teams, and featured a flat circular piece of wood that served as a prototype for what would eventually evolve into the modern hockey puck. Today, barring penalties, each team has six players on the ice at a time, including the goalie, who guards the net.

Lord Stanley of Preston,  Governor-General of Canada , inaugurated the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup—known today as the Stanley Cup—in 1892, to recognize the best team in Canada each year. The first award went to the Montreal Hockey Club in 1893. The awards were later opened to both Canadian and American league teams.

Ice Skating

Around the 14th Century, the Dutch started using wooden platform skates with flat iron bottom runners. The skates were attached to the skater's shoes with leather straps. Poles were used to propel the skater. Around 1500, the Dutch added a narrow metal double-edged blade, making the poles a thing of the past, as the skater could now push and glide with his feet (called the "Dutch Roll").

Figure skating was introduced at the 1908 Summer Olympics and has been included at the Winter Games since 1924. Men's speed skating debuted during the 1924 Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix, France. Ice dance became a medal sport in 1976, with a team event debuting for the 2014 Olympics.

Skiing and Water Skiing

• Skiing: Although the sport of skiing in America is little more than a century old, researchers have dated a rock carving of a skier, found on the Norwegian island of Rodoy as more than 4,000 years old. Skiing was so revered in Scandinavia that the Vikings worshiped Ull and Skade, the god and goddess of skiing. Skiing was introduced to the United States by Norwegian gold miners.
• Water Skiing: Water skiing came about on June 28, 1922, when 18-year-old Minnesotan Ralph Samuelson proved the theory that if a person could ski on snow, a person could ski on water.

Competitive Swimming

Swimming pools did not become popular until the middle of the 19th century . By 1837, six indoor pools with diving boards had been built in London, England. When the modern Olympic Games were launched in Athens, Greece, on April 5, 1896, swimming races were among the original events. Soon after, the popularity of swimming pools and the related sporting events began to spread.

Several famous 20th Century swimmers, including three-time gold medalist Johnny Weissmuller who competed in the 1924 Paris Games , two-time Olympian Buster Crabbe, and Esther Williams, an American competitive swimmer who set multiple national and regional swimming records (but did not compete in the Olympics due to the outbreak of WWII) went on to have successful careers in Hollywood.

While there’s evidence to suggest that ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians played some version of a game that resembled tennis, court tennis as we know it is descended from a game enjoyed by 11 th -century French monks called paume  (meaning "palm"). Paume was played on a court and the ball was struck with the hand (hence the name). Paume evolved into  jeu de paume  ("game of the palm") in which racquets were used. By 1500, racquets constructed of wooden frames and gut strings were in play, as were balls made of cork and leather. When popular game spread to England, it was played exclusively indoors, but rather than volley the ball back and forth, players attempted to hit a ball into a netted opening in the roof of the court. In 1873, Englishman Major Walter Wingfield invented a game called Sphairistikè (Greek for "playing ball") from which modern outdoor tennis evolved.

William Morgan invented volleyball in 1895 at the Holyoke, Massachusetts, YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) where he served as Director of Physical Education. Originally called Mintonette, after a demonstration match during which a spectator commented that the game involved a great deal of "volleying," the sport was renamed volleyball.

Surfing and Windsurfing

• Surfing: The exact origins of surfing are not known, however, most research suggests the activity dates back to ancient Polynesia and was first observed by Europeans during a 1767 voyage to Tahiti. The first surfboards were made of solid wood, measuring between 10 and 10 feet, and weighing from 75 to upwards of 200 pounds. Solid boards were designed for forward-motion only and were not meant to cross waves. At the dawn of the 20th century, a Hawaiian surfer named George Freeth was the first to cut a board down to a more manageable eight-foot length. In 1926, American surfer Tom Blake invented the first hollow board and later introduced the fin. During the late 1940s through the early 1950s, inventor and surfing aficionado Bob Simmons began experimenting with curved boards. Thanks to his innovative designs, he is often referred to as the "Father of the Modern Surfboard." Later designs would aim for lighter, more maneuverable boards. Boards carved from balsa wood, then laminated with fiberglass and coated with epoxy resin became popular, but as technology advanced, balsa core boards were eventually eclipsed those constructed of foam core.
• Windsurfing: Windsurfing or boardsailing is a sport that combines sailing and surfing and uses a one-person craft called a sailboard. The basic sailboard is composed of a board and a rig. In 1948, 20-year-old Newman Darby first conceived of using a handheld sail and rig mounted on a universal joint, to control a small catamaran. While Darby did not file for a patent for his design, he is recognized as the inventor of the first sailboard.

According to the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), more than 240 million people around the world play soccer on a regular basis. The history of the game can be traced back more than 2,000 years to ancient China, where it all began with a bunch of players kicking an animal-hide ball around. While Greece, Rome, and areas of Central America claim to been seminal to the development of the game, soccer as we know it—or football as it’s called in most places other than the United States—came to the fore in England during the mid-19th Century, and it’s the English who can claim credit for codifying the first uniform rules for the sport—which made tripping opponents and touching the ball with the hands are forbidden. (The penalty kick was introduced in 1891.) 

The earliest evidence of boxing can be traced back to Egypt circa 3000 BC. Boxing as a sport was introduced to the ancient Olympic Games in the 7th century BC, at which time, boxers’ hands and forearms were bound with soft leather thongs for protection. Romans later traded in leather thongs for metal-studded gloves called cestus .

After the fall of the Roman Empire, boxing died out and did not make a comeback until the 17th century. The English officially organized amateur boxing in 1880, designating five weight classes: Bantam, not exceeding 54 kilos (119 pounds); Feather, not exceeding 57 kilos (126 pounds); Light, not exceeding 63.5 kilos (140 pounds); Middle, not exceeding 73 kilos (161 pounds); and Heavy, any weight.

When boxing made its Olympic debut at the 1904 Games in St. Louis, the USA was the only country entered, and as a result, took home all the medals. Since its initial admittance in the Olympic program, the sport has been included at all of the subsequent Games, with the exception of the 1912 Stockholm Games, since boxing was outlawed there. But Sweden wasn't the only place where fisticuffs were illegal. For a good deal the 19th century, boxing was not considered a legitimate sport in America. Bare-knuckle boxing was outlawed as a criminal activity and boxing matches were regularly raided by the police.

Gymnastics began in ancient Greece as a form of exercise for both men and women that combined physical coordination, strength, and dexterity with tumbling and acrobatic skills. (The translation for the word “gymnasium” from the original Greek is “to exercise naked.”) Early gymnastics exercises included running, jumping, swimming, throwing, wrestling, and weight lifting. Once the Romans conquered Greece, gymnastics became more formalized. Roman gymnasiums were mostly used to prepare their legions for the rigors of battle. With the exception of tumbling, which remained a fairly popular form of entertainment, as the Roman Empire declined, the interest in gymnastics, along with several other sports favored by gladiators and soldiers dwindled as well.

In 1774, when prominent German educational reformer Johann Bernhard Basedow added physical exercise to the realistic courses of study he advocated at his school in Dessau, Saxony, modern gymnastics—and the Germanic countries’ fascination with them—took off. By the late 1700s, German Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (the "father of modern gymnastics”) had introduced the sidebar, the horizontal bar, the parallel bars, the balance beam, and jumping events. German educator Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths (also known as Guts Muth or Gutsmuths and the "grandfather of gymnastics") developed a more graceful form of gymnastics focusing on rhythmic movement, opening the Jahn's school in Berlin in 1811. Soon after, gymnastics clubs began to spring up in both continental Europe and Great Britain. As gymnastics evolved, the Greco-Roman events of weight lifting and wrestling were dropped. There was also a shift in emphasis from simply beating an opponent to the pursuit of excellence in form.

Dr. Dudley Allen Sargent, a pioneering Civil War-era physical education teacher, athletic proponent, lecturer, and prolific inventor of gymnastic equipment (with more than 30 pieces of apparatus to his credit) introduced the sport to the United States. Thanks to a wave of immigration at the end of the 19 th century, an increasing number of turnverein (from the German “ turnen,”  meaning to perform gymnastic exercises + “ verein,” meaning  club) sprang up as recently arrived Europeans sought to bring their love of the sport to their new homeland.

Men’s gymnastics debuted at the Olympic Games in 1896, and have been included in all Games since 1924. An all-around women’s competition arrived in 1936, followed by a competition for separate events in 1952. During early competitions, male gymnasts from Germany, Sweden, Italy, and Switzerland, dominated the competition, but by the ’50s, Japan, the Soviet Union, and several Eastern European nations were turning out top male and female gymnasts. The widespread coverage of Olympic performances by the Soviet Union’s Olga Korbut in the 1972 Olympics and Nadia Comaneci of Romania at the 1976 Games raised the profile gymnastics dramatically, resulting in a major promotion of the sport, particularly for women in the China and the United States.

Modern international competition has six events for men—the rings, parallel bars, horizontal bar, side or pommel-horse, long or vaulting horse, and floor (or free) exercise, and four events for women—vaulting horse, balance beam, uneven bars, and floor exercise (which is performed with musical accompaniment). Tumbling and trampoline exercises are also included in many U.S. competitions. Rhythmic gymnastics, a non-acrobatic performance of graceful choreographed moves incorporating the use of a ball, hoop, rope, or ribbons, have been an Olympic sport since 1984.

The use of swords dates to prehistoric times. The earliest known example of swordplay comes from a relief found in the temple of Medīnat Habu, near Luxor that was built in Egypt by Ramses III circa 1190 BC. In ancient Rome, swordplay was a highly systemized form of combat that both soldiers and gladiators had to learn. 

After the fall of the Roman Empire and through the Middle Ages, sword training became less systematic and sword fighting took on a seedy reputation as criminals increasingly used the weapons to further their illicit pursuits. As a result, communities began outlawing fencing schools. But even in the face of such obstacles, including a 1286 London edict passed by King Edward I condemning the practice, fencing flourished.

During the 15 th century, guilds of fencing masters came to prominence throughout Europe. Henry VIII was one of the sport’s earliest supporters in England. The English convention of using a cutting sword and with a buckler (a small shield worn on the free arm) was replaced by the rapier combat more prevalent in continental European countries. It was the Italians who first began using the point rather than the edge of the sword. The Italian fencing style emphasized speed and dexterity rather than force and was soon adopted throughout Europe. When the lunge was added, the art of fencing was born.

By the end of the 17th century, the changes in men’s fashion dictated by the court of Louis XIV changed the face of fencing as well. The lengthy rapier gave way to the shorter court sword. Initially dismissed, the lighter court sword soon proved an effective weapon for a variety of movements impossible to achieve with earlier blades. Hits could be made with sword-point only, while the side of the blade was used for defense. It was from these innovations that modern fencing evolved.

The French school of sword fighting focused on strategy and form, and specific rules were adopted to teach it. A practice sword, known as the foil, was introduced for training. The first fencing masks were designed by French fencing master La Boëssière and infamous duelist Joseph Bologne, chevalier de Saint-Georges in the 18 th century. Basic fencing conventions were first organized codified by French fencing master Camille Prévost in the 1880s.

Men’s fencing has been an Olympic event since 1896. After numerous disputes, the Fédération Internationale d’Escrime was founded in 1913 as governing body of international fencing for amateurs (both in the Olympics and in world championships) to ensure uniform enforcement of rules. Individual foil for women was introduced at the 1924 Olympic Games. The women’s foil team event debuted at the 1960 Games. Women’s team and individual épée arrived for 1996 Games. The women’s individual saber event was added for the 2004 Games, and women’s team saber followed in 2008.

Rowing has been in existence as long as people have traveled by boat, however, the first historic reference to rowing as a sport dates to an Egyptian funerary carving from the 15 th century BC. Roman poet Virgil mentions rowing in the Aeneid . In the Middle Ages, Italian oarsmen zoomed across Venice’s waterways during Carnevale regatta races. Beginning in 1454, London’s early water taxi drivers battled it out on the Thames River hoping to win monetary prizes and bragging rights. A race between London Bridge and Chelsea Harbor has been held annually since 1715. America’s first recorded rowing event took place in New York Harbor in 1756, and not long after, the sport took hold in the athletic programs at many of the country’s elite colleges.

England's Oxford University Boat Club, one of the oldest established college teams, and its perennial rival, Cambridge, held their first men’s competition, known simply as the University Boat Race, in 1929. The event has been held annually since 1856. Similar rowing rivalries, most notably those between Harvard, Yale, and the U.S. service academies, soon surfaced across the pond. Yale challenged Harvard to its first intercollegiate boat race in 1852.

Rowing became an Olympic sport in 1900. The United States took gold that year, and again in 1904. The English won gold medals in 1908 and 1912, after which the United States ditched professional rowers, and instead, tapped the best college team to compete at the 1920 Games. The U.S. Naval Academy went on to beat the British team, recapturing the gold medal. The trend continued from 1920 to 1948, however, by then, the nature of American sports was changing. As the immense popularity of collegiate basketball and football grew, interest in rowing waned. While still wildly popular at some schools, rowing will likely never regain its former widespread audience.

Sports Miscellany: Wiffleball, Ultimate Frisbee, Hacky Sack, Paintball, and Laser Tag

David N. Mullany of Shelton, Connecticut invented the Wiffle ball in 1953. A Wiffle ball is a variation of a baseball that makes it easy to hit a curveball.

While Frisbees date back to 1957, the game of Ultimate Frisbee (or simply Ultimate) is a non-contact team sport that was created in 1968 by a group of students led by Joel Silver, Jonny Hines, and Buzzy Hellring at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey.

Hacky sack (a.k.a. "footbag") is a modern American sport invented in 1972 by John Stalberger and Mike Marshall of Oregon City, Oregon.

Paintball was born 1981 when a group of 12 friends playing "Capture the Flag" added the element of firing at one another with the tree-marking guns. After investing with a tree marking gun manufacturer called Nelson, the group began promoting and selling the guns for use in the new recreational sport.

In 1986, George A. Carter III became the "founder and inventor of the laser tag industry," another variation of "Capture the Flag," in which teams equipped with infrared and visible light-based guns tag each other out until one side is victorious.

As anyone writing a compendium on the history of sports can tell you, there's a staggering amount of information to sift through and only so much time. Sports is such a huge topic (with events such as horse racing, wrestling, track & field, and mixed martial arts—to name only a few—that are more than deserving of coverage), it would take an encyclopedia to do it justice. That said, the ones included in this list should give you a fair sampling of the popular athletic endeavors that continue to fascinate sporting enthusiasts around the globe.

• Sports Vocabulary for English Learners
• 75 Vocabulary Words for Playing and Talking About Sports in Italian
• Biography of James Naismith, Inventor of Basketball
• History of the 1976 Olympics in Montreal
• The Individual Sporting Events or Games of the Ancient Olympics
• History of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles
• History of Football
• The History of Hacky Sack
• History of the Olympics
• Basketball Printables
• Vocabulary Building With Collocation Lists of Sports
• Who Invented Tennis?
• Interesting Olympic Facts
• Biography of Pierre de Coubertin, Founder of the Modern Olympics
• Amazing 15th-Century Inventions
• History of the 1960 Olympics in Rome, Italy

• Search Menu
• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Urban Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Emotions
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Language Acquisition
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature
• Bibliography
• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Media
• Music and Religion
• Music and Culture
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Politics
• Law and Society
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Neuroanaesthesia
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Toxicology
• Medical Oncology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Medical Ethics
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Security
• Computer Games
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business Ethics
• Business Strategy
• Business History
• Business and Technology
• Business and Government
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic History
• Economic Systems
• Economic Methodology
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• International Political Economy
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Political Theory
• Politics and Law
• Public Policy
• Public Administration
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Developmental and Physical Disabilities Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

The Oxford Handbook of Sports History

Robert Edelman is a professor of Russian history and the history of sport at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Serious Fun: A History of Spectator Sports in the USSR (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) and Spartak Moscow: the People’s Team in the Workers’ State (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009). He is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Sports History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) and is currently writing a global history of sport during the Cold War.

Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

Orwell was wrong. Sports are not “war without the shooting,” nor are they “war by other means.” Although sports have generated animosity throughout human history, they also require rules. Those rules limit violence, even death. Thus sports have been a significant part of a historical “civilizing process.” As the historical profession has taken its cultural turn over the past few decades, scholars have turned their attention to a subject once seen as marginal. As researchers have come to understand the centrality of the human body in human history, they have come to study this most corporeal of human activities. Taking early cues from physical educators and kinesiologists, historians have explored sports in all their forms. There has been a veritable explosion of excellent work on this subject, just as sports have assumed an even greater share of a globalizing world’s cultural, political, and economic space. Practiced by millions and watched by billions, sports provide an enormous share of content on the Internet. This volume combines the efforts of sports historians with essays by historians whose careers have been devoted to more traditional topics. It shows how sports have evolved from ancient societies to the world today. The goal is to introduce those from outside this subfield to this burgeoning body of scholarship as well as show those who may want to study sport with rigor and nuance how to embark on a rewarding journey and tackle profound matters that have affected and will continue to affect all of humankind.

Signed in as

Institutional accounts.

• Google Scholar Indexing
• GoogleCrawler [DO NOT DELETE]

Personal account

• Sign in with email/username & password
• Get email alerts
• Save searches
• Purchase content
• Activate your purchase/trial code

Institutional access

• Sign in with a library card Sign in with username/password Recommend to your librarian
• Institutional account management
• Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Sign in through your institution

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

• Click Sign in through your institution.
• Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
• When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
• Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Sign in with a library card

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

• Click Sign in through society site.
• When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

• View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
• View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Rights and permissions
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

How to Write a Non-Cliche College Essay About Sports + Examples

What’s covered:, what makes a sports essay cliche.

• How To Make Your Sports Essay Unique

Great Examples of College Essays About Sports

Where to get your college essay edited for free, or by an expert.

You’ve been brainstorming essay topics for your college applications, and you think you’ve finally found the right one: an extended metaphor likening your experience on the field with overcoming personal struggles. The problem: many other students have this same thought. 

The purpose of a college essay is to make yourself stand out as a unique individual, but when students write about sports, they often blend in. Because of that, students are usually advised to pick a different topic.

That being said, it is possible to write a non-cliche college essay about sports if you put in a little extra effort. Read along to learn how to make your sports essay different from all the other sports essays.

Sports essays are cliche when they follow a standard trajectory. Some of these trajectories include writing a story about:

• An agonizing defeat
• Forging bonds with teammates
• Overcoming adversity
• Overcoming an injury
• Refusing to quit
• Victory during a big game

Because sports essays have very similar themes and “lessons learned,” it can be difficult to make your story stand out. These trajectories also often focus too much on the sport or storyline, and not enough on the writer’s reflections and personality.

As you write your essay, try to think about what your experience says about you rather than what you learned from your experience. You are more than just one lesson you learned!

(Keep in mind that the sports essay is not the only college essay cliche. Learn about other essay cliches and how to fix them in our complete guide).

How to Make Your Sports Essay Unique

1. focus on a specific moment or reflection..

The college essay is a way for students to humanize themselves to admissions officers. You do not feel human if you are describing yourself as just another player on the field!

One important way to make your essay about you (not just about sports) is by focusing on a specific moment in time and inviting the reader to join you in that moment. Explain to the reader what it would be like to be sitting in that locker room as you questioned the values of the other players on your team. Ask your reader to sit with you on the cot in the trainer’s room as your identity was stripped away from you when they said “your body can’t take this anymore.” Bring your reader to the dinner table and involve them in your family’s conversation about how sports were affecting your mental health and your treatment of those around you.

Intense descriptions of a specific experience will evoke emotions in your reader and allow them to connect with you and feel for you.

When in doubt, avoid anything that can be covered by ESPN. On ESPN, we see the games, we see the benches, we even see the locker rooms and training rooms. Take your reader somewhere different and show them something unique.

2. Use sports to point out broader themes in your life.

The main risk when writing about sports is neglecting to write about yourself. Before you get started, think about the main values that you want to express in your sports essay. Sports are simply your avenue for telling the reader what makes you unique. 

As a test, imagine if you were a pianist. Would you be able to talk about these same values? What if you were a writer? Or a chemist? Articulating your values is the end, and sports should simply be your means.

Some values that you might want to focus on:

• Autonomy (you want to be able to set your mind to anything and achieve it on your own)
• Growth (you seek improvement constantly)
• Curiosity (you are willing to try anything once)
• Vulnerability (you aren’t afraid to fail, as long as you give it your all)
• Community (you value the feedback of others and need camaraderie to succeed)
• Craft (you think that with deliberate care, anything can be perfected)
• Responsibility (you believe that you owe something to those around you and perhaps they also owe something to you)

You can use the ESPN check again to make sure that you are using sports as an avenue to show your depth.

Things ESPN covers: how a player reacts to defeat, how injuries affect a player’s gameplay/attitude, how players who don’t normally work well together are working together on their new team.

Things ESPN doesn’t cover: the conversation that a player had with their mother about fear of death before going into a big surgery (value: family and connection), the ways that the intense pressure to succeed consumed a player to the point they couldn’t be there for the people in their life (value: supporting others and community), the body image issues that weigh on a player’s mind when playing their sport and how they overcame those (value: health and growth).

3. Turn a cliche storyline on its head.

There’s no getting around the fact that sports essays are often cliche. But there is a way to confront the cliche head-on. For example, lots of people write essays about the lessons they learned from an injury, victory, and so on, but fewer students explain how they are embracing those lessons. 

Perhaps you learned that competition is overwhelming for you and you prefer teamwork, so you switched from playing basketball to playing Dungeons & Dragons. Maybe, when your softball career ended abruptly, you had to find a new identity and that’s when you became obsessed with your flower garden and decided to pursue botany. Or maybe, you have stuck with football through it all, but your junior-year mental health struggle showed you that football should be fun and you have since started a nonprofit for local children to healthily engage with sports.

If your story itself is more cliche, try bringing readers to the present moment with you and show why the cliche matters and what it did for you. This requires a fair amount of creativity. Ensure you’re not parroting a frequently used topic by really thinking deeply to find your own unique spin.

Night had robbed the academy of its daytime colors, yet there was comfort in the dim lights that cast shadows of our advances against the bare studio walls. Silhouettes of roundhouse kicks, spin crescent kicks, uppercuts and the occasional butterfly kick danced while we sparred. She approached me, eyes narrowed with the trace of a smirk challenging me. “Ready spar!” Her arm began an upward trajectory targeting my shoulder, a common first move. I sidestepped — only to almost collide with another flying fist. Pivoting my right foot, I snapped my left leg, aiming my heel at her midsection. The center judge raised one finger. 

There was no time to celebrate, not in the traditional sense at least. Master Pollard gave a brief command greeted with a unanimous “Yes, sir” and the thud of 20 hands dropping-down-and-giving-him-30, while the “winners” celebrated their victory with laps as usual. 

Three years ago, seven-thirty in the evening meant I was a warrior. It meant standing up straighter, pushing a little harder, “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am”, celebrating birthdays by breaking boards, never pointing your toes, and familiarity. Three years later, seven-thirty in the morning meant I was nervous. 

The room is uncomfortably large. The sprung floor soaks up the checkerboard of sunlight piercing through the colonial windows. The mirrored walls further illuminate the studio and I feel the light scrutinizing my sorry attempts at a pas de bourrée, while capturing the organic fluidity of the dancers around me. “Chassé en croix, grand battement, pique, pirouette.” I follow the graceful limbs of the woman in front of me, her legs floating ribbons, as she executes what seems to be a perfect ronds de jambes. Each movement remains a negotiation. With admirable patience, Ms. Tan casts me a sympathetic glance.   

There is no time to wallow in the misery that is my right foot. Taekwondo calls for dorsiflexion; pointed toes are synonymous with broken toes. My thoughts drag me into a flashback of the usual response to this painful mistake: “You might as well grab a tutu and head to the ballet studio next door.” Well, here I am Master Pollard, unfortunately still following your orders to never point my toes, but no longer feeling the satisfaction that comes with being a third degree black belt with 5 years of experience quite literally under her belt. It’s like being a white belt again — just in a leotard and ballet slippers. 

But the appetite for new beginnings that brought me here doesn’t falter. It is only reinforced by the classical rendition of “Dancing Queen” that floods the room and the ghost of familiarity that reassures me that this new beginning does not and will not erase the past. After years spent at the top, it’s hard to start over. But surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become. In Taekwondo, we started each class reciting the tenets: honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet. 

The thing about change is that it eventually stops making things so different. After nine different schools, four different countries, three different continents, fluency in Tamil, Norwegian, and English, there are more blurred lines than there are clear fragments. My life has not been a tactfully executed, gold medal-worthy Taekwondo form with each movement defined, nor has it been a series of frappés performed by a prima ballerina with each extension identical and precise, but thankfully it has been like the dynamics of a spinning back kick, fluid, and like my chances of landing a pirouette, unpredictable. 

Why it works:

What’s especially powerful about this essay is that the author uses detailed imagery to convey a picture of what they’re experiencing, so much so that the reader is along for the ride. This works as a sports essay not only because of the language and sensory details, but also because the writer focuses on a specific moment in time, while at the same time exploring why Taekwondo is such an important part of their life.

After the emotional image is created, the student finishes their essay with valuable reflection. With the reflection, they show admissions officers that they are mature and self-aware. Self-awareness comes through with statements like “surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become” and maturity can be seen through the student’s discussion of values “honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet.” These are the kinds of comments that should find their way into a sports essay!

“Advanced females ages 13 to 14 please proceed to staging with your coaches at this time.” Skittering around the room, eyes wide and pleading, I frantically explained my situation to nearby coaches. The seconds ticked away in my head; every polite refusal increased my desperation.

Despair weighed me down. I sank to my knees as a stream of competitors, coaches, and officials flowed around me. My dojang had no coach, and the tournament rules prohibited me from competing without one.

Although I wanted to remain strong, doubts began to cloud my mind. I could not help wondering: what was the point of perfecting my skills if I would never even compete? The other members of my team, who had found coaches minutes earlier, attempted to comfort me, but I barely heard their words. They couldn’t understand my despair at being left on the outside, and I never wanted them to understand.

Since my first lesson 12 years ago, the members of my dojang have become family. I have watched them grow up, finding my own happiness in theirs. Together, we have honed our kicks, blocks, and strikes. We have pushed one another to aim higher and become better martial artists. Although my dojang had searched for a reliable coach for years, we had not found one. When we attended competitions in the past, my teammates and I had always gotten lucky and found a sympathetic coach. Now, I knew this practice was unsustainable. It would devastate me to see the other members of my dojang in my situation, unable to compete and losing hope as a result. My dojang needed a coach, and I decided it was up to me to find one. 

I first approached the adults in the dojang – both instructors and members’ parents. However, these attempts only reacquainted me with polite refusals. Everyone I asked told me they couldn’t devote multiple weekends per year to competitions. I soon realized that I would have become the coach myself.

At first, the inner workings of tournaments were a mystery to me. To prepare myself for success as a coach, I spent the next year as an official and took coaching classes on the side. I learned everything from motivational strategies to technical, behind-the-scenes components of Taekwondo competitions. Though I emerged with new knowledge and confidence in my capabilities, others did not share this faith.

Parents threw me disbelieving looks when they learned that their children’s coach was only a child herself. My self-confidence was my armor, deflecting their surly glances. Every armor is penetrable, however, and as the relentless barrage of doubts pounded my resilience, it began to wear down. I grew unsure of my own abilities.

Despite the attack, I refused to give up. When I saw the shining eyes of the youngest students preparing for their first competition, I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was. The knowledge that I could solve my dojang’s longtime problem motivated me to overcome my apprehension.

Now that my dojang flourishes at competitions, the attacks on me have weakened, but not ended. I may never win the approval of every parent; at times, I am still tormented by doubts, but I find solace in the fact that members of my dojang now only worry about competing to the best of their abilities.

Now, as I arrive at a tournament with my students, I close my eyes and remember the past. I visualize the frantic search for a coach and the chaos amongst my teammates as we compete with one another to find coaches before the staging calls for our respective divisions. I open my eyes to the exact opposite scene. Lacking a coach hurt my ability to compete, but I am proud to know that no member of my dojang will have to face that problem again.

In the beginning, you might think this is another cliche sports essay about overcoming adversity. But instead, it becomes a unique statement and coming-of-age tale that reads as a suspenseful narrative. 

The author connects their experience with martial arts to larger themes in their life but manages to do so without riffing off of tried-and-true themes. Through statements like “I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was” we learn about the students values and their desire to be there for those who depend on them. 

The student also brings it full circle, demonstrating their true transformation. By using the “Same, but Different” ending technique , the student places themself in the same environment that we saw in the intro, but experiences it differently due to their actions throughout the narrative. This is very compelling!

“1…2…3…4 pirouettes! New record!” My friends cheered as I landed my turns. Pleased with my progress, I gazed down at my worn-out pointe shoes. The sweltering blisters, numbing ice-baths, and draining late-night practices did not seem so bad after all. Next goal: five turns.

For as long as I can remember, ballet, in all its finesse and glamor, had kept me driven day to day. As a child, the lithe ballerinas, donning ethereal costumes as they floated across the stage, were my motivation. While others admired Messi and Adele, I idolized Carlos Acosta, principal dancer of the Royal Ballet. 

As I devoted more time and energy towards my craft, I became obsessed with improving my technique. I would stretch for hours after class, forcing my leg one inch higher in an effort to mirror the Dance Magazine cover girls. I injured my feet and ruined pair after pair of pointe shoes, turning on wood, cement, and even grass to improve my balance as I spun. At competitions, the dancers with the 180-degree leg extensions, endless turns, and soaring leaps—the ones who received “Bravos!” from the roaring audience—further pushed me to refine my skills and perfect my form. I believed that, with enough determination, I would one day attain their level of perfection. Reaching the quadruple-pirouette milestone only intensified my desire to accomplish even more. 

My efforts seemed to have come to fruition two summers ago when I was accepted to dance with Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet at their renowned New York City summer intensive. I walked into my first session eager to learn from distinguished ballet masters and worldly dancers, already anticipating my improvement. Yet, as I danced alongside the accomplished ballerinas, I felt out of place. Despite their clean technique and professional training, they did not aim for glorious leg extensions or prodigious leaps. When they performed their turn combinations, most of them only executed two turns as I attempted four. 

“Dancers, double-pirouettes only.” 

Taken aback and confused, I wondered why our teacher expected so little from us. The other ballerinas seemed content, gracing the studio with their simple movements. 

As I grew closer with my Moscow roommates, I gradually learned that their training emphasized the history of the art form instead of stylistic tricks. Rather than show off their physical ability, their performances aimed to convey a story, one that embodied the rich culture of ballet and captured both the legacy of the dancers before them and their own artistry. As I observed my friends more intently in repertoire class, I felt the pain of the grief-stricken white swan from Swan Lake, the sass of the flirtatious Kitri from Don Quijote, and I gradually saw what I had overlooked before. My definition of talent had been molded by crowd-pleasing elements—whirring pirouettes, gravity-defying leaps, and mind-blowing leg extensions. This mindset slowly stripped me from the roots of my passion and my personal connection with ballet. 

With the Bolshoi, I learned to step back and explore the meaning behind each step and the people behind the scenes. Ballet carries history in its movements, from the societal values of the era to each choreographer’s unique flair. As I uncovered the messages behind each pirouette, kick, and jump, my appreciation for ballet grew beyond my obsession with raw athleticism and developed into a love for the art form’s emotive abilities in bridging the dancers with the audience. My journey as an artist has allowed me to see how technical execution is only the means to a greater understanding between dancer and spectator, between storyteller and listener. The elegance and complexity of ballet does not revolve around astonishing stunts but rather the evocative strength and artistry manifested in the dancer, in me. It is the combination of sentiments, history, tradition, and passion that has allowed ballet and its lessons of human connection to become my lifestyle both on and off stage.

This essay is about lessons. While the author is a dancer, this narrative isn’t really about ballet, per se — it’s about the author’s personal growth. It is purposefully reflective as the student shows a nice character arc that begins with an eager young ballerina and ends with a reflection on their past. The primary strength of this essay is the honesty and authenticity that the student approaches it with.

In the end, the student turns a cliche on its head as they embrace the idea of overcoming adversity and demonstrate how the adversity, in this case, was their own stereotypes about their art. It’s beautiful!

“Getting beat is one thing – it’s part of competing – but I want no part in losing.” Coach Rob Stark’s motto never fails to remind me of his encouragement on early-morning bus rides to track meets around the state. I’ve always appreciated the phrase, but an experience last June helped me understand its more profound, universal meaning.

Stark, as we affectionately call him, has coached track at my high school for 25 years. His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running. When I learned a neighboring high school had dedicated their track to a longtime coach, I felt that Stark deserved similar honors.

Our school district’s board of education indicated they would only dedicate our track to Stark if I could demonstrate that he was extraordinary. I took charge and mobilized my teammates to distribute petitions, reach out to alumni, and compile statistics on the many team and individual champions Stark had coached over the years. We received astounding support, collecting almost 3,000 signatures and pages of endorsements from across the community. With help from my teammates, I presented this evidence to the board.

They didn’t bite. 

Most members argued that dedicating the track was a low priority. Knowing that we had to act quickly to convince them of its importance, I called a team meeting where we drafted a rebuttal for the next board meeting. To my surprise, they chose me to deliver it. I was far from the best public speaker in the group, and I felt nervous about going before the unsympathetic board again. However, at that second meeting, I discovered that I enjoy articulating and arguing for something that I’m passionate about.

Public speaking resembles a cross country race. Walking to the starting line, you have to trust your training and quell your last minute doubts. When the gun fires, you can’t think too hard about anything; your performance has to be instinctual, natural, even relaxed. At the next board meeting, the podium was my starting line. As I walked up to it, familiar butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Instead of the track stretching out in front of me, I faced the vast audience of teachers, board members, and my teammates. I felt my adrenaline build, and reassured myself: I’ve put in the work, my argument is powerful and sound. As the board president told me to introduce myself, I heard, “runners set” in the back of my mind. She finished speaking, and Bang! The brief silence was the gunshot for me to begin. 

The next few minutes blurred together, but when the dust settled, I knew from the board members’ expressions and the audience’s thunderous approval that I had run quite a race. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough; the board voted down our proposal. I was disappointed, but proud of myself, my team, and our collaboration off the track. We stood up for a cause we believed in, and I overcame my worries about being a leader. Although I discovered that changing the status quo through an elected body can be a painstakingly difficult process and requires perseverance, I learned that I enjoy the challenges this effort offers. Last month, one of the school board members joked that I had become a “regular” – I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Just as Stark taught me, I worked passionately to achieve my goal. I may have been beaten when I appealed to the board, but I certainly didn’t lose, and that would have made Stark proud.

This essay uses the idea of sports to explore a more profound topic—growing through relationships. They really embrace using sports as an avenue to tell the reader about a specific experience that changed the way they approach the world. 

The emphasis on relationships is why this essay works well and doesn’t fall into a cliche. The narrator grows not because of their experience with track but because of their relationship with their coach, who inspired them to evolve and become a leader.

Have a draft of your college essay? We’re here to help you polish it. Students can participate in a free Peer Review, or they can sign up for a paid review by CollegeVine’s experts. Sign up for your free CollegeVine account today to start improving your essay and your chances of acceptance!

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

(Stanford users can avoid this Captcha by logging in.)

• Send to text email RefWorks EndNote printer

Major problems in American sport history : documents and essays

Available online, at the library.

Green Library

More options.

• Find it at other libraries via WorldCat
• Contributors

Description

Creators/contributors, contents/summary.

• 1. WHAT IS SPORT HISTORY? ESSAYS. Melvin L. Adelman, "Modernization and the Rise of American Sport." Stephen Hardy, "Urbanization and the Rise of Sport." Daniel Nathan, "Counter-Memories and the Black Sox Scandal." Jaime Schultz, "The New Cultural Sport History."
• 2. SPORT IN COLONIAL AMERICA. DOCUMENTS. King James I Identifies Lawful Sports in England,
• 1618. Restrictive Sabbath Statutes Enacted in Boston General Court,
• 1653. William Byrd Observes a Fire Hunt. An Englishman's Positive Impressions of Virginia Racing,
• 1772. Elkanah Watson's Misgivings on Cockfighting,
• 1787. George Catlin Describes a Choctaw Lacrosse Match, c. 1830s. ESSAYS. Timothy H. Breen, "The Cultural Significance of Gambling Among the Gentry of Virginia." Nancy Struna, "Sporting Life in the Taverns."
• 3. TRADITIONAL SPORT AND THE MALE BACHELOR SUBCULTURE, 1800
• -1860. DOCUMENTS. Andrew Jackson Challenges Charles Dickinson to a Duel, and the Response,
• 1806. The Negative Image of Billiards in Early America. The Great Foot Race of
• 1835. Horace Greeley Decries the Slaughter of Boxer Thomas McCoy,
• 1842. A Policeman Visits the Dissipated Rat Pits of Boston, c.
• 1860. The New York Herald Reports on "The Great Contest: Fashion v. Peytona, "
• 1845. ESSAYS. Elliott J. Gorn, "The Social Significance of Gouging in the Southern Backcountry." James Parton, "The Jackson-Dickinson Duel of 1806." Sergio Lussana, "Slave Boxers on the Ante-Bellum Plantation."
• 4. THE MAKING OF A MODERN SPORTING CULTURE, 1840
• -1870. DOCUMENTS. Thomas W. Higginson Analyzes the American Clergy and Their Need for Physical Fitness,
• 1858. Catharine Beecher Criticizes Women's Frailty and Recommends What Should Be Done about It,
• 1855. The New York Knickerbocker Rules of Baseball,
• 1845. The New York Times Recommends Skating at Central Park,
• 1859. The New York Herald Compares Cricket and Baseball,
• 1859. The Spirit of the Times Examines the Founding of the New York Athletic Club,
• 1868. ESSAYS. John R. Betts, "The Making of a Positive Sports Ideology in Ante-Bellum America." George B. Kirsch, "Baseball Spectators, 1855-1870."
• 5. HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE GROWTH OF AMERICAN AMATEUR SPORT, 1890
• -1940. DOCUMENTS. The New York Times Reports on an International Match: The Harvard- Oxford Boat Race,
• 1869. Coach Walter Camp on Sportsmanship,
• 1893. Richard Harding Davis Scrutinizes the Rituals of the Thanksgiving Day Football Game,
• 1893. Henry Beach Needham Decries the Professionalization of College Athletes,
• 1905. Alice Katherine Fallows on Sports at Vassar and Wellesley Colleges. Hildrus A. Poindexter, "Football at Lincoln University, an Historically Black College." ESSAYS. Robin D. Lester, "The Rise of the Spectator, the Coach, and the Player at the University of Chicago, 1895-1905." Scott A. McQuilkin, "Summer Baseball and the College Amateur Tradition."
• 6. SPORT AND THE RISE OF THE INDUSTRIAL RADIAL CITY, 1870
• -1930. DOCUMENTS. The New York Times Evaluates the Accessibility and Utility of Central Park, 1873,
• 1875. The New York Times Lauds Baseball and Community Pride,
• 1888. The New York Times Considers Madison Square Garden as a Civic Institution,
• 1900. Mayor Quincy of Boston Supports Municipal Swimming Pools,
• 1898. Barney Ross, "The Mean Streets of Chicago in the 1920s and the Making of a Prize Fighter." ESSAYS. Roy Rosenzweig, "The Working-Class and the Parks of Worcester in the Late Nineteenth Century." Steven A. Riess, "Professional Sports and New York's Tammany Machine, 1890-1920."
• 7. SPORT AND CLASS, 1870
• -1930. DOCUMENTS. The Apex of Professional Track: The Astley Belt Race of
• 1879. Caspar W. Whitney Probes the Evolution of the Country Club,
• 1894. Philip G. Hubert, Jr., Reflects on the Bicycle: The Marvel of Its Day,
• 1895. Bertha Damaris, "An Elite Chicago's Women's Sports Organization: The Chicago Women's Athletic Club." Charles J. Lucas Criticizes the Commercialization of Amateur Athletics,
• 1906. ESSAYS. Donald Mrozek, "Sporting Life as Consumption, Fashion, and Display-Pastimes of the Rich at the Turn of the Century." Steven A. Riess, "Sport and the Redefinition of American Middle-Class Masculinity, 1840-1900."
• 8. THE COMMERCIALIZATION AND PROFESSIONALISM OF SPORTS, 1870
• -1930. DOCUMENTS. The New York Sun's Portrayal of a Typical Baseball Crowd,
• 1884. John Montgomery Ward Asks, "Is the Base-ball Player a Chattel?" Josiah Flynt Delineates the Evils of Off-Track Poolrooms,
• 1907. H. Addington Bruce Analyzes Baseball and the National Life,
• 1913. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Explains Why Baseball Is Not Subject to Antitrust Laws,
• 1922. ESSAYS. Robert K. Barney and Frank Dallier, "The Making of the National League." Guy Reel, "Richard Fox and the Modernization of the Squared Circle in the Late Nineteenth Century." PHOTOGRAPH ESSAY: Uniforming Sportswomen.
• 9. GENDER AND SPORT IN MODERN AMERICA, 1870
• -1940. DOCUMENTS. Theodore Roosevelt Explains How Sport Makes Boys into Men,
• 1900. Theodore Roosevelt Advocates Amateur Boxing. Annie Londonderry Cycles Around the World in 1894
• -1895. Anne O'Hagan Describes the Athletic American Girl in
• 1901. Senda Berenson Asserts the Value of Adapted Women's Basketball,
• 1901. Dr. Dudley A. Sargent Asks, "Are Athletics Making Girls Masculine?",
• 1912. J. N. Cuneo, "The Early Career of Car Racer Joan N. Cuneo, 1905-1908." ESSAYS. Elliott J. Gorn, "Manliness in the Squared Circle." Rita Liberti, "Sport and Image Among African American College Women in the 1920s and 1930s."
• 10. RACE AND ETHNICITY IN AMERICAN SPORT, 1900
• -1940. DOCUMENTS. Richard Henry Pratt Encourages Indian Sportsmanship, c.
• 1894. The Outlook's Dismay with Indian Sportsman Jim Thorpe and the Forfeiture of His Olympic Medals,
• 1913. Prejudice Against African-American Ballplayers in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
• 1911. Frazier "Slow" Robinson, "I Caught Satchel Paige in the 1930s." The Chicago Commission on Race Relations Examines Racial Contact Recreation in the Late 1910s. Frederic M. Thrasher, "Ethnic Gangs Fight Over Park Turf in Chicago, 1921." W. Montague Cobb, "Is There a Connection Between Race and Speed?" ESSAYS. Gail Bederman, "Remaking Manhood through Race and 'Civilization': The 1910 Jeffries-Johnson Fight and Its Impact." Gary Ross Mormino, "Sport in an Italian American Community, St. Louis, 1925-1941."
• 11. SPORTS HEROES, HEROINES, AND AMERICAN CULTURE, 1900
• -1945. DOCUMENTS. Frank Merriwell at Yale, "Commonweal Memorializes Christy Mathewson, a Real-Life Merriwell, 1925." The Black Sox Scandal and the Fallen Hero: The Confession of Joe Jackson,
• 1920. Babe Ruth, the New American Sports Hero. Joe Louis as African American Hero: The Reminiscences of Maya Angelou. ESSAYS. John M. Carroll, "Red Grange and American Sport Heroes of the 1920s." Susan E. Cayleff, "Babe Didrikson Zaharias: The 'Texas Tomboy'". Dominic J. Capeci, Jr., and Martha Wilkerson, "Joe Louis, African American Hero and American Hero, 1935-1945."
• 12. THE IMPACT OF TITLE IX ON AMERICAN WOMEN IN SPORT. DOCUMENTS. Wilma Rudolph and the 1960 Summer Olympics. Billie Jean King Remembers Life as an Outsider in the 1950s and 1960s. Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972, Its Components, and the Three Prong Rule. Baylor University Athletic Director Grant Teaff Criticizes the Impact of Title IX on Intercollegiate Football,
• 1993. Brown University Sued for Violating Title IX,
• 1996. ESSAYS. Susan K. Cahn, "The All-American Girls Baseball League, 1943-1954." Ronald A. Smith, "Title IX and Government Reform in Women's Athletics."
• 13. SPORT AND RACE IN AMERICA SINCE
• 1945. DOCUMENTS. Yankees President Larry McPhail's Plan to Discourage Integration of Baseball,
• 1946. Jackie Robinson on the Struggles of His First Spring Training,
• 1946. The Thoughts of Muhammad Ali in Exile, c.
• 1967. Harry Edwards Reviews the Making of the Black Athletic Revolt,
• 1967. Bruce Keidan, "Roberto Clemente: Baseball's 'Magnificent Militant'". ESSAYS. Jules Tygiel, "A Lone Negro in the Game: Jackie Robinson's Rookie Season." David Zang, "Understanding Muhammad Ali."
• 14. THE BUSINESS OF SPECTATOR SPORT, 1945
• -2012. DOCUMENTS. Norris Poulson Reveals How Los Angeles Got the Brooklyn Dodgers in
• 1958. Justice Thurgood Marshall Dissents in the Curt Flood Case,
• 1972. The Arbitrator's Ruling in the Case of John A. Messersmith and David A. McNally. The Dowd Report on Pete Rose and Gambling on Baseball. George J. Mitchell, "The Report on Enhancement Performing Drugs in Major League Baseball." Congressman Dennis Kucinich on the Failure of Stadiums and Arenas to Positively Impact Their City's Economy. The Value of Major League Sports Franchises, 2000
• -2011. ESSAYS. Michael Oriard, "The NCAA Monopoly: Revenue, Reform, and Exploitation." Michael Oriard, "The NFL as Big Business." Steven A. Riess, "Major League Franchises, Ballparks, and Public Policy, 1953-2012."
• 15. THE GLOBALIZATION OF AMERICAN SPORT. DOCUMENTS. Manager Zack Farmer of the Xth Olympiad Recommends that the United States Olympic Committee Cancel the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. Counsel George S. Messersmith Advises U.S. to Boycott 1936 Olympics in Berlin. President John F. Kennedy, "Physical Fitness and National Security During the Cold War." Should the U. S. Send a Major League Baseball Team to Cuba in 1975? President Jimmy Carter, "Why the United States Should Boycott the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow." ESSAYS. Louis A. Perez, Jr., "The National Pastime Comes to Cuba." Donald Abelson, "Politics on Ice: The United States, the Soviet Union, and a Hockey Game in Lake Placid.".
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Bibliographic information

Browse related items.

• Stanford Home
• Maps & Directions
• Search Stanford
• Emergency Info
• Terms of Use
• Non-Discrimination
• Accessibility

© Stanford University , Stanford , California 94305 .

North American Society for Sport History

The purpose of the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH) is to promote, stimulate, and encourage the study of the history of sport; to support, stimulate and encourage scholarly writing and research related to the history of sport; and to cooperate with local, national, and international organizations having the same purpose. 

Recent Announcements

Dear NASSH Members,

The  Journal of Sport History  ( JSH ) is pleased to announce that it is moving to Scholastica for managing submissions and peer review as of February 1, 2024. To submit, visit:  https://press-jsh.scholasticahq.com/ . If you do not already have a Scholastica account, you will be prompted to create one.   The previous submission portal,  JSH  Open Journal Systems, is no longer accepting new submissions. Manuscripts that were submitted to the  JSH  prior to February 1, 2024, are still active and are being processed.   The  JSH  staff thanks contributors in advance for their patience during this transition. We are confident that Scholastica will improve the submission process, and we look forward to working with you.

Daniel A. Nathan,  Journal of Sport History  Editor Department of American Studies Skidmore College

2024 Annual Conference of the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH)

Call for papers:  “sport studies as a public service: popular scholarship, histories, and activism”.

NASSH 2024 Pre-Conference Workshop

Thursday May 23 and the morning of Friday May 24

Call ends February 16, 2024

For the full 2024 NASSH call for papers, click here.

In the concluding piece of the   Journal of Sport History ’s special issue on the fiftieth anniversary of NASSH, historians Andrew Linden and Alison Wrynn highlight how “there are now myriad opportunities for the publishing of academic articles, and even more ways for scholars to disseminate their research to the field and the public at large.” Despite these new opportunities, there remains a barrier between the public and academics. As the current president Sarah Fields remarks, “‘The academy in general and sport history in particular have moved further away from the general public and lay audiences.’” Linden and Wrynn describe this phenomenon as “concerning,” highlighting how “academic research needs to strive to do something to advance society” and that the legitimacy of our field depends on the public’s interest in “the sporting past.” In the time since Linden and Wrynn wrote their piece, dramatic changes, such as the end of the   New York Times ’ sports section and HBO’s   Real Sports   with Bryant Gumbel, befell our popular media landscape, making communicating with the broader public even harder than before. [1]

As programming with a more critical view, such as   Real Sports , decreases, we believe it is time to revisit the question: what is the sport scholar’s role today? Overall, we believe it is necessary to reflect on how scholars of sport and adjacent fields tell what Fields calls “‘good stories’” to the public. We open this workshop to individuals who have gone beyond academic journals to critically examine recreation, sport, and/or leisure through teaching, museums, public policy, activism, new media (podcasts, social media, documentary), or any number of alternatives. Overall, the intent of the pre-conference workshop is for sport scholars to reflect, share, and write about their responsibility to the public and their efforts to provide “good stories.”

The following questions, as a starting point, will help to frame the workshop:

• How are sport scholars engaging with and disseminating information to the public-at-large?
• What are the successes and challenges of such plans?
• What can the general field do to improve its outreach to the public on a school, local, state/provincial, and/or regional level?
• How has our ability to communicate our research changed over time?
• How can we make our work simultaneously rich with academic rigor and yet compelling to the general society?
• How can JSH, and other academic journals on sport and leisure, change to better convey historical research and “good stories”?
• How can our research provide a mutually benefiting outcome for ourselves, our subjects, and the public?

Venue:   Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center, Denver, Colorado.

Dates:   The workshop will be held in-person prior to the 2024 NASSH conference. The workshop dates will be Thursday, May 23 (all-day) and the morning of Friday, May 24, 2024.

Requirements:  Please indicate your interest by submitting a 300-500 word abstract and a 200-word biography via the 2024 Pre-Conference Submission Form   https://forms.gle/apwj88PGoBABFmNf7   by Friday, February 16, 2024.

Those selected will be notified by the end of February and are required to submit a completed paper by April 30, 2024. Participants will present their paper to the workshop and have their work reviewed by attendees. Accepted participants may receive some financial assistance. Workshop papers will be considered for a special issue of the   Journal of Sport History .

For additional questions, please contact the organizers: Aaron Bonsu – Pennsylvania State University:   [email protected] Cam Mallett – Pennsylvania State University:   [email protected] Carly Adams – University of Lethbridge:   [email protected]

Endnote: [1] Andrew D. Linden and Alison M. Wrynn, “Looking at the Past, Thinking about the Future: The   Journal of Sport History ,”   Journal of Sport History   48, no. 3 (2021): 414-424; Katie Robertson and John Koblin, “The New York Times to Disband its Sports Department,”   The New York Times,   July 10, 2023; Joe Otterson, “‘Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel’ to End HBO Run After 29 Seasons,”   Variety,   September 6, 2023.

As part of the call for papers for NASSH 2024, the program committee has received abstracts for proposed session, where session organizers shared a theme for a session while seeking participants for those sessions. 

This year, the program committee received two session abstracts. Please review these (below) and if you are interested in having your work considered for inclusion in one of these sessions,  contact the session organizer directly . The abstract submission deadline – with all abstracts submitted through Conftool – is  January 31, 2024 .  

Self-Tracking and Sport History  

Session organizer: jonathan finn, wilfrid laurier university,  [email protected]  .

Whether in the form of Cederström and Spicer’s (2015) ‘wellness syndrome,’ Martschukat’s ‘Age of Fitness’ (2021) or Millington’s (2020) ‘Fitness 2.0,’ self-tracking has become a dominant practice within contemporary society. This rise in practice has been met by a parallel rise in scholarship. Exemplified in the work of Deborah Lupton, critical analyses of self-tracking emphasize the neoliberal underpinnings of the practice, through which the responsibility of health, wellness and fitness has been reconfigured as a moral quest for the individual. Often borrowing from Foucault, scholars of self-tracking rightly point to the disciplining and surveillant functions of the practice while also finding room for user agency, resistance and play.  

Work by Vertinsky (2008) and Crawford, Lingel and Karppi (2015) has identified the historical origins of current self-tracking practices; however, the majority of scholarship in the field comes from the social sciences, often producing ethnographic studies of self-trackers. This has the effect of emphasizing self-tracking as a uniquely contemporary phenomenon. This proposed panel aims to address this by examining the relationship between self-tracking and sport history. Given its prominence, why is self-tracking largely absent in sport history? In what ways is self-tracking a continuation of, response to, or rejection of historical practices in sport and fitness? How might the theories, methods and practices of sport history help us better understand 21st century self-tracking? This panel seeks to address these and related questions at the intersection of self-tracking and sport history. 

Sport and the American Civil Rights Movement  

Session organizer: kevin witherspoon, lander university,  [email protected]  .

Seeking individual paper proposals for a session exploring connections between sport and Civil Rights leaders, and/or Black athletes and protest more generally. 

The central question the session would seek to answer is, “What role did athletics play in the lives of Civil Rights activists?” While we don’t generally think of someone like Martin Luther King playing baseball, or Malcolm X shooting hoops, others involved in the Civil Rights movement either played or supported sports avidly. Several of the participants in the protests precipitating the Orangeburg Massacre in 1968, for instance, were athletes at South Carolina State University. The involvement of prominent athletes such as Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Wilma Rudolph, and Bill Russell in various protests has been well documented. How did sport impact their actions as activists? This session hopes to deepen and expand our understanding of the ties between athletics and activism.  

Suitable papers might address Martin Luther King, Jr. or other Civil Rights figures and their views on sport, and/or personal interaction with specific athletes in that era, or the sporting experiences of such figures. Alternatively, papers might consider Black athletes and their involvement in civic activism in the 1950s and ‘60s (or beyond that timeframe as well). Another possibility might be papers addressing the intersections between sport and the quest for equality in specific cities noted for Civil Rights activity, including Atlanta, Birmingham, Montgomery, New Orleans, Chicago, and many others.

Submission of an abstract/proposal for the NASSH 2024 program indicates acceptance of the   NASSH Participation Guidelines .

To be included on the program for NASSH 2024, presenters   must be current NASSH members and registered conference participants, with all relevant fees and dues paid in full no later than May 1, 2024.

The NASSH Program Committee has sole discretion over all decisions related to the content and scheduling of the NASSH 2024 program. For any enquiries, please contact Russell Field ( [email protected] ).

Program Committee

Kate Aguilar, Gustavus Adolphus College Chris Bolsmann, California State University Northridge Russell Field, University of Manitoba (chair) Jennifer Guiliano, IUPUI/IU Indianapolis Matthew Hodler, University of Rhode Island Amanda Schweinbenz, Laurentian University Samantha White, Manhattanville College

Dear NASSH members,   At the end of 2023, Professor Maureen M. Smith completed her tenure as Editor of the  Journal of Sport History , the flagship journal of the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH). She successfully guided the journal through the COVID-19 pandemic, providing vital continuity when she accepted a second term as Editor. We appreciate her steady hand, not only during this challenging period but throughout her time with the journal. During Smith’s Editorship, the  JSH   published brilliant, valuable work, and her leadership contributed to diversifying the JSH staff and editorial board. The Publications Board warmly thanks Professor Smith for her stewardship of and dedication to the journal for the past six years.   We are excited to announce that Professor Daniel A. Nathan has been chosen as the next Editor of the  Journal of Sport History . A long time member of NASSH—he was the organization’s President (2013-2015)—Nathan has also served as Associate Editor and as the Film, Media, and Museum Reviews Editor for the  JSH . With fellow NASSH members Sarah K. Fields, Thomas Hunt, and Patricia Vertinsky, he co-edits the Terry and Jan Todd Series on Physical Culture and Sports for the University of Texas Press. He is Professor of American Studies at Skidmore College, where he holds the Douglas Family Chair in American Culture, History, and Literary and Interdisciplinary Studies. The author of the award-winning  Saying It’s So: A Cultural History of the Black Sox Scandal  (2003), Nathan has published essays and reviews in a variety of periodicals. He is the editor of  Rooting for the Home Team: Sport, Community, and Identity  (2013) and  Baltimore Sports: Stories from Charm City  (2016), and co-editor of  Baseball Beyond Our Borders: An International Pastime  (2017) with George Gmelch, and co-editor of the forthcoming  Sports through the Lens: Essays on 25 Iconic Photographs  with Maureen M. Smith and Sarah K. Fields.   Thank you to both Professors Smith and Nathan for their service to the JSH and NASSH!   Sincerely,

The NASSH Publications Board Michelle Sikes, Chair Cat Ariail Janice Forsyth Matt Llewellyn Toby Rider Maria Veri

Call for Paper and Session Proposals

The North American Society for Sport History (NASSH) will gather in 2024 on the traditional territories and ancestral homelands of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Ute nations and peoples. We recognize that these lands are a historical and contemporary site of trade and gathering for other Native peoples and honor knowledge keepers of these lands.

The 2024 NASSH annual conference will take place on May 24-27, 2024, at the Hyatt Regency Denver at Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. Participation in NASSH 2024 will be available to both in-person and virtual participants. All sessions will be hybrid, with no separate pre-recorded virtual presentations. Virtual participants will be able to attend all sessions live via the Hopin/Ring Central platform. Registration fees will be tiered according to the nature of participation.

Participation Modes

The Program Committee encourages NASSH members and others interested in the scholarly study of sport history to submit proposals and/or participate in one of the following categories:

Individual papers, with or without discussant (see below) Proposals for individual 12-15-minute research presentations (both in-person and virtual), which the Program Committee will then group into appropriate sessions. NASSH members submitting abstracts will be asked whether they wish to be scheduled in a session that includes a discussant/commentator. The program committee will endeavor to accommodate all NASSH members who wish to their papers included in such a session. Requesting a session with a discussant indicates that NASSH members agree to submit their completed full paper to the discussant by the May 1, 2024, deadline.

Complete themed panels (3 papers + moderator and/or discussant) NASSH members are encouraged to submit complete three-paper themed sessions. Such sessions are strongly encouraged to include a discussant/commentator and can include virtual participants. The Program Committee strongly encourages themed panels that explore diverse topics in sport history  and  whose composition reflects this diversity.

Themed sessions NASSH members both interested in proposing a themed session and in publicizing this session to reach potential presenters are encouraged to share their proposed theme/topic and a 250-300-word abstract with the Program Committee chair, Russell Field ( [email protected] ) by January 15, 2024. These details should be accompanied by the name and email address of the session organizer (to allow NASSH members to contact them directly). Session topics will be publicized through NASSH communication channels. The Program Committee takes no responsibility for ensuring that presenters are assigned to proposed topics. The session organizer is responsible for recruiting session participants and submitting complete session abstracts by the January 31, 2024, deadline. A proposed session will be reviewed by the Program Committee for acceptance/rejection in the same manner as other papers and themed sessions (see above).  

Moderators and Discussants/Commentators

NASSH members, particularly those who are attending NASSH 2024 but not presenting a paper are encouraged to volunteer to be session moderators and/or discussants/commentator. The Program Committee welcomes expressions of interest. Please  click here .  

A Note regarding Scheduling

NASSH members submitting abstracts for individual papers or as part of themed panels should be aware that the presentation of their work will be scheduled at the discretion of the Program Committee sometime between Saturday, May 25, and Monday, May 27 (inclusive). Specific scheduling requests are not being accepted.

A Note regarding Virtual Participation

NASSH members who choose to participate in the conference virtually will have their presentations integrated within the in-person program. Virtual presentations should be pre-recorded and submitted by May 1, 2024 (details can be found in the   NASSH Participation Guidelines ). These will be played live during the relevant session. Virtual participants are expected to attend their session and be part of the live post-panel Q-and-A discussion. Presenters who cannot attend the live Q-and-A will not have their pre-recorded presentations shown live. The Program Committee will endeavor to schedule the presentations of virtual participants at a time that respects the time zones in which they reside, but not all requests can be accommodated. 

Attending NASSH

Registration and accommodation.

Details regarding registration and accommodation will be available on the NASSH website early in 2024 ( https://conference.nassh.org/lodging/ ). Note: registration and accommodation bookings will open in mid-January 2024.  

First-time attendees

First-time attendees of NASSH 2024 ( in-person only ) are eligible for a 50% discount on their registration fee regardless of registration category. Use the coupon code FIRSTTIME when registering.  

Graduate students

Graduate students who have an in-person presentation accepted for NASSH 2024 are eligible for a grant from the Roberta Park Graduate Travel Fund. (The value of the award for 2024 is TBD, but students should not rely on this award to cover all travel, registration, and accommodation expenses.) No application is needed; Treasurer Thomas Hunt will distribute checks at the conference. Annual interest from the Park Fund is divided equitably among all graduate students presenting at the conference.  

Abstract/Proposal Submission

  All abstracts/proposals should be submitted using the Conftool platform. To submit an abstract, you will need to register for an account using your preferred email and contact information. A guide to using the submission system is available ( https://conference.nassh.org/ ). Additional questions can be referred to  [email protected] .  

Guidelines for Submitting Individual Abstracts (in-person or remote)

Submit abstracts for individual papers to  https://www.conftool.org/nassh2024/ . Required information includes:

• Selecting whether presentation will be in-person or virtual
• title of presentation
• corresponding author’s name, email address, and affiliation
• if relevant, co-authors’ names, emails addresses, and affiliations
• session topic suggestions/keywords
• Abstracts should include the question(s) addressed in the paper, the evidence used, a statement of the argument and conclusions, and what significance the paper has to our understanding of sport history.

Guidelines for Submitting Complete Sessions

Submit proposals/abstracts for complete sessions to  https://www.conftool.org/nassh2024/ . Required information includes:

• title of session
• name of session organizer (including email address and affiliation)
• names of session participants (including email address and affiliation), including an indication of which participants will present in-person and which will be virtual
• name of discussant, if applicable (including email address and affiliation)
• name of moderator, if applicable (including email address and affiliation)
• session abstract (250-300 words), which describes the theme of the session, how the individual papers contribute to a consideration of that theme, and an explanation of the theme’s significance to the study of sport history

Decisions on abstract/proposal submission

• Individual authors and session organizers will be notified of the acceptance or rejection of their submission by February 29, 2024.The Program Committee will evaluate all submissions according to their individual merit, contribution to the field, and fit within the total program. Proposals missing requested information will be returned to the author(s).

Sports History Essays

A cultural-historical exploration of sports perspectives and the evolution of baseball, football, and basketball, popular essay topics.

• American Dream
• Artificial Intelligence
• Black Lives Matter
• Bullying Essay
• Career Goals Essay
• Causes of the Civil War
• Child Abusing
• Civil Rights Movement
• Community Service
• Cultural Identity
• Cyber Bullying
• Death Penalty
• Depression Essay
• Domestic Violence
• Freedom of Speech
• Global Warming
• Gun Control
• Human Trafficking
• I Believe Essay
• Immigration
• Importance of Education
• Israel and Palestine Conflict
• Leadership Essay
• Legalizing Marijuanas
• Mental Health
• National Honor Society
• Police Brutality
• Pollution Essay
• Racism Essay
• Romeo and Juliet
• Same Sex Marriages
• Social Media
• The Great Gatsby
• The Yellow Wallpaper
• Time Management
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Violent Video Games
• What Makes You Unique
• Why I Want to Be a Nurse
• Send us an e-mail

• Essay On Importance Of Sports

Essay on Sports

500+ word essay on the importance of sports.

Sports keep us healthy and active. We can have a healthy mind only when we have a healthy body. We can achieve anything in our lives if we have a healthy body and a peaceful mind. Physical and mental well-being comes naturally when we involve ourselves in sports activities. Sports help in improving our overall personality and make us more active and attentive. Here, students can find a 500+ Words Essay on the Importance of Sports where we will be discussing how important a role sports plays in our life.

Essay on the Importance of Sports

The topic of sports is very broad. It can serve as a form of therapy and a tool in different aspects of life, which can help change the world. Through sports, children develop physical skills, exercise, be team players, and improve their self-esteem. Sports play a significant role in advancing education and in enhancing knowledge.

Playing sports means regular exercising, jogging, going to the fitness centres or playing any game. There are different types of games involved in sports activities. Each game has its own specific rules. These sports activities are done either by individuals or teams for leisure, and entertainment as well as to compete against one another. Playing sports improves the physiological functions of the body organs and improves the functionality of the entire body system. Through sports, we learn different skills like leadership, patience, coordination, motivation, and team effort.

Sport has great importance in building personality, too. For some people, it is not only the body movement or playing strategy, but it’s a life philosophy. In the modern world, a positive attitude to sports is becoming a trend and style. Young people try to look sporty, fit and full of energy. A sports career in India was considered less lucrative in the past. However, now it has become one of the gainful professional options for students. Sometimes students take an interest in sports merely for adventure and a tension-free life. Now, sports games are gaining popularity. Various sports competitions are played at the international level, such as the Olympics. Apart from it, multiple matches and inter-city competitions are organised to promote the field of sports.

Benefits of Sports and Games

Nowadays, we can see problems related to unhealthy lifestyles. We sit more and more on the couch, surrounded by modern technologies. We don’t realise the importance and benefits of sports and physical activities. The lack of physical activity in our body leads to obesity and many other health problems such as heart disease and so. It has become a necessity of today’s world that all of us do daily physical activities or play any sports for a minimum of 30 minutes.

Regular physical activity benefits health in many ways. It helps build and maintain healthy bones, muscles and joints, controls weight, reduces fat, and prevents high blood pressure. Children who participate in physical activities such as sports, experience positive health benefits. These health benefits include a decreased risk of high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Also, these children are less likely to smoke or use drugs and alcohol than children who don’t participate in sports.

Keep learning and stay tuned with BYJU’S for the latest update on CBSE/ICSE/State Board/Competitive Exams. Also, download the BYJU’S App for interactive study videos.

Frequently asked Questions on the Importance of Sports Essay

Why is playing sports important for us.

Playing sports not only helps in the active functioning of our body but also helps in flexibility and reduces the chances of falling sick.

Which was the first sport to be played in the world?

Wrestling is said to have been the first sport played in the world, depictions of the same can be found in the caves of France.

Which is the most famous sport in the world?

Football is ranked as the top sport with 3.5 billion followers, seconded by Cricket.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your Mobile number and Email id will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Request OTP on Voice Call

Post My Comment

• Share Share

Register with BYJU'S & Download Free PDFs

Register with byju's & watch live videos.

Counselling