To Black Athletes, Donald Trump Is Playing the Dozens

This Time, the Age-Old Game of Exchanging Insults Will Have No Winner

President Donald Trump did not say, “Yo’ mama!” in front of a partisan Huntsville, Alabama audience. But he might as well have because that is what athletes heard directed at them.

Perhaps without even realizing it, the president had engaged in an age-old tradition of playing the dozens, the term for an African American game involving the exchange of insults before an audience. Or did he just think he’s playing the politics of distraction-as-usual, and playing to his base?

Whether he knew it or not, the bully, Trump, went after one …

By Kenneth L. Shropshire | October 3, 2017

How Irish American Athletes Slugged Their Way to Respectability

Sportsmen with Roots in the Emerald Isle Reshaped the Image of the Shantytown Ruffian

By James Silas Rogers | May 19, 2017

In his 1888 book The Ethics of Boxing and Manly Sport, a high-minded treatise on the ennobling effect of sports, the journalist, poet, and Irish exile John Boyle O’Reilly …

Why India’s Women Olympians Remind Me of My Father

A Delhi School Principal Was Early to Champion Sports for Girls, a Commitment That's Still Bearing Fruit

By Moira Mayer Shourie | August 22, 2016

It’s been nearly 10 years since my father died, but watching Indian athletes at the Rio Olympics has brought his memory rushing back to me.

When I was a child, …

Will Environmental Crises Segregate Sports?

Snowless Mountains and Poisoned Beaches Will Drive a Wedge Between Athletes of Different Classes

By Andrew Dana Hudson | August 10, 2016

In Brazil, Olympic rowers and sailors will chase gold through dying rivers and poisoned lagoons. Even amid all the crises piling up on this year’s games—unfinished infrastructure, political drama, financial …

L.A.’s Forgotten Avenue of the Athletes

Thirty-Two Grimy Bronze Plaques Are All That Remain of a Grand Vision to Create a Walk of Fame for Sports

By David Davis | August 4, 2016

Walking along Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles the other day I stumbled across an old acquaintance. On a small bronze plaque embedded into the sidewalk was the name Jimmy …

Why Student Athletes Continue to Fail

The Problem’s Not the NCAA. It’s Players’ Expectations of Their Peers.

by Daniel Oppenheimer | April 28, 2015

Seventy-four college underclassmen have been declared eligible for the NFL’s upcoming draft, but Ohio State’s quarterback Cardale Jones won’t be among them. A few days after winning the national championship …

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