Let’s Create a California Conference

Stanford and Cal, Instead of Running Scared to the Atlantic Coast, Form a Statewide Athletic League of Your Own

Dear Cal and Stanford,

Why are you running away from California?

Yes, the collapse of the Pac-12 Conference—occasioned by the departure of eight schools seeking better TV contracts—leaves the two of you without a home for your sports teams.

But your flailing around for a new sports home on the other side of the country looks pathetic. Your desperate appeals to join the Atlantic Coast Conference would be a joke, if it weren’t such a crime against geography.

And if that doesn’t work out—and …

The Quiet Yalie Who Invented American Football

As a Player and Coach, Walter Camp Rewrote Rugby’s Rules to Create a Sport Fit for America

American football is the all-but-official sport of the United States. But for all the media coverage it draws, the origin story of football gets missed. How did this game …

Why Samoans Are So Overrepresented in the NFL

It All Started in Hawaiʻi on Oahu’s North Shore, Where Plantation Managers and Mormon Elders Nurtured Generations of Football Stars

Long before Oahu’s North Shore became a global hot spot for football, it was a pu`uhonua, a refuge under the protection of priests. Fugitives and villagers escaping the carnage of …

How the NFL and American Politicians Politicized (and Helped Merchandise) Pro Football

In the ’60s and ’70s, Gridiron Fans Like Richard Nixon and Bobby Kennedy Embraced the Sport That Wanted Their Attention

In January 1942, as the United States committed itself fully to World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt decided that baseball, then the national pastime, should sustain civilian morale during the …

When Black Texans Gathered Under “Thursday Night Lights”

Why the Lone Star State Has Forgotten Its Proud Tradition of African American High School Football

I had only been in and out of Houston since leaving our Sunnyside neighborhood on the city’s southeast side, in 1968, to begin eight years of Air Force service. …

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 …