Native Athletes in Sport & Society

by King, C. Richard

• ISBN13: 9780803278288
• ISBN10: 0803278284
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-12-30
• Publisher: Bison Books

Summary

Though many Americans might be aware of the Olympian and football Hall of Famer Jim Thorpe or of Navajo golfer Notah Begay, few know of the fundamental role that Native athletes have played in modern sports: introducing popular games and contests, excelling as players, and distinguishing themselves as coaches. The full breadth and richness of this tradition unfolds inNative Athletes in Sport and Society, which highlights the accomplishments of Indigenous athletes in the United States and Canada but also explores what these accomplishments have meant to Native American spectators and citizens alike. Here are Thorpe and Begay as well as the Winnebago baseball player George Johnson, the Snohomish Notre Dame center Thomas Yarr, the Penobscot baseball player Louis Francis Sockalexis, and the Lakota basketball player SuAnne Big Crow. Their stories are told alongside those of Native athletic teams such as the nfl's Oorang Indians, the Shiprock Cardinals (a Navajo women's basketball team), the women athletes of the Six Nations Reserve, and the Fort Shaw Indian Boarding School's girls' basketball team, who competed in the 1904 World's Fair. Superstars and fallen stars, journeymen and amateurs, coaches and gatekeepers, activists and tricksters appear side by side in this collection, their stories articulating the issues of power and possibility, difference and identity, representation and remembrance that have shaped the means and meaning of American Indians playing sport in North America.

Author Biography

C. Richard King is an associate professor of comparative ethnic studies at Washington State University. He is the coeditor of Team Spirits: The Native American Mascot Controversy (Nebraska 2001).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Identities, Opportunities, Inequities: An Introduction	p. xi
Negotiating a Native American Identity through Sport: Assimilation, Adaptation, and the Role of the Trickster	p. 1
"Looking Backward": The Life and Legend of Louis Francis Sockalexis	p. 22
World Champions: The 1904 Girls' Basketball Team from Fort Shaw Indian Boarding School	p. 40
"Winnebago Is a Great Nation!": George Howard Johnson's Life in Baseball	p. 79
The Forgotten Irish Indian: Ethnicity, Class, and Football in the Life of Tommy Yarr	p. 104
Playing Football, Playing Indian: A History of the Native Americans Who Were the NFL's Oorang Indians	p. 123
Women's Basketball on the Navajo Nation: The Shiprock Cardinals, 1960-1980	p. 143
An Examination of Sport for Aboriginal Females on the Six Nations Reserve, 1968-1980	p. 170
SuAnne Big Crow: Her Legend and Legacy	p. 189
A Notable Exception: Notes on Notah Begay, Race, and Sports	p. 211
No Fall from Grace: Grace Thorpe's Athlete of the Century Campaign for Her Father	p. 228
Epilogue	p. 245
List of Contributors	p. 249
Index	p. 253
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.