UI Press | Edited by Daniel A. Nathan | Rooting for the Home Team: Sport, Community, and Identity

Rooting for the Home Team

Sport, Community, and Identity

Civic pride and personal identity in local sports teams

Rooting for the Home Team examines how various American communities create and maintain a sense of collective identity through sports. Looking at large cities such as Chicago, Baltimore, and Los Angeles as well as small rural towns, suburbs, and college towns, the contributors consider the idea that rooting for local athletes and home teams often symbolizes a community's preferred understanding of itself, and that doing so is an expression of connectedness, public pride and pleasure, and personal identity.

Some of the wide-ranging essays point out that financial interests also play a significant role in encouraging fan bases, and modern media have made every seasonal sport into yearlong obsessions. Celebrities show up for big games, politicians throw out first pitches, and taxpayers pay plenty for new stadiums and arenas. The essays in Rooting for the Home Team cover a range of professional and amateur athletics, including teams in basketball, football, baseball, and even the phenomenon of no-glove softball.

Contributors are Amy Bass, Susan Cahn, Mark Dyreson, Michael Ezra, Elliott J. Gorn, Christopher Lamberti, Allison Lauterbach, Catherine M. Lewis, Shelley Lucas, Daniel A. Nathan, Michael Oriard, Carlo Rotella, Jaime Schultz, Mike Tanier, David K. Wiggins, and David W. Zang.

"This fine anthology shows the confluence of sport, identity, and community in a variety of settings. Outstanding essays by skilled writers."--Ronald A. Smith, author of Pay for Play: A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform

Daniel A. Nathan is an associate professor and chair of American studies at Skidmore College and the author of the award-winning Saying It's So: A Cultural History of the Black Sox Scandal.

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