A new special issue of JSH celebrates fifty years of the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH)

The Journal of Sport History releases a special issue this month. The focus: celebrating fifty years of the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH). The field’s preeminent professional organization, the NASSH plays and has played a critical role in shaping sport history into an academic discipline.

As we scanned the Table of Contents of the new JSH, the names of several Press authors caught our eye.

For example, Lindsay Parks Pieper, author of Sex Testing, co-writes the issue’s Introduction. Ronald A. Smith, author of Wounded Lions and Pay for Play, contributes an essay on the origins of NASSH to a Reflections and Tributes section. In the same section, Sport and Exercise Science coeditor Jack W. Berryman recalls graduate studies during the field’s formative years. Steven A. Riess, author of Touching Base and City Games, traces NASSH’s impact on the evolution of sport history.

After that, the Calls to Action section leads off with Patricia A. Vertinsky, author of The Eternally Wounded Woman. She reflects on NASSH through the lens of feminism in sport history.

In addition, the reviews feature a strong UIP presence. Charles H. Martin (Benching Jim Crow) looks at a new essay collection. Richard C. Crepeau (NFL Football: NFL Centennial Edition) examines a general sport history by Gerald R. Gems, coauthor (with Steven A. Riess, see above) of UIP’s The Chicago Sports Reader. The journal also reviews our 2020 release Before March Madness, by Kurt Edward Kemper.

A one-of-a-kind portrait of NAASH at fifty, this issue of the Journal of Sport History tells the story of the organization that played a preeminent role in shaping sport history into an ever-evolving field of knowledge.