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I recently read some historian say the study of sports history isn't exactly viewed positively or taken seriously by many historians because it is not considered academic. I can understand that point if one looks at sports history as “how many interceptions did Brett Favre throw in 1995-96”. But I don't agree because sports has been used for many things and reasons; diplomacy, religion, culture, education, national identity etc.Thought on this?
That historian is stupid if you ask me (and you didn't). :)Sports are a major cultural component of any society especially notable figures who breached racial barriers through sports such as Jackie Robinson or the Texas Western basketball team who beat Kentucky for the National Championship in basketball (all the players were black). No I adamantly disagree with the historian that made that statement.
I need to find where I read that. He wasn't being negative about it himself, he was just saying it wasn't considered important by academia, but didn't exactly make a strong case for it. :-I'm doing a paper on the Ancient Olympics. What they symbolized and represented was quite important to the Greeks. And I remember reading in “A Path to Freedom” where Collins mentioned membership in the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) as a means of increasing the sense of national pride.Sports have been quite important IMO.
I would really wonder what that historian was referring to. It seems obvious that knowing about athletics in civilizations is an important resource for understanding their histories. I imagine that the historian was probably referring to modern sports…in which case he may have been likening it to the history of boy bands since 1998 or the history of celebrities shown on the front cover of Tiger Beat.
Sports has its origins in religion.(Just figured I'd throw that out there for further discussion/argument ;D )
Sports has its origins in religion.(Just figured I'd throw that out there for further discussion/argument ;D )
Just heard something recently about how the gladiatorial games began near Rome (IIRC somewhere in 3rd cent. B.C.) as funerary games, which suggests a religious component. Only later on in the Republic and Empire did it get divorced from funerals and become the Roman national pastime.
Looking forward to taking Ancient Rome and comparing the attitude towards sports between them and the Greeks. They continued the Olympics and I'm curious how they viewed and practiced it.I think “organized” sports started as religious ceremonies and them somewhere in the timeline (Industrial Revolution?) evolved into a leisure activity then into the corporate enterprise we see today.
Sports was a leisure activity long before the industrial revolution. The English practiced archery on Sundays in the Middle Ages as a combination of both sport and military training. As a matter of fact the King felt it necessary to pass a law requiring archery practice and outlawing bowling and footraces on Sundays.
How much was that considered sport though? All these Medieval “games” were really more about war training than entertainment/athletic competition, weren't they?As far as organized rugby, baseball, cricket, soccer, etc. you don't really see that among the lower classes until the Ind Rev. I think.
Bowling is certainly a sport. I would argue that footraces have more entertainment and ability value than they do as military training. Running fast was not and is not a particularly useful military skill unless your army loses. I can buy the archery as military training argument, but in England there was a measure of pitting one's skill against another to it as well. That qualifies it as a sport in my opinion, isn't archery a contemporary Olympic event? I think sports have always been there, they have just been ignored by historians as you say in the initial post. Many historians only look at big events and often that is the only view we have from contemporary's. The life of the common man was not of interest as a subject of historical study until comparatively recently.
Ski, in addition to Roman gladiatorial fights, the public would gather to watch animal hunts in the stadiums which would be shows of skill. Despite the seemingly-military nature of these events, I think they were appreciated in their own right and so were not really about war. As for the common man, given the way star athletes were given high stature, I would imagine that average citizens would have imitated top athletes and would have staged their own competitions on much smaller scales.
I can buy the archery as military training argument, but in England there was a measure of pitting one's skill against another to it as well.
I don't disagree with you, but I still have to wonder if it was more because of war and how the people, especially those who had stock in it, viewed war and wanted their “team” to win. I think it would be more “look, our knights are better warriors (rather than athletes) than your knights”. I'm probably wrong, but I don't imagine the people cheering them on as they would a local sports team. Losing a competition that involves military ability could very well mean death in battle. Losing a foot race means you are just not the best runner around.Phid, funerary games go further back than Rome. Homer mentions them often in the Illiad and there's evidence they go as far back as the Bronze Age. All or most of the Greek mythological origins of athletic competition were based on funerary games. The story of Pelops was about that. Back to my comment on originating in religion, I think the mythological tales of athletic competition support that a lot. And there are some myths of what makes a good athlete and different myths about what makes a good warrior/hero. Pelops excelled as a chariot driver. The myth had nothing at all to do with war and everything to do with victory to win the king's daughter in marriage (and to make sure he didn't get his head displayed on a spike like all the other losers).
Phid, funerary games go further back than Rome. Homer mentions them often in the Illiad and there's evidence they go as far back as the Bronze Age. All or most of the Greek mythological origins of athletic competition were based on funerary games. The story of Pelops was about that. Back to my comment on originating in religion, I think the mythological tales of athletic competition support that a lot. And there are some myths of what makes a good athlete and different myths about what makes a good warrior/hero. Pelops excelled as a chariot driver. The myth had nothing at all to do with war and everything to do with victory to win the king's daughter in marriage (and to make sure he didn't get his head displayed on a spike like all the other losers).
Yeah, I didn't mean to imply they originated in Rome (I think the Romans actually got theirs from the Etruscans) but that Roman sports is an example of athletics being rooted in religion. Then, I wanted to show how they became divorced from military training and became a showcase for skill. Like many things in life, the nature of sporting events evolved.
Came across this article from Cambridge discussing how sports, in this case soccer or football, is a neglected study. http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/the-beautiful-neglected-game/
Few standard histories of Britain or the British Empire ? the mechanism that helped football to spread throughout the world ? refer to it at all. Even Eric Hobsbawm, a passionate supporter of the Rapid Vienna team whose players would be forced to play for Germany, mentioned it just once in his 640-page work on The Short Twentieth Century.Whether historians should pay football more heed, and how they should address it if so, was the subject of a Cambridge Public History Seminar ? How Football Explains British History, organised by the University?s Faculty of History earlier this month. The seminars aim to explore the nature and impact of popular history and interrogate the people who ?do? history in the public sphere ? whether they are historians, filmmakers, journalists or museum curators. The football edition featured Kevin Moore, Director of the National Football Museum, and Philippe Auclair and Jonathan Wilson ? both eminent football journalists.
