
Sports history


Baseball in a Grain of Sand: Seeing the Game through a Small Town Season

Hip Hop Ain’t Dead and Playing While White
Hip Hop Ain’t Dead: It’s Livin’ in the White House
Sanford Richmond ’11 PhD
Mill City Press: 2016
Playing While White: Privilege and Power On and Off the Field
David J. Leonard
University of Washington Press: 2017
During his undergraduate years at the University of Southern California, writes Sanford Richmond in Hip Hop Ain’t Dead, “I began to … » More …

First ’16 Rose Bowl
WSC banged, smashed, bulled, and pounded their way to a 14–0 victory that started a storied football tradition.
Washington State supporters wondered, sometimes aloud, if President E. A. Bryan had made a grievous mistake in entrusting the football program to William “Lone Star” Dietz shortly after the sharp-dressed man arrived on September 1, 1915.
Dietz emphasized conditioning over running plays, then a radical approach. He inherited eight experienced players and three teams of untested candidates, none of whom were familiar with the single- or double-wing formations Dietz—as Pop Warner’s protégé—brought with him from Carlisle Indian School. Hopes sank when the varsity squeaked by the alumni … » More …

Nikkei Baseball: Japanese American Players from Immigration and Internment to the Major Leagues
Samuel O. Regalado ’83 MA, ’87 PhD
University of Illinois Press, 2013
Since Sam Regalado received his doctorate in history in 1987, he has established himself as one of the leading authorities on the history of baseball and the Hispanic population in the United States. Now a professor at California State University Stanislaus, Regalado has penned an eminently readable history on how baseball helped Americans of Japanese descent construct an identity.
Regalado’s interest … » More …

Consider the dragon
With his fierce gaze and swift, powerful muscles, Chinese American martial artist and actor Bruce Lee inspired John Wong and a generation of Chinese people in the early 1970s. Lee embodied a new and potent physicality as an Asian man on film, one who would transcend traditional kung fu forms, influence fitness, and stand toe-to-toe against stereotypes.
“He had a quality that people admired and almost worshiped,” says Wong, associate professor in the Washington State University College of Education and sports historian. “Even people who were born after Lee died see his influence as a pioneer.”
In a recent article for Sports History Review, Wong … » More …