Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Passing Of Abc's Monday Night Football, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

At the end of its thirty-sixth season, ABC's Monday Night Football will pass into history, sort of. It certainly has been an institution of historical significance for broadcasting and for American popular culture as well as sport. It will not exactly disappear but will migrate to Sunday night, while ESPN's Sunday night football will move over to fill the void on Monday night.

Far Reaches Of The Holiday Bowl Lineup, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Several years ago the good people at the Miller Brewing Company put together the Miller Lite Survey of Sport in America. The survey, greeted by many with a roar of disbelief, found that bowling was the most popular participatory sport in the nation. We are now about to enter the Bowling Zone, a sixteen-day run of college football games with little or no meaning except to close family and friends of the participants, with a few notable exceptions. This is not the kind of bowling that was found in the Miller Lite Survey. These are not events featuring a hard …

Forgiveness For Lou Holtz And George O'Leary, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Forgiveness is a wonderful thing. Many saintly people through the years have espoused its practice. In sport, if you know where to look, you will find that forgiveness is extensively practiced. It can also pay dividends and in the calculus of the modern world that is all that really counts.

Vic Power Dies, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

On Tuesday Victor Pellot died at age 78. This may not mean all that much to many baseball fans, but if that sentence is modified to read, "On Tuesday Vic Power died at age 78," it would have considerably more meaning. Vic Power was a first baseman who came to North America from Puerto Rico in 1950 to play baseball. He started in Class D ball in Ontario and a year later was signed by the Yankee organization. In 1952 he was assigned to the Yankee farm team in Kansas City where he hit .331 and drove in over a …

George Best Dies, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

George Best died on Friday in London. For most Americans this simple fact of death has little meaning. For soccer fans across the globe it is a fact that is neither simple nor without meaning.

Thanksgiving, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have announced yet another new agreement on drug policy. It may even be the final such policy agreement of the year. As such we can now relax and know that drug use in baseball is under complete and total control. We also know that democracy is spreading across Iraq and throughout the Middle East. And Santa Claus is coming to town.

A New Mlb Steroid Policy, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have announced yet another new agreement on drug policy. It may even be the final such policy agreement of the year. As such we can now relax and know that drug use in baseball is under complete and total control. We also know that democracy is spreading across Iraq and throughout the Middle East. And Santa Claus is coming to town.

The Ncaa: Mascots And Minorities, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

It is here! "ESPN Mobile" has arrived. It will join ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPNU, ESPNews, ESPN Radio, ESPN International, ESPN.com, ESPN The Magazine, ESPN Original Entertainment, ESPN Merchandise, ESPN Zone, ESPN Enterprises, ESPN Regional Television, ESPN Now, ESPN Extra, ESPN HD, and Sports Ticker Enterprises, in the ESPN family.

College Latino Students: Cultural Integration, Retention, And Successful Completion, Robert Hernandez

Staff Publications & Research

The purpose of this study was to examine and gain a deeper understanding of Latino College students' sub-cultures and how their cultural integration can affect their retention and completion of a baccalaureate degree. Also, this study sought to understand the cultural factors that influenced student retention. The participants were given a survey to complete for demographic information, and then were interviewed to capture each of their stories and experiences.

Twenty participants were involved in the study. All of the participants were self-identified as Latinos and came from several different, four-year, residential universities. There were nine men and eleven women. Of …

Incentives, Swoopes, Pink Lockers, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

While I was on the road much of the last two weeks a number of things happened that caught my attention and now that I am back at my desk I would like to discuss a few of them. First, and indeed most curious, was the announcement from the NCAA that they would be offering financial rewards to those institutions whose student athletes actually perform as students. What a concept!

Milk, Fashion, And The Love Boat, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

It's difficult to know where to begin in this late October silly season that has produced some of the wackiest and best examples of self-righteousness by the people who claim to be 'leading' the major sports. Once again they have come forward to 'protect' our children from all sorts of evil forces loose in society.

Nl Or Al, Or What's The Difference?, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

The first two rounds of the playoffs have produced some amazing baseball, although once again I have been struck by the fact that FOX Sports, as did previous networks, continue to trot out inadequate and second rate announcers and analysts to present this high level of play and drama. With all of the excellent talent working major league baseball across the nation, one wonders how difficult it must be for the major networks to ignore the best and settle for second best, or at times even less.

A New Nhl Season And Some Rule Changes, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

The return of the National Hockey League last week was one of those events easily lost amidst the start of baseball's playoffs, the heating up of the college football season, and the occasional game of interest in the National Football League. For those who did notice, it was a time for celebration and thanksgiving.

Stasis And Change In Federal Policy, Regional Texts, And Curriculum: Moving Forward, Annie Loranger

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

“Native Americans lost control of their land.. .due to the expansion of a country.” “Indians are now living the kind of lives we expect of 20th century Americans.” Although it would be easy and preferable to believe that the previous two quotes were from the early twentieth century when stereotypes and racialized history were more prevalent, in truth the quotes come from Dale Lambert’s elementary school textbook Washington: A State of Contrast published in 2005. Lambert and many of his contemporaries have continued to treat the history of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest in a way that discredits their …

Drug Testing In Baseball And Worldwide, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

The United States Congress is making noises again over the issue of drug use in sports and, as usual, taking aim at steroids in baseball. In The Clean Sports Act, sponsored by Sen. McCain and Rep. Tom Davis, there is a call for stronger penalties for drug violations in baseball. This bill would institute a two-year ban for first offenders and a lifetime ban for second offenders, a penalty system adopted from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, in sandbagging the Players' Association, also called for an independent testing agency and his coyly phrased "Three Strikes and …

Great Tennis At The 2005 Us Open, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Thirty years ago the country was in a tennis frenzy. Television had discovered the sport and colorful and attractive personalities seemed to be in an endless supply as they paraded before the cameras. Public tennis courts were overcrowded with people from seven to seventy. At the indoor courts of the major cities you were lucky to be able to get a reservation to play between three and four o'clock in the morning. Manufacturers of tennis equipment were making money hand over fist, and the tennis ball factories working around the clock (what we would now term 24/7), could not meet …

Steroids, Success, And Ethics, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

This week Rafael Palmeiro met the wrath of the Canadian baseball public in Toronto where he was booed loud and long for either lying to the Congress and the public, his steroid use, or both. This is the most severe crowd disapproval he has experienced and he found it quite difficult to endure. Even the use of ear plugs did not seem to help.

A Remarkable Weekend, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Watching Tiger Woods play golf is one of the great treats available to those who follow sport in the television age. Win, lose, or draw, Woods shows what it takes to operate at the highest levels of professional sport, and offers a role model for anyone who dreams of even minimal success at the lowest levels. At least two elements are essential, physical skill and mental focus. Woods has both in abundance, and it is the mental side of Woods' game that even the casual player of any sport can emulate.

Ethical Values In Sport, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

At times, the world of sport offers its fans moral and ethical questions of a formidable nature rivaling the questions pondered by medieval theologians. For example, who is morally more reprehensible: a baseball player who assaults a television cameraman or one who takes steroids after denying under oath that he had never taken steroids. Whose transgression is worse: a football player who fails a drug test or a hockey player who in a premeditated action assaults a fellow player with a sucker punch from behind, drives his head into the ice, and breaks his neck?

Ncaa Nickname Proscription, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

The NCAA, in whatever wisdom it may have remaining, has ruled that NCAA institutions who have "offensive and abusive" mascots and logos will not be allowed to host any post-season event nor participate in any post-season event while displaying such a logo or mascot. Eighteen universities have been named in this group. This is a ruling that has been a long time coming and one that represents many of the problems with organizations like the NCAA.

The Summer In Sports, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

It is my position that Rafael Palmeiro became the King of Performance Enhancement Drugs when he first appeared in a Viagra commercial. Nothing has happened in the past few days to change that view.

Queequeg's Tomahawk: A Cultural Biography, 1750-1900, Timothy J. Shannon

History Faculty Publications

Since the colonial era, the tomahawk has served as a symbol of Indian savagery in American arts and literature. The pipe tomahawk, however, tells a different story. From its backcountry origins as a trade good to its customization as a diplomatic device, this object facilitated European-Indian exchange, giving tangible form to spoken metaphors for war, peace, and alliance. The production, distribution, and use of the pipe tomahawk also illustrated contrasting Indian and European notions of value and utility in material objects, exposing the limits of such goods in promoting cross-cultural mediation and understanding.

Annika Sorenstam, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

There is a philosophical puzzle that poses the question, if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a noise? Although it is not quite the same thing, that line did come to mind last weekend as Annika Sorenstam waltzed to victory in the second major of the year. In fact, Sorenstam has been waltzing all over everybody, everything, and everywhere in the last few years on the LPGA tour. Over the past few months, she has been torrid, and last weekend she moved halfway towards her goal of winning …

Bud Selig's Bad Faith, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

I would like to reflect a bit on the dis-ingenuousness of one Allen H. "Bud" Selig, Commissioner of Baseball and Supreme Potentate of Dissemblers. Having accrued most of the power in baseball unto himself over the past several years, "Bud" has shown, at times, some insight and leadership only ultimately to disappoint.

In Memory Of George Mikan, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

He made the number 99 on his jersey famous decades before Wayne Gretzky wore it on his hockey sweater. George Mikan, the 6'10" center of the Minneapolis Lakers died on Thursday at the age of 80. He was the first big man in professional basketball, the first in college basketball, and he was a key reason the NBA succeeded when other leagues had failed. Leonard Koppett in his history of the NBA called the first eight years of league existence the "The Mikan Era." That is certainly how I remember those years as a boy in Minneapolis.

The Death Of Pat Tillman, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Over the past few weeks, the world of sport has been touched by the world of politics in a number of ways. Politics and sport are often mixed and when they are, the results can be at once unfortunate, distressing, and sometimes appalling. Certainly, the House of Representatives' hearings on steroids come to mind in this context.

Review Of Shorto's "The Island At The Center Of The World: The Epic Story Of Dutch Manhattan And The Forgotten Colony That Shaped America", Paul Otto

Faculty Publications - Department of History and Politics

No abstract provided.

Is There A Southern Doctor In The House?, Peter S. Carmichael

Civil War Institute Faculty Publications

Doctoring the South does not go down easily, but a patient reader will benefit immeasurably from this brilliantly conceived and thoroughly researched book. Stephen Stowe has penetrated the scientific and cultural world of southern physicians during the mid-nineteenth century, showing how white doctors made meaning of their lives as they struggled to gain mastery of the sickly bodies of others. The confrontation between patient and physician, between sickness and health, reveals what Stowe calls the country orthodoxy style of southern practitioners. Country orthodoxy inextricably tied a doctor’s understanding of what it meant to be a professional to his local community. …

Changes For Manchester United, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

There is nothing more delightful for an American of a certain perverse persuasion than to watch the Brits get their knickers all twisted up over something as silly as the sale of Manchester United to some little billionaire twit from the dismal swamps of Florida. It has been a wonderful several weeks to watch the spectacle of hysteria over such a trivial matter as this.

The Proposed Nba Age Limit, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Open Letter to Mr. David Stern, Commissioner, National Basketball Association