Exploring the imagination of sports in books, history and culture
Also In This Issue: 100 Years of Centre Court; The Man Tennis Failed; World’s Best Cyclist; Cheating and Innovation in Baseball; The NFL’s First Suicide; The Economics of Sports; Man U’s ‘99 Treble; In Praise of Women’s Football; ‘A League of Their Own’ at 30; The Gospel of ‘Bull Durham’; The Psyche of Extreme Sports; Remembering Marlin Briscoe
The news this week that the Big Ten had purloined UCLA and USC in its bid to form the newest mega-conference has more implications for college athletics than even the Southeastern Conference’s capture of Texas and Oklahoma.
Two years from now, the Big Ten will stretch from coast to coast as it expands to 16 teams. The Pac 12 is all but toast, with its scraps likely to be scooped up by the Big 12, which has been reorganizing since losing the Longhorns and Sooners.
The ACC, also with 16 teams, doesn’t have many good options in response, as Notre Dame’s status as a football independent and ACC in everything else is uncertain.
Two of the members of the so-called Big 5 conferences in the National Collegiate Athletic Association are clearly on lifelines as the biggest consolidation of conferences in college athletic history is about to unfold.
“What you can see is access and relevance slipping away for all but the elites—and those lucky enough to be in their conferences,” Dennis Dodd wrote at the link above at CBSSports.com on Saturday.
That publication also began a three-part series on the future of college football that, as Dodd notes, could include the 130 Football Bowl Series schools breaking away from the NCAA, “perhaps sooner than later.”
Such breakaway projections have been bandied about at least since the 1980s, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the NCAA a cartel regarding college football television rights and allowed conferences, and in the case of Notre Dame, the power to negotiate their own deals.
Conference realignment has been spinning around for more than a century. The Big Ten, ironically could have had Notre Dame in the 1920s, but anti-Catholic sentiment apparently scuttled that addition.
Now, Notre Dame figures to be a central figure in ratcheting up some multi-million-dollar bargaining for someone to stay relevant. This time, it may be the Big Ten laying down an offer that Notre Dame can’t refuse.
Should that scenario play out, a virtually unregulated environment will emerge in college football, similar to what’s happened in English soccer with the advent of the Premier League in 1992.
As Andrew Beaton wrote this week at The Wall Street Journal, there’s a lot college football can and should learn from “the other football,” and he even goes so far as to suggest relegation.
Perhaps I’m too much of a scoffing American to buy that, but there’s no question what’s emerging in college football is more unwieldy than what’s come before. The great risk is that it becomes truly ungovernable.
At Sports Illustrated, longtime college football writer Mark Blaudschun offers his Rx for “saving” college football; at the Press Box Access podcast, Tony Barnhart, my former boss at the AJC known as Mr. College Football, discusses the state of the sport.
A Big Ten grad working at The New York Times gives the new California schools the Bronx cheer. And what’s next? Who knows.
The rash of books written about corruption, big money and realignment in college football figures to get some new shelf company real soon.
Order Books: Creating the Big Ten | Billion-Dollar Ball | Fourth and Long
News & Issues
He’s the Best Cyclist in the World. He’s Only Getting Better—The Wall Street Journal
'Choking back tears,' Appel makes long-awaited debut: Nine years later, former No. 1 pick carves path as reliever—MLB.com
Eoin Morgan retires - Eoin Morgan, Maverick, pioneer, game-changer—espncricinfo
The World Cup Won’t Be a Windfall—City Journal
Maradona’s Medical Team to Stand Trial on Homicide Charges—The Wall Street Journal
FINA found the fairest solution to the transgender issue in sports—Yahoo! Sports
British Grand Prix Preview, Nelson Piquet Banned From the Paddock, and the Future of F1 on U.S. TV—The Ringer F1 Show
A Few Good Reads
Keith Hernandez was just what Mets needed to become champs—New York Post
How chess (so much chess) explains Christian Mate Pulisic—The Athletic
Books & Reviews
Newly Published: “Sunshine: The Tragic True Story of the NFL’s First Suicide”—Author Alex Cassidy has written about Sidney 'Sunshine' Gepford, citing new research showing he may have been the NFL’s first victim of chronic traumatic encephalopathy and who took his own life in 1924.
The book, written with assistance from Illinois historian Mark Sorensen covers much of the early years of the NFL, including Gepford’s Decatur Staleys.
Cassidy, who’s previously written about the London Monarchs of the World League of American Football and an amateur rugby player’s battle with CTE, said all sales of “Sunshine” will got to the Concussion Legacy Foundation.
Newly Published: “Intentional Balk: Baseball’s Thin Line Between Innovation and Cheating”
Review: ’An Economist Goes to the Game’: Of Numbers and Jerseys—The Wall Street Journal | Order Book
More New Baseball Book Reviews: The 40-some baseball books spread over 30+ posts in the ’22 lineup—Farther Off the Wall
Forthcoming: 1999: Manchester United, the Treble and All That—Book Depository
Forthcoming: 28: A Photographic Tribute to Buster Posey—Abrams Books
Sports History Files
Inside Wimbledon's Centre Court: 100 years at the great colosseum of tennis—The Telegraph
As Wimbledon Celebrates 100 Years at Centre Court, the Race Remains Wide Open—Vogue
This Wimbledon Champion Never Had a Tennis Lesson—The New York Times
The man tennis failed: Baron Gottfried von Cramm: the Third Reich dissident Wimbledon left behind—The Critic | Order “A Terrible Splendor”
Inside Playboy’s decades-long reign over college football’s preseason All-America teams—The Athletic
Home to history: Tiny Spring Hill College is home to the oldest continuously operating college baseball stadium in the U.S.—Beyond the Trestle
Wrexham: £45,000 funding to help set up Welsh football museum—The National Wales
Sportswriter Dent McSkimming watched the 1950 U.S. World Cup upset, but didn't write about it until later—Front Row Soccer
Films & Photography
‘A League of Their Own’ turns 30: Catching up with mighty Marla Hooch—The Athletic
The Gospel of ‘Bull Durham,’ According to Ron Shelton—Mel Magazine
How They Shot “The Last Shot”—Defector
Jimmy Chin’s ‘Edge of the Unknown’ Explores the Psyches of Extreme Athletes—The Wall Street Journal
Media
Legendary Edmonton Writer Terry Jones Released by Post Media—CFL News Hub
‘Stand tall’: APSE celebrates the career of Leon Carter with the Red Smith Award—Associated Press Sports Editors
Johnette Howard named 2022 Mary Garber Pioneer Award Winner—Association for Women in Sports Media
2022 Jenkins Medal/Best Sportswriting finalists named—Moody College of Communication, University of Texas
Passings
Marlin Briscoe, first Black starting QB in AFL, dies at age 76—ESPN
Bill Squires, Legendary Coach Beloved by Generations of Top Athletes, Dies at 89—Runner’s World
D.C. mourns colorful coach Kenneth ‘Buddy’ Burkhead—The Washington Post
The Sports Biblio Reader e-mail newsletter is delivered on Sunday. You can subscribe here and search recent archives. The full archives for Sports Biblio Digest can be found here. This is issue No. 247, published July 10, 2022.
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A brilliant roundup as always. Thank you, Wendy!