More Than a Game

Reviews / Votes

Wiggins, a veteran sports writer and professor at George Mason University, looks at the history ofblack athletes seeking equal participation in American sports in this enlightening history.... This is an enlightening, strongly presented look at African-Americans in sports. * Publishers Weekly * No one has done more to explore African Americans' connection to sport, or better understands this complex history than David Wiggins. More Than A Gamewill become a cornerstone for courses about sport as well as a jumping off point for countless studies. This is a masterful account, sober but poignant, by the field's preeminent scholar that reveals as much about sport and race as it does about the country's troubled history. Wiggins lays bare the past while leaving me upbeat about the future. -- Rob Ruck, award-winning sports historian, author of Tropic of Football: The Long and Perilous Journey of Samoans to the NFL For decades, David Wiggins has been the leading historian on African Americans in sport, and he shows us why in More Than a Game. With rich insight and a skilled hand, Wiggins takes us from the era of slavery through the controversy surrounding quarterback Colin Kaepernick as he explores the history and politics of race and sport in America. This is a wonderful and important book. -- Jaime Schultz, The Pennsylvania State University David Wiggins, one of the most respected scholars of African American sport history, brings decades worth of knowledge to More Than a Game. This highly readable, engaging, and aptly titled text sheds valuable light on sport's significance to the lives of African Americans and the communities from which they came. This book reminds us that athletic involvement and achievement among African Americans was and is a consistently powerful marker of self-empowerment and collective agency. -- Rita Liberti, Professor, Department of Kinesiology, California State University, East Bay and co-author of Re-Presenting Wilma Rudolph From the plantation to the professional playing fields, from Molineaux to Kaepernick, David Wiggins weaves his way through the history of the African American athlete. This is an essential synthesis for anybody who wants to learn about the struggle and triumphs of the African American athlete. -- Louis Moore, historian, speaker, and author of We Will Win the Day: The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Athlete, and the Quest for Equality David K. Wiggins has produced an important history about the experiences of African American athletes. He reveals how throughout history black athletes navigated and ultimately erased the color line in American sports. Anyone interested in the complex history of race and sports should read this book. -- Johnny Smith, co-author of "Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X" In More Than a Game, David Wiggins provides a sweeping chronicle of one of the most visible venues for African Americans in American history--sport. Wiggins recounts the challenges African Americans have faced on the nation's playing fields from slave plantations to contemporary arenas, excavating their enduring struggles for equality and illuminating the racialist attitudes that remain entrenched in sport even in an epoch in which black athletes have become global icons. Wiggins celebrates the triumphs of remarkable individuals while illuminating the racial structures and attitudes that have been historically embedded in both sport and the larger society. Wiggins details how African American athletes have served on the frontlines of American debates about race and racism since the early history of the republic, providing a compelling argument that when it comes to the essence of what many historians consider the fundamental "American dilemma"--race--sporting endeavors have always been much more than mere games. -- Mark Dyreson, The Pennsylvania State University David Wiggins has been writing about the African American experience in sports for the last four decades, chipping away at the central issue in sports as well as American society. More Than A Game is the summation of his vast research and thought, an important study for anyone interested in sports and race. From Tom Molineaux and Issac Murphy to Michael Jordan and Colin Kaepernick, this is the full story of prejudice, heartbreak, triumph, and dominance. In addition, the documents are carefully selected from his research. -- Randy Roberts, Distinguished Professor of History, Purdue University