A Graduate Student during the Formative Years of Sport History and Sport Studies, 1969–79

Abstract

Abstract Autobiographical in nature, this essay shares my remembrances of what it was like to be a graduate student during the late 1960s and early 1970s when both sport history and sport studies were in their infancy. I believe I am the only person to complete a graduate degree with both Marvin Eyler and Guy Lewis, two founders of the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH) and the organization's first and second presidents. Immensely helpful and complementary were Dave Wiggins's, “Marvin Eyler and His Students: A Legacy of Scholarship in Sport History” (2005), and Robert Barney and Jeffrey Segrave, “From Vision to Reality: The Pre-History of NASSH and the Fermentation of an Idea” (2014). Following then, is my attempt to reconstruct my experiences and accomplishments at Lock Haven State College, University of Massachusetts, University of Maryland, and University of Washington, which in many ways paralleled the formative years of NASSH and sport studies. In so doing, I include significant interactions with my three closest graduate student friends—William J. Morgan, Alan G. Ingham, and Stephen H. Hardy, who went on to distinguished careers and leadership positions in sport philosophy, sport sociology, and sport history, respectively.