Not Playing Around

This book reveals how sports provide spaces for marginalized communities and create unique platforms that shift how society defines identity. Each chapter delves into how those identities—such as race, gender, disability, and sexuality—have developed and influenced social change.

This book provides an accessible space for interdisciplinary scholarship and narrative through an analysis of the power of media and sports, focusing on the intersectionality of identity, politics, social justice, and social movements within this context. Contributors examine how identities coalesce in sports and discuss the ways in which sports provide spaces for marginalized communities and create unique platforms that shift how society defines identity. Athletes’ identities and actions—and mass media’s representation thereof—can influence both the perceptions of society as a whole and how individuals view themselves, contributors argue. Each chapter delves into how different aspects of identity, including race, gender, disability, and sexuality, have developed and influenced social change, with a strong focus on lived experiences of both scholars and athletes from marginalized communities. Scholars of media studies, communication, sociology, and kinesiology may find this book particularly useful.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: At the Confluence of Sport and Identity

Andrew M. Colombo-Dougovito, Tracy Everbach, & Karen Weiller-Abels

SECTION I: Spaces that Define

1. “Keep it in the Locker Room”: How Athletic Departments Stifle Controversy and Dissent

Frank D. LoMonte & Dionne L. Koller

Response: Restricting Athletes Speech Puts Athletic Programs at Risk

Paula Lavigne

2. On Balls, Players, Tackle Boxes, and Other Footballing Options: The Politics of Being in the NFL Rulebook

Joshua D. Rubin

Response: Football

Louis Jenkins

3. Shattering the Glass Ceiling Twice: Sports Journalism Framing of Katie Sowers

William P. Cassidy

Response: Women Succeed in Coaching and Family Life

Lisa Carlsen

4. Queer Recreation: LGBTQ Sporting Spaces, Community, and Impact

Austin R. Anderson & Eric Knee

Response: Voices From the Field

Warren Perry

5. A “Permissible Prejudice”: An Exploration of the Systemic Ableist Barriers to Sport and Leisure Activities for Disabled People

Andrew M. Colombo-Dougovito & Suzanna Rocco Dillon

Response: Just Because You Use a Ball Chair Doesn’t Mean You’re Blameless

John Loeppky

SECTION II: Black Athlete as Activist

6. #SayHerName: The WNBA and Black Women’s Athletes’ Social Activism Tracy Everbach, Gwendelyn S. Nisbett, & Karen Weiller-Abels

Response: WNBA Athletes Can Spur Women and Girls to Speak Out About Injustice

Brianna Wallace

7. How Social Media Gives Black NBA Athletes a Platform to Rally Around Racial Injustice During the #BlackLivesMatter Movement

Teveraishe Mushayamunda & Mildred F. Perreault

Response: Blackness in 2022: A Personal Perspective

Daryl A. Carter

8. Athletes as Activists: Exploring Audience Evaluations of Black Celebrity Athlete Activism

Gwendelyn S. Nisbett, Newly Paul, & Stephanie G. Schartel Dunn

Response: Being Black is Life

Rebekah Sears

SECTION III: After the Lights Go Out

9. Fairness, Without the Inclusion: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Trans-exclusionary Sports Bans

Vincent Peña

Response: I am Trans. I am Human.

Karleigh Webb

10. In High Demand: Friday Night Prime Time and High School Athletes with DisabilitiesAllison R. Tsuchida & Nathan M. Murata

Response: Atypical Students Benefit from Friday Night Prime Time

Greg Taguchi

11. Migrant Children with Disabilities in Italian Schools: Educational and Sport-RelatedExperiences

Paolo Lucattini

Response: The Story of “A”

Maria Elena Mastrangelo

12. Criticism of Stereotypes in Paralympism and Expectations of Media Portrayals of Latin American Athletes in Rio 2016

Sandra Meléndez-Labrador

Response: Keep Quiet and Let the Results Speak for You

Erica María Castaño Salazar

Conclusion: Leveraging Sport for Justice

Karen Weiller-Abels, Andrew M. Colombo-Dougovito, & Tracy Everbach

Resources

About the Contributors