Tag: Joseph Darda

In 1998, Bill Clinton hosted a town hall on race and sports. ‘If you've got a special gift,’ the president said of athletes, ‘you owe more back.’ The idea is that a gifted athlete who received something for nothing runs up a social debt, whereas the gritty athlete received nothing and owes no one. The distinction between gift and grit is racial, but also racializing. Our reviewer of Joseph Darda’s Gift and Grit: Race, Sports, and the Construction of Social Debt (Cambridge UP), Duncan R. Jamieson, finds that the author does not present a clearly organized and defined response to his title.

The purpose of NASSH is to promote, stimulate, and encourage study and research and writing of the history of sport, and to support and cooperate with local, national, and international organizations having the same purposes. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: Talking Football with the American Left: Taylor's Version by Amy Bass.