The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm 3030728250, 9783030728250

Table of contents :
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
Sport, Politics, and Harm: Introduction
Sport Injury: History and Politics
Sport, Injury, and Social Research
References
Part I: Bodily Damage and Pre- and Early Industrial Sport
The Perils of Rewarding Toughness: Honor, Injury, and Death in the Athletics of the Ancient World
‘Beastly Furie, and Exstreme Violence’: Pain, Injury and Death Resulting from Football and Other Ball Games Played in the British Isles Before the Reformation
I
II
III
IV
Violence, Injury and the Politics of the Evolving Football Codes
Hacking and the Codification of Football
Ungentlemanly Professionals
Gaelic Games
“Though He Was Evidently Suffering Great Pain, He Bore It Well”: Public Discourse on Benefits, Risk, and Injury in North American Wrestling, 1880 to 1914
Historical Background
Wrestling’s Health Benefits
Risks and Injury
The Value of Dangerous Sport
Part II: The NFL: Politics, Injury, and American National Identity
Inflaming the Civic Temper: Progress, Violence, and Concussion in Early American Football
A Public Health Problem
Values and Violence
The Potential of Concussion
Conclusion
A Problem that Cries Out for Standards: Football Helmets, Conceptions of Risk, and the National Commission on Product Safety, 1961–1970
Face Guards, Plastic Helmets, and an Equipment Crisis
The Right to Safety
A Problem That Cries Out for Standards
Public Risks, Private Standards
Lights Out: Concussion Research, the National Football League, and Employer Duty of Care
Introduction
CTE in American Football
CTE Research and American Football
Industry Doubt and Denial: The NFL
The Loss of Labor
References
Race and Injury in American Football
Intersections of Injury and Demography
Race and the Politics of Resistance
The Racial Landscape of Football Injuries
Youth Football as Labor Conscription
Conclusion
Part III: Sporting Females, Sexuality, and the Politics of Injury
Injury at the Extreme: Alison Hargreaves, Mountaineering and Motherhood
Climbing: A Perceptibly Dangerous Sport?
Mountaineering in the Death Zone
Capitalising Life and Death in Climbing
Alison Hargreaves: A Climbing Life and Death Revisited
Gender, Parenting and Climbing
Mountaineering and Harm
Conclusion
References
Gendered Bodies, Gendered Injuries
Boxing Injuries
Women’s Boxing
Bodies and Culture: Explaining Gendered Injuries
Medical Reactions
Bodies and Embodiment: Evidence of Hurt
Conclusion
References
The Not So Glamorous World of Women’s Wrestling
Introduction: Putting the Spotlight on Women’s Professional Wrestling
The Harmful Business of Professional Wrestling: Shattered Bodies, Shattered Careers
A Concise Contemporary History of Women’s Wrestling: It’s Good for Business
The Not So Glamorous and Harmful World of Women’s Wrestling: It Hurts
Conclusion: Good for Women Wrestlers?
References
Pride, Prejudice and Death: The Emile Griffith Story
Sonny Boy
The Fatal Insult
All Agony, No Ecstasy
A Burden Shed
The Hardest Facts
References
Part IV: Sport as Transport: Horse, Cycle, and Motor Racing and the Politics of Safety
Runners, Riders and Risk: Safety Issues in the History of Horseracing
Introduction
Global Establishment of Horseracing, Despite Animal Welfare Concerns
The Foundations of Steeplechasing and the Grand National
The Welfare of Jockeys: ‘Making Weight’
The Welfare of Jockeys: The Risks of Race Riding
Continued Opposition to National Hunt Racing
The Risks of Flat Racing
Can the Racing Industry Respond?
Conclusion
References
‘Dishing Out the Pain’ in Professional Cycling
Liminality and ‘Crossing the Line’
Painful Choices
Coping with Tragedy and Injury
‘Magic Spanners’ and Soigneurs
Personal Troubles and Public Issues
References
It Was Ironic that He Should Die in Bed: Injury, Death and the Politics of Safety in the History of Motor Racing
Five Minutes After the Second Car Was Built: Danger and Early Motor Racing
Doing What They Enjoyed? Body Count and the Beginnings of a Safety Debate in Motor Racing in the 1950s and 1960s
Chicken Noises: Jackie Stewart and the Rise of Driver Militancy
Dead Drivers Are Bad for Business: Sponsorship, Safety and Motor Racing After the Death of Ayrton Senna
Conclusion
Part V: Sport, Injury, and the Culture of Late Capitalism
The Death of Jordan McNair: The Inevitability of the Avoidable Life-Threatening Injury
The Neoliberal “High Performance” Body
Sporting Taylorism
Mortal Engines
McDonaldization
The Unhealthy High-Performance Sport Experience
Conclusion
References
From Body Snatchers to Brain Banks: The Cadaver as Commodity and the Sports-Concussion “Crisis”
Athlete Brain Donations
A Brief History of Dissection and Organ Procurement
The “Gift Economy” and Athlete Brain Donations
Bourgeois Medicine, the Workplace and Sports
Conclusion
Works Cited
On the Frontlines: Black Boys and Injury in Basketball
Introduction
“Soft” Impacts: Labeling Theory Reconsidered
Case Study: MPJnr
The Collegiate Arms Race and the Preferred Worker
The Profiteers of War
Seeing the Whole Sports Industrial Complex
Conclusion
All Power to Your Elbow? Injury in US Baseball and the Politics of ‘Tommy John Surgery’
Pitcher’s Elbow: The Coming of Tommy John Surgery
‘Never Say Never, But …’ Tommy John Surgery, Dollars and Cents
‘Kids’ Bodies Are Paying the Price’: Tommy John Surgery, Youth and Neo-Liberal America
Conclusion: How Do You Keep a Pitcher from Getting Hurt?
References
Is Injury “On Brand”? Examining the Contexts of the CrossFit Injury Connection
Introduction
What Is CrossFit?
CrossFit and the Fitness Industry
CrossFit as Liminal Space
CrossFit Culture
Conclusion
References
‘This Must Be Done Right, So We Don’t Lose the Income’: Medical Care and Commercial Imperatives in Mixed Martial Arts
Introduction
Medical Care on the Regional Circuit: The Structural Alienation of Medics
Sports Medics at Professional Shows: An Alignment of Interests
Conclusion
References
Vanguards on the Starting Line: Race, Work, and Dissent in Sport Dystopian Films from Rollerball to The Hunger Game
Sport Dystopia and Rollerball
Racial Projects and The Hunger Games
Conclusion: Myth of a Progressive Social Critique?
References
Part VI: Sport and Injury: Case Studies
Injury and Olympics Politics, 1896–1988
Introduction
Developments in Medicine and Sports Medicine
‘Athlete’s heart’ Debates
Training and Injuries
The ‘woman question’, 1896–1988
Women in the Olympics
Post-war Developments
1960s–1980s: Impacts of Women’s Movements
Sex Tests
Doping at the Olympic Games
Culture of Doping in Sports
Doping Death and Birth of Anti-doping
The Rise of Anabolic Agents and the Rise of East Germany
Conclusion
References
Fits and Starts: Re-examining the Mystery of Brazil’s Ronaldo and the Rumours Swirling Around his Controversial Role in the World Cup Final of 1998
References
The Cricket Pitch as “Unsafe Workplace”: Sports Culture and the Death of Phillip Hughes
Introduction: Death and the Cricketer
Sport as Workplace
“This Sad and Violent Death”: The Inquest and Media Coverage
An Inquest Into Sport and Masculinity
Conclusion: The Fatal Pitch
References
Muhammad Ali, Sport Celebrity, and Perceptions of Parkinson’s Disease
References
‘Snipers Stop Play’: The Israeli Defence Force and the Shooting of Palestinian Footballers
Introduction
Background
Palestinian Football in the OPT
Shoot-to-Kill
The Official Response of the Israeli State
The Position of UEFA and FIFA
Fighting Back
Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism
Conclusion
References
Part VII: Sport, Harm, and the Politics of Wellbeing
The Politics of Safeguarding and Protecting Children in Sport in England
Introduction
From ‘Protecting’ to ‘Safeguarding’ Children: A Discursive Shift
Joined up Thinking: Sport’s New Role in Safeguarding Children
The Impact of the Hickson Case on Child Welfare Developments in Sport
The New Policy Framework for Safeguarding Children in Sport
Expanding the Safeguarding Agenda in Sport: Developments and Challenges
Conclusion
References
Sidelined: Boys, Sport, and Depression
Owen’s Story
Sport, Depression, and Suicide: Meeting Padraic and Mathieu
Padraic
Mathieu
The Freedom to Fail
Lukas
Conclusion
References
Injuries in Schools’ Rugby: Occasional Niggles and Scrapes?
Introduction: Rugby Kills: Death and the Gentlemen
Rugby and Children: Using Them and Losing Them
The Tackle: The Main Cause of Rugby Injuries
Putting the Tackle Into Touch
How a Request for Data Led to the Uncovering of a Public Health Scandal
Kick Off
Building the Defence: Launching the Collaboration
The Hand-Off: The Royal Colleges
Coming Off the Bench: The CMOs
Throwing a Dummy
Counter Attacking: The Rugby Unions’ Response
World Rugby’s Protocol for Head Injuries
Back from the Sin Bin: The Return of the CMOs
Entering Stoppage Time
The Blinkered View from the Stands: Parliamentary Responses
Public Response
A Different Form of Censorship Operates Within the Rugby Union
After the Whistle: Concluding Remarks
References
Index

Citation preview

The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm Edited by  Stephen Wagg · Allyson M. Pollock

The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm “This book offers an impressive and thoughtful collection of essays written by top scholars each interrogating the different ways in which diverse sporting cultures produce athlete pain, injury, and bodily damage. As such, this collection is essential reading for those interested in understanding how sport is not simply about the celebration of achievement and victory, but also about the social, material, and political agony of suffering and trauma.” —Mary G. McDonald, Professor and Homer C. Rice Chair of Sport and Society, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA “As an increasing number of sports are subjected to medical and legal scrutiny for their short- and long-term outcomes, this timely volume rams home the point that sports might not be so good for players after all. Offering an impressive spread of pain-injury snapshots across the social sciences, public health and social policy disciplines, it proves what we have long suspected – pain and injury in sport do not only result from the nature of the game, but from the ways that sports are organized, managed and policed. In questioning the institutional innocence of sport, the volume crosses the explanatory bridge from sport studies to victimology and underlines the complexity of the central concept of consent in sports harm.” —Kevin Young, Professor of Sociology, University of Calgary, Canada “This is an essential guide to some of the most important questions facing sport today. It brings together a wide range of experts who interrogate harm, injury and physical abuse in sport from a variety of insightful perspectives. This is a groundbreaking and timely book that should be on the shelves of every sports historian, sociologist and policy-maker.” —Tony Collins, Emeritus Professor of History, De Montfort University, UK

Stephen Wagg  •  Allyson M. Pollock Editors

The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm

Editors Stephen Wagg International Centre for Sport History and Culture De Montfort University Leicester, UK

Allyson M. Pollock Institute of Health and Society Newcastle University Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-72825-0    ISBN 978-3-030-72826-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar ­ ­methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or ­omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image © PBWPIX / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

Part I Bodily Damage and Pre- and Early Industrial Sport   1  The Perils of Rewarding Toughness: Honor, Injury, and Death in the Athletics of the Ancient World  3 Michael Poliakoff  ‘Beastly Furie, and Exstreme Violence’: Pain, Injury and Death Resulting from Football and Other Ball Games Played in the British Isles Before the Reformation 17 Ariel Hessayon  Violence, Injury and the Politics of the Evolving Football Codes 71 Liam O’Callaghan  “Though He Was Evidently Suffering Great Pain, He Bore It Well”: Public Discourse on Benefits, Risk, and Injury in North American Wrestling, 1880 to 1914 87 C. Nathan Hatton Part II The NFL: Politics, Injury, and American National Identity  113  Inflaming the Civic Temper: Progress, Violence, and Concussion in Early American Football115 Emily A. Harrison

v

vi Contents

 Problem that Cries Out for Standards: Football Helmets, A Conceptions of Risk, and the National Commission on Product Safety, 1961–1970141 Kathleen Bachynski  Lights Out: Concussion Research, the National Football League, and Employer Duty of Care157 Lucia Trimbur  Race and Injury in American Football173 Peter Benson, José Figueroa-López, Richard Kuehn, Andrew Whitaker, and Adam Rugg Part III Sporting Females, Sexuality, and the Politics of Injury 185  Injury at the Extreme: Alison Hargreaves, Mountaineering and Motherhood187 Carol A. Osborne  Gendered Bodies, Gendered Injuries207 Kath Woodward  The Not So Glamorous World of Women’s Wrestling223 Karen Corteen  Pride, Prejudice and Death: The Emile Griffith Story245 Ruby Finklestein Part IV Sport as Transport: Horse, Cycle, and Motor Racing and the Politics of Safety 265  Runners, Riders and Risk: Safety Issues in the History of Horseracing267 Patrick Sharman  ‘Dishing Out the Pain’ in Professional Cycling293 Peter Bramham

 Contents 

vii

 Was Ironic that He Should Die in Bed: Injury, Death and the It Politics of Safety in the History of Motor Racing309 Stephen Wagg Part V Sport, Injury, and the Culture of Late Capitalism 329  The Death of Jordan McNair: The Inevitability of the Avoidable Life-­Threatening Injury331 Ryan King-White and David L. Andrews  From Body Snatchers to Brain Banks: The Cadaver as Commodity and the Sports-Concussion “Crisis”349 Sean Brayton and Michelle T. Helstein  the Frontlines: Black Boys and Injury in Basketball365 On Scott N. Brooks, Stacey Flores, and Anthony J. Weems  Power to Your Elbow? Injury in US Baseball and the Politics of All ‘Tommy John Surgery’385 Stephen Wagg  Injury “On Brand”? Examining the Contexts of the CrossFit Is Injury Connection405 Shaun Edmonds  ‘This Must Be Done Right, So We Don’t Lose the Income’: Medical Care and Commercial Imperatives in Mixed Martial Arts429 Alex Channon, Christopher R. Matthews, and Mathew Hillier  Vanguards on the Starting Line: Race, Work, and Dissent in Sport Dystopian Films from Rollerball to The Hunger Game445 Nicholas Rickards Part VI Sport and Injury: Case Studies 461  Injury and Olympics Politics, 1896–1988463 Lee Hill and Helen Jefferson Lenskyj

viii Contents

 and Starts: Re-examining the Mystery of Brazil’s Ronaldo and Fits the Rumours Swirling Around his Controversial Role in the World Cup Final of 1998481 John Sugden and Peter Watt  The Cricket Pitch as “Unsafe Workplace”: Sports Culture and the Death of Phillip Hughes487 David Rowe  Muhammad Ali, Sport Celebrity, and Perceptions of Parkinson’s Disease505 Nicole Eugene  ‘Snipers Stop Play’: The Israeli Defence Force and the Shooting of Palestinian Footballers515 Jon Dart Part VII Sport, Harm, and the Politics of Wellbeing 535  The Politics of Safeguarding and Protecting Children in Sport in England537 Joanne McVeigh and Melanie Lang  Sidelined: Boys, Sport, and Depression555 Michael Atkinson and Kristina Smith  Injuries in Schools’ Rugby: Occasional Niggles and Scrapes?573 Allyson M. Pollock and Graham Kirkwood Index607

Notes on Contributors

David  L.  Andrews  is Professor of Kinesiology in the Center for Health Equity at the University of Maryland, USA. Michael Atkinson  is a professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto, Canada. Kathleen  Bachynski is a Rudin Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Medical Ethics at New York University, USA. Peter Benson  is a professor in, and chair of, the Department of Anthropology at the University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, USA.  His latest book is Tobacco Capitalism: Growers, Migrant Workers, and the Changing Face of a Global Industry (2012). Peter Bramham  is an independent scholar, former Reader in Leisure Studies at Leeds Beckett University, UK, and a keen cyclist. Sean  Brayton  is an associate professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. Scott N. Brooks  is an associate professor with the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, an academic unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, at Arizona State University, USA, and associate director of the Global Sport Institute there. Alex Channon  is Senior Lecturer in Physical Education and Sport Studies at the University of Brighton, UK, and is the co-founder of the combat sports-­ based anti-violence initiative, Love Fighting Hate Violence.

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Notes on Contributors

Karen  Corteen  lectures in the School of Law at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. Jon Dart  is Senior Lecturer in Sports Policy and Sociology in the Carnegie School of Sport at Leeds Beckett University, UK.  With Stephen Wagg he edited Sport, Protest and Globalisation (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Shaun Edmonds  is a graduate student in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland, USA. Nicole  Eugene  is Assistant Professor of Communication in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Houston-Victoria, USA. José  Figueroa-López is Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the Washington University in St Louis, USA. Ruby Finklestein  is one of UK’s leading sportswriters and until 2020 was Senior Lecturer in Journalism at University of Brighton, UK. As Rob Steen, he is the author of many books, including Sonny Liston: His Life, Strife and the Phantom Punch (London, 2008). Stacey  Flores is a research technician in the School of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Arizona State University, USA. Emily A. Harrison  is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University, USA. C.  Nathan  Hatton is a historian teaching at Lakehead University, Ontario, Canada. Michelle T. Helstein  is an associate dean in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. Ariel Hessayon  is Reader in Early Modern History at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.  He is the author of ‘Gold Tried in the Fire’: The prophet TheaurauJohn Tany and the English Revolution (Aldershot). Lee Hill  is pursuing a Ph.D. in Exercise Science at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Mathew  Hillier  is a researcher and a Master’s student in the Centre for Sports Performance at Leeds Beckett University, UK. Ryan  King-White is an associate professor at Towson University, Maryland, USA.

  Notes on Contributors 

xi

Graham Kirkwood  is a senior research associate in the Institute of Health and Society at the Newcastle University, UK. Richard  Kuehn is Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, USA. Melanie  Lang is Senior Lecturer in Child Protection in Sport in the Department of Social Sciences at Edge Hill University, UK. Helen Jefferson Lenskyj  is a Professor Emerita at the University of Toronto, Canada, and, arguably, the leading critical academic writer on the Olympic industry. She is the author of many books on the politics of sport, the latest of which are Gender Politics and the Olympic Industry (2013), Sexual Diversity and the Sochi 2014 Olympics (2014)—both published by Palgrave Macmillan— and The Olympic Games: A Critical Approach (2020). Christopher  R.  Matthews  is Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Sport at the University of Brighton, UK. With Alex Channon he edited Global Perspectives on Women in Combat Sports (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Joanne McVeigh  is Senior Lecturer in Physical Education and School Sport at Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK. Liam  O’Callaghan is Senior Lecturer in History at Liverpool Hope University, UK. He’s the author of Rugby in Munster: A Social and Cultural History (2011). Carol A. Osborne  is an independent scholar and consultant in sport history. She previously taught the history of sport at Cumbria and Leeds Beckett universities, UK. Michael  Poliakoff is a classicist who taught previously at Georgetown University, George Washington University, Hillsdale College, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Wellesley College. He is now president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, based in Washington DC, and teaches at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He is one of the world’s leading authorities on ancient sport and the author of Combat Sports in the Ancient World. Allyson M. Pollock  is a professor of clinical public health in the Population Health Sciences Institute at Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. Nicholas Rickards  received his doctorate from the University of Lethbridge, Canada, for his work on films with a dystopian theme. He now teaches at G.S. Lakie Middle School in Lethbridge.

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Notes on Contributors

David Rowe  is Professor Emeritus of Cultural Research in the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, Australia. Adam Rugg  is Assistant Professor of Communication at Fairfield University, Connecticut, USA. He researches the relationship between sport, media, and social issues. Patrick Sharman  is a doctoral student in the School of Biosciences at the University of Exeter, UK. His doctoral research addresses the genetics of performance and health traits in thoroughbred racehorses. Kristina  Smith  is a graduate student in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto, Canada. Michael Atkinson and Smith work in the university’s Suffering, Pain, and Ethics Laboratory (SPEL), which is devoted to the study of suffering, pain, violence, healing, and ethics in physical and health cultures. John Sugden  is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Brighton, UK. He and his colleague Alan Tomlinson are the world’s leading academic writers on the politics of FIFA.  Their most recent book on this theme is Football, Corruption and Lies (2017). Lucia Trimbur  is Associate Professor of Sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, USA. Stephen  Wagg  retired as Professor of Sport and Society at Leeds Beckett University, UK, in 2019. He is an Honorary Fellow in the International Centre for Sport History and Culture at De Montfort University, Leicester, and a visiting professor at the Newcastle University, both in the UK. Peter  Watt  is an associate professor in the School of Sport and Service Management at the University of Brighton, UK. Anthony  J.  Weems  is a doctoral student in Sport Management at Texas A&M University, USA.  His research focuses on issues of race, power, and politics in and through the sport organisational setting. Andrew  Whitaker  is a computer scientist at Washington University in St Louis, USA. Kath Woodward  is a Professor Emerita at The Open University, UK. Her most recent books are Planet Sport (London) and Sex Power and the Games (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan), both published in 2012.

List of Figures

‘Beastly Furie, and Exstreme Violence’: Pain, Injury and Death Resulting from Football and Other Ball Games Played in the British Isles Before the Reformation Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8 Fig. 9

University College, Oxford, MS 165, Bede, ‘Life of St Cuthbert’, (twelfth century) fol. 8. https://www.univ.ox.ac.uk/news/life-­ cuthbert-­venerable-­bede/. (Reproduced with the kind permission of The Master and Fellows of University College Oxford) 23 Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, MS W.88, ‘Book of Hours’ [FrancoFlemish] (c.1300–1310), fols. 59v, 70r. http://www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W88/data/W.88/sap/ W88_000124_sap.jpg, http://www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/ WaltersManuscripts/W88/data/W.88/sap/W88_000145_sap.jpg24 Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Bodleian 264, ‘Romance of Alexander’ (1338–44), (a) part 1 fol. 22r and (b) part 1 fol. 63r 25 Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 62, ‘Book of Hours’ (late fourteenth century), fol. 96r 25 Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 211, Petrus Comestor, ‘Bible historiale’ (first quarter of fourteenth century), fol. 258v 26 Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 135, ‘Book of Hours’ (first half of sixteenth century), fol. 2r 31 Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 135, ‘Book of Hours’ (first half of sixteenth century), fol. 7r 31 Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 135, ‘Book of Hours’ (first half of sixteenth century), fol. 87v 32 Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 62, ‘Book of Hours’ (late fourteenth century), fol. 122r 32

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List of Figures

Fig. 10 Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 276, ‘Book of Hours’ (second half of fifteenth century), fol. 12r Fig. 11 (a) The geography of ball games in the British Isles before the reformation. (b) North of River Trent. (c) South of River Trent Fig. 12 Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 5, ‘Psalter’ (c.1320–1330), fol. 123r Fig. 13 Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 6, ‘Psalter’ (c.1320–1330), fol. 148r Fig. 14 Misericord, Gloucester Cathedral (mid-fourteenth century) [No. 33]. www.misericords.co.uk/images/Gloucester/Gloucester 33.13. JPG. (Copyright Dominic Strange © 2021) Fig. 15 (a) Misericord, All Souls College, Oxford (mid-fifteenth century). http://www.misericords.co.uk/images/All%20Souls-­Oxford/N19. jpg. (Copyright Dominic Strange © 2021). (b) Misericord, All Souls College, Oxford (mid-fifteenth century) [detail]. (Copyright Dominic Strange © 2021)

33 52 56 57 61

62

Injuries in Schools’ Rugby: Occasional Niggles and Scrapes? Fig. 1

Reproduced with permission from the England Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project 2017–18 Season Report (England Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project Steering Group, 2018)

574

Sport, Politics, and Harm: Introduction

Here we explain the book’s origin and its purpose. The book emerged initially out of Allyson Pollock’s prolonged campaign over several years to address the high incidence of injuries in British schools’ rugby by placing restrictions on tackling. This campaign resulted, among other things, in a book (Tackling Rugby: What Every Parent Should Know About Injuries, Pollock, 2014a) and a symposium at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry in 2014, in which Stephen Wagg participated. The idea for a book specifically about the politics of sport injury was prompted largely by the often-hostile response to Pollock’s initiative. Although the campaign had a seemingly unimpeachable motive and a good deal of support (especially from members of the medical profession, concerned parents, and some journalists), elsewhere—in the tabloid and broadsheet press, among right-wing commercial broadcasters and officers, medical and otherwise, of sports organisations—this response eventually assumed the form of a mini-­ moral panic (Cohen, 2002). Typically, these panics occur when society’s dominant core values are threatened by ‘folk devils’—simply, negative stereotypes, suitably amplified by the media. Over the years folk devils have often been drawn from youth culture (teddy boys, mods, rockers, skinheads, lager louts, ravers, etc.) although the best example of a folk devil in UK media depictions is almost certainly the Labour politician Jeremy Corbyn, who was treated with sustained hostility following his election to the party leadership in 2015 (see, e.g., Cammaerts et al., 2016) The moral panic—in this case, effectively a bout of hostile reactions to a perceived threat on the part of elite media and sport organisations—revealed a number of hitherto largely unacknowledged political attitudes towards sport. Peter Robinson, whose son Benjamin had died of a brain injury xv

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sustained playing rugby, was recruited to assure readers of The Times that a ban on tackling was not the way to go (Broadbent, 2017).1 In Yorkshire, historically a rugby stronghold, it was reported that: ‘Leading rugby coaches in Huddersfield have warned that attempts to restrict the sport for children to non-contact games would have a detrimental effect on future players … and even the national team’s prospects’ (Earnshaw, 2017). The Daily Mail, having given Prof. Pollock a sympathetic hearing in 2014, when she was billed respectfully as someone ‘who’s spent a decade studying the sport’s devastating injuries’ (Pollock, 2014b), two years later turned on her and her colleagues, recasting them as an assortment of folk devils with the headline: ‘What (rugby) balls! “Experts” are demanding a ban on tackles in under-18s rugby. But as we reveal, they’re a motley scrum of lefties, gender obsessives and gay campaigners with a worryingly insidious agenda’ (Mount, 2016). In September 2017, Pollock was hectored by right-wing presenter Piers Morgan on the television programme Good Morning Britain thus: ‘You just suggested touch rugby is a viable alternative to rugby? The whole point of rugby is to collide. Have you ever watched rugby?’ He then demanded to know ‘whether she would ban hockey sticks from hockey, punching from boxing and ropes from the tug of war in case kids got burns’ (Kelly, 2017).2 (For a full account of the campaign mounted by Prof. Pollock and others see Chap. 30 of this book.)

Sport Injury: History and Politics As the history of these debates (much of it set out in this book) shows, anyone publicly proposing restrictions of this kind is likely, if unwittingly, to have kicked over a political hornets’ nest and can therefore expect an unsolicited postbag (letters, emails, tweets, etc.) of (usually angry) responses. And it rapidly became clear from some of the arrivals in Prof. Pollock’s Inbox that attitudes to questions such as this had not necessarily moved on from the 1950s, or even the nineteenth century. An excerpt from one message, sent by a retired British barrister, shows this perfectly:

 This, it must be said, was not the end of the story for Mr Robinson and his family. They were involved in a protracted and expensive legal dispute over the preventability of Benjamin’s death (see https://www. irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/family-fights-on-in-seven-year-legal-battle-over-son-s-rugbydeath-1.3645029 Access 24th November 2020) and, while still supporting tackling, Peter Robinson has become an advocate of concussion management. 2  The interview, which took place on 26 September, can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=gRwaQs7CnNc. 1

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I’m a 66-year-old who played American Football and Rugby at the collegiate and club levels. To say I suffered severe injuries at both games would be an understatement. […] Now before you go and think I’m probably some knuckle dragging Neanderthal with an IQ of 80 I will let you know I’m retired from over 40 years of practicing law. My IQ is at the upper levels. I’m no dummy! What you fail to recognize, and possibly are by genetic predisposition incapable of recognizing, are the values and lessons both these sports impart on their participants. The element of violence is possibly the linchpin of the lessons. Without the element of violence and its attendant injuries the risk reduction reduces the “price to possibly be paid” each time one steps on the pitch or field. These games are training our leaders of tomorrow. The very same leaders who might find themselves leading others into armed conflict. I hope that is never the case but given the history of mankind it’s highly unlikely we will not see such conflict. When we do, I sure hope whoever is leading my soldiers got a taste of a violent sport as opposed to a watered down version when his or her day occurs. I’m sure your Lord Tennyson would agree lest he probably would have never penned the Charge of the Light Brigade. I’m sure our General Patton would label your position pure poppy cocky!.

This conviction that violent, injury-inducing sports should be seen as a means to the breeding leaders of men—in battle and elsewhere—has a long history. Many3 of the antecedents of modern sports lie in Britain’s elite private schools and, by today’s standards, they were very dangerous. The in-house public school games from which modern rugby was developed were rough-­ and-­tumble affairs and, in the early 1870s, following the establishment of the modern rugby code in 1871, there was a prolonged dispute over the practice of ‘hacking’—tripping and/or kicking an opponent on the shins in order to dispossess him. As the game’s leading historian Tony Collins records, hacking had been integral to the game played at Rugby School where pupils chose to wear white socks so that the blood drawn could be more clearly seen: ‘bloodied shins were a badge of honour’ (Collins, 2009: 75). Indeed, when in 1870 The Times published a letter from ‘A Surgeon’ expressing disquiet over the number of injuries caused by hacking, angry Rugby old boys either disputed his claims or insisted that the practice was perfectly legitimate. Leading rugby players of that time, such as Francis Maule Campbell of Blackheath, argued that to abolish hacking would take ‘all the courage and pluck out of the  The following section is adapted from a blog titled ‘Sport Injury: Tackling Life in a Competitive Society’, written by Stephen Wagg on 18 October 2017 for Leeds Beckett University, where he was a professor at the time. The blog can be read in full here: https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/blogs/expert-opinion/2017/10/ sport-injury-tackling-life-in-a-competitive-society/ Access 29th September 2020. 3

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game’—‘pluck’ being perceived as a trait setting British males apart from lesser men such as their French counterparts (Collins, 2009: 19 and 77; Chandler, 1996: 13–31). Tough sport expressed a similar nationalism in the United States, where, in the 1880s, rugby was fashioned into a markedly rougher game deemed by its proponents to be more in keeping with rugged American national identity. Deaths and serious injury in American college football were so frequent that there were calls for its abolition. These calls were headed off in 1905 by President Theodore Roosevelt, who counselled moderate reform so as to salvage the ‘necessary roughness’ entailed in American masculinity (see Oriard, 2011: 80–105; Emily Harrison’s chapter in this book). Those who sought to do away with this game and its ‘homicidal features’ were soon, and have remained, in retreat. (A number of further chapters in this book explore the history and politics of injury in the US National Football League (NFL)—notably those by Bachynski, Trimbur, Benson et al. and Brayton and Helstein.) In Britain today it is scarcely easier to confront the physical dangers of sport than it was in the United States in the early twentieth century. Among the many folk devils thrown up by Conservative Party strategists in the early 1990s, and still retailed by the popular press, is the ‘trendy teacher’ who teaches through praise, recognises no wrong answer, and insists that ‘all must have prizes’.4 Prime Minister John Major drew on this confection when, to loud cheers, he announced to the Conservative Party Conference of 1994 that team sport was ‘part of the British instinct’ and that the government would be ‘changing the National Curriculum to put competitive games back at the heart of school life’ (www.johnmajor.co.uk/page1147.html Access 9th March 2016). It was also soon clear that the government was creating an ideological climate in which a policy shift towards elite sport and centres of excellence, at the expense of sport for recreation, could be accomplished. This policy shift was announced in 1995 with ‘Sport: Raising the Game’, a strategy document signalling that the country should now seek as a priority to be among the medals in top international sport (Department of National Heritage, 1995). Thereafter, increased preference was given in the curricula of British state schools to competitive sports and traditional team games (Penney & Evans, 1997). In 2002 Tony Blair’s ‘New’ Labour administration endorsed a further policy document called ‘Game Plan’, affirming once again that priority would be  See, for example, Phillips (1996)—a book whose central arguments were strongly disputed by leading educationists, such as Wragg (1996). 4

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given to elite sport, promising support for bids to host mega events, such as the Olympics, and accepting that such events, although promoting a ‘feelgood factor’, would not be expected to lead to greater sports participation (Department of Media, Culture and Sport/Strategy Unit, 2002). (Perhaps predictably, when London bid successfully for the Olympic Games of 2012 a publicity campaign insisted that the Games would inspire generations to take up physical activity—see Lee (2006)—but there is scant evidence that was the case—see Wagg, 2015: 167–181). Two important things have happened since Major’s speech. First, competitive sport has become a political shibboleth with Labour MPs often taunted for their supposed opposition to it. (Labour, sadly, have been all too willing parties to this charade: in Beijing at the handover of the Olympics in 2008, then Prime Minister Gordon Brown proposed to slay the imaginary monster. ‘We want to encourage competitive sports in schools’, he announced, ‘not the “medals for all” culture we have seen in previous years’ (Summers, 2016).) Second, a nexus of quangos (semi-public administrative organisations), individual governing bodies, centres of excellence, and corporate partners now clusters around British elite sport and is seen as supporting the nation’s flagships as they sail forth into the next Olympics, the upcoming cricket Tests, and the rugby Six Nations competition. To raise questions about the dangers of injury in children’s sport, or, for that matter, in any sport, is ultimately to collide not only with this nexus but with older-established ideas of gender and nation and with much of what passes for contemporary political common sense. Sport, after all, as Tony Collins has observed, is ‘a metaphor for, and a reflection of, everyday life in capitalist society’ (Collins, 2013: 5). The growth since the 1930s of variously commercialised, nationalistic, science-­based, hyper-masculine, and mass-mediated sport long ago inspired a body of critical scholarship predicated, on way or another, on the alienating nature of sport as a project in modern (and postmodern) societies. Alienation here is a notion that draws on nineteenth-century philosophy, including the work of Karl Marx in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (Marx, 1959) and it entails the proposition that contemporary sportspeople are made strangers to their, and sport’s, true purpose, namely the gaining of pleasure and self-fulfilment. Top sportspeople had become instruments, labouring to produce outcomes for their employers, their national bodies and administrators, their sponsors, and the paying public. An earlier marker here was put down by the French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher Jean-Marie Brohm, whose Sport: A Prison of Measured Time came out in 1978 (Brohm, 1978). Professional sportspeople, said Brohm, were nowadays often

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deployed, in effect, as human sandwich boards; moreover, he noted, competitive sport had also taken deep root in the communist countries and these baleful trends were not, therefore, confined to the formally capitalist world (Brohm, 1978: 176, 79–80). Indeed, it might be noted that the Soviet Union was one of the first countries in the world to have what was, in effect, a ministry for sport—the All-Union Committee on Physical Culture and Sports Affairs, established in 1936 (Riordan, 1980: 126). Moreover, in 1986 the American academic John Hoberman, probably the leading writer on the theme of sport and alienation, could lament that sport was ‘the one international culture which is developing in accordance with a Communist model’ (Hoberman, 1986: 11). Sportspeople, following the interventions of science and commerce, were now seen, to borrow the title of Hoberman’s subsequent book, primarily as ‘mortal engines’ (Hoberman, 1992).5 The widely preferred belief in Western countries remains that these mortal engines were fashioned and driven only in the communist bloc of countries, but the following example (unintentionally) shows alienated sport, albeit of varying kinds, to have been incubated on both sides of the ‘Iron Curtain’. In 2006, the UK’s right-wing broadsheet, the Daily Telegraph, interviewed the British ex-Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, asking her to revisit her rivalry with Petra Schneider, who had won a gold medal (against Davies’ silver) in the 400 metres individual relay at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Schneider had represented East Germany—described in the paper as ‘the German Democratic (Ha!) Republic’—and was later found to have been subject to a damaging state doping programme. Davies said she had only sympathy for Schneider, who had been administered the drugs without her knowledge and was now an ailing mother of one, living in a small council flat, and taking pills for her heart which prevented her having further children. ‘I got the impression Petra’s medals didn’t mean that much to her’, said Davies, ‘they were simply a reminder of why she was so very poorly’. However, Davies and her interviewer make plain that, for Davies, medals were no less a means to an end than Schneider’s: ‘[I won] the silver medal and have had a very good TV career on the back of that. Ann Osgerby, who works as a tax inspector, was fourth in the 100 metres butterfly behind three East Germans. Ann’s whole life would have been very different if she’d received the gold.’ As for the alienated nature of her own swimming, Davies, instructed by her ‘disciplinarian’ father, had followed a training regime of ‘six hours a day, seven days a week, frequently covering 80,000 metres a week in her quest to become a  The section on alienation has been adapted from ‘Alienation’, Chap. 1 of Key Concepts in Sport Studies, written by Stephen Wagg: see Wagg et al. (2009). 5

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champion’. ‘I fell out of a tree when I was 11, and even though I broke both arms, I continued training for three months with plastic bags over the plasters. […] That’s why I was so desperate to retire. I had no love of swimming left.’ She now made sure that ‘my children enjoy a far more diverse life than I did at their age’ (Philip, 2006). Davies’ testimony thus also hints at the corrosive subcultures that surround sport in many contemporary societies, wherein coaches and aggressively aspirant parents impose harsh training regimes on their young charges—‘I’m seven years old’, recalls tennis player Andre Agassi, for example, in his memoir, ‘talking to myself, because I’m scared and because I’m the only person who listens to me’, describing childhood dictated by a father who ‘yells everything twice, sometimes three times’ and made him hit 2500 tennis balls a day (Agassi, 2009: 27–28). We think also here of the brutalising, win-at-all-costs regimes imposed by gymnastics coaches, against which young, female gymnasts, often taunted for their weight or body shape and suffering from eating disorders, have spoken out (see, e.g., Sey, 2009; Adams & Kavanagh, 2020). And we might add that, however she may subsequently have fared as in her subsequent career, Ann Osgerby had to retire from swimming in 1984, with recurrent tendonitis in both shoulders—an injury common to elite swimmers (https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Ann_Osgerby: Access 1st October 2020; Sein et al., 2010). Alienated sport, as this post-Olympic vignette demonstrates, appreciably increases the possibility of harm (physical, emotional, etc.) to those practising it, wherever they are practising it. Historically, this alienation was territory, in both philosophy and politics, on which progressives and traditionalists could find broad agreement: it was after all, a fundament both of Victorian gentlemanly, anti-commercial (albeit frequently hypocritical and socially exclusive) amateurism (see, e.g., Allison, 2001: 3–16) and of internationalist worker sport (Riordan, 2008) that sport must not place competitiveness above fellowship (or comradeship), the refreshment and ‘re-creation’ of the individual, or the ties of community. In the latter connection, we might also cite the ‘Friendship First, Competitive Second’ diplomatic initiative of the People’s Republic of China in the early 1970s (Guanhua, 2003). Today the voices of public health and ‘wellbeing’ are more likely to be countered by corporate interests, trading variously in the rhetoric of national imperative, aggressive masculinity, or neoliberal, ‘nobody-puts-a-gun-to-­­ their-heads’ individual choice. As economic problems, particularly in the major capitalist societies, have mounted, these political fissures have widened—the escalating ‘concussion crisis’ in the US National Football League (once again, extensively contextualised in this book) is a leading example here.

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Moreover, the global onset of the virus COVID-19 early in 2020 has brought the confrontation between the interests of the corporate-sports-­ media complex and considerations of public health into sharper focus. This was especially the case in countries where neoliberal policies and philosophies were most entrenched and, in several instances, improbably right-wing figures had gained high office. Take, for example, Brazil, where far right retired army officer Jair Bolsonaro became the nation’s 38th president in 2018. In mid-­ March 2020, with Brazil’s death rate rising and state governors shutting down non-essential businesses, Bolsonaro poured scorn on such restrictions and specified the need for sport to continue: ‘When you ban football and other things, you fall into hysteria. Banning this and that isn’t going to contain the spread’ (Charner et al., 2020). In June, with deaths from COVID-19 running at 1000 a day in Brazil, two of the country’s leading clubs, Botafogo and Fluminense, said they would defy an order to play issued by the Rio de Janeiro football federation: ‘Botafogo president Nelson Mufarrej called the ruling “disconnected from reality”, and both clubs said they planned to take legal action on health and safety grounds’ (Sky Sports, 2020). By July 71,000 Brazilians had died of COVID.  Football went ahead nonetheless, but the south Brazil derby game between Avai and Chapecoense was called off when 14 players were found to have the virus (Downie, 2020). In August the Brazilian Série A, or main league, resumed; this was perceived as ‘a big victory for President Jair Bolsonaro’ while TV commentator (and former Brazilian team coach) Walter Casagrande reflected: ‘We can’t forget what is happening in this country. We will reach 100,000 deaths, a scary number, and soccer is on. I feel embarrassed about this situation, but it is my job. I am here to talk about soccer’ (Savarese, 2020). In September, Flamengo, based in Rio de Janeiro and one of Brazil’s wealthiest clubs and chaired by oil and gas executive Rodolfo Landim, overturned an order by a Brazilian labour court to postpone their away fixture with Sao Paulo club Palmeiras, despite having 36 staff members, including 19 players, infected with the virus. Landim also successfully lobbied Bolsonaro to be allowed to admit 30% of the usual intake of spectators (Marshall, 2020). By the end of September 2020 Brazil had reached 145,000 deaths from COVID (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ country/brazil/: access 6th October 2020) In March 2020 public health professionals similarly expressed their dismay when the UK Conservative government permitted crowds of over 50,000 to attend the Cheltenham Festival of horseracing and the Champions League

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football match between Liverpool and Atlético Madrid6 (Sabbagh et al., 2020) and the following month professional cyclists were told bluntly that, if the annual Tour de France (scheduled for June) did not go ahead, the entire sport faced ‘economic meltdown’ (Coverdale, 2020). Since lockdown had been imposed in France, on 17 March, around 15,000 people had died of the virus (https://sportstar.thehindu.com/other-­sports/tour-­de-­france-­cancellation-­ could-­cause-­cycling-­economic-­crisis-­coronavirus/article31336140.ece Access 2nd October 2020). The race went ahead. Around half of the annual turnover for the Tour (around £116 million) comes from broadcasting rights; most of the rest is revenue from advertising and sponsorship (Clark, 2020). In early October, the London Marathon also went ahead, with a field consisting only of elite athletes; when it was over exhausted athletes were obliged by photographers to hold up blankets bearing the logo of the race’s sponsors Virgin Money. The winner’s coach was at home, suffering from COVID-19 (Rowbottom, 2020).

Sport, Injury, and Social Research Turning once again to this book and its purpose, as a matter for scholarly research, the harm that sport can inflict on its practitioners has not had the attention that it might have. As Kevin Young suggests, while the health-giving benefits of sport have ample literature, ‘the less healthy, injurious consequences of sport have been far less widely researched, certainly by sociologists’ (Young, 2004b: xi). This may be partly because appraisals of alienated sport have been pitched at a greater level of generality—as, for instance, with French journalist Marc Perelman’s blanket condemnation of Barbaric Sport (Perelman, 2012)—or because writers have concentrated on other aspects of corporate sport, such as the commercial-legal juggernaut that is the modern Olympics (see, e.g., Tomlinson & Whannel, 1984; Lenskyj, 2002, 2020;7 Boykoff, 2013) or the questionable political dealings of the world football’s governing body, FIFA (Sugden & Tomlinson, 1998). It may also have been because sport injury, as a research theme, has been widely seen as the province of those practising ‘sports medicine’, a field which has, of course, grown in tandem with alienated sport itself. A pioneer of the sociological study of sport injury was the American sociologist Howard  These were both assumed by experts to have been ‘superspreading events’ for the virus—see Ashton (2020). 7  Helen Lenskyj has written widely on the Olympics. Her first and her latest book are listed in the references, but full details of her writing can be found on her website: http://www.helenlenskyj.ca/books.html. 6

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L. Nixon II, who authored a series of articles in the early 1990s (the first being Nixon, 1993). Of the ensuing companion literature, written in broadly the same vein, one work stands out—Kevin Young’s Sporting Bodies, Damaged Selves, an edited collection of essays, published in 2004 (Young, 2004a). The book’s contributors analyse the ‘no-pain-no-gain’ cultures of the sporting world and the normalisation of risk (risk is a recurrent theme in the book, indicating the widespread influence of the work of the German sociologist Ulrich Beck on the ‘risk society’—Beck, 1992); the reflections and coping strategies of athletes who have experienced serious injury; and the various repercussions and after effects of sport pain and injury. Our book runs largely parallel to these endeavours, seeking principally to show how sport injury—the incidence, the idea, or the prospect of it—has become politically contentious in various sports, in diverse places, at different historical junctures, and in relation to a range of questions, including issues of class, gender, ethnicity and race, sexuality, political ideology and national identity, health and wellbeing, childhood and animal rights. The book is organised as follows. Part I, ‘Bodily Damage and Pre- and Early Industrial Sport’, consists of four chapters relating to sport injury in either pre- and or early industrial sport. These chapters are important because, as with the Olympics, myths of the past are often invoked to support current practice. In Chap. 1 Michael Poliakoff examines the place of honour, injury, and death in the athletics of the Ancient World. Chapter 2, by Ariel Hessayon, looks at pain, injury, and death in pre-industrial British and Irish football. Liam O’Callaghan discusses violence, injury, and the politics of the evolving football codes in Chap. 3, using the Irish experience as his prime focus. And Chap. 4, by C. Nathan Hatton, is an account of early twentieth-century attitudes towards injury in rough North American combat sports. Part II, titled ‘The NFL: Politics, Injury, and American National Identity’, is devoted to the US National Football League and historic debates over player safety. It consists of four chapters. In Chap. 5 Emily A. Harrison analyses the national conversation over college football in the early 1900s from a public health perspective, linking it to the US Progressive movement, spanning the 1890s and the 1920s. In doing so she provides an appropriate scene-setter for the following three chapters. Then, in Chap. 6, Kathleen Bachynski gives an account of the debate over the use of helmets in the late 1960s. Moving into the twenty-first century, for Chap. 7 Lucia Trimbur looks at the contentious matter of concussion research and the suppression of evidence. And, in Chap. 8, Peter Benson, José Figueroa-López, Richard Kuehn, Andrew Whitaker,

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and Adam Rugg argue that injury in the NFL cannot be properly discussed without reference to the racial dimension and the looting of black bodies. The Part III, titled ‘Sporting Females, Sexuality, and the Politics of Injury’, again has four chapters. Chapter 9, by Carol A. Osborne, is about the politics of injury and death in mountaineering, particularly as they affect female climbers, and takes as its focus the much-discussed death of British climber Alison Hargreaves on K2, the world’s second highest mountain, in 1995. In Chap. 10 Kath Woodward looks at boxing, a sport now with many female as well as male practitioners, and discusses gendered attitudes to both boxing bodies and boxing injuries. Chapter 11, by Karen Corteen, is about the damaging bodily experiences of women employed to compete in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in the United States. Chapter 12 is by Ruby Finklestein and is a partly autobiographical recollection by an ex-boxing correspondent of a career covering this frequently brutal trade. It includes a reflection on the savage title fight in 1962 between Bernado ‘Benny the Kid’ Paret and Emile Griffith, after which Paret died of his injuries. Paret had previously taunted Griffith, a bisexual, for his sexuality. The title of Part IV, ‘Sport as Transport: Horse, Cycle, and Motor Racing and the Politics of Safety’, is self-explanatory. Patrick Sharman, in Chap. 13, writes about the changing politics of safety in horseracing. In Chap. 14, Peter Bramham analyses the culture of cycling and its relationship to injury, ranging from the (virtually routine) risk of sustained damage to feet, knees, lower backs, hands, and wrists as well as death and accidents from road potholes and slippery surfaces or collisions with other road users to the perils of doping which characterise the corporate, hyper-masculine world of professional road racers. Chapter 15 charts the history of, and debates over, the politics of driver and spectator safety in Formula One motor racing and is written by Stephen Wagg. This brings us to Part V, ‘Sport, Injury, and the Culture of Late Capitalism’. Debates about safety in sports inevitably raise, as they have always raised, questions about the dominant culture and ways of being in the societies where those sports are played. Much of these debates, equally inevitably, have revolved around the relationship of modern sport to the rise and global predominance of capitalism—the broad theme here. Chapter 16, by David Andrews and Ryan King-White, discusses the rationalisation process to which the sporting body is now routinely subject and argues that it is, in fact, inherently irrational. It uses the circumstances surrounding the death of US college athlete Jordan McNair as a case study. Chapter 17 maintains the theme of sporting bodies—in this case, bodies of the deceased—as Sean Brayton and Michelle T.  Helstein take a different

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look at the ‘concussion crisis’ and trend for North American sportspeople to donate their brains to researchers investigating brain injuries and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). They relate this specifically to issues of social class in the history of organ procurement. Chapter 18 returns to the theme of race: using case studies. Scott Brooks, Stacey Flores, and Anthony J. Weems argue that the punishing schedules to which young US basketball players are subject are invariably the lot of young black males from the inner city. Chapter 19, by Stephen Wagg, is about baseball and the controversy surrounding the widely practised ‘Tommy John surgery’ and its implication for medical ethics, baseball economics, and the politics of childhood. Chapter 20, by Shaun Edmonds, is an analysis of the burgeoning phenomenon of CrossFit, a hybrid of sport and exercise that carries a high risk of injury and which has drawn criticism from fitness organisations in the United States. The following Chap. 21 examines Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), another high-risk sport activity that has been the subject of public condemnation—the late US Senator John McCain called it ‘human cockfighting’. Here Alex Channon, Christopher R. Matthews, and Mathew Hillier discuss the medical provision deemed necessary to protect the reputation of this violent combat sport. Violent sports have been the subject of a number of popular dystopian films—Rollerball (1975, with a re-make in 2002) and Death Race (2008) spring to mind. In Chap. 22 Nicholas Rickards analyses The Hunger Games trilogy, probably the most influential of these. Part VI, titled ‘Sport and Injury: Case Studies’, is composed of a series particularly notable sport injuries and attendant controversies. In Chap. 23, leading scholarly critic of the Olympic industry Helen Jefferson Lenskyj and Lee Hill chart the changing attitudes to injury in the Olympic movement, from the late nineteenth century to the late 1980s. They look particularly at doping (discussed earlier in the case of Petra Schneider) and historic arguments over the purported dangers to the reproductive capacities of female athletes. Chapter 24, by John Sugden and Peter Watt, is a discussion of the selection of Brazilian footballer Ronaldo to play in the FIFA World Cup Final of 1998 in Paris. Ronaldo, the team’s star player, was reputed to be unwell and his name was not, initially, on the team sheet. His late addition to the team was strongly rumoured at the time to have been the result of an intervention by the team’s sponsors, the global sports apparel corporation Nike. David Rowe, in Chap. 25, focuses on the tragic death of Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes, killed by a bouncer in a Sheffield Shield match in 2014. Amid much public grieving, Hughes’ family struggled to establish that he had been in an ‘unsafe workplace’, rather than being the victim of a ‘tragic’ or ‘freakish’ accident.

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In Chap. 26, Nicole Eugene looks at narratives on boxing icon Muhammad Ali as a carrier of Parkinson’s disease. She suggests popular commentary on Ali, and the assumption that his Parkinson’s was the result of a boxing injury, served to promote misleading impressions of the lived experience of Parkinson’s. The Israel/Palestine conflict, one of the most contentious, longest-running, and divisive in the modern era, is the context for Chap. 27, by Jon Dart who looks at the claim that the Israeli military, the IDF (Israeli Defence Force), has an unwritten policy of deliberately inflicting injury on Palestinian footballers. Part 7, the final part of the book, is titled ‘Sport, Harm, and the Politics of Wellbeing’. In many countries, certainly in the Western world, the responsibilities of the state now encompass not only the defence of the realm and the maintenance of law and order, but the wellbeing of its young people. This closing section comprises three chapters which discuss threats to the wellbeing of the young in the world of sport and efforts to combat those threats. In Chap. 28 Joanne McVeigh and Melanie Lang look at UK sport policy in the twenty-first century and assess the politics of safeguarding and protecting children in sport in England. Chapter 29 is about sport and mental trauma. Michael Atkinson and Kristina Smith use ethnographic data collected on youth athletes in ice-­ hockey and soccer in Canada to examine how particular sport cultures can be dangerous on developmental grounds for young boys. Finally, in Chap. 30, Graham Kirkwood and Allyson Pollock outline and discuss their experiences in conducting, and dealing with opposition to, their aforementioned campaign to mitigate the rising injury count in British schools’ rugby. Many thanks to Peter Bramham, Jon Dart, and Karen Corteen for their help in the composition of this introduction.

References Adams, A., & Kavanagh, E. (2020, July 19). Eating disorders, win-at-all-costs: British gymnastics issue shows how abuse is normalised in sport. Retrieved October 6, 2020, from https://scroll.in/field/967812/eating-­disorders-­win-­at-­all-­costs-­ british-­gymnastics-­issue-­shows-­how-­abuse-­is-­normalised-­in-­sport Agassi, A. (2009). Open: An autobiography. HarperCollins. Allison, L. (2001). Amateurism in sport. Frank Cass.

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Ashton, J. (2020, April 3). Statistics are patients with the tears wiped off. Retrieved October 6, 2020, from https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/03/the-­coronavirus­crisis-­statistics-­are-­patients-­with-­the-­tears-­wiped-­off/ Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. London and New York: Sage. Boykoff, J. (2014). Celebration capitalism and the Olympic Games. Routledge. Broadbent. (2017). Dad whose son died of brain injury says tackle ban is not the answer. The Times, 5 October. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://www. thetimes.co.uk/article/dad-­whose-­son-­died-­of-­brain-­injury-­says-­tackle-­ban-­is-­ not-­the-­answer-­wzw0n7hb2 Brohm, J.-M. (1978). Sport: A prison of measured time. London: Ink Links. Cammaerts, B., DeCillia, B., Magalhães, J., & Jimenez-Martínez, C. (2016, July 1). Journalistic representations of Jeremy Corbyn in the British Press: From “Watchdog” to “Attack dog”’. Retrieved October 6, 2020, from http://eprints.lse. ac.uk/67211/1/CAmmaerts_Journalistic%20representations%20of%20 Jeremy%20Corbyn_Author_2016.pdf Chandler, T.  J. L. (1996). The structuring of manliness and the development of Rugby football at the Public Schools and Oxbridge, 1830–1880. In J. Nauright & T. J. L. Chandler (Eds.), Making men: Rugby and masculine identity. Frank Cass. Charner, F., Darlington, S., Hu, C., & Barnes, T. (2020, May 28). What Bolsonaro said as Brazil’s coronavirus cases climbed. Retrieved October 1, 2020, from https:// edition.cnn.com/2020/05/27/americas/coronavirus-­brazil-­bolsonaro-­timeline-­ intl/index.html Clark, N. (2020, September 2). How bosses are putting sports profits above safety. Socialist Worker, p. 17. Cohen, S. (2002). Folk devils and moral panics: The creation of the mods and rockers. Routledge (3rd ed.; first published 1972). Collins, T. (2009). A social history of English Rugby union. Routledge. Collins, T. (2013). Sport in capitalist society: A short history. Routledge. Coverdale, D. (2020, April 13). ‘Tour de France props up the whole of cycling’: Groupama-FDJ boss Marc Madiot warns teams face ‘economic meltdown’ if legendary road race is postponed due to coronavirus. Daily Mail. Retrieved October 1, 2020, from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-­8215335/ Marc-­Madiot-­warns-­teams-­face-­economic-­meltdown-­Tour-­France-­postponed-­ coronavirus.html Department of Media, Culture and Sport/Strategy Unit. (2002). Game plan: A strategy for delivering government’s sport and physical activity objectives. Cabinet Office. Department of National Heritage. (1995). Sport: Raising the game. Department of National Heritage. Downie, A. (2020, July 12). Avai vs Chapecoense south Brazilian derby called off after 14 players test positive for coronavirus. The Independent. Retrieved October 1, 2020, from https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/world/avai-­vs-­chapecoense-­ called-­coronavirus-­14-­players-­test-­positive-­covid-­19-­brazil-­a9614471.html

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Earnshaw, T. (2017, September 26). Academics are ‘wrong’ to say tackling in school rugby should be banned. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-­news/academics-­wrong-­say-­tackling-­school-­13677373 Guanhua, W. (2003). “Friendship first”: China’s Sports Diplomacy during the Cold War. The Journal of American-East Asian Relations, 12(3/4), 133–153. Hoberman, J. (1986). The Olympic crisis: Sport, politics and the new moral order. New Rochelle. Hoberman, J. (1992). Mortal engines: The science of performance and the dehumanization of sport. The Free Press. Kelly, E. (2017, September 26). Susanna Reid tells Piers Morgan that he’s detrimental to her health. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://metro.co.uk/2017/09/26/ susanna-­reid-­tells-­piers-­morgan-­that-­hes-­detrimental-­to-­her-­health-­6955922/ Lee, M. (2006). The race for the 2012 Olympics: The inside story of how London won the bid. Virgin Books. Lenskyj, H.  J. (2002). The best Olympics ever: Social impacts of Sydney 2000. SUNY Press. Lenskyj, H. J. (2020). The Olympic games: A critical approach. Emerald. Marshall, E. (2020, September 28). On-again, off-again Brazilian football league during Covid-19. Retrieved October 1, 2020, from https://brazilian.report/ sports/2020/09/28/on-­again-­off-­again-­brazilian-­football-­league-­during-­covid-­19/ Marx, K. (1959). Economic and philosophical manuscripts of 1844. Progress Publishers. Mount, H. (2016, March 3). What (rugby) balls! ‘Experts’ are demanding a ban on tackles in under-18s rugby. But as we reveal, they’re a motley scrum of lefties, gender obsessives and gay campaigners with a worryingly insidious agenda. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article­3474062/What-­rugby-­balls-­Experts-­demanding-­ban-­tackles-­18s-­rugby-­reveal-­ motley-­scrum-­lefties-­gender-­obsessives-­gay-­campaigners-­worryingly-­insidious-­ agenda.html Nixon, II, H. L. (1993). Accepting the risks of pain and injury in sport: Mediated cultural influences on playing hurt. Sociology of Sport Journal, 10(2), 183–196. Oriard, M. (2011). Rough, manly sport and the American way: Theodore Roosevelt and College Football, 1905. In S. Wagg (Ed.), Myths and milestones in the history of sport. Palgrave Macmillan. Penney, D., & Evans, J. (1997). Naming the game. Discourse and domination in physical education and sport in England and Wales. European Physical Education Review, 3(1), 21–32. Perelman, M. (2012). Barbarian sport: A global plague. Verso. Philip, R. (2006, March 11). Commonwealth games: Britain’s real Golden girl has forgiven drug cheats. Daily Telegraph. Retrieved September 30, 2020, from https:// www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/commonwealthgames/2333444/ Commonwealth-­Games-­Britains-­real-­Golden-­girl-­has-­forgiven-­drug-­cheats.html Phillips, M. (1996). All must have prizes. Little, Brown.

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Pollock, A. (2014a). Tackling rugby: What every parent should know about injuries. Verso. Pollock, A. (2014b, September 24). Why NO mother should let her son play rugby: By Professor ALLYSON POLLOCK, who’s spent a decade studying the sport’s devastating injuries. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://www.dailymail. co.uk/femail/article-­2 768758/Why-­N O-­m other-­l et-­s on-­p lay-­r ugby-­B y-­ Professor-­ALLYSON-­POLLOCK-­s-­spent-­decade-­studying-­sport-­s-­devastating-­ injuries.html Riordan, J. (1980). Sport in Soviet society. Cambridge University Press. Riordan, J. (2008). Amateurism, sport and the left: Amateurism for all versus amateur elitism. In D.  Porter & S.  Wagg (Eds.), Amateurism in British sport (pp. 124–139). Routledge. Rowbottom, M. (2020). London Marathon winner Kitata hails Kipchoge as “king” and reveals his coach stayed home with COVID-19. Retrieved October 5, from https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1099211/kitata-­k ipchoge-­k osgei­london-­marathon Sabbagh, D., Morris, S., & Cook, C. (2020, April 21). Experts call for inquiry into local death toll after Cheltenham Festival. The Guardian. Retrieved October 1, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/apr/21/experts-­inquiry­cheltenham-­festival-­coronavirus-­deaths Savarese, M. (2020, August 8). Brazil soccer’s Serie A begins as COVID-19 deaths at 100,000. Retrieved access October 6, from https://apnews.com/article/brazil-­ soccer-­south-­america-­sao-­paulo-­jair-­bolsonaro-­f583e247d128ebf5adb2011e06b 01e40 Sein, M. L., Judie, W., James, L., Appleyard, R., Kirkbride, B., Kuah, D., & Murrell, G. A. C. (2010). Shoulder pain in elite swimmers: primarily due to swim-volume-­ induced supraspinatus tendinopathy. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 44, 105–113. Retrieved October 1, 2020, from https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/ 44/2/105 Sey, J. (2009). Chalked up: My life in Elite Gymnastics. HarperCollins. Sky Sports. (2020, June 17). Botafogo, Fluminense defy order to play amid Brazil coronavirus crisis. Retrieved October 1, 2020, from https://www.skysports.com/ football/news/11095/12008449/botafogo-­f luminense-­d efy-­o rder-­t o-­p lay­amid-­brazil-­coronavirus-­crisis Sugden, J., & Tomlinson, A. (1998). FIFA and the contest for world football: Who rules the people’s game? Polity Press. Summers, D. (2008, August 24). Gordon Brown pledges return of competitive sport to schools. The Guardian. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/aug/24/politicsandsport.schoolsports Tomlinson, A., & Whannel, G. (Eds.). (1984). Five ring circus: Money, power and politics at the Olympics games. Pluto Press. Wagg, S. (2015). The London Olympics of 2012: Politics, promises and legacy. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Wagg, S., Brick, C., Wheaton, B., & Caudwell, J. (2009). Key concepts in sports studies. Sage. Wragg, T. (1996, September 13). All must have prizes by Melanie Phillips Little, Brown pounds 17.50. The Independent. Retrieved October 2, 2020, from https:// www.independent.co.uk/voices/all-­must-­have-­prizes-­by-­melanie-­phillips-­little-­ brown-­pounds-­1750-­1363087.html Young, K. (Ed.). (2004a). Sporting bodies; damaged selves: Sociological studies of sports-­ related injury. Emerald. Young, K. (2004b). Preface. In K.  Young (Ed.) Sporting bodies; damaged selves: Sociological studies of sports-related injury (pp. xi–xx). Emerald.

Part I Bodily Damage and Pre- and Early Industrial Sport

The Perils of Rewarding Toughness: Honor, Injury, and Death in the Athletics of the Ancient World Michael Poliakoff

“A boxer’s victory is gained in blood,” so runs the first century BCE1 victory inscription of a young man from Thera.2 The sentiment is hardly unique. It finds a close parallel in an account found in Aelian concerning Eurydamas of Cyrene: on his way to an Olympic victory, he swallowed blood and broken teeth, lest his opponent know what an effective blow he had landed.3 Both the stories, however, are relatively innocuous compared to the epitaph found at Olympia honoring a boxer from ancient Alexandria: Agathos Daimon, nicknamed “the Camel,” A boxer from Alexandria a victor at Nemea. Boxing here in the stadium, he died, having prayed to Zeus for victory or death. Age 35. Farewell.4  Before the Common Era or Before the Current Era.  Georg Kaibel, Epigrammata graeca ex lapidibus conlecta (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1878) 942; Luigi Moretti, Inscrizioni agonistiche greche (Rome, 1953), no. 55. 3  Aelian, Varia Historia 10, 19. 4   G.-J.M.-G. Te Riele, Bulletin de Correspondence Hellenique 88 (1964): 186–187; see further Louis Robert, Bulletin épigraphique in Revue des études grecques (1965), no. 182. 1 2

M. Poliakoff (*) George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_1

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Literary sources confirm the remarkable willingness of competitors to risk life-threatening injury, and, at least in some quarters, the high status that incurring such risks brought. The poet Pindar wrote of athletes, “Prowess without risk brings no honor” (Olympian Odes 6, 9–11). What this could mean is vividly shown in the story of the death of Arrichion, Olympic victor in 564 BCE and twice before that in the pankration (a sport in which competitors combined boxing, wrestling, kicking, and strangle holds). Philostratus’ description of a painting of Arrichion is many centuries after the fact and heavily romanticized5 but nevertheless a window into an athletic value system in which the athlete’s honor counted far more than his safety. You come to the Olympic festival itself and to the finest event in Olympia, for right here is the men’s pankration. Arrichion, who has died seeking victory, is taking the crown for it, and this Olympic judge is crowning him. … Let’s look at Arrichion’s deed before it comes to an end, for he seems to have conquered not his opponent alone, but the whole Greek nation. … They shout and jump out of their seats and wave their hands and garments. Some spring into the air, others in ecstasy wrestle with the man nearby. …Though it is indeed a great thing that he already won twice at Olympia, what has just now happened is greater: he has won at the cost of his life and goes to the land of the Blessed with the very dust of the struggle. Don’t think this was the result of chance! There were very clever advance plans for this victory. … The one strangling Arrichion is depicted as a corpse, and he signals concession with his hand, but Arrichion is depicted as all victors are—indeed his blush is blooming and his sweat is still fresh, and he smiles, as do the living, when they perceive their victory. (Philostratus, Imagines 2.6)

Even the aristocratic Tiberius Claudius Rufus of Smyrna, as an inscription honoring his performance read, “considered it better to scorn life than give up the hope of the crown.”6 He had battled his way through multiple rounds at Olympia before encountering an opponent in the finals who had had the advantage of drawing a bye and coming into the finals undoubtedly better rested and hydrated.

 Concerning Philostratus’ romanticization of the past, see Ewen L. Bowie. “Greeks and Their Past in the Second Sophistic,” in ed. M.I. Finley, Studies in Ancient Society (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974). 6  Wilhelm Dittenberger and K. Purgold, Die Inschriften von Olympia. Die Ergebnisse der von dem Deutschen Reichveranstalteten Ausgrabung 5 (Berlin 1896), no. 54/55. See further Reinhold Merkelbach, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 15 (1974): 99–104. 5

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This essay will examine death and injury in athletic events, where such occurrences are in principle unexpected contingencies, in contrast to Roman gladiatorial combat or European duels, where the effect of swords or guns can be anticipated.7 What is at issue is a question of degree: knowing the likelihood of bodily harm, what boundaries and limitations exist within the activities to mitigate (or not) the danger. Most of the discussion will be devoted to Greece, which provides a much richer body of evidence and whose athletic practices substantially informed Roman sports. A certain resignation to the inevitability of athletic catastrophe appears in Athenian law. In a court speech, the fourth century BCE orator Demosthenes cites the law: “If a person kills another unintentionally in an athletic contest … he shall not flee into exile as a manslayer on account of this” (23.53). In the Laws, Plato similarly prescribes, “If anyone unintentionally causes the death of a friend in athletic contest in public festivals, either on the spot or even later as a result of the blows … let him be free of (blood) pollution” (Laws 865 a). A general willingness to accept the probability of serious athletic injuries coupled with an inherently injurious sport like pankration or boxing would almost of necessity jeopardize life and limb. There was no point system to determine victory. Pankration and boxing matches ended when one opponent was unable or unwilling to continue. There was, of course, a cultural imperative to continue, as is evident in the details of how Arrichion the pankratiast died—or, at least, how later centuries understood the event: Having already grabbed Arrichion around the waist, the opponent had in mind killing him and rammed an arm against his throat, cutting off his breath, while with his legs fastened around Arrichion’s groin, he pressed his feet against the back of both of his knees. He got ahead of Arrichion with this stranglehold, since the sleep of death was from that point creeping over his senses, but in relaxing his grip, he did not get past Arrichion’s stratagem. For Arrichion kicked away his heel, which put his opponent’s right side into an unfavorable position, since now the knee was dangling. Then Arrichion held his opponent-who was no longer really an opponent-to his groin and leaning to his left, he trapped the tip of his opponent’s (right) foot in the bend of his (right)knee and pulled the ankle out of joint with the violence of his twist in the other direction. (Philostratus, Imagines 2.6)

 Note, however, the use of wooden swords or blunted weapons in some gladiatorial events, bringing these events into the realm of contests focused on skill. See Michael Carter, “Gladiatorial Combat With ‘Sharp’ Weapons,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 155 (2006): 161–175. 7

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It appears that Arrichion’s opponent, whose name is unknown, as the second place at Olympia was not recorded, had rammed his forearm against Arrichion’s throat with sufficient force to induce a laryngospasm, possibly with a fracture in addition. That tactic appeared to be legal, and the Olympic judges did not interfere as the strangulation proceeded. It was Arrichion’s dying stratagem to dislocate his opponent’s ankle, causing him to concede victory, unaware that Arrichion, lying face down in the sand, had suffocated. Even now, at a time when mixed martial arts and full contact Karate have gained rather wide popularity, the Hellenic acceptance of a very high likelihood of severe injury in sport will seem to us a startling challenge to romanticized notions of order, grace, and harmony in Greek civilization. Less surprising, perhaps, given the Roman fascination with gladiatorial combat, is the Roman weaponization of boxing gloves, virtually ensuring an injurious, if not lethal, outcome. The task for the ancient historian, the sociologist, and the anthropologist is to describe the behavior as accurately as the evidence allows and to understand the context of the behavior and the role it played in the ancient world. The ethical quandary of knowing what level of risk is reasonable and when it eclipses the benefits of the courage, perseverance, and endurance that sport can encourage was manifest in antiquity, and, self-­ evidently, is always before us as well. Especially in the combat sports, some risk of the injury is unavoidable. Indeed, one of the very earliest descriptions of a wrestling match, that of Jacob and a mysterious stranger (the Hebrew is clear in calling the protagonist “iysh,” which means “man,” rather than “malach,” or “angel”) the patriarch to be does not emerge unscathed, but leaves with an injury to the socket of his hip. The evidence that we have for sport in ancient Egypt and the Near East is largely visual, but it is a reasonable inference from the Beni Hasan tomb paintings of wrestlers (especially the scenes of choke holds), and the temple carvings in Medinet Habu, Meir, and El Amarna showing stick fighting, that significant injury was likely.8 The Greek combat sports of boxing, wrestling, and pankration virtually guaranteed a relatively high level of predictable injury. But even given the very nature of these sports, what we know of the rules, equipment, and facilities for the athletic competitions of ancient Greece shows that the safety of those who participated was of remarkably little concern. Even relatively easy and accessible measures to limit injury were left unused.  See Michael Poliakoff, Combat Sports in the Ancient World. Competition, Violence, and Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987) figures 8, 10, 11, 24. 8

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It is illuminating in this context to compare contemporary regulations for amateur boxing with the practices of the ancient world. In the USA Boxing Technical Rules, the first listed duty of the referee is “To care for both Boxers and to make safety [of ] both Boxers a primary concern throughout the Bout.” A further listed duty is “To prevent a weak Boxer from receiving undue and unnecessary punishment.” Furthermore, the first of the listed responsibilities of the referee is “To terminate a contest at any stage if this Referee considers it to be one-sided.” 9 Turning now to equestrian, rather than combat sport, we see an available safety measure unused. In chariot racing, the Greek hippodrome, unlike the Roman circus, had no central barrier, which would effectively have reduced the possibility of head-on collisions. Pindar noted that at the Pythian games there were forty chariot wrecks (Pythian 5, 49–53). The sport is inherently hazardous, with the ever-present danger to the driver of being thrown from the chariot and entangled in the reins: Roman chariot drivers routinely carried a knife with which to cut themselves loose from the otherwise inevitable fate if thrown of being dragged to death by the horses. The tragedian Sophocles’ evocation of this eventuality was no poetic flight of fancy: Orestes always drove tight at the corners barely grazing the edge of the post with his wheel, loosing his hold of the trace horse on his right while he checked the near horse. In his other laps the poor young man and his horses had come through safe. but this time he let go of the left rein as the horse was turning. Unaware, he struck the edge of the pillar and broke his axle in the center. He was himself thrown from the rails of the chariot and tangled in the reins. As he fell, the horses bolted wildly to the middle of the course. When the crowd saw him fallen from his car, they shuddered. “How young he was,” “How gallant his deeds,” and “How sadly he has ended,” as they saw him thrown earthward now, and then, tossing his legs to the sky-until at last the grooms with difficulty stopped the runaway team and freed him, but so covered with blood that no one of his friends could recognize the unhappy corpse. (Electra, 741–756, tr. David Grene)  USA Boxing, Official Rule Book. Technical Rules (March 2016), 18–20. https://www.teamusa.org/usaboxing/rulebook/~/media/9C11D7FE103D47E38C144B881B301335.ashx. 9

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Given the remarkable technology the Greeks employed to ensure a fair start for the horses, the absence of a simple barrier is a dramatic contrast. (There was also a similarly sophisticated device called the hysplex that regulated the start of foot races.) Typically, the owner of the horses and chariot, who would receive the victor’s crown, was not the driver, but even so, the unwillingness to take basic precautions is remarkable. The modern trajectory for athletic rules tends to favor more regulation and more attention to the safety of the competitors. There is clear evidence of movement in the rules away from certain basic safety measures. An inscription from Olympia, dating to the late sixth century BCE, forbids wrestlers from breaking the fingers of their opponents.10 Although such a tactic seems contrary to the skills typically tested in a wrestling contest—balance, timing, leverage, strength, endurance, and the like, and notwithstanding the attempt to ban this disagreeable tactic, finger breaking gained Leontiskos two Olympic crowns, one in 456 and a second in 452 BCE. Clearly, the ban on finger breaking—apparently a ban that did not last for very long—did not comport with the Hellenic expectations for high-level wrestling competition, and in pankration, where locking and breaking a joint would be legal, Sostratos of Sikyon won three Olympic crowns relying on this tactic, as well as many other victories at Delphi, Nemea, and Corinth.11 Tolerance for serious injury is yet more evident in the history of Greek and Roman boxing equipment. The earliest boxing thongs were light strips of oxhide, which served to protect the boxer’s knuckles from injury, but, of course, provided no protection for the opponent’s face, while encouraging the boxers to punch more aggressively.

 Joachim Ebert and Peter Siewert, “Eine archaische Bronzeurkunde aus Olympia mit Vorschriften für Ringkämpfer und Kampfrichter,” in 11. Bericht über die Ausgrabung in Olympia, (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1999), 391–412; Peter Siewert and Hans Taeuber, Neue Inschriften von Olympia. TYCHE. Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte, Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Sonderband 7 (Wien: Holzhausen, 2013), 27–29. 11  Poliakoff (above, note 8), 28–30; 57. 10

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Vase painting of boxers, c. 550–540 BCE. The boxers wear light thongs on their fists. Note that the right thumb projects beyond the fist, creating an additional hazard for the opponent’s eyes, and the boxer on the viewer’s left bleeds profusely from his nose. British Museum B295. (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

In other words, the thongs tended to make the likelihood of brain concussion greater than would have been the case for even a bare-knuckle fight. In the fourth century BCE, heavier equipment, called the “sharp thongs” replaced these light coverings. Sharp thongs featured a thick pad of leather, approximately an inch high, that formed a large and lacerative edge over the knuckles. Greek sources describe the pad as hard or dry. The extensive wrapping over the entire lower arm served to protect the arm from fracture, which, given the weight of the thongs, would be important to ensure that boxing matches would not end prematurely.

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Bronze statue from the first century BCE. Museo Nazionale Romano delle Terme 1055. The boxer wears the “sharp thongs” and his face and ears show signs of trauma

In neither of these styles of thongs is the thumb bound to the other fingers, and there is visual evidence of boxers with their thumbs extended. The danger to the eyes is self-evident, and two Greek authors take note of boxers or pankratiasts who have lost an eye to the sport.12 Interestingly, the past four decades have seen movement toward thumbless or at least tied-thumb gloves to reduce the danger of such injuries: this was apparently not of interest in antiquity. A series of Greek epigrams gives a gallows humor to the sharp thongs. Lucillius, a first century CE epigrammatist, wrote: A sieve, Apollophanes, is what you’ve got for a head, much like what moths leave on a book’s edge.  Libanius 64.119; Galen, Protrepticus 12 (1.31 K., 124–5 M.)

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Surely we see the drillings of the ant (myrmex—a popular term for the thongs), and some tracks go straight, some at a slant… Come on and box, have no fear— for if you get gouged some more up there, What you’ll get is what’s been before— Now with so many scars, you can’t get more. (AP 11.78)

In another epigram he jests that after four hours, the boxer Stratophon was unrecognizable to his city, and even to himself, when he looked in a mirror. Another of his epigrams (11.75) describes how a boxer returning home cannot claim his inheritance, since he is no longer recognizable. The sarcastic humor is cruel, but, given all that is known about Greek boxing, it retains a grim verisimilitude. Wrestlers and boxers are prone to disfigurement of the outer ear, and Greek authors take note of this. Visual art sometimes shows ear protective headgear, though not frequently, and there is no evidence of its appearance in competition. For practice, boxers often wore sphairai, which appear to have been much like modern boxing gloves. Plato observed that boxers in training would “come as close as possible to the real thing, and instead of thongs, put on sphairai so that they could practice blows and avoiding blows as much as possible.” Plutarch’s later use of the term epispharai makes it clear that the purpose of such gloves was to make the blows relatively harmless.13 What is truly remarkable about the very existence of padded gloves in the ancient world is that the Greeks never used them for competition. Clearly, the cultural imperative was to have a contest that would reward courage and pain tolerance in addition to athletic skill, and the severe injuries of which we read were inevitable. The Romans, used to seeing public executions in the arena, as well as gladiatorial combat, not surprisingly wanted to see boxing contests with hand coverings even more lacerative than the sharp thongs. The dangerous weaponry that was part of the Roman caestus is evident in both literary descriptions and in Roman art.

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 Plutarch, Praecepta rei publicae gerendae 32 (Moralia 825e).

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Roman boxing caestus. A cord ties the projecting metal plate onto the boxer’s forearm. First/second century CE. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2001.219

The Roman epic poet Virgil’s description does not seem exaggerated in its focus on lethality: “Entellus hurled into their midst the twin caestus of vast weight in which fierce Eryx was accustomed to raise his fists in combat, binding his forearms with the stiff leather. Their minds were stunned: the gloves made from seven enormous ox hides were stiff with the lead and iron sewn into them. … Entellus said: ‘These weapons once your brother bore, and you can see they are tainted still with blood and spattered brains’ ” (Aeneid, 5, 401–413). The structure of athletic competitions made injury and medical problems more likely. Sunstroke, heat exhaustion, and dehydration are ever-present dangers at outdoor competitions in warm climates. This may underlie the second century CE physician Galen’s surprising claim that there have been many deaths from ruptured blood vessels in sprinting.14 The Roman statesman Cicero commented that inexperienced boxers could bear their opponents’ blows more easily than they could the sun (Brutus 69). Yet in the  Galen, On the Small Ball 5 (5.909–10 K).

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combat sports, matches continued without break until one competitor emerged as the victor. And there was no standard rest period between bouts. It was a decided disadvantage to be paired with an ephedros, a competitor who had had the good fortune to have drawn a bye in a previous round. Since there were no weight classes, the mismatching of lighter-framed athletes with those of greater size, weight, and muscle power was an inevitable danger for the smaller man. Injuries in modern times occur even on the best competition surfaces. Greek wrestlers and pankratiasts competed on a softened sand surface called the skamma, which regularly needed to be refreshed and re-softened with a pickaxe, as is occasionally seen in Greek vase paintings. The Hippocratic corpus of medical writings (Epidemics, 5.14 [5.212 L]) recounts the death of a wrestler ten days after he fell on a hard surface, with his opponent landing on top of him. It is unclear whether the skamma had been insufficiently softened or if the wrestlers fell outside the skamma. The medical text describes the progress of the apparent injury to the throat and chest as it progressed over a ten-day period to its fatal outcome. Aristotle observes that few who won in the boy’s category at Olympia returned later to win in the men’s division (Politics 8.4 [= 1339a1–4]). We can see today the overtraining of young athletes and their subsequent skeletal and health problems: it is possible that elite training in antiquity, notorious for its intensity, had similar effects. Galen wrote so polemically about ancient athletics that he cannot be viewed as an impartial witness,15 but there is likely to be considerable truth in his observation that “athletes each day labor at their exercises beyond what is suitable, and they take their food under force, often extending their eating until midnight” (Protrepticus 11). His disapproval of eating habits must be a reference to those athletes whose performance benefits from bulk, notably boxers, wrestlers, and pankratiasts, but one should also consider the damage of repetitive hurling of a discus or javelin, or, for young athletes, the potential damage to growing joints of ill-designed and excessive running exercises. It remains for the historian to seek explanation for practices that deliberately avoided highly accessible safety measures. The Greek word kartereia, “toughness,” surfaces frequently in descriptions of athletes, especially on their victory monuments. That still leaves, however, the question of why the rules and structure of athletic competition promoted toughness, even to the extent that the conditions for competition would, of necessity, interfere with the

15

 On Galen’s bias, see Poliakoff (above, note 8), 93–94.

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performance of the exhausted athletes. Part of the answer comes from the realm of Greek warfare. By the sixth century, Greek land battles were fought with soldiers arranged in phalanx formation, with its highly organized ranks and files. The bronze armor and weaponry weighed between fifty and seventy pounds. These hoplites, as they were called, would march to battle in the full sunlight and heat and advance upon the enemy at a trot. Simply moving into the battle line was an exercise in endurance, and an exercise in courage, given that facing the advancing phalanx was a row of enemy spearpoints coming to meet them. An experienced soldier would know, too, that wounds tended to fall on the neck and groin, two places that the large bronze shield did not cover.16 In this context, the harsh conditions of Greek athletic competition became more comprehensible. Male citizens needed to be physically and mentally prepared for warfare, but with the exception of Sparta, the Greek city-states did not keep their infantrymen under constant military training. Accordingly, just as in battle there was no opportunity for rest or rehydration, so at the athletic festivals, there were no time limits for the bouts and no rest periods between rounds in the tournament. In battle the opposing warriors could be of any size, just as there were no weight classes in Greek competitions that would give smaller athletes a better chance for success. And, at a yet deeper level, athletic competition gave the ambitious Greek male an opportunity for individual success and recognition that was no longer available in military life. The success of the hoplite army depended on strictly maintaining the integrity of the battle line, for if the line of overlapping shields were broken, then the soldiers became open to attack from the side and were in grave peril. Hence, the old style of warfare, enshrined in Homer, of outstanding individuals winning fame and glory on the battlefield in one-­on-­one combat, was gone. The maverick was as dangerous as the coward. Greek city-states thus came to view their wartime victories as the achievements of the entire people, not of a heroic general, however brilliant or valorous he might have been. When the great general Miltiades, who led Athens to the crucial victory over Persia in 490 BCE asked for his name to be included in the great mural of the battle, the  On hoplite armor and tactics, see Victor Davis Hanson, Wars of the Ancient Greeks (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2004), 44–65. 16

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Athenians refused, saying that the city had won the battle, not the general.17 An athletic victor, however, was assured of a monument, often a statue with an inscription, erected at public expense. Athletic competition was an area, unlike military and political affairs, where self-assertion, self-aggrandizement, and glory were safe. Only in sport could the Greek man prove his mettle in fighting one-on-­ one. Indeed, nowhere else in Greek civic life was personal aggression tolerated and encouraged. We know from surviving court speeches that the Athenians severely punished even casual acts of assault and battery with sanctions including the death penalty.18 It is not difficult to see how the Greek combat sports, which did indeed flirt with reckless endangerment of life and limb, represented an outlet for the aggression and ambition that would have devastating consequences in other times and places. (In the case of dueling with lethal weapons over slights to personal honor, those consequences were writ large in Europe through the late nineteenth century.)19 Athletic competitions of ancient Greece channeled through the rough contests of the combat sports, made the Greek pursuit of honor far less destructive than the European duel and relatively safe for the cohesion of society. The great athletic festivals, then, were a surrogate for the world of heroic combat that had vanished from Greek reality. The cultural burden of the Homeric poems, which functioned like a bible for the ancient Greeks in guiding values and conduct, could find an outlet in sport. To win in competition was to achieve heroic fame. In many cases, we have to this day the names and deeds of athletes preserved in stone inscriptions and in literature. Pindar wrote, “The victor for the remainder of his days has a sweetness free of the tempest blast ” (Olympian Odes 1, 97–99). But at what cost? The modern world will rightly depart—and depart sharply—from the more egregious disregard for the safety of competitors found in ancient Greece and Rome. What level of risk and trauma is acceptable in a civilized society? What is productive for civic life and what is destructive? We are all likely to draw inspiration from the brilliance and courage of an athlete like Lindsey Vonn: her storied career includes multiple instances, including winning a gold medal and two bronze medals in the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, when she  See Aeschines, Against Ktesiphon, 183–186, and further, M. Detienne, in ed. J.-P Vernant, Problèmes de la guerre en Grèce ancienne (Paris: Mouton & Co., 1968), 127–128. 18  Demosthenes, Against Meidias 21, 45. 19  See V. G. Kiernan, The Duel in European History. Honour and the Reign of the Aristocracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) and Kevin McAleer, Dueling. The Cult of Honor in Fin-de-Siecle Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). 17

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competed successfully after sustaining an excruciating injury.20 Or Shun Fujimoto, who, at the Montreal Olympics in 1976 continued to compete in the team event after breaking his kneecap during the floor exercise. He scored high on the pommel horse and rings despite the fracture and then dismounted from the rings from eight feet above ground, keeping his balance for the required time after landing on his feet. His courage and skill allowed the team to win gold, defeating the Soviet Union. But where we draw the lines of rules and regulations also will determine who we are as a society. Conscience and moral awareness must guide us to find that balance between respect for the well-being of top athletes and the instinct, so vital for an energetic nation, to push to the outer limits of performance.21

 John Branch, “Shin Injury Threatens Lindsey Vonn’s Quest,” The New York Times (February 10, 2010); Mark Sappenfield, “Lindsey Vonn’s answer to shin injury: German cheese,” The Christian Science Monitor (February 10, 2010). 21  See Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens, English edition (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1950), 213. 20

‘Beastly Furie, and Exstreme Violence’: Pain, Injury and Death Resulting from Football and Other Ball Games Played in the British Isles Before the Reformation Ariel Hessayon

Ever since words existed for fighting and playing, men have been wont to call war a game. … Indeed, all fighting that is bound by rules bears the formal characteristics of play by that very limitation.1

I Following an unruly Shrove Tuesday football match at Kingston-upon-­ Thames, Surrey in 1797 several players were indicted and convicted at the assizes for kicking a football through the town’s streets, although a judge A version of this chapter was read at the Goldsmiths History departmental research seminar (9 December 2020) and I am grateful to the participants for their constructive comments. In addition, I have benefited from the many helpful suggestions of John Coffey, Lorenza Gianfrancesco, Crawford Gribben, Diego Lucci, Michael Questier, Luís Filipe Silvério Lima, Phil Smith and Stephen Wagg, all of whom read this in draft. Many thanks also to Gabriel Hessayon for the maps. All dates are according to the Julian calendar with the year taken to begin on 1 January.

 Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens. A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (1949, reprinted, London, Boston & Henley, 1980), p. 89. 1

A. Hessayon (*) Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_2

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subsequently respited their sentence. Two years later during the annual Shrove Tuesday game the local magistrates, fearing the disintegration of public order as a great number of people were kicking a ball about in the market place, read the Riot Act to disperse what they called a mob.2 It was following one of these riotous games at Kingston in the 1790s that some townspeople successfully defended themselves by claiming they were observing an ‘immemorial custom’. In short, their game supposedly commemorated the defeat of Danish forces by Kingston’s inhabitants several hundred years before: the invader’s captain was killed and ‘his head kicked about by the people in derision, the custom of kicking a Foot Ball on the anniversary of that day has been observed ever since’.3 This was of course a legend, although in the mid-nineteenth century an attempt was made to link it to the outcome of a battle in 755 between the feuding King Cynewulf of Wessex and Prince Cyneheard recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.4 Moreover, kicking the severed head of a defeated enemy was occasionally described in literature. Thus in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late fourteenth century) the eponymous knight’s decapitated head is kicked about probably, in the words of a literary critic, ‘to keep the head from rejoining the body’.5 Once more, in John Webster’s The White Devil (1612) we have the lines: Like the wild Irish, I’ll ne’er think thee dead Till I can play at football with thy head.6

This English denigration of supposed Irish barbarity is repeated about 50 years later by another author who writes of their age-old determination ‘Never to hold themselves secure from their Foe, till they might play at foot-ball with his head’.7 As Patricia Palmer has observed, Webster’s dramatic depiction may have been influenced by stories of seemingly real events.8 Thus in 1593 at the  The National Archives, London, HO 42/46, fol. 128, printed in Robert Malcolmson, Popular Recreations in English Society 1700–1850 (Cambridge, 1973), pp. 139–40. 3  W.D.  Biden, The History and Antiquities of the Ancient and Royal Town of Kingston-upon-Thames (Kingston, 1852), pp. 58–59. 4  Biden, History, p. 59 note c. 5  R.A.  Waldron (ed.), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (London, 1970), p.  48, fitt I, lines 420–36; L.D. Benson, ‘The Source of the Beheading Episode in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”’, Modern Philology, 59 (1961), p. 6; cf. J.E. Wülfing (ed.), Laud Troy Book, Early English Text Society, 121–22 (1902–1903), p.  373; Harriet Hudson (ed.), Four Middle English Romances (Kalamazoo, MI, 2006), ‘Octavian’, lines 1386–87, . 6  John Webster, The White Devil (1612), sig. Gv [Act iv, scene i, lines 136–37]. 7  Richard Brathwait, The captive-captain (1665), p. 108. 8  P. Palmer, ‘“An headlesse Ladie” and “a horses loade of heades”: Writing the Beheading’, Renaissance Quarterly, 60 (2007), pp. 25–26. 2

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outset of the Nine Years’ War soldiers under the command of the English sheriff, Captain Humphrey Willis, ‘having killed one of the best gents in the country named the son of Edmund Mac Hugh Maguire’ cut off his head and then ‘hurled it from place to place as a football’.9 Again, in 1597 following the death in battle of Sir John Chichester, governor of Carrickfergus, his severed head was sent as a trophy to the victors’ camp in Tyrone where, according an historian writing in the early twentieth century, ‘it was made a football by the rude gallowglass of the army’.10 Three years later the mayor and townsmen of Limerick killed the Constable of Limerick castle, ‘cut off his head … and played at football with it’.11 The Scots too had a reputation for brutality. Hence Thomas Walsingham (c.1340–c.1422), a monk of St Albans and chronicler recounted how in summer 1379 during an outbreak of bubonic plague known as the ‘fourth pestilence’ the Scots, ‘like inhuman brutes or ravening beasts’, launched a raid on northern England during which the invaders put to the sword ‘all the able-­ bodied men’ who had not yet succumbed to disease. They ‘beheaded many people and then—carried away by their savage nature—were not ashamed to kick the heads backwards and forwards as though playing football with them’.12 A local custom, some literary references and alleged atrocities aside, the words of two men—both apparently drunk—were reported to Thomas Cromwell in 1535. One called Henry VIII a knave, adulterer and heretic, boasting that, if it were possible, he would ‘play at football’ with the king’s crown. The other likewise denounced Henry as an adulterer and hoped to see ‘the King’s head run upon the ground like a football’.13 These were treasonous words liable to be punished with death. They stemmed from imagination. Yet there are a couple more reports concerning actually playing football with someone’s head. For instance, during an enquiry conducted in October 1320 into the murder of a monk committed in Darnhall, Cheshire it was stated that

 Lambeth Palace Library, London, MS Carew 617, fol. 286, calendared in J.S.  Brewer and William Bullen (eds.), Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts, preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth (6 vols., 1867–1873), vol. 3, p. 156, and printed in Mary O’Dowd, ‘Maguire, Sir Hugh [Aodh Mág Uidhir], lord of Fermanagh (d.1600)’, ODNB. 10  F.J. Bigger, ‘Sir Arthur Chichester, Lord Deputy of Ireland’, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 10 (1904), p.  6; John McCavitt, ‘Chichester, Arthur, Baron Chichester (1563–1625)’, ODNB; cf. CSP Ireland 1596–1597, pp. 444–45. 11  CSP Ireland 1600, p. 13. 12  Henry Riley (ed.), Thomae Walsingham, quondam monachi S.  Albani, Historia Anglicana. Vol. 1. A.D. 1272–1381 (London, 1863), vol. 1, pp. 409–10. English translation in Rosemary Horrox (ed.), The Black Death (Manchester, 1994), p. 89. 13  Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, 1535, vol. 8, pp. 114, 275–76. 9

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the perpetrators played football with the deceased’s head.14 Another gruesome tale dates from August 1642, on the eve of the English Civil War. A Catholic missionary priest named Hugh Green, having suffered five months’ imprisonment, was hung and quartered in Dorchester. The local barber surgeon, however, botched the job and the priest was put out of his misery by decapitation. A mob then got hold of Green’s head and used it as a football for several hours. Exhausted by their entertainment they eventually put sticks in the eyes, ears, nose and mouth and then buried it near the body. They did not place the head on the town gate because they feared an outbreak of plague—possibly as divine retribution for their actions.15 These are extreme examples—only two of which date from before the sixteenth century. They have been used to illustrate the common opinion among English social elites and religious moralists that football was a violent, disorderly activity played by the lower elements of society. Indeed, there is a bloody red thread running through the game’s early history. From kickabouts with severed heads to accidental stabbings, participants getting killed or knocked unconscious, riots, brawls, quarrels, broken bones and terrible cuts, football once had a well-earned reputation as nothing but ‘beastly furie, and exstreme violence’; a bloody pastime which resulted in wounded men nursing their ‘rancour and malice’.16 Accordingly, the focus of this essay is on pain, injury and death resulting from playing football and other ball games in the British Isles before the Reformation. That is a large time frame spanning, in the main, from the 1260s to the 1530s. Since this is not the place to become embroiled in an historical controversy as to when the English Reformation began, I have merely selected an approximate date for what was a process rather than an event. Indeed, the endpoint of this study invites further research on the interrelated questions of whether there was a significant change of attitude among social, cultural and religious elites towards football during the so-called Long Reformation, and whether games generally became less violent. That is something I intend to work on in an accompanying piece. Here the intention is to be as comprehensive as possible while acknowledging that new sources will undoubtedly come to light. Developments during this period will be documented through a wide variety of primary sources—notably parliamentary rolls, close rolls, plea rolls, coroners’ inquests, justiciary rolls, manorial court  British Library, London, MS Harleian 2064, fol. 256, calendared in George Ormerod, The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester (2nd edn., ed. Thomas Helsby, London, 1882), vol. 2, p. 162, ‘ad modum pilæ cum pedibus suis conculcaverunt’. 15  Richard Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, and other Catholics of both Sexes, that have suffered death in England on religious accounts (2 vols., Manchester, 1803), vol. 2, pp. 113–19. 16  Sir Thomas Elyot, The Boke named the Gouernour (1531), p. 99v; reprinted in Henry Croft (ed.), The Boke named the Gouernour (2 vols., London, 1883), vol. 1, pp. 295–96. 14

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rolls, tenurial documents, papal registers, chartularies, episcopal registers, diocesan visitations, civic and livery company records, university statutes, financial accounts, chronicles, sermons, poems and early printed texts. In addition, there is some pre-existing secondary literature on aspects of mediaeval and early modern football. This includes a few general histories,17 as well as studies focussed on local and regional variations,18 calendar customs,19 land use,20 literary references,21 and what has been called ‘a different stage in the civilising process’.22 Starting with accounts of games that ended in fatalities, both accidental and intentional, this essay will proceed by examining cases of severe and minor injuries, as well as small-scale fights and large-scale disturbances. It will suggest that while it is difficult to generalise players nonetheless seem to have  Montague Shearman and James Vincent, Foot-Ball: Its History for Five Centuries (London, 1882); Konrad Koch, Die Geschichte des Fussballs im Altertum und in der Neuzeit (Berlin, 1895); Francis Magoun, The History of Football: From the beginnings to 1871, Kölner Anglistische Arbeiten 31 (Bochum-­ Langendreer, 1938); Geoffrey Green, The History of the Football Association 1863–1953 (London, 1953); Morris Marples, A History of Football (London, 1954); E.G.  Dunning, ‘Football in its early stages’, History Today, 13 (1963), pp. 838–47; Percy Young, A history of British football (London, 1968); Adrian Harvey, Football: The First Hundred Years. The untold story (London & New York, 2005). 18   T.  Arthur, ‘Old-Time Football’, in William Andrews (ed.), Bygone Derbyshire (Derby, 1892), pp.  216–23; M.  Peacock, ‘The Hood-game at Haxey, Lincolnshire’, Folklore, 7 (1896), pp.  330–50; F.P. Magoun, ‘Scottish Popular Football, 1424–1815’, American Historical Review, 37 (1931), pp. 1–13; R.W. Ketton Cremer, ‘Camping—a forgotten Norfolk Game’, Norfolk Archaeology, 24 (1932), pp. 88–92; V. Allan, ‘East Anglia called it “camping”’, East Anglian Magazine, 6 (1947), pp. 358–62; John Robertson, Uppies & Doonies: the story of the Kirkwall ba’ game (Aberdeen, 1967); L. Fournier, ‘The Embodiment of Social Life: Bodylore and the Kirkwall Ba’ Game (Orkney, Scotland)’, Folklore, 120 (2009), pp. 194–212. 19  F.P.  Magoun, ‘Shrove Tuesday Football’, Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, 13 (1931), pp. 9–46; E. Sellick, ‘Dorking—Shrove Tuesday Football’, Surrey Archaeological Collections, 54 (1955), pp. 141–42; A. Hellawell, ‘Shrove Tuesday Football Match Played at Atherstone, Warwickshire’, Folklore, 71 (1960), pp. 195–96; M. Alexander, ‘Shrove Tuesday football in Surrey’, Surrey Archaeological Collections, 77 (1986), pp. 197–205; David Cressy, Bonfires and Bells: National Memory and the Protestant Calendar in Elizabethan and Stuart England (London, 1989), pp.  18–19; Paul Griffiths, Youth and Authority. Formative Experiences in England 1560–1640 (Oxford, 1996), pp.  147, 152–53; Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun. A History of the Ritual Year in Britain (Oxford, 1996), pp.  154–55, 159–63; Taylor Aucoin, ‘“When the Pancake Bell Rings”: Shrove Tuesday and the Social Efficacy of Carnival Time in Medieval and Early Modern Britain’, Unpublished University of Bristol Ph.D., 2019, pp. 98–147. 20  J.W. Anscomb, ‘An eighteenth century inclosure and football-play at West Haddon’, Northamptonshire Past and Present, 4 (1968–1969), pp.  175–78; D.  Dymond, ‘A Lost Social Institution: The Camping Close’, Rural History, 1 (1990), pp. 165–92. 21  F.P.  Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England and in Middle-English Literature’, American Historical Review, 35 (1929), pp.  33–45; F.P.  Magoun, ‘Sir Gawain and Medieval Football’, English Studies, 19 (1937), pp. 208–09; P.S. Fairman, ‘The bewties of the fut-ball: Reactions and references to this boysterous sport in English Writings, 1175–1815’, Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense, 2 (1994), pp. 47–57. 22  E.G. Dunning and N. Elias, ‘Folk Football in Medieval and Early Modern Britain’, in Dunning (ed.), Sociology of Sport, pp.  116–32 (at p.  120); D.A.  Reid, ‘Folk Football, the Aristocracy and Cultural Change: A Critique of Dunning and Sheard’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 5 (1988), pp. 224–38. 17

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known the risks involved, and that sometimes the multiple variants of football then played were used as cover to settle long-standing disagreements and grievances. Certainly on several occasions men were openly killed or else badly maimed. At the same time, however, it is worth observing that the nature of the surviving evidence focuses our attention on atypical incidents and that there must have been a number of relatively uneventful football matches about which nothing is recorded. Even so, the perception remained that football was a ‘freendly kinde of fight’ and, having briefly discussed the widespread disapproval of this sport, in the conclusion to this essay I will offer some explanations for the apparent pervasiveness of violence during pre-­ Reformation football matches.23

II To begin with, we need to clarify what was meant by football. In Britain, the first post-Roman literary reference to a ball may be a ninth-century chronicler’s remark that at Maes Elledi in the region of Glywysing (Glamorgan), ‘boys were playing ball’.24 This can be supplemented with the Benedictine schoolmaster Ælfric Bata’s Colloquies (c.1000), the seventh of which described boys’ open-air games: ‘Let’s all go together to play outdoors with our sticks and our ball or hoop. … If you want to play with a ball, I’ll lend you both my ball and my stick to play with.’25 Archaeological evidence from Winchester and London indicates that from roughly the tenth to mid-twelfth centuries balls were small and could be caught in the palm of a hand. They were made by sewing shaped pieces of leather around a core of tightly packed moss and somewhat resembled modern tennis balls.26 Before the end of the thirteenth century ball games were being played throughout northern Europe; notably sollen in Flanders, soule in Brittany, kolven in the Netherlands, keatsen in Friesland and pärkspel in Gotland.27 Indeed, several mediaeval illuminated manuscripts—mostly of continental origin—show that various ball games  Philip Stubbes, The Anatomie of Abuses (1583), p. 120.  Nennius, British History and The Welsh Annals, ed. and trans. John Morris (London, 1980), p. 30. 25  Scott Gwara (ed.), and David Porter (trans.), Anglo-Saxon Conversations. The colloquies of Ælfric Bata (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 1, 94, 95. 26  Derek Keene, Survey of Winchester (2 parts, Oxford, 1985), p. 393; Martin Biddle (ed.), Object and Economy in Medieval Winchester (Oxford, 1990), p. 707; Geoff Egan, Medieval Finds from Excavations in London: 6. The Medieval Household Daily Living c.1150–c.1450 (London, 1998), pp. 295, 296. 27  H.  Gillmeister, ‘Medieval Sport: Modern Methods of Research—Recent Results and Perspectives’, International Journal for the History of Sport, 5 (1988), pp. 54, 61–63. 23 24

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Fig. 1  University College, Oxford, MS 165, Bede, ‘Life of St Cuthbert’, (twelfth century) fol. 8. https://www.univ.ox.ac.uk/news/life-­cuthbert-­venerable-­bede/. (Reproduced with the kind permission of The Master and Fellows of University College Oxford)

were popular at this time (Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5).28 Moreover, about 1174 the cleric William fitz Stephen noted that on Shrove Tuesday after lunch the youth of London would go out beyond the city walls into the fields—possibly Moorfields—to play ‘the famous game of ball’. The scholars of each school had their own ball, while the followers of each trade [i.e. apprentices?] had theirs.29 This passage has been much debated and probably refers not to  BL, MS Royal 10 E.IV, ‘The Decretals of Gregory IX’ (c.1300–c.1340), fols. 94v, 95r, 98v; BL, MS Royal 14 B.V, ‘Genealogy of Kings of England (late 13th century)’, fol. 4r; Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Bodleian 264, ‘Romance of Alexander’ (1338–1344), part 1 fols. 22r, 63r; Bodl., MS Douce 62, ‘Book of Hours’, fol. 96r; Bodl., MS Douce 135, ‘Book of Hours’, fols. 7r, 87v; Bodl., MS Douce 276, ‘Book of Hours’, fol. 12r; University College, Oxford, MS 165, Bede, ‘Life of Cuthbert’ (12th century), fol. 8. 29  William fitz Stephen, ‘Descriptio Nobilissimae Civitatis Londinae’ (c.1173–1174), printed in James Robertson (ed.), Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Rolls Series (London, 1877), vol. 3, p. 9; and in John Stowe, A Survey of London, ed. Charles Kingsford (2 vols., Oxford, 1971), vol. 2, p. 226; with English translations in Samuel Pegge, Fitz-Stephen’s Description of the City of London, newly translated from the Latin Original (London, 1772), pp. 45–46, Charles Knight, London (6 vols., London, 1841–1844), vol. 1 p. 181, Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England’, p. 34, Stowe, Survey of London, ed. Kingsford, vol. 1, p. 92, and Nicholas Orme, English Schools in the Middle Ages (London, 1973), p. 132; see also, A.J. Duggan, ‘William fitz Stephen (fl.1162–1174)’, ODNB. 28

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Fig. 2  Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, MS W.88, ‘Book of Hours’ [Franco-Flemish] (c.1300–1310), fols. 59v, 70r. http://www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/ W88/data/W.88/sap/W88_000124_sap.jpg, http://www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/ WaltersManuscripts/W88/data/W.88/sap/W88_000145_sap.jpg

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Fig. 2  (continued)

Fig. 3  Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Bodleian 264, ‘Romance of Alexander’ (1338–44), (a) part 1 fol. 22r and (b) part 1 fol. 63r

Fig. 4  Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 62, ‘Book of Hours’ (late fourteenth century), fol. 96r

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Fig. 5  Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 211, Petrus Comestor, ‘Bible historiale’ (first quarter of fourteenth century), fol. 258v

football, as has occasionally been suggested, but to a form of handball.30 My reading is supported by the absence of the Latin for ‘foot’ in the original text, as well as the archaeological evidence. In addition, later descriptions of footballs as ‘large’ serve to contrast them with balls that could be easily caught in or hit with one hand. So it could be that these youngsters, each of whom possessed their own ball, were engaged in jeu de paume—essentially an early type of tennis played in cloisters and elsewhere with the palm of the hand instead  Cf. Joseph Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801, London, 1876 edn.), pp. 159–60; John Brand, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, ed. Sir Henry Ellis (3 vols., London, 1849), vol. 1, p. 70; Notes & Queries, 6th series, 11 (1885), p. 436; A.F. Leach, The Schools of Medieval England (London, 1915), p.  140; L.F.  Salzman, English Life in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1927), p. 82; Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England’, pp. 33–34; Marples, History of Football, pp. 16, 19–21; A.L. Poole, ‘Recreations’, in Austin Lane Poole (ed.), Medieval England (2 vols., Oxford, 1958), vol. 2, p. 614; Timothy Baker, Medieval London (London, 1970), p. 39; Mary Borer, The City of London: A History (London, 1977), p. 74; Aucoin, ‘Pancake Bell Rings’, p. 108. 30

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of a racquet. But whether or not participants used their feet as well as hands, it is clear that unlike expensive courtly pursuits such as jousting, these ball games—which sometimes also used bats—required no specialised equipment and were thus open to all social classes. In addition, Gillmeister in his history of tennis has plausibly suggested that the innovation of a goal (usually a prominent local landmark) may have derived from the chivalric passage of arms, a military exercise in which a group of knights attempted to defend the gate of a castle or town from attack.31 Our earliest set of examples from the 1260s to the 1320s concern fatalities and serious injuries sustained from sharp objects during ball games.32 Thus about 1261 at Bicester Priory in Oxfordshire two children, Stephen le Tailor and William Stirchup, were playing at ball. Stephen ran after the ball but tripped and fell upon his left side, wounding himself on his scissors. He died five days later, aged less than ten.33 Roughly five years later on Sunday, 18 April 1266 in the wapentake [administrative division] of Strafford (West Riding of Yorkshire) two men, Alan and Walter de Wyndhul, were playing at ball. Both were running, trying to get the ball first. Instead they collided, catching each other on the shoulder and fell to the ground. Alan received a wound on his arm between the shoulder and the elbow from Walter’s sheathed knife. Despite getting up and resuming their game, even going to a tavern afterwards to drink new ale, Alan’s arm swelled up. He sent for a leech but the treatment was ineffectual. Alan died the following Saturday and Walter then absconded.34 Similarly, an inquisition before the sheriff and coroners of Northumberland at Newcastle-upon-Tyne concerned a fatality resulting from playing at ball in the village of Ulgham on Trinity Sunday, 16 June 1280. In this instance a player was struck in the belly by the point of a sheathed knife following a heavy collision when running to the ball. The verdict was death by misadventure.35 Across the Irish Sea at Dublin in 1308 the jury of a Court of Justiciary deliberated a plea of trespass arising from an incident at a ball game played at Newcastle Lyons on the Sunday after the Nativity of St John the Baptist (24 June). Here  Heiner Gillmeister, Tennis. A Cultural History (London, 1998), pp. 6–7, 90–91.  Although there is no mention of a ball, an earlier continental example still concerns the death in 1137 of a child crushed during the ‘so-called game of children’ at Petersberg Abbey, an Augustinian monastery near Halle. A remorseful monk refused to be promoted to a higher rank as a consequence. See Ernestus Ehrenfeuchter (ed.), ‘Chronicon Montis Sereni’, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Hannover, 1874), pp. 144–45 . 33  Adrian Jobson, ‘The Oxfordshire eyre roll of 1261’, unpublished King’s College, University of London PhD, 2005, vol. 1, p. 76, vol. 2, p. 406. 34  Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (Chancery) (London, 1916), vol. 1, p. 567. 35  Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (Chancery), vol. 1, p.  599; Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward I 1272–1281 (London, 1901), vol. 1, p. 397. 31 32

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a spectator named John McCorcan ran towards the ball pursued by his friend William Bernard who meant to hit it. The impact happened so quickly that William was wounded in the upper part of his right leg by John’s knife, which had pierced its sheath. The jury accepted that John had not intended to wound William and the injured party was awarded five shillings damages.36 Again, in May 1321 William de Spalding, canon of Shouldham, Norfolk of the Gilbertine order of Sempringham, was granted a dispensation following the accidental death of his friend after a game at ball. As William kicked the ball his friend ran against him, suffering a severe wound from William’s sheathed knife from which he subsequently died.37 In a chapter on ‘Sports violence’ in his study of Medieval Games John Marshall Carter remarked upon the ubiquity of weapons during this period, observing that ‘everyone in English medieval agricultural society carried a knife’. Emphasising the ‘extremely violent’ nature of thirteenth-century English society, Carter noted that in his examination of selected legal records spanning from 1202 to 1276 almost half of the 66 instances of sports and recreations that he found were associated with warfare. These activities included hunting, boxing, water tilting, fighting, archery and wrestling. Indeed, more than 75% of his 66 cases ‘resulted in the death of one or more participants or spectators’ and excessive drinking may often have been a contributing factor.38 Besides alcohol, gambling too may have occasionally exacerbated matters. Hence not just archery and wrestling but throwing the stone and even quarrelling over chess sometimes culminated with violent death or serious injury.39 Yet the nature of these sources cautions against drawing wider conclusions since they largely concerned adult males lower down the social scale engaged in activities with fatal or harmful outcomes. Consequently, it is difficult to judge to what extent our next examples were typical or unusual within the context of widespread violence.  Herbert Wood and Albert Langman (eds.), revised Margaret Griffith, Calendar of the Justiciary Rolls or proceedings in the court of the Justiciar of Ireland I to VII years of Edward II (Dublin, 1905), p. 103. 37  W.H. Bliss (ed.), Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland. Volume II. 1305–1342 (London, 1895), p.  214; reprinted in G.G.  Coulton, Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation (Cambridge, 1918), p. 400. 38  John Marshall Carter, Medieval Games: Sports and Recreations in Feudal Society (Westport, CT, 1992), pp. 95–121 (at pp. 108, 109, 110). 39  John Giles (ed.), Roger Wendover’s Flowers of History (2 vols., London, 1849), vol. 2, pp.  439–41; C.A.F.  Meekings (ed.), Crown Pleas of the Wiltshire Eyre, 1249, Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Records Branch, 16 (Devizes, 1961), pp. 175, 218, 233; Martin Weinbaum (ed.), The London Eyre of 1276 (London, 1976), nos. 48, 151; William Baildon (ed.), Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield. Volume I. 1274–1297, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, 29 (1900), pp. 134, 145; Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (Chancery), vol. 1, pp.  49, 80, 109, 597–98, 618, 643; Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward I. Volume IV. 1296–1302 (London, 1906), p. 72; Charles Gross (ed.), Select Cases from the Coroners’ Rolls A.D. 1265–1413, Selden Society, 9 (London, 1896), pp. 62, 68–69. 36

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Thus at York in September 1268 there was an inquisition concerning a fatality at Byram. An argument had ensued after a marriage in which resident villagers were allegedly attacked by drunken wedding guests armed with axes, bows and arrows. Interestingly, the affray had apparently arisen from a quarrel about the customary gift at such nuptials: a ball. This suggests that at Byram locals celebrated weddings with a ball game.40 Then in June 1277 an order was issued for another inquisition, this time at Lincoln, concerning the death of a 12-year old boy named Robert during a ball game. He had been accidently killed by Geoffrey, a ten-year old from Scottlethorpe, Lincolnshire. The children had been playing a bat-and-ball game, likely a form of hockey, when Geoffrey struck the ball so that it bounced up and together with his stick hit Robert under the ear, an injury from which Robert died three days after.41 About 18 months later in January 1279 at Chippenham, Wiltshire it was recorded that a freeman called Adam Crok had attempted to hit a ball with a staff but instead struck another man on the head, from which he died immediately. Adam fled at once and was outlawed.42 Again, about 1313 a female child was accidently killed during a ball game at St Nicholas’ in Sturry, Kent when she was struck below the ear by a player trying to rebound the ball—possibly with a bat.43 Meanwhile, in 1283 a man called Roger had been accused of striking a fellow-player with a stone during a game of soule in Cornwall. The blow proved fatal.44 Also in Cornwall, about the beginning of the fourteenth century, in the hundred [administrative division] of Trigg, a man died after being tripped and knocked unconscious in what has been described as a game of football but could equally have been soule. The perpetrator ran away and had his goods confiscated while three more players, all of whom were freemen, were named in subsequent legal proceedings.45 Another incident concerned the murder of Adam de Sarum, a student at Oxford, on the vigil of the feast of the Annunciation, Sunday 24 March 1303. He had been ‘playing at ball’ after vespers in the High Street near the East Gate when he was viciously attacked by three Irish lads (probably students), one of whom punched him in the head after which another struck him with  Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (Chancery), vol. 1, p. 121.  Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (Chancery), vol. 1, p. 592. 42  R.E.  Latham and C.A.F.  Meekings (eds.), ‘The Veredictum of Chippenham Hundred, 1281’, in N.J.  Williams (ed.), Collectanea, Wiltshire Archaeological Society, Records Branch, 12 (1956), pp. 85, 109. 43  Frederic Maitland, Leveson Harcourt and William Bolland (eds.), Year Books of Edward II. Vol. V. The Eyre of Kent 6 & & Edward II. A.D. 1313–1314 (London, 1910), p. lxxxvii. 44  Leonard Elliott-Binns, Medieval Cornwall (London, 1955), p. 228. 45  James Whetter, Cornwall in the 13th Century: A Study in Social and Economic History (Lostwithiel, 1998), pp. 210–11. 40 41

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a long knife in the face and shoulder. Whether or not this game was football is unclear. But other contemporary records indicate that Oxford was a site of ludic activities. Hence a complaint was made against two townsmen who on the feast of St Gregory, Wednesday 12 March 1292 played ‘in the street with a club and a great ball’ before damaging some mercer’s goods and then assaulting the husband and wife selling them. Moreover, certain clerks played ‘games in the open fields’, while eight clerks were accused of creating a disturbance by breaking into a woman’s house in St Aldate’s on the evening of the feast of St Bartholomew, Tuesday 24 August 1305, following their return from a game played in Coumede, a meadow to the south.46 The first unambiguous reference to football in England is a proclamation for preserving the peace in London during the mayoralty of Nicholas de Farndone about April 1314. Issued at a moment when Edward II could ill-­afford civil disorder with Robert the Bruce seizing settlements and castles in Scotland (Edward’s army would suffer a heavy defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn two months later), this condemns the ‘great disturbance in the City, because of certain tumults arising from the striking of large footballs en prees du poeple from which many evils perchance may arise’. Accordingly, football was banned within the city on pain of imprisonment.47 Nonetheless, there is a difficulty with this passage that has rarely been remarked upon: where were the footballs being kicked? The commonly accepted and most plausible translation of the French ‘en prees du poeple’ renders prees as fields and thus implies that the game took place either in a green space within the walls such as the gardens of Austin Friars or else beyond the walls—perhaps in Moorfields or alternatively near the Hospital of St Katharine (a site used for wrestling). Yet the proclamation concerns a commotion within rather than outside the city. So here another possibility, albeit less likely, is that phrase means in the crowd of people; that is football was being played on the streets of London.48 Over the next two centuries there were a number of further prohibitions against football in specific places, often in conjunction with other pastimes such as hurling stones, quoits, skittles, tennis, bowls, handball, club ball, cambuc (i.e. hockey or possibly golf ), cock fighting, cock-thrashing, dice and  H.E. Salter (ed.), Records of Mediaeval Oxford (Oxford, 1912), p. 11; J.E. Thorold Rogers (ed.), Oxford City Documents Financial and Judicial (Oxford, 1891), pp. 167, 176–77. 47  Henry Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae Londoniensis, Liber Albus, Liber Custumarum, et Liber Horn (London, 1862), vol. 3, pp. 439–41; Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England’, p. 36. The proclamation follows a writ directed to the Mayor and Sheriffs of London dated 13 April 1314. I have not entirely followed Riley’s translation here and I am grateful to Lionel Laborie for his helpful observations. 48  Notes & Queries, 7th series, 2 (1886), pp.  27, 73, 116; cf. Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Wife of Bath’s Prologue’, line 532, ‘Greet prees at market maketh deere ware’ [A great crowd at the market makes wares expensive], ; Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. ‘pree’, meaning meadow. 46

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Fig. 6  Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 135, ‘Book of Hours’ (first half of sixteenth century), fol. 2r

Fig. 7  Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 135, ‘Book of Hours’ (first half of sixteenth century), fol. 7r

cards (Figs. 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10).49 In the period following the devastation of the Black Death these included royal and thence civic directives concerning, amongst other cities and towns, London (1363, 1365, 1414),50 Walsall

 For unspecified games at the Palace of Westminster during Parliament (1331–1332), see Rotuli Parliamentorum; ut et Petitiones, et Placita in Parliamento tempore Edwardi R. III (1769), vol. 2, p. 64. 50  Reginald Sharpe (ed.), Calendar of Letter-Books preserved among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London. Letter-Book G. Circa A.D. 1352–1374 (London, 1912), p. 154; Thomas Rymer (ed.), Foedera (3 vols., London, 1816–1825), vol. 3, part ii, p.  770; Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III.  Volume X. 1364–1368 (London, 1910), pp. 181–82, reprinted in Sir Walter Besant, Medieval London (London, 1906), vol. 1, p. 74; Reginald Sharpe (ed.), Calendar of Letter-Books preserved among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London. Letter-Book I. Circa A.D. 1400–1422 (London, 1909), p. 125. 49

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Fig. 8  Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 135, ‘Book of Hours’ (first half of sixteenth century), fol. 87v

Fig. 9  Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 62, ‘Book of Hours’ (late fourteenth century), fol. 122r

(1422?),51 Halifax (1450, 1454),52 Leicester (1467, 1488),53 London again (1479),54 and Northallerton (1495).55 Furthermore, ball games—usually unspecified—often together with one or more of the following boisterous activities, namely shooting missiles at birds, throwing stones, performing shows, juggling, dancing, ballad singing and telling jokes, were prohibited in  E.L. Glew, History of the Borough and Foreign of Walsall (Walsall, 1856), p. 103; Frederic Willmore, History of Walsall and its neighbourhood (Walsall & London, 1887), pp. 166–67. 52  H.L. Roth, The Yorkshire Coiners 1767–1783. And notes on Old and Prehistoric Halifax (Halifax, 1906), p. 141. 53  William Kelly, Notices Illustrative of the Drama, and other popular amusements (London, 1865), pp.  185–86; Mary Bateson (ed.), Records of the Borough of Leicester. Volume II. 1327–1509 (London, 1901), vol. 2, pp. 290, 317–18. 54  Reginald Sharpe (ed.), Calendar of Letter-Books preserved among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London. Letter-Book L. Temp. Edward IV—Henry VII (London, 1912), pp. 140, 163–64. 55  Christine Newman, Late Medieval Northallerton. A Small Market Town and its Hinterland c.1470–1540 (Stamford, 1999), p. 128. 51

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Fig. 10  Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 276, ‘Book of Hours’ (second half of fifteenth century), fol. 12r

the churchyard of Kingston-upon-Thames,56 the graveyard of Winchester Cathedral (1384),57 St Paul’s Cathedral (1385),58 the graveyard of Lincoln Cathedral (1410) [football/handball],59 Salisbury Cathedral (1448),60 the churchyard of Ottery St Mary, Devon (1451) [tennis],61 the cemeteries of Salton and Market Weighton, Yorkshire (1473) [football/handball],62 and the

 Daniel Lysons, The Environs of London (4 vols., London, 1796–1800), vol. 1, p. 248; S. Denne, ‘An Attempt to illustrate the figures carved in stone on the porch of Chalk Church’, Archaeologia, 12 (1796), p. 20 n.; Biden, History of Kingston-upon-Thames, p. 58. 57  Thomas Kirby (ed.), Wykeham’s Register (2 vols., London, 1896–1899), vol. 2, p. 409–10. 58  David Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae (4 vols., London, 1737), vol. 3, p.  194, reprinted in W.  Sparrow Simpson (ed.), Registrum Statutorum et Consuetudinum Ecclesiae Cathedralis Sancti Pauli Londiniensis (London, 1873), pp. 391–92. English translation in Edith Rickert, Chaucer’s World (Oxford, 1948), pp. 48–49, and W.O. Hassell, How they lived: An Anthology of original accounts written before 1485 (Oxford, 1962), p. 106. 59  Margaret Archer (ed.), The Register of Bishop Philip Repingdon 1405–1419, Lincoln Record Society, 57 (1963), pp. 182–83. 60  C. Wordsworth and Douglas Macleane (eds.), Statutes and Customs of the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Salisbury (London, 1915), p. 332. 61  John Wasson (ed.), Records of Early English Drama. Devon (Toronto, 1986), pp. 15–16; Gillmeister, Tennis, pp. 32–33. 62  James Raine (ed.), The Fabric Rolls of York Minster, Publications of the Surtees Society, 35 (Durham, 1859), pp. 255, 257; James Raine, The Priory of Hexham (2 vols., Durham, 1864–1865), vol. 2, p. 156. 56

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churchyard of Chesham, Buckinghamshire (1521).63 In the same vein, monks resident at the Benedictine abbey of St Peter’s, Gloucester complained that the lawns of their cloisters had been trampled down during ball games and wrestling which provided entertainment during Richard II’s parliament (1378).64 Since the early thirteenth century there had also been injunctions against the clergy participating in various games and entertainments like dice, juggling, stage plays and drinking in taverns since they encouraged gambling, blaspheming and licentiousness.65 Such prohibitions, for example, were issued at the Synod of Ely (1364), the provincial councils of Cashel (1453) and York (1466, 1518), and by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1519).66 Moving from ecclesiastical spaces to the universities, ball games and associated pastimes were prohibited by statute at several Oxford colleges: New College (1400), All Souls (1443), Magdalen (1479), Corpus Christi (1517) and Brasenose (1521).67 Doubtless an unnamed preacher had these statutes in mind when admonishing his hearers during a sermon for playing ball games within their colleges.68 Football, however, was first specifically banned at St John’s (1555).69 For its part, Cambridge University explicitly forbade football in 1557—except at those times when it was permitted by college statutes for exercise.70 This was considerably laxer and later than St Andrews, which had prohibited football under penalty of excommunication in November 1497.71  F.W.  Ragg, ‘A Record of the Archdeaconry courts of Buckingham during part of 1521’, Records of Buckinghamshire, 10 (1916), p.  314. Here ball games have been assumed, although they were not specified. 64  Benjamin Williams (ed.), Chronique de la Traison et Mort de Richart Deux Roy Dengleterre (London, 1846), p. xlviii note 2; William Henry Hart (ed.), Historia et Cartularium Monasterii Sancti Petri Gloucesteriae (Cambridge, 2012), vol. 1, p. 53. 65  Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae, vol. 1, pp. 574, 612, 673, 676, 706, 707; vol. 2, p. 280; John Dalton, The Collegiate Church of Ottery St Mary (Cambridge, 1917), pp. 187–88. 66  Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae, vol. 3, pp.  60–61, 68, 214, 567, 605, 667, 669, 687. Partial English translations in Richard Hart (ed.), Ecclesiastical Records of England, Ireland, and Scotland, from the fifth century till the Reformation (Cambridge, 1846), pp. 115, 170, 286. 67  E.A.  Bond (ed.), Statutes of the Colleges of Oxford (3 vols., Oxford & London, 1853), vol. 1, New College, pp.  48–49, 99–100, All Souls, pp.  44–45; vol. 2, Magdalen, pp.  42–43, Corpus Christi, pp. 68–69, Brasenose, p. 27; see also, H. Rashdall, ‘New College’, in Andrew Clark (ed.), The Colleges of Oxford (London, 1891), p. 158; Hastings Rashdall, The Universities in the Middle Ages (2 vols., Oxford, 1895), vol. 2, pp. 669–71; Poole, ‘Recreations’, in Poole (ed.), Medieval England, vol. 2, p. 626. 68  Siegfried Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections from Later Medieval England. Orthodox Preaching in the Age of Wyclif (Cambridge, 2005), p. 145. 69  Bond (ed.), Statutes, vol. 3, St John’s, pp. 65–66; P. Manning, ‘Sport and pastime in Stuart Oxford’, in H.E. Salter (ed.), Surveys and Tokens, Oxford Historical Society, 75 (1920), p. 105. 70  John Lamb (ed.), A Collection of Letters, Statutes, and other documents (London, 1838), p. 246, translated in James Heywood (ed.), Collection of Statutes for the University and the Colleges of Cambridge (London, 1840), p. 243. 71  Annie Dunlop (ed.), Acta Facultatis Artium Universitatis Sanctiandree 1413–1588, Publications of the Scottish History Society, 3rd series, 55 (Edinburgh, 1964), vol. 2, pp. 265–66. 63

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Evidently the primary concern of authorities was to preserve public order and prevent property damage in urban areas—particularly the breaking of expensive glass windows and sculptures in places of worship and education— as well as, in the case of the church, regulate the morality of its clergy.72 But the crown also wanted able-bodied men to avoid such activities and instead devote their leisure time on Sundays and festivals to practising archery since this would benefit the king during wartime. Yet despite a royal proclamation to that purpose issued on 1 June 1363 (reaffirmed 12 June 1365),73 followed by a statute of 1388 (reaffirmed 1410) forbidding agricultural workers, labourers and the servants of craftsmen and victuallers from playing at ‘Hand-­ ball’ or ‘Foot-ball’ as well as other unsuitable games, the sport’s popularity endured. It also remained potentially dangerous—even though the statute of 1388 prohibited the lower social orders from bearing bucklers, swords and daggers in peacetime under penalty of arrest and forfeiture of their weapons (subsequently clarified as six days’ imprisonment by statute of 1410).74 Following these royal initiatives, during the early fifteenth century there were prohibitions issued in London against collecting money to pay for footballs and cock-thrashing—particularly on Hock Days (the second Monday and Tuesday after Easter Sunday). Funds would be raised by ‘capturing’ brides and grooms on the occasion of their marriages and requesting payment for their release.75 This suggests that football and cock-thrashing were customarily part of wedding celebrations at this time of year.76 More than 60 years later, during the second reign of Edward IV, archery was again encouraged at the expense of unlawful games by statute of 1478 under penalty of swingeing fines and lengthy imprisonment for those engaged in certain of these illicit activities. The punishment for playing football, however, was unspecified in the  Cf. Stuart Moore (ed.), Letters and Papers of John Shillingford, Mayor of Exeter 1447–1450, Camden Society, new series, 2 (1871), p. 101; William Hudson and John Tingey (eds.), The Records of the City of Norwich (2 vols., Norwich, 1906–1910), vol. 2, pp. 316–17; Mary Harris (ed.), The Coventry Leet Book: or Mayor’s Register, Early English Text Society original series, 134 (1907), p. 271; W.H. Stevenson (ed.), Records of the Borough of Nottingham. Volume II. 1399–1485 (London, 1883), p. 265. 73  Rymer (ed.), Foedera, vol. 3, part ii, p. 704; Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III. Volume IX. 1360–1364 (London, 1909), pp. 534–35; Sharpe (ed.), Letter-Book G, p. 194; Notes & Queries, 2nd series, 9 (1860), p. 121; Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England’, pp. 37–38. 74  A.  Luders, T.E.  Tomlins, J.  France, W.E.  Taunton and J.  Raithby (eds.), The Statutes of the Realm (London, 1810–1828), vol. 2, pp. 57, 163; Rotuli Parliamentorum, vol. 3, p. 643; Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England’, pp. 38, 40. 75  Henry Riley (ed.), Memorials of London and London Life, in the 13th, 14th and 15th Centuries, 1276–1419 (London, 1868), p. 571; Sharpe (ed.), Letter-Book I, p. 72; A.H. Thomas (ed.), Calendar of Select Pleas and Memoranda of the City of London. A.D. 1381–1412 (Cambridge, 1932), pp. 291–92; Aucoin, ‘Pancake Bell Rings’, pp 110–11. 76  Cf. W.E.  St. Lawrence Finny, ‘Mediaeval games and gaderyngs at Kingston-upon-Thames’, Surrey Archaeological Collections, 44 (1936), pp. 108–10. 72

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statute.77 Early Tudor legislation too promoted archery and restricted the playing of unlawful games to the 12 days of Christmas (1496, 1504, 1512, 1515, 1542), but without mentioning football.78 Meanwhile the Scottish Parliament enacted legislation forbidding the playing of football (1424, 1458, 1471, 1491), similarly to little effect.79 Over in Ireland, the statute of Kilkenny (1367) forbade English colonists from ‘horlings, with great sticks [and a ball] upon the ground’, because of the ‘great evils’ and injuries that had arisen. It is unclear though whether an antecedent of hurling or a precursor of hockey was meant.80 A hundred and sixty years later a Galway statute (1527) was more specific: townsmen should practise shooting longbows, crossbows and throwing darts rather than wasting their time ‘horling of the litill balle wth hockie sticks or staves’ beyond the town walls. Only playing with ‘the great foote balle’ was permitted, on pain of an 8d. fine.81 While the statutes of Kilkenny and Galway affected the laity, William Rokeby (d.1521), archbishop of Dublin, issued an injunction concerning the clergy at a provincial council held at Dublin in 1518: clerics were forbidden to play football and liable for a fine for each transgression (40d. to the ordinary and 40d. for repair of the church).82

 Rotuli Parliamentorum, vol. 6, pp.  156, 188; Statutes of the Realm, vol. 2, pp.  462–63; Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England’, p.  42; cf. Marjorie McIntosh, Controlling misbehaviour in England, 1370–1600 (Cambridge, 1998), p. 99. 78  Statutes of the Realm, vol. 2, pp. 569, 657, vol. 3, pp. 25–26, 123–24; Joseph Keble (ed.), The Statutes at large (1684), pp. 318, 542; see also, The statutes vvhiche the ivstices of peace, Mayres, Shyryffes, Baylyffes, Constables, & other officers were of late commaunded by the Kynges Maiestye to put in execution (1534), sigs. Aiir–Aiiiir-5. 79  Acts of the Parliament of Scotland (1424–1567), vol. 2, pp. 5, 48, 100, 226, with modern translation at ; Notes & Queries, 7th series, 2 (1886), p. 315; Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England’, p. 45; Magoun, ‘Scottish Popular Football’, pp. 1–2; Marples, History of Football, pp. 38–39. 80  James Hardiman (ed.), A Statute of the Fortieth Year of King Edward III., enacted in a Parliament held in Kilkenny, A.D. 1367 (Dublin, 1843), pp.  22–23; J.A.  Watt, ‘The Anglo-Irish colony under strain, 1327–1399’, in Art Cosgrove (ed.), A New History of Ireland: Volume II, Medieval Ireland 1169–1534 (Oxford, 1987), pp. 388–89; Paul Rouse, Sport & Ireland. A History (Oxford, 2015), pp. 16–18. 81  James Hardiman Library, NUI Galway, Liber A, Galway Corporation, 1485–1711, fol. 33 ; printed in Historical Manuscripts Commission. Tenth Report. Appendix, part V (London, 1885), p. 402. 82  Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae, vol. 3, p. 660; HMC. Tenth Report, part V, p. 223 n. 3; Alan Fletcher (ed.), Drama and the Performing Arts in pre-Cromwellian Ireland (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 433, 585 n. 815; Gerald Bray (ed.), Records of Convocation XVI. Ireland, 1101–1690 (Woodbridge, 2006), p. 328. 77

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III Since the first British references to football are in French and Latin, it is not until the early fifteenth century that we have the earliest recorded English usages: ‘fote-bal’ (c.1400),83 ‘foot bal’,84 ‘fott ball’,85 ‘foteball’ (1409, 1422?, 1477),86 ‘ffootballepleyers’ (1421–1423),87 ‘foot-balle’ (before 1425),88 ‘foteballe’ (c.1440),89 ‘foot-ball’ (c.1461–1485),90 ‘Fute balle’ (1483),91 ‘ffoteballs’ (1483)92 and ‘fote ball’ (1486).93 Interestingly, a variant played in Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk was known as ‘campyng’ (c.1320, 1421, c.1460), ‘Kampyn’ or ‘campar’ (c.1440).94 This is significant because since the seventeenth century philologists have derived its meaning from the Anglo-Saxon for ‘striving’ or ‘contending’, or the Old English ‘campian’ meaning ‘fight’.95 So it is against this backdrop that we should situate our next pre-Reformation examples.

 Wülfing, Laud Troy Book, p. 373.  Fredrick Furnivall and Israel Gollancz (eds.), Hoccleve’s Works, Early English Text Society extra series, 61 (2 vols., London, 1924–1925), vol. 1, p. xxix, vol. 2, p. 38. 85  Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 103, fol. 126v, printed in Edward Peacock (ed.), Instructions for parish priests by John Myrc, Early English Text Society original series, 31 (1868), p. 11 n. 2. 86  Sharpe (ed.), Letter-Book I, p. 72; Willmore, Walsall, p. 166; Rotuli Parliamentorum, vol. 6, p. 188. 87   London Metropolitan Archives, CLC/L/BF/A/021/MS05440, William Porlond’s Minute Book (Brewers’ Company, 1418–1440), fols. 84, 105, 153v, 158, printed in Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England’, p.  40 and in Raymond Chambers and Marjorie Daunt (eds.), A book of London English 1384–1425 (Oxford, 1931), p. 148. 88  Thomas Arnold (ed.), Select English Works of John Wyclif (3 vols., Oxford, 1869–1871), vol. 2, p. 280; OED, s.v. ‘football’, 4. 89  Francis McSparren (ed.), Octovian, Early English Text Society original series, 289 (1986), line 1244. 90  John Manly (ed.), Specimens of pre-Shaksperean Drama (2 vols., Boston, 1897–1898), vol. 1, p. 343. 91  Sidney Herrtage (ed.), Catholicon Anglicum, an English-Latin Wordbook (London, 1881), p. 146. 92  TNA, KB 9/365/22. 93  [Juliana Berners?], The Boke of St. Albans (1486), sig. e iiiir-2. 94  Dymond, ‘Lost Social Institution’, p. 189 n. 22; Fredrick Furnivall (ed.), The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, Englisht by John Lydgate, Early English Text Society extra series, 83 (1901), part ii, p. 306; James Halliwell (ed.), A selection from the minor poems of Dan John Lydgate, Percy Society (2 vols., London, 1840), vol. 2, p.  200; Albertus Way (ed.), Promptorium Parvulorum sive Clericorum, Lexicon Anglo-­ Latinum Princeps, Camden Society 25, 54, 89 (1843–1865), pp. 60, 269. 95  Samuel Daniel, The collection of the history of England (London, 1634), p. 44; John Ray, A Collection of English Words not generally used (2nd edn., London, 1691), preface; Francis Blomefield, An Essay towards a topographical History of the county of Norfolk (London, 1805), vol. 1, p. 177; Edward Moor, Suffolk Words and Phrases (London, 1823), pp. 63–66; J.M. Jephson, ‘The East Saxon Dialect’, Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, 2 (1863), p. 183; Joseph Wright (ed.), The English Dialect Dictionary. Volume 1. A–C (London, 1898), p. 500; James Halliwell, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words (London, 1904), p. 229; Hans Kurath, Sherman Kuhn, et al. (eds.), Middle English Dictionary (Ann Arbor, MI, 1959), p. 28. 83 84

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At a court leet held on 14 June 1320  in the coastal village of Hollesley, Suffolk four pairs of men were charged with ‘bloody assaults’ during what a later hand clarified as ‘campyng’. John Ridgard, who discovered the entry in the court rolls, has suggested that the men had been involved in one or more camping matches that may have been played during Whitsuntide. Furthermore, two of the players were brothers, members of an influential villein family. Yet apparently they represented opposing sides.96 Further north outside the town of [King’s] Lynn, Norfolk a boy accidently died in the mid-fourteenth century as a result of playing a ball game, while a man was murdered following a quarrel arising from football.97 Sometime later in 1421 one Thomas Stowne of Copford, Essex was tried for assaulting Richard Stogg with ‘quodam campyngrock’.98 Moving from East Anglia to London, a coroner’s inquest in June 1337 heard how on Tuesday in Pentecost week the son of a chandler ‘got out of a window … to recover a ball lost in a gutter at play’. But the boy slipped and fell, injuring himself so badly that he died the next Saturday.99 Again in London, in 1373 eight men were brought to the Mayor’s court to answer a charge that they, together with others: with force and arms, to wit, swords and knives, made an assembly, under colour of playing with a football, in order to assault others, occasion disputes, and perpetuate other evil deeds against the peace in Sopers Lane, Cheap and Cordwainer Street.

Two of the men were pelters and six were tailors, so they may have had common commercial interests dealing or working with animal skins. While one pelter and one tailor pleaded not guilty, the remainder claimed that although they had played football they had ‘done no harm’. Nonetheless, one was mainprized and the rest committed to prison.100 Whether these men were guilty of using a football match as cover for instigating a riot in the streets of London or whether this contest got out of hand resulting in the assault of non-participants is difficult to establish. But the charge clearly links football  J.  Ridgard, ‘Suffolk’s earliest football match at Hollesley in 1320 (in Whitsuntide week?)’, Suffolk Review, 59 (2012), pp. 23–27. 97  Dorothy Owen (ed.), The Making of King’s Lynn: A Documentary Survey (Oxford, 1984), pp. 19, 428. 98  Essex Record Office, Chelmsford, D/DHt M 144, printed in Dymond, ‘Lost Social Institution’, p. 189 n. 22. 99  Reginald Sharpe (ed.), Calendar of Coroners Rolls of the City of London, 1300–1378 (London, 1913), p. 191; Rickert, Chaucer’s World, p. 99; Hassell, How they lived, p. 108. 100  LMA, CLA/024/01/19, mem. 3r, reproduced in Aucoin, ‘Pancake Bell Rings’, p. 112, and summarised in A.H. Thomas (ed.), Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls … of the City of London … 1364–1381 (Cambridge, 1929), p. 152. 96

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with violence. Moreover, Taylor Aucoin has shown that the match took place on Shrove Tuesday.101 This is important because it is the earliest known example of football played on that day, and one of only a handful before the Reformation. Heading north, between 1377 and 1383 a number of villagers who were tenants of the prior and convent of Durham were warned against playing a ball game under penalty of a fine. Thus the constables of Aycliffe, Ferryhill, Heworth and East Merrington were threatened with a 20s. or 40s. fine if they permitted any ball play. Even so, at Southwick in 1381 there was an affray when the prior’s tenants were menaced by those of a local lord so that they were ‘in grievous peril of their bodies’. The cause was a ball game which precipitated ‘grievous contention and contumely’.102 Again, at Aycliffe in 1383 seven men including William Colson and John de Redworth—presumably constables—were presented and threatened with a 20s. fine for failing to report ball playing in their village. Under pressure from Redworth’s wife Alicia, who would not keep quiet, they in turn presented 18 men for ball playing (including a member of Colson’s family). It has been suggested that these Durham villagers had been playing football.103 This is very likely, because in 1446 an elderly villager originating from the barony of Brancepeth in Durham recalled that one day he saw around 60 people ‘playing football at Helmington Row in the barony’. They all shared the same surname (Oll) and were accounted ‘among the best’ valets [attendants] and freemen of the barony; certainly not of servile status.104 Furthermore, in spring 1386 some villagers of Billingham were amerced for playing football,105 while in spring 1467 sixty-­ two tenants of Billingham, Wolviston and Aycliffe were amerced for the same offence.106 Again in spring 1478, in accordance with legislation enacted earlier that year, all Aycliffe tenants, of which eight were named (doubtless c­ onstables),  Aucoin, ‘Pancake Bell Rings’, pp. 109–10, 112.  W.H.  Longstaffe and J.  Booth (eds.), Halmota Prioratus Dunelmensis, Publications of the Surtees Society, 82 (Durham, 1889), pp. xxx–xxxi, 138, 161, 166, 168, 171, 175; G.G. Coulton, The Medieval Village (Cambridge, 1926), pp. 93–95. 103  Longstaffe and Booth (eds.), Halmota Prioratus Dunelmensis, p.  180; M.  Bailey, ‘Rural Society’, in Rosemary Horrox (ed.), Fifteenth-century attitudes. Perceptions of society in late Medieval England (Cambridge, 1994), p. 164; Mark Bailey, The English Manor c.1200–c.1500 (Manchester, 2002), p. 1. 104   Durham Cathedral Archive, GB-0033-DCD-Regr-4, fols. 34r–36v ; Willielmus de Chambre, Historiae Dunelmensis scriptores tres, Publications of the Surtees Society, 9 (London, 1839), p. cclxxx; see also, R.B. Dobson, Church and Society in the Medieval North of England (London, 1996), pp. 59–60. 105  Peter Larson, Conflict and Compromise in the late Medieval Countryside. Lords and Peasants in Durham, 1349–1400 (New York & London, 2006), p. 208. 106  Richard Lomas, ‘Durham Cathedral priory as a landowner and a landlord, 1290–1540’, unpublished University of Durham PhD, 1973, pp. 58–59.

101 102

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were warned against playing prohibited games—notably dice, cards and football—under penalty of a 20s. fine. Later still, in spring 1492 an injunction permitted football to be played at Billingham twice a year while stipulating that ‘he who makes an affray on those days forfeits to the lord forty shillings’.107 According to Peter Larson, for its part Durham Priory ‘cracked down on the game only sporadically’. This indicates that ‘the bursars usually tolerated football despite its illegal status’. Even so, the Priory issued an injunction against football in spring 1506 suggesting that this had been prompted by increased violence.108 Moving from Durham to Yorkshire, in 1409 members of the lower clerical orders and others were reproved for playing ball games within the close of York Minster.109 In 1422 a woman from Wistow deposed that a couple had contracted their marriage, in the words of Jeremy Goldberg, ‘on Ash Wednesday at the time when the men of Wistow play football’.110 Such testimony, however, is problematic and should not be taken at face value. This can be seen from a similar case the next year at Church Fenton when one Thomas Newby claimed that he could not have married Beatrice Pulayn on Sunday, 4 July 1423 because that particular afternoon he was playing football in nearby Barkston until sunset and then went drinking. Yet the likelihood of mendacious witness testimony and Newby’s own evasions suggest that his alibi may not have been watertight.111 Seemingly more straightforward is an inquest into a murder committed some 40 or so years later. During a football match at Pontefract on Shrove Tuesday 1477 one Leonard Metcalf accidently hit Robert Pilkington with his ball. Pilkington drew his dagger worth 20d., prompting Metcalf to apologise. Metcalf then attempted to resume his game, at which point Pilkington knifed him in the heart. Pilkington had also set fire to a chapel and stolen cattle, for all which crimes he was sentenced to hang. Nonetheless, he was reprieved after claiming benefit of clergy.112 Less violent were several incidents connected to a dispute about access to land in the ­vicinity of Shap, Cumberland. A tenant of Sir Thomas Curwen, one of the contending parties, had been ‘sore hurt att ye foteball’ by a servant of Thomas  P.L. Larson, ‘Local Law Courts in late Medieval Durham’, in Christian Liddy and Richard Britnell (eds.), North-East England in the Later Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 104–05; Larson, Conflict and Compromise, p. 209. 108  Larson, Conflict and Compromise, pp. 189–90. 109  Raine (ed.), Fabric Rolls of York Minster, p. 244; cf. Gerald Aylmer and Reginald Cant (eds.), A History of York Minster (Oxford, 1977), p. 88. 110  Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, York, CP.F.133, cited in P.J.P. Goldberg, ‘Masters and men in later medieval England’, in Dawn Hadley (ed.), Masculinity in Medieval Europe (London, 1998), p. 65. 111  BIHR, CP.F.137, cited in Goldberg, ‘Masters and men’, p.  65, and Christopher Donahue, Law, Marriage, and Society in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 153–54. 112  R.C.E. Hayes, ‘Ancient Indictments for the North of England 1461–1504’, in A.J. Pollard (ed.), The North of England in the Age of Richard III (New York, 1996), p. 42. 107

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Salkeld, the opposing party. Consequently Curwen was awarded 2s. compensation in a judgement of February 1474 which noted that another tenant had likewise been beaten and ‘sore hurte’.113 There is also the presentment of two Northallerton men, one of whom afterwards became a borough court juror, who in 1495 were fined 3s. 4d. for causing an affray during a football game played on the Applegarth just outside the town. At the same time the steward imposed an ordinance, mandated by the bishop, forbidding the playing of football on penalty of a 6s. 8d. fine.114 Similarly, in 1500 football was prohibited at Hartley, Northumberland under penalty of a 6s. 8d. fine.115 Several years later in 1519 parishioners at Salton, Yorkshire were threatened with excommunication for playing various ball games with their feet and hands in the churchyard—namely tutts, handball and penny-stone.116 Down south, between 1422 and 1423 the Brewers’ Company in London let their hall to 17 different fraternities including on three occasions to a group of football players for 1s. 4d.117 This contrasts with the censorious attitude of certain London citizens who in July 1446 complained about the erection of several places where people played at ball [tennis?], ‘cleche’ [closh?] and dice, adding for good measure that these structures served as brothels.118 Even so, tennis continued to be played in London as attested by the fame of a skinner named Richard Steris, accounted one of the ‘cunnyngest players’ in England, but whose remarkable agility did not save him from being beheaded for treason at Tower Hill in 1468.119 Over in Suffolk, Robert Cook, rector of Martlesham was the subject of several complaints: gambling, assaulting a woman and playing tennis in his shirt and breeches in the market square at Woodbridge on the Sunday after Midsummer Day, 1431.120 To the north in the same county, John Hardgrave of Beccles recorded in the early 1430s that:  Cumbria Archive Service, Carlisle, D/Lons/L SH25, printed in ‘Award by Richard Redmayne, Bishop of St. Asaph and Abbot of Shap’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society, new series, 9 (1909), p. 280. 114  Newman, Late Medieval Northallerton, p. 128. 115  H.H.E.  Craster, A History of Northumberland. Volume IX.  The Parochial Chapelries of Earsdon and Horton (Newcastle & London, 1909), p. 119. 116  Raine (ed.), Fabric Rolls of York Minster, pp. 270, 349; Raine, Priory of Hexham, vol. 2, p. 157; OED, s.v. ‘tut’, ‘penny-stone’. 117  George Unwin, The Gilds and Companies of London (London, 2nd edn., 1925), p.  181; Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England’, pp. 40–41; Mia Ball, The Worshipful Company of Brewers: A Short History (London, 1977), p. 48. 118  Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas (ed.), Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England (7 vols., London, 1834–1837), vol. 6, pp. xix, 50. 119  A.H. Thomas and I.D. Thornley (eds.), The Great Chronicle of London (London, 1938), p. 207; John Giles (ed.), The Chronicles of the White Rose of York (London, 1843), pp. 20–21. 120  H.R. Lingwood, ‘The rectors of Martlesham’, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, 25, part 2 (1950), p. 194; Bailey, ‘Rural Society’, p. 164. 113

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The men who played at football on the ice and sank through have caused great misery by their deaths to their friends, who propose to hold their funeral rites next week.

However, since Hardgrave was then likely a teenage student of Latin grammar it is unclear whether this referred to an actual event or was merely a school exercise.121 Elsewhere, there were prohibitions against playing handball or quoits and then ball games generally at Tamworth, Staffordshire (1424, 1436, 1446)122; against club ball, football and handball at Castle Combe, Wiltshire (1447, 1452)123; against handball and dice at Wimbledon (1464)124; and against tennis, quoits and dice at Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire (1469).125 Moreover, there were fines issued at Carshalton, Surrey for playing handball (1446, 1447),126 and likewise at Pagham, Sussex (1482),127 while in August 1450 a currier, barber and glover swore on the Gospels to abjure the game of tennis within Oxford and its precincts.128 Furthermore, four parishioners of Tillingham, Essex were presented for playing dice and a ball game during divine service (1458).129 Moving forwards, tennis, bowls, closh, dice and cards were prohibited at Worcester under penalty of imprisonment (1496); a dozen men were fined for playing tennis at Ampthill, Bedfordshire (1502); and servants were banned from playing tennis or unlawful games on work days at Rye, Sussex (1504).130 At Wells Cathedral two perpetual vicars were admonished in July 1507 for playing handball instead of coming to matins on the  Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 2830, fol. 98v, printed with English translation in N. Orme, ‘Beccles school in the 1430s’, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, 42, part 3 (2011), p. 337. 122  M.K. Dale (ed.), ‘Tamworth Borough Court Rolls’ (typescript, 1952), pp. 153, 156, 161. 123  G. Poulett Scrope, History of the manor and ancient barony of Castle Combe, in the county of Wilts (privately printed, 1852), pp. 244, 245. 124  Philip Lawrence (ed.), Extracts from the Court Rolls of the Manor of Wimbledon (London, 1869), part 3, p. 24. 125  Joyce Godber, History of Bedfordshire 1066–1888 (Luton, 1969), p. 169. 126  D.L. Powell, Hilary Jenkinson and M.S. Giuseppe (eds.), Court Rolls of the Manor of Carshalton. From the Reign of Edward the third to that of Henry the seventh, Surrey Record Society, 2 (London, 1916), pp. 59, 62, 65. 127  Lindsay Fleming, History of Pagham in Sussex (3 vols., privately printed, 1949–1950), vol. 2, p. 344. 128  H.E. Salter (ed.), Registrum Cancellarii Oxon, Oxford Historical Society, 93 (1932), vol. 1, pp. 213–14. English translation in Leonard Astley, Elizabethan popular culture (Bowling Green, OH, 1988), p. 277. 129  W. Sparrow Simpson (ed.), Visitations of Churches belonging to St. Pauls’ Cathedral in 1297 and in 1458, Camden Society, (1895), pp. 77, 78. 130  Valentine Green, The History and Antiquities of … Worcester (2 vols., London, 1796), vol. 2, pp. liii–liv; Godber, History of Bedfordshire, p. 169; Graham Mayhew, Tudor Rye (Falmer, 1987), p. 50; P.R. Cavill, ‘The problem of labour and the Parliament of 1495’, in Linda Clark (ed.), The Fifteenth Century (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 153–54. 121

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vigil of the translation of St Thomas the Martyr.131 At the manor of Kirton in Lindsey, Lincolnshire a jury presented one William de Welton in April 1510 for misbehaving himself in playing football and other unlawful games.132 Master Richard, the curate of St Mary’s in Hawridge, Buckinghamshire was suspended in 1519 for, among other things, playing dice and being a ‘common player at football in his alb’.133 And the inhabitants of Hayes, Middlesex were charged by their parson in 1534 with playing unlawful games: bowls, football, dice and cards as well as with committing riots—though no blows were given or weapons drawn.134 By contrast, the churchwardens of Heybridge, Essex received 18s. 3d. for the ‘campyng sporte’ in 1518–1519, while their counterparts at Cratfield, Suffolk spent 4d. ‘for a ball to camp wyth’ in 1534.135 * * * Thus far questions as to the extent to which we can rely upon witness testimony, not just recollections of sporting injuries and fatalities but even memories of when and where games were played, has largely been avoided. With the deceased unable to have their say in court, defendants who appeared personally would have had to contend with versions of what happened presented by other eyewitnesses (some of whom may have been the deceased’s friends and family) when framing what would doubtless have been self-serving narratives. Yet despite this caveat too many scholars appear to have readily accepted as genuine all or most aspects of events recounted at coroners’ inquests and the like. The same can be said of equally—if not more—problematic evidence: proofs of age. Essentially for our purposes they were legal proceedings to determine someone’s age and hence their inheritance rights. This is particularly important with regard to football since on the face of it there are a dozen known cases involving witnesses claiming to remember a game played several years previously on the day of the prospective heir’s birth or baptism. Two such proofs of age from Sussex early in the reign of Henry VI are well known,

 HMC. Calendar of the manuscripts of the Dean and Chapter of Wells (London, 1914), vol. 2, p. 205.  Notes & Queries, 1st series, 12 (1855), pp. 326, 392; E. Howlett, ‘Games in Churchyards’, in William Andrews (ed.), Antiquities and curiosities of the Church (London, 1897), p. 220. 133  Alexander Thompson (ed.), Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln 1517–1531 (Hereford, 1940), vol. 1, pp. xxxv, 44; John Thomson, The Early Tudor Church & Society 1485–1529 (London, 1993), pp. 167–68. An alb was a white vestment worn by clergymen which reached their feet. 134  Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, 1534, vol. 7, p. 208. 135  J. Nichols, Illustrations of the manners and expences of antient times in England (London, 1797), p. 161; William Holland (ed.), Cratfield: A Transcript of the Accounts of the Parish, from A.D. 1490 to A.D. 1642, ed. John Raven (London, 1895), p. 51. 131 132

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having been published in the 1860s.136 Indeed, their similarity has been noted though their content was assumed to be true.137 Since then many more examples have come to light, all but one helpfully collected and made accessible through the Mapping the Medieval Countryside project. Taken together, proofs of age seemingly provide evidence for football being played at Wolviston, Durham (Shrove Tuesday, 1380)138; Stamford, Lincolnshire (feast of the Annunciation, 25 March 1397)139; Chelmsford, Essex (Tuesday, 22 June 1400)140; Little Laver, Essex (Tuesday, 18 October 1401)141; Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex (Tuesday in Pentecost week, 16 May 1402)142; Layer Marney, Essex (Monday, 14 August 1402)143; Wilcote, Oxfordshire (Wednesday, 1 August 1403)144; Selmeston, Sussex (Friday, 24 August 1403)145; Chidham, Sussex (Tuesday, 23 September 1404)146; Odell, Bedfordshire (Sunday, 28 September 1410)147; Dry Drayton, Cambridgeshire (Sunday, 21 February 1417)148; and Sproughton, Suffolk (feast of St Nicholas, 6 December 1421).149 Moreover, in seven instances—at Chelmsford, Little  W.D. Cooper, ‘Proofs of Age of Sussex Families’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 12 (1860), p. 43; 15 (1863), p. 213. 137  W. Carew Hazlitt, Faiths and Folklore (2 vols., London, 1905), vol. 1, p. 243; Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England’, p. 39; Marples, History of Football, pp. 27, 36; Fairman, ‘Bewties of fut-ball’, p. 52. 138  Durham Cathedral Archive, GB-0033-DCD-Regr-1, Register I, fols. ii. 94v–95r , . 139   TNA, C 138/37/29 mems. 9–10 . 140   TNA, C 139/7/54 mems. 15–16 . 141   TNA, C 139/13/51 mems. 1–2 . 142   TNA, C 139/13/52 mems. 1–2 . 143   TNA, C 139/13/55 mems. 1–2 . 144   TNA, C 139/20/48 mems. 1–2 . 145   TNA, C 139/20/51 mems. 1–2 . 146   TNA, C 139/26/42 mems. 9–10 . 147   TNA, C 139/67/57 mems. 1–2 ; printed in J.L. Kirby and Janet Stevenson (eds.), Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem … Volume XXI, 6 to 10 Henry V (1418–1422) (London, 2002), p. 62. 148   TNA, C 139/97/16 mems. 1–2 . 149   TNA, C 139/104/50 mems. 1–2 . 136

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Laver, Thorpe-le-Soken, Layer Marney, Selmeston, Wilcote and Chidham—a man supposedly broke his left shin; at Sproughton his right shin; at Wolviston and Odell an unspecified shin; and at Dry Drayton his left arm. Even so, research by Matthew Holford has shown how during the first half of the fifteenth century ‘fictional testimonies became ever more common’ and that from 1418 to 1447 an increasing number of proofs of age were copied or adapted from earlier proofs (ranging from 20% to 46%).150 In this light, the four Essex cases can immediately be identified as fictitious since they share too many similarities. This was recognised more than a century ago by R.C. Fowler who observed that recollections of supposed events at Chelmsford, Little Laver, Thorpe-le-Soken and Layer Marney contained 12 common elements. Among them were apparent memories of someone dying and being buried; being injured at football; holding a burning torch at a baptism; falling off a cart laden with hay and breaking their left arm; seeing their house burnt and someone else hanging themselves.151 The Oxfordshire and Sussex cases are likewise fictitious since these witness testimonies very closely resemble those from Essex, although the two Sussex proofs of age supply an interesting variant: a man’s servant captured by the French and carried away to Harfleur. At the same time, these cases should not be collectively discarded since their evident plausibility is also revealing: it must have been considered unremarkable to pretend in court that football was played in these regions of England at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Moreover, it must have seemed credible that an adult male could have had their shin broken in a game played after the baptism of an infant. The remaining five cases differ from the Essex, Sussex and Oxfordshire examples, as well as from each other. Comparing them with proofs of age that do not refer to football, they contain varying degrees of non-replicated testimony. Of these, the recollected events at Dry Drayton and to a lesser extent at Sproughton are the most dubious since they include common motifs: celebration of first mass; strong wind damaging the church belfry or someone’s house; fatalities and suicide. Nevertheless, each incorporates sufficiently original testimony for it to remain plausible that at Dry Drayton William Burbage, then aged 25, broke his left arm while playing football with his associates on the Sunday following the feast of St Valentine 1417; and that at Sproughton John Halle, aged 26, was playing football and broke his right shin on Saturday,  M. Holford, ‘“Testimony (to some extent fictitious)”: proofs of age in the first half of the fifteenth century’, Historical Research, 82 (2009), pp. 635–54 (at pp. 637, 638). 151  R.C.  Fowler, ‘Legal Proofs of Age’, English Historical Review, 22 (1907), pp.  101–03; see also, M.T. Martin, ‘Legal Proofs of Age’, EHR, 22 (1907), pp. 526–27; A.E. Stamp, Legal Proofs of Age’, EHR, 29 (1914), pp. 323–24. 150

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6 December 1421. At Odell it is quite possible that on Sunday, 28 September 1410 there was a lot of football played and that William Ballard broke John Cook’s shin. At Stamford there seems little reason to doubt that on Sunday, 25 March 1397 John Upton was playing football at the ‘Old Bull Pyt’. And at Wolviston it seems likely that Thomas Marshall was hit on the shin and gravely injured while playing football with others on Shrove Tuesday 1380. While proofs of age provide us with one type of testimony that must be used cautiously in our chronological and geographical mapping of sporting injuries, recollections of miraculous healing give us another. There are two examples. The first was presented as part of the evidence to support the canonisation of Osmund (d.1099), a former bishop of Salisbury. This was formally examined by three Cardinals in 1424. It concerns the testimony of John Combe aged 50 of Quidhampton, Wiltshire who remembered ‘playing at ball with great clubs’ ten years before in the nearby village of Bemerton. A quarrel ensued during which Combe was struck on the head and right shoulder with a club. So violent was the blow that he was apparently unable to hear or see nor move his head or arm for more than three months. Then Combe beheld a vision of a man clothed in white, shining brightly, who instructed him to make a wax model of Combe’s head and shoulder indicating on it where his wounds were. Combe was to make an offering to Bishop Osmund of this crude replica (an ex-voto). On awaking Combe swiftly recovered and thereafter offered his prayer and thanks at Osmund’s tomb in Salisbury Cathedral. This supposed miracle was corroborated by a witness.152 The second example derives from an attempt by Henry VII to legitimate his rule by having his murdered half-uncle Henry VI canonised. Vernacular accounts of purported miracles attributed to the dead Lancastrian king seem to have been collected at Windsor Castle, the site of Henry’s reinterred remains, between 1484 and 1500. Amounting to at least 445 cases, 172 of these were translated into Latin by a monk, likely based at Canterbury, who added his own touches. Completed in 1500, this compilation was intended for papal commissioners.153 Among the extant alleged miracles was an ­uninvestigated and undated case concerning William Bartram. He had been playing football with an unruly crowd of people on a field in the vicinity of Caunton, Nottinghamshire. During this game Bartram was kicked in his  A.R. Malden (ed.), The Canonization of Saint Osmund from the manuscript records in the muniment room of Salisbury Cathedral (Salisbury, 1901), pp. xiv–xv, 71–73. 153  Ronald Knox and Shane Leslie (eds.), The Miracles of Henry VI. Being an account and Translation of Twenty-three Miracles (Cambridge, 1923), pp. 16–23; J.M. Theilmann, ‘The Miracles of King Henry VI of England’, The Historian, 42 (1980), pp. 456–71; Bertram Wolffe, Henry VI (New Haven & London, 2001), pp. 351–58. 152

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‘intimate parts’. As a result he ‘suffered long and unbearable pain’ until he saw ‘the glorious King Henry in a dream’, at which point the devout Bartram ‘immediately recovered the benefit of health’. The anonymous monk’s disapproving comments about ‘the game at which they had met for common recreation’, ‘called by some the foot-ball game’, remains our fullest pre-Reformation description: It is one in which young men, rural and unrestrained, habitually propel a huge ball not by throwing it into the air but by striking and rolling it along the ground, and that not with their hands but with their feet. A game, I say, abominable enough, and (in my sound judgment), more common undignified, and worthless than any kind of game, rarely ending but with some loss, accident, or disadvantage to the players themselves. But what? The boundaries had been marked and the game had started; and, when they were striving manfully kicking in opposite directions, and [our subject] had thrown himself into the midst of the fray, one of his fellows, I do not know which one, came up against him from in front and kicked him by misadventure, missing his aim at the ball.154

* * * One noteworthy aspect of these sources is the absence among the laity of any adult males of elite social status. This is because they were exempt from the legislation regulating various games discussed earlier. Yet there is evidence that besides tournaments and hunting with hounds and hawks, some aristocrats and members of the royal family also played ball games. This can mainly be found in their household accounts, which tend to link these diversions with gambling. Thus in 1300 Edward I’s chaplain was provided with 100s. for the use of a teenage Prince Edward to facilitate his ludic pursuits, including what may have been a bat-and-ball game.155 Again, in 1387 Henry Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV, lost 26s. 8d. playing handball with two of the Duke of

 BL, MS Royal 13 C VIII, fols. 62v–63r , printed in Paul Grosjean (ed.), Henrici VI Angliae regis miracula postuma. Ex codice Musei Britannici regio 13. c. viii, Subsidia hagiographica, 22 (Brussels, 1935), pp. 159–60; partly printed and translated in Knox and Leslie (eds.), Miracles of Henry VI, pp. 130–32. I have not entirely followed Knox’s translation here and am grateful to Diego Lucci for his helpful observations. 155  J. Topham (ed.), Liber quotidianus contrarotulatoris garderobae. Anno Regni Regis Edwardi primi vicesimo octavo (London, 1787), pp. xliii, 157; Gentleman’s Magazine, 58, part I (1788), pp. 189–90; James Pycroft, The Cricket Field (2nd edn., London, 1854), p. 13; Notes & Queries, 2nd series, 6 (1858), p. 133. 154

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York’s men.156 In 1414 Bolingbroke’s youthful son was the recipient of a gift of tennis balls from the Dauphin of France, an insult calculated to impugn the young king’s martial ambition. This incident was recorded in several chronicles and subsequently popularised in Shakespeare’s Henry V, where it served as part of an opening scene before the Battle of Agincourt.157 Twenty-­ five years later in mid-July 1439, during an interlude in peace negotiations between England and France, Renaud de Chartres, Archbishop of Rheims, hurt his foot playing at ball near Calais. It is unclear whether this happened in a game with fellow ambassadors, but if so then this could be the earliest recorded instance of a match played between people of different nationalities.158 Moving forward to Tudor monarchs, Henry VII lost money at tennis between 1494 and 1499,159 while his son Henry VIII was a passionate player who built the Chief Close Tennis Court at Whitehall.160 Indeed, the king played tennis well into middle age, losing a staggering £46–13s.–4d. in October 1532 to two French dignitaries.161 Interestingly in 1525 Henry also had a pair of shoes made for playing football costing 4s.162 Over in Scotland, James I played tennis.163 James IV played caich (at which he staked large sums), golf and football, as shown in the expenditure of 2s. on 22 April 1497 to purchase ‘fut ballis’ for the King.164  James Wylie, History of England under Henry the Fourth (4 vols., London, 1884–1898), vol. 3, pp. 325–26, vol. 4, p. 158. 157  HMC. Report on the records of the city of Exeter (London, 1916), p. 352; Nicolas (ed.), Proceedings and Ordinances of Privy Council, vol. 2, p. 340; Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas (ed.), A chronicle of London, from 1089 to 1483 (London, 1827), pp. 216–17; F.W.D. Brie (ed.), The Brut or the chronicles of England, Early English Text Society, 131 (1906), p. 374; Edward Hall, The union of the two noble and illustre famelies of Lancastre [and] Yorke (1548), fol. ixv; William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act I, scene ii; Julian Marshall, The Annals of Tennis (London, 1878), pp. 56–57; Gillmeister, Tennis, pp. 110–17. 158  Nicolas (ed.), Proceedings and Ordinances of Privy Council, vol. 5, preface p. liv; chronology, p. xix; p. 363. 159  Samuel Bentley (ed.), Excerpta Historica, or, illustrations of English History (London, 1831), pp. 87, 98, 101, 102, 108, 113, 122; Marshall, Annals of Tennis, pp. 60–61; Gillmeister, Tennis, pp. 21–22. 160  Marshall, Annals of Tennis, pp. 58, 63–67; George Dugdale, Whitehall through the centuries (London, 1950), p. 24. 161  Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, 1531–1532, vol. 5, p. 749; Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas (ed.), The Privy Purse Expences of King Henry the Eighth (London, 1827), pp. xxiii–xxiv, 134, 268, 283; Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, 1534, vol. 7, p. 564; Croft (ed.), Gouernour, vol. 1, pp. 292–93 note. 162  TNA, E 36/224, p. 53, calendared in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, 1524–1530, vol. 4, pp. 747–48, and discussed in Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of King Henry VIII (Abingdon, 2007), p. 113. 163  Gillmeister, Tennis, p. 21. 164  Thomas Dickson, Sir James Balfour Paul, et al. (eds.), Compota Thesaurariorum Regum Scotorum (11 vols., Edinburgh, 1877–1916), vol. 1, pp. ccliv–cclv, 275, 277, 330, 360, 386, 389 (at p. 330); vol. 3, pp. 187, 206; vol. 4, pp. 111, 132; Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England’, p. 45. 156

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Although the football played by James IV and Henry VIII may have differed considerably from the variants of the game played outside their courtly circles, the almost complete absence of royal and aristocratic participation in the sport prior to the early sixteenth century requires explanation; particularly since there is evidence of Scottish and, to a lesser extent, English noblemen playing football thereafter. It cannot have been because indulging in sport demeaned authority. On the contrary, such activity may have served as an affirmation of physical prowess and as male bonding exercises—especially when played among peers. Nor can it have been because playing football might lead to injury: Henry VIII was involved in serious jousting accidents in March 1524 and January 1536, while hunting could also be exceedingly dangerous. Rather, it seems that football was frowned upon because it was generally regarded as a game for commoners. Hence in his discussion of the forms of physical exercise appropriate for young men being groomed for governance, the humanist and diplomat Sir Thomas Elyot (c.1490–1546) declared that football, along with skittles and quoits, was an utterly unsuitable recreation for noblemen.165 In addition, it may be that the unregulated nature of football contrasted markedly with the elaborate rituals associated with tournaments and hunting, not to mention the formalised nature of tennis with its structured passages of play and widely understood scoring system.166 Away from the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII, our next half-dozen examples concern the deaths of their subjects during ball games. Most of these references were uncovered by Steven Gunn, firstly in his work on archery and then his larger project on accidental death in sixteenth-century England.167 Thus on Sunday, 20 February 1508 Thomas Bryan was playing ‘ffoteball’ at Yeovilton, Somerset when he inadvertently fell on his knife, which was hanging from his belt. The blade pierced his body and Bryan died immediately.168 The following year on Sunday, 4 February 1509 about 60 people gathered at Tregorden, Cornwall to play hurling according to the customary manner. Among them was John Coulyng who, holding a ball in his right hand, ran swiftly and strongly until he collided with Nicholas Jaane, labourer of Benboll. After a tussle Jaane threw Coulyng to the ground, breaking his left leg. Within

 Elyot, Gouernour, p. 99v; reprinted in Croft (ed.), Gouernour, vol. 1, p. 295.  John Frith, An other boke against Rastel (1537?), no pagination; Gillmeister, Tennis, p. 49. 167  S. Gunn, ‘Archery practice in early Tudor England’, Past & Present, 209 (2010), p. 65 n. 69; S. Gunn and T.  Gromelski, ‘Sport and Recreation in Sixteenth-Century England: the Evidence of Accidental Deaths’, in Rebekka von Mallinckrodt and Angela Schattner (eds.), Sports and Physical Exercise in Early Modern Culture (London & New York, 2016), pp. 49–64. 168  TNA, KB 9/448/44, . 165 166

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three weeks Coulyng died from this injury at Bodieve, Cornwall.169 On Tuesday, 9 January 1515 Thomas Blyth of Barley, Hertfordshire accidently killed Andrew Royston with a sheathed knife while playing football; Blyth was pardoned six months later.170 Then on Sunday, 8 February 1523 William Merten, husbandman of Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire was playing football at Waterbeach on the common green when he was forcefully obstructed by William Hay, servant of a Cambridge brewer. Merten died as a consequence of his fall, prompting Hay to flee. Hay was apparently poor since the inquest recorded that he had no goods or chattels.171 Twelve days later on Friday, 20 February 1523 John Langbern of Allerston, Yorkshire was playing football with Roger Bridkirk, labourer, and many others. They both ran after the ‘foteball’ before crashing into each other. Roger fell on top of John and crushed him to death on the spot.172 Finally in August 1526 John Hasapote, joiner, and William Kynge, labourer, together with some boys and girls were playing handball (‘Cacche’) on the King’s Road in Wheatley, Oxfordshire. Hasapote fell on the ball and then Kynge fell on top of him, accidently wounding Hasapote in the right side of his body through to the heart with a knife that he had in his pouch.173

IV It would be fair to say that prior to the Reformation we know more about where, when and by whom various ball games were played, as well as what happened when players were seriously injured or even killed, than what these games consisted of. This includes the various forms of football under discussion. Nor should this surprise us since there were no written rules at this period, with local knowledge of these ball games doubtless passed down to succeeding generations through oral tradition. In short, the manner in which football was played depended upon custom, memory and perhaps also innovation.174 To recap, it appears that unspecified ball games were played in Hampshire (Winchester); Surrey (Kingston-upon-Thames); London; Essex (Tillingham); Norfolk (King’s  TNA, KB 9/451/11, .  Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, 1515–1518, vol. 2, p. 178. There was a piece of ground called Playstow in Barely, Hertfordshire assigned as a playground for children under a deed of 1638; see John Field, A History of English Field-Names (London, 1993), p. 242. 171  TNA, KB 9/494/47, . 172  TNA, KB 9/490/54, . 173  TNA, KB 9/973/18. 174  Cf. E.G. Dunning and N. Elias, ‘Folk Football in Medieval and Early Modern Britain’, in E.G. Dunning (ed.), The Sociology of Sport: A Selection of Readings (London, 1971), pp. 124–25. 169 170

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Lynn, Shouldham); Oxfordshire (Bicester Priory, Oxford); Wiltshire (Salisbury Cathedral); Gloucestershire (St Peter’s, Gloucester); Staffordshire (Tamworth); Yorkshire (Byram, wapentake of Strafford, York Minster); Northumberland (Ulgham); and Ireland (Dublin, on the frozen River Liffey in 1338).175 This assumes a correlation between prohibiting ball games and the likelihood of someone having played them. With that caveat and at the same time acknowledging the problematic nature of testimony—particularly proofs of age—it seems that football was played in London; Middlesex (Hayes); Suffolk (Beccles, Sproughton); Norfolk (King’s Lynn); Bedfordshire (Odell); Buckinghamshire (Hawridge); Cambridgeshire (Dry Drayton, Waterbeach); Hertfordshire (Barley); Lincolnshire (Lincoln Cathedral, Lindsey, Stamford); Wiltshire (Castle Combe); Somerset (Yeovilton); Leicestershire (Leicester); Nottinghamshire (Caunton); Staffordshire (Walsall); Yorkshire (Allerston, Barkston, Halifax, Market Weighton, Northallerton, Pontefract, Salton, Wistow); county Durham (Aycliffe, Billingham, Ferryhill, Helmington Row, Heworth, East Merrington, Southwick, Wolviston); Cumberland (Shap); Northumberland (Hartley); Scotland (St Andrews University); and Ireland (Dublin, Galway). Moreover, there was soule in Cornwall (Trigg?) and camping in Essex (Copford, Heybridge) as well as Suffolk (Cratfield, Hollesley). In addition, and besides handball, jeu de paume and tennis, what appears to have been bat-and-ball games were played in Cornwall (Tregorden), Wiltshire (Bemerton, Castle Combe), Oxfordshire (Oxford), Kent (Sturry), Lincolnshire (Scottlethorpe) and Ireland (Galway, Kilkenny, Newcastle Lyons) (Fig. 11). This imperfect picture of the geography of ball games in the British Isles before the Reformation can be improved upon through further sources still, notably probate bequests, deeds, tithe maps and place names. David Dymond’s pioneering work on camping closes has brought much of this material together. Thus at Hawstead, Suffolk the ‘camping pightel’ or small field adjoining the eastside of the churchyard was leased along with the church-­ house for 13s. 4d. a year in the late fifteenth century.176 At Fornham St Genevieve, Suffolk a lease dated May 1519 and a deed dated 25 March 1540 both specified a parcel of land called ‘le Camping close’.177 Staying in Suffolk, there was a camping close at Debenham (1476), Felixstowe (1499) and  John Gilbert (ed.), Chartularies of St. Mary’s Abbey, Dublin (2 vols., 1884, reprinted, Cambridge, 2012), vol. 2, p.  381; cf. William Stubbs (ed.), Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II (London, 1882), vol. 1, p. 158. 176  Sir John Cullum, The History and Antiquities of Hawsted, and Hardwick, in the County of Suffolk (1784, 2nd edn., London, 1813), pp.  124–25; Edward Moor, Suffolk Words and Phrases (London, 1823), pp. 65–66; Robert Forby, The Vocabulary of East Anglia (London, 1830), p. 53; Field, History of English Field-Names, p. 245. 177  Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds, 449/2/225; John Gage, The History and Antiquities of Hengrave, in Suffolk (London, 1822), pp. 10–11, 107, 171. 175

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Fig. 11  (a) The geography of ball games in the British Isles before the reformation. (b) North of River Trent. (c) South of River Trent

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Fig. 11  (continued)

Walsham-le-Willows (1509); camping land at Hopton (1532) and Stanton (1452); and a ‘campynghyll’ at Blythburgh (1526).178 Over in Swaffham, Norfolk there was a three-acre field abutting the churchyard called the camping close. This enclosure was originally known as ‘le Churchcroft’. It was administered by trustees and had been bequeathed to the town by the rector Dr John Botryght [Botwright] (d.1474), who was also Master of Corpus  Dymond, ‘Lost Social Institution’, pp.  167–69, 178–79; Katherine Jewell, ‘Festive Culture in Pre-­ Reformation Rural Suffolk’, Unpublished University of East Anglia Ph.D., 2013, pp. 183–86. 178

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Fig. 11  (continued)

Christi College, Cambridge.179 In Cambridgeshire too there was ‘le Campingplace’ at Fulbourn (1540).180 It seems that in rural areas many of these customary places for camping were either on land abutting or nearby the churchyard or else, as Dymond says, in nucleated villages ‘lying behind a row of houses or at one end of the street’.181 As we have seen, judging from various prohibitions a number of churchyards were also sites of ball games and this contested space, which was sometimes also used to stage plays and pageants, has likewise been explored by Dymond.182 Yet sometimes clergymen sided with their parishioners in disputes about how land was used. An important example was discovered by the late Lesley Boatwright. This concerned a piece of land in Bethersden, Kent called Courtfield which was held by the prior of St Gregory’s, Canterbury. On Saturday, 10 February 1481 a farmer named Richard Carpenter prepared to  Norfolk Record Office, Norwich, PD 52/273–78, quoted in H. Falvey, ‘Communal Leisure in Late-­ Medieval England’, The Ricardian, 10 (1995), p. 196; Zachary Clark, An Account of the different charities belonging to the poor of the county of Norfolk, abridged from the returns (Bury St. Edmunds, 1811), pp. 231–32; Forby, Vocabulary of East Anglia, p. 53; Dymond, ‘Lost Social Institution’, pp. 166, 167, 171. 180  P.H. Reaney, The Origin of English Place-Names (London, 1960), p. 160; Field, History of English Field-­ Names, p. 245. 181  Dymond, ‘Lost Social Institution’, p. 166. 182  D. Dymond, ‘God’s Disputed Acre’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 50 (1999), pp. 464–97. 179

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plough this field on the morrow. This would have been a breach of the Sabbath but of greater concern to the vicar, Alexander Syda, was that Courtfield was where locals played football. Accordingly, Syda was accused of having ‘cunningly plotted maliciously to harm, frustrate and disturb’ Carpenter by causing ‘to be made various foot balls called ffoteballs’ and on Sunday, 11 February: which was a holiday but not a feast day, gathered together into his company as many unknown evil-doers and disturbers of the peace … as he possibly could, to the number of 20 persons, who helped him in a riotous manner, with force of arms, namely with staves and knives, and he entered the aforesaid piece of land and then and there played at football … for a greater part of the same day with the aforesaid malefactors, and trampled and ruined the grass … by walking on it with his feet and beating it, riotously singing, exclaiming, and making a hue and cry and keeping on openly and publicly, and saying in these words ‘This is the comen Grounde and comen pleiyng place for all men of this p[ar]isshe. I wold the priour or his [tenant] were now here to let us to pleie here and if he or his [tenant] wold now begyn to [plough] this grounde to let us of our pleiyng place in good feith we shall tere ther hodis.’

Thereupon Carpenter’s farming equipment, including his plough, was broken and ‘ripped to pieces’ then scattered about various parts of Courtfield with the wheels hung high in the trees. Apparently ‘the game of football had not been seen or played in that said parish for many years before then’.183 Clearly the legal language here is formulaic and the narrative framed from the plaintiff’s perspective. Nonetheless, that the incident resulted in a judicial inquiry indicates both how infringing customary rights could exacerbate local tensions and how football could be used as a pretext to assert or reclaim those threatened rights. Indeed, during the seventeenth century there were a number of riots in eastern rural areas linked to football; notably in the Fens of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Lincolnshire where there was strong opposition to land reclamation through drainage schemes as well as to enclosures. Turning from where to when, we have 26 specific dates for when ball games were played in the British Isles before the Reformation. Of these at least 16 concern football. The most common days of the week were Sunday (14), Tuesday (7) and Wednesday (2), with one occurrence on a Monday, Friday and Saturday. The most common months were February (9), March (5), June (3), April (2) and July (2), with one occurrence in January, May, September,   TNA, KB 9/365/22, , printed with English translation in L. Boatwright, ‘A Fifteenth-Century Football Hooligan’, Ricardian Bulletin (Autumn 2007), pp. 27–28. 183

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Fig. 12  Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 5, ‘Psalter’ (c.1320–1330), fol. 123r

November and December. There is also evidence for calendar customs, notably Shrove Tuesday (London, Wolviston, Pontefract)184; Ash Wednesday (Wistow); feast of St Gregory (Oxford); vigil of the feast of the Annunciation (Oxford); feast of the Annunciation (Stamford); Hock Days (London); Jubilate Sunday (wapentake of Strafford); Pentecost week (London); Trinity Sunday (Ulgham); vigil of the translation of St Thomas the Martyr (Wells Cathedral); feast of St Katherine the Virgin and Martyr (Bicester Priory)185 and feast of St Nicholas (Sproughton).

 Cf. John Abernethy Kingdon (ed.), Facsimile of the first volume of the MS. archives of the Worshipful company of Grocers of the city of London, A.D. 1345–1463 (London, 1886), part ii, p. 230, paid to ‘the Bachelers reuell’ at Shrovetide, 3s. 4d. (1433–1434). 185  White Kennett, Parochial Antiquities attempted in the History of Ambrosden, Burcester, and other adjacent parts (Oxford, 1695), ed. B. Bandinel (2 vols., Oxford, 1818), vol. 2, p. 259. 184

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Fig. 13  Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 6, ‘Psalter’ (c.1320–1330), fol. 148r

As for whom, we have seen that boys and adolescents—including students and possibly apprentices too—played ball games, but that girls seem mostly to have watched.186 However, there is continental visual evidence of female participation, notably a French manuscript with illustrations by Jehan de Grise of Bruges entitled the ‘Romance of Alexander’ (1338–1344) [Fig. 3a and b], as well as a couple of Flemish Psalters (c.1320–1330) [Figs. 12 and 13]. Though there is no indication that women played football before the Reformation, they may have been spectators. Indeed, there is the later example of Mary, Queen of Scots. In June 1568, having abdicated and fled to England, she watched a football match played by about 20 of her retinue on a ‘playing-greene’ somewhere between Carlisle Castle and the Scottish  For literary treatment of a girl (symbolising youth) playing at ball, see Furnivall (ed.), Pilgrimage of Life of Man, part ii, p. 303.

186

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border.187 With regard to the social status of adult male footballers, this varied. But the vast majority were commoners, an impression reinforced by a derogatory half-line from Shakespeare’s King Lear: ‘you base Foot-ball plaier’.188 Thus we know of pelters, tailors and tapissers [weavers] in London. While in rural areas we have seen mention of labourers, servants, attendants, tenant farmers, villeins and a husbandman—but no yeomen. Minor clergy also played games despite various injunctions; including a canon, clerks, a curate, a rector and vicars. Determining the age of these adults is more difficult but, judging mostly from testimony, between 20 and 40 seems a reasonable inference. As for how many, there is a mixture of literary and legal evidence. Hence one poem has ‘iij hedles playen at a ball/on hanles man served hem all’.189 There is also an anti-Jewish ballad, possibly dating from the fifteenth century, which expands upon the alleged ritual murder of Hugh of Lincoln in 1255. This survives in several versions and contains the lines: Four and twenty bonny boys/Were playing at the ba, … He kickd the ba with his right foot,/And catchd it wi his knee.190

More promising is a Latin sentence with English translation recorded in a school book in the early 1480s by William Ingram, afterwards a monk at Canterbury Cathedral: ‘Viginti unus homines currunt ad pilam pedalem. XXj men ren at ye fote bale.’191 But this may have been merely an educational exercise. So we are on firmer ground with legal proceedings. Thus we know of four players in Trigg; eight at Hollesley; eight at London; 18 at Aycliffe; 20 at Bethersden (although this is a suspiciously round number) and roughly 60 at Tregorden. Moreover, we have testimony of about 60 at Helmington Row (all surnamed Oll) and 62 fined at Billingham, Wolviston and Aycliffe. If the last example concerns a single rather than multiple events then it suggests a football match involving players drawn not just from two neighbouring villages,  BL, MS Cotton Caligula B. ix, fol. 291, printed in Victoria County History. Cumberland, vol. 2, pp. 276–77. 188  William Shakespeare, King Lear (1605), Act i, scene iv, line 95. 189  Bodl., MS Eng. poet. e. 1, fol. 26v , printed in Thomas Wright (ed.), Songs and Carols from a manuscript … of the Fifteenth Century, Percy Society, 23 (London, 1847), p. 35. 190  Francis James Child (ed.), The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (5 vols., Boston, 1882–1898, reprinted, 3 vols., New York: Folklore Press, 1957), vol. 3, pp. 243, 245; Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England’, p. 41; G. Langmuir, ‘The Knight’s Tale of Young Hugh of Lincoln’, Speculum, 47 (1972), p. 460. 191  BL, MS Harleian 1587, fol. 71r, printed in N. Orme, ‘School exercises from Canterbury, c. 1480’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 131 (2011), p. 119. 187

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but from an additional rural community more than a dozen miles away. This is certainly possible since we have seen that a man from Great Shelford played at Waterbeach, nearly ten miles distant from his home. We do not know how football games were won or lost before the Reformation. Nor, unlike tennis, is there evidence for a scoring system. While Gillmeister may be correct that the innovation of a goal derived from the chivalric passage of arms, it is worth emphasising that although the earliest recorded usage of ‘gol’—in the sense of a boundary or limit—derives from the mid-fourteenth century, it was an exceedingly rare term. Indeed, the word does not commonly occur until the Tudor period, when its meaning included the finishing or starting point of a race; an aim or outcome; a prize for success; and an objective to attack or defend in a ball game.192 Only in February 1582 is there a specific reference to ‘le goal’ in connection with football, when an unfortunate husbandman of Gosfield, Essex—whose role was to guard that goal—was accidentally killed as the result of a violent collision.193 Accordingly, we should be wary of inferring how the outcomes of pre-Reformation football contests were determined. It may, moreover, be anachronistic to speak of a ‘football match’ during our period since the first known association of football with a ‘match’ dates from May 1581.194 What can be said with confidence is that the camping closes of East Anglia were demarcated spaces, while the anonymous and likely Canterbury-based monk, who commented upon the case of a supposed miraculous recovery from an agonising football injury, observed that ‘boundaries were marked’ and a ball kicked in opposite directions. So perhaps the earliest goals in rural contests were the limits of a field, with the objective to get the ball to one end or the other.195 As for duration, this seems to have varied. While the spectacle Mary, Queen of Scots, watched reportedly lasted about two hours, some pre-Reformation games apparently only terminated with sunset. Since many were played in February and March, daylight hours would have been shorter than in summer.

 OED, s.v. ‘goal’; Elyot, Gouernour, p. 208v, ‘passyng the gole’; Hall, Union of Lancastre [and] Yorke, ccciiijv, ‘gott the gole before me’; Richard Stanhurst, ‘A Treatise conteining a plaine and perfect description of Ireland’ (1577), in Raphaell Holinshed, Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (6 vols., London, 1807), vol. 1, p. 10, ‘to cope and buckle with him herein: and before he beare the ball to the goale, to trip him if I may in the way’. 193  TNA, ASSI 35/24/1, mem. 44, in J.S. Cockburn (ed.), Calendar of Assize Records: Essex Indictments. Elizabeth I (London, 1978), p. 227. 194  BL, MS Lansdowne 33, fol. 58, printed in James Heywood and Thomas Wright (eds.), Cambridge University transactions during the Puritan controversies of the 16th and 17th centuries (2 vols., London, 1854), vol. 1, p. 305. 195  Cf. F.E. Halliday (ed.), Richard Carew of Antony. The Survey of Cornwall (London, 1953), pp. 147–50. 192

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Regarding victors’ rewards, commoners—like their social superiors—gambled on the outcome of ball games. Triumph may also have wrested bragging rights. In addition, there is Sir David Lyndsay’s 1550 verse eulogy to his friend William Meldrum. Written in the form of a chivalric romance, it describes how squire Meldrum ‘wan the pryse above them all’ both at archery and football.196 But prizes for hurling and football in the form of tangible goods such as a silver ball, barrels of ale or hats seem to have been awarded mostly from about the beginning of the seventeenth century.197 Innkeepers too may have offered gifts as a way of increasing custom from players and spectators alike. Some may even have owned footballs for that purpose. There is a hint of this in a line from the morality play Mankind (c.1475): ‘What, how! ostler, hostler! lende ws a foot-ball!’198 Turning to costume, besides the specialised footwear made for Henry VIII there is some visual evidence. This comes from illuminated manuscripts and a couple of misericords, that is wooden carvings on the underside of a hinged seat in a choir stall. Misericords are extremely difficult to date accurately. Nonetheless, an example from the mid-fourteenth century at Gloucester Cathedral clearly depicts a ball game, while one from the mid-fifteenth century at All Souls College, Oxford seems to show football (Figs. 14 and 15).199 What is noteworthy here is the absence of robust protective equipment, particularly for the shins and upper body. Thus according to Oscar Clark, the carving at Gloucester depicts: Two youths playing with a large ball, wearing tight leggings and pointed shoes; both have jupons reaching to the knee, jagged at the bottom, and buttoned with close-set buttons down the front; their buckled belts sustain their gypcyeres

 David Laing (ed.), The Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1879), vol. 1, p. 193; J.K. McGinley, ‘Lyndsay [Lindsay], Sir David (c.1486–1555)’, ODNB. 197  Halliday (ed.), Survey of Cornwall, pp. 148–49, 151; The Weekly Intelligencer, no. 329 (25 April–2 May 1654), p. 240; The Moderate Intelligencer, no. 176 (26 April–4 May 1654), p. 1385; Bodl., MS Rawlinson D 71, fol. 15r; BL, Add. MS 28,554, fol. 137; Matthew Concanen, A Match at Foot-ball (Dublin, 1720), p.  11; R.W.  Ketton Cremer, ‘Camping—a forgotten Norfolk Game’, Norfolk Archaeology, 24 (1932), p. 91; cf. Lawrence Clopper (ed.), Records of Early English Drama: Chester (Manchester, 1979), pp. 40–41. 198  Manly (ed.), Specimens of pre-Shaksperean Drama, vol. 1, p.  343; F.J.  Furnivall and Alfred Pollard (eds.), The Macro Plays, Early English Text Society, extra series, 91 (London, 1904), p.  27; Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England’, p. 41. 199  Phillis Cunnington and Alan Mansfield, English Costume for Sports and Outdoor recreation from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries (London, 1969), p. 48 & plate 9 [between pp. 52–53]. 196

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Fig. 14  Misericord, Gloucester Cathedral (mid-fourteenth century) [No. 33]. www.misericords.co.uk/images/Gloucester/Gloucester 33.13.JPG. (Copyright Dominic Strange © 2021)

(wallets); they wear their hoods, jagged or escalloped … at the borders, and have very long and sharp liripipes hanging down behind.200

How participants identified which players were on their side is an open question. Presumably many knew each other by sight. Yet it is not until considerably later that we have accounts of distinguishable teams. Thus newsbook reports of a 50-a-side Cornish hurling match played with a silver ball at Hyde Park on Monday, 1 May 1654—with the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell  O.W.  Clark, ‘The Misereres in Gloucester Cathedral’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 28 (1905), p. 84. A liripipe is a long tail hanging from the back of a hood. 200

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Fig. 15  (a) Misericord, All Souls College, Oxford (mid-fifteenth century). http://www. misericords.co.uk/images/All%20Souls-­Oxford/N19.jpg. (Copyright Dominic Strange © 2021). (b) Misericord, All Souls College, Oxford (mid-fifteenth century) [detail]. (Copyright Dominic Strange © 2021)

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attending—indicate that one ‘party’ of ‘Gentlemen’ wore white caps, and their opponents red.201 Perhaps surprisingly, little can be said about footballs before 1500. We have seen that they were described as large or huge, which would have made them suitable for kicking. Yet how big is difficult to say, since surviving visual representations may not have been to scale. There are also two fifteenth-century similes that attempted to humorously compare the spherical dimensions to parts of a woman’s form. One was by the poet and clerk Thomas Hoccleve (c.1367–1426): ‘Hir comly body/shape as a foot bal’.202 The other by the Suffolk-born poet John Lydgate (c.1370–1449/50?) was a satirical description of his ‘fayr lady’. She wore a green hood and had two small breasts that when squeezed together appeared like a large camping ball: This fair floure of womanheed/Hath too pappys also smalle, Bolsteryd out of lenghth and breed,/Lyche a large campyng balle.203

Besides their size, footballs and camping balls were comparatively expensive. We have seen that in the early fifteenth century attempts were made in London to prevent the collection of money to purchase footballs on Hock Days. Moreover, the churchwardens of Cratfield spent 4d. on a camping ball in 1534. Far costlier was the leather football customarily used during the annual Shrove Tuesday match at Chester. According to an entry in the assembly books of the city’s corporation dated January 1540, it had traditionally been given as a gift by the shoemakers. Made of leather, it was valued at 3s. 4d.204 I will discuss elsewhere the attempt by Chester’s mayor and magistrates to suppress this Shrove Tuesday game. Here I want to focus on the link between shoemakers and football. For in March 1409 six tapissers and two parishioners of St Dionis Backchurch, London gave sureties for their good behaviour to the Cordwainers that they would not collect money to pay for a football or for cock-thrashing.205 Given their expertise in working leather, this suggests that the shoemakers of London and Chester made footballs. But whereas archaeological evidence from Winchester and London indicates that  Weekly Intelligencer (25 April–2 May 1654), p. 240; Moderate Intelligencer (26 April–4 May 1654), p. 1385. 202  Furnivall and Gollancz (eds.), Hoccleve’s Works, vol. 2, p.  38; Magoun, ‘Football in Medieval England’, p. 40. 203  Halliwell (ed.), Minor poems of Lydgate, vol. 2, p. 200. 204  Clopper (ed.), Chester, pp. 40–41; Magoun, ‘Shrove Tuesday Football’, pp. 11–14. 205  Thomas (ed.), Calendar of Select Pleas, pp. 291–92. 201

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smaller leather balls dating from the tenth to mid-twelfth centuries were packed with moss, we do not know what leather footballs were stuffed with before the sixteenth century. Nor should we push the connection between shoemakers and football manufacturers too far, since from about 1460 to 1535 the London Ironmongers’ Company was a major retailer of tennis balls.206 Nicholas Orme has suggested that the customary slaughter of pigs on All Saints Day, 1 November, ‘may have inaugurated the football season’ by ‘providing bladders for ball games’.207 Yet we have noted that slightly more than half of the pre-Reformation ball games for which we have a specific date were in February and March, with only single instances in November, December and January. All the same, there is additional literary evidence depicting certain ball games as winter pastimes. This comes from the fifth eclogue of Alexander Barclay (c.1484–1552), parts of which were written in 1513 or 1514, but which was not published until 1518. Besides being a poet, Barclay was also a clergyman and he was briefly employed at Ottery St Mary, Devon— where, it will be recalled, a complaint had been made against playing tennis.208 According to one of his characters: Eche tyme and season/hath his delyte and joyes, Loke in the stretes/beholde the lyttel boyes How in fruyte season/for joye they synge and hope In Lent echeone/full busy is with his tope And now in wynter/for all the greuous colde All rent and ragyd/a man maye them beholde They haue great pleasure/supposynge well to dyne Whan men ben busyed/in kyllynge of fat swyne They get the bladder/and blowe it grete tand thyn With many beanes/or peasen bounde within It ratleth/soundeth/and shyneth clere and fayre whyle it is throwen/and cast vp in the ayre Echeone contendeth/and hath a grete delyte with fote or with hande/the bladder for to smyte yf it fall to grounde/they lyfte it vp agayne This wyse to labour/they count it for no payne Rennynge and lepynge/they dryue a waye the colde The sturdy plowmen/lusty stronge and bolde Ouercometh the wynter/with dryuynge the fote ball  Marshall, Annals of Tennis, pp. 58–59.  Nicholas Orme, Medieval Children (New Haven & London, 2003), p. 187. 208  Nicholas Orme, ‘Barclay, Alexander (c.1484–1552)’, ODNB. 206 207

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forgetynge labour/and many a greuous fall.209

Here two distinct games are described. Firstly one played by little boys which involved using their feet and hands to strike a ball into the air. This shiny ball was made from the bladder of a slaughtered pig. The bladder was blown to a great size and then stuffed with beans or peas so that it made a rattling sound. It was presumably quite light so that boys could hit it. Secondly, a more violent game involving ‘sturdy’ ploughmen who overcame winter’s cold by driving the football (i.e. forcing it along), suffering many knocks to the ground in the process. The former children’s game described by Barclay has similarities with a sentence from a school textbook by William Horman (1457–1535), sometime headmaster of Winchester and afterwards a fellow of Eton College: ‘we wyll pley with a ball full of wynde. Lusui erit nobis follis pugillari spiritu tume[n]s.’210 This game has been mistaken for football. Yet it is clear both from the Latin and from Sir Thomas Elyot’s Dictionary (1538) that it was not. Rather, this lighter—and likely smaller—type of ball was called ‘Pugillatorius follis’; that is ‘a ball fylled onely with wynde, which is stryken with a mans fiste, and not with the palme’. Elyot was quite certain about the difference, since he classified what was called ‘Sphennida’ as ‘a balle made of lether or cloth, greater than a tenyse balle’.211 About the same time that Elyot was writing a ball was placed, kicked or thrown in the rafters of the Queen’s chamber in Stirling Castle. We are fortunate that it was discovered in 1981. It has been suggested that this is the oldest surviving football in the world. Dating from the 1540s, it was apparently made from a pig’s bladder, covered in cow leather, stitched and measured about 150 mm in diameter. That seems rather small for a football. Yet it is still much larger than balls that were used for caich, with some examples found at St Andrews ranging from 40 mm to 65 mm in diameter. These probably date from the eighteenth or early nineteenth century and consist of tightly wound yarn with leather covers.212 Other caich balls, possibly older, have been found at Edinburgh. The Stirling ball, moreover, accords with a report of the game  Alexander Barclay, The fyfte Eglog of Alexander Barclay of the Cytezen and uplondyshman (London, 1518), sig. Aiiir–v. 210  William Horman, Vulgaria uiri doctissimi (London, 1519), fol. 282v; Nicholas Orme, ‘Horman, William (1457–1535)’, ODNB. The preceding sentence is ‘He hyt me in the yie with a tenys balle’. 211  Sir Thomas Elyot, The dictionary of syr Thomas Eliot (London, 1538), no pagination; Sir Thomas Elyot, Bibliotheca Eliotiae (London, 1542), sig. Ii.iiii; cf. Niccolò Perotti, Cornucopia (Basel, 1532), col. 601; see also Thomas Fosbroke, Encyclopaedia of Antiquities (2 vols., London, 1825), vol. 2, p. 606. 212  I.  Carradice, ‘A group of cache balls from St Andrews’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 132 (2002), pp. 521–28. 209

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played by Mary Stuart’s retinue in 1568, which remarked upon the fair play resulting from ‘the smallnes of theyr balle’.213 So far we have noted instances of clerical participation, encouragement, facilitation or tolerance of a variety of ball games. Another example may be added, notably a gift of 4d. from the prior of Bicester to several football players on Sunday, 25 November 1425 to celebrate the feast of St Katherine the Virgin and Martyr—four pence may have been sufficient to purchase a ball.214 Perhaps these clergymen wanted to maintain cordial relations with their parishioners by giving them licence to enjoy themselves, so long as it was not within the church or churchyard, nor during the hours of divine service. We have seen that where and when ball games were played was important, and that the desire by churchmen to prevent the profanation of consecrated ground was reinforced by injunctions, monitions and threats. These messages were communicated directly both to the laity and minor clergy. Thus about 1400 a preacher warned his flock to refrain from dancing, worldly songs, interludes, casting the stone, playing at ball, idle japes and plays in either the church or churchyard.215 Similarly, John Myrc (fl. c.1400), a canon of Lilleshall priory, Shropshire, enumerated those games which could not be played in the church or churchyard.216 But a few condemnations went further. Reginald Pecock (c.1392–1459?), sometime bishop of Chichester, asked where it was permissible in Scripture for men to play in words by making jests, or in deeds by running, leaping, shooting, sitting down to merels [nine men’s morris] and casting quoits.217 Again, in a sermon falsely attributed to the Dominican Albertus Magnus (d.1280) published at Augsburg in the 1470s, it was declared that: The Lord goes before us with the staff of his cross, and we ought to follow his steps; but those who attend dances or chase balls, do not follow the steps of Christ but of the devil.218

 BL, MS Cotton Caligula B. ix, fol. 291, printed in VCH. Cumberland, vol. 2, pp. 276–77.  Kennett, Parochial Antiquities, ed. B. Bandinel, vol. 2, p. 259. 215  Lawrence Clopper, Drama, Play, and Game. English Festive culture in the Medieval and early modern period (Chicago, 2001), p. 17. 216  Peacock (ed.), Instructions for parish priests, p. 11. 217  Reginald Pecock, The Repressor of over much blaming of the Clergy, ed. Churchill Babington (London, 1860), vol. 1, p. 120. 218  ‘Sermones notabiles et formales magistri Alberti ordinis praedicatorum’, in Sermons de tempore et de sanctis (Augsburg: Johann Wiener, c. 1476–1480), p. 214v, with a slightly different English translation in Hart (ed.), Ecclesiastical Records, p. 73. 213 214

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Thomas More (1478–1535) too associated brothels with wine shops and alehouses, condemning the latter as places where people emptied their purses by gambling at ‘crooked games of chance’ such as ‘dice, cards, backgammon, ball, bowling, and quoits’.219 The Bridgettine monk Richard Whitford (d.1543?) likewise denounced common pastimes: bearbaiting, bullbaiting, football, tennis and bowls, as well as unlawful games such as cards, dice and closh. For Whitford such recreations inevitably led to breach of the Sabbath.220 Moving firmly into the Reformation period there is also Sir David Lyndsay’s morality play Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis (1552), in which Catholic indulgence of ball games and gambling is censured through the character of a Popish parson who boasts that although he cannot preach, he can ‘play at the caiche’ and furiously at ‘the fut-ball’ as well as at cards, tables and dice.221 Turning from morality to medicine, we have noted a denunciation of football as nothing but ‘beastly furie, and exstreme violence’. These were Thomas Elyot’s words, although they have not been adequately explained. As a humanist Elyot had read a second-century Latin treatise on hygiene (‘De Sanitate Tuenda’) by Galen of Pergamum (129?–199/216), otherwise known as ‘On the preservation of health’. Drawing on book two of this work, Elyot distinguished between valiant and vehement exercise. The former required power and tended towards violence; the latter was a mixture of strength and celerity. To maintain a healthy body required moderate exercise, which was a mean between every extreme. But whereas tennis was ‘a good exercise’ for young men, Elyot nonetheless scorned the ‘mediocritie’ (i.e. intermediate state) of bowls, closh, nine pins and quoits. As for the ‘exstreme violence’ of football, this was not only a commentary on the consequences of the game but also an understanding of it in Galenic terms: as vehement exercise.222 These ideas were developed in Elyot’s Castel of helthe (1539) where, having approved wrestling as suitable for young men training for warfare, he included tennis and throwing of the ball among swift exercises ‘without violence’. By contrast, Elyot considered ‘footeball play’ as vehement exercise—that is a mixture of both violent and swift exercise.223 In the same vein, the physician Christopher  Edward Surtz and J.H. Hexter (eds.), The Complete Works of St. Thomas More. Vol. IV. Utopia (New Haven, 1965), pp. 68, 69; cf. Sir Thomas More, The co[n]futacyon of Tyndales answere (1532), p. cxvi, ‘For so he maye translate the worlde in to a foteball yf he ioyne therwyth certeyne cyrcumstaunces, and saye this rownde rollynge foteball that menne walke vppon and shippes sayle uppon’. 220  Richard Whitford, A werke for housholders (London, 1530), sig. Diiir–2; J.T.  Rhodes, ‘Whitford, Richard (d.1543?)’, ODNB. 221  Douglas Hamer (ed.), The Works of Sir David Lindsay of the Mount 1490–1555 (Edinburgh & London, 1931–1936), vol. 2, p. 317. 222  Elyot, Gouernour, pp. 98r–99v; reprinted in Croft (ed.), Gouernour, vol. 1, pp. 289–97. 223  Thomas Elyot, The castel of helthe (London, 1539), pp. 50v–51. 219

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Langton (1521–1578) enumerated permissible exercises, including hunting, dancing, running, jumping, tennis and football, recommending those activities which exercised all parts of the body equally.224 Slightly beyond our period another physician, John Caius (1510–1573), discouraged camping. He considered it more suitable for breaking legs than exercise—although Caius did not condemn camping completely if hurt could be avoided.225 * * * To conclude we need to provide some explanations for the association of ball games—particularly football—with pain, injury and death. Unfortunately there is insufficient material to state anything confidently. Indeed, it is only for the later period, which is much more fully documented, that we can begin to say anything with a measure of assurance. And while it would be foolish to think that evidence from the ‘Long Reformation’ is directly applicable to the pre-Reformation period, there are nonetheless several questions worth investigating. Firstly, was playing ball games one of the ways in which people affirmed their identity, whether parochial or guild? At present there is no evidence to support this, so it must be left open. Secondly, were certain ball games largely specific to particular regions? David Underdown suggested that broadly speaking during the early modern period ‘the football played in much of the midlands and southern England was a communal, collectivist game’, whereas camping in East Anglia was ‘more structured’.226 Again, there is no evidence to support this, although the comparative absence of football in western counties and especially in Wales before the Reformation is striking. Whether that was due to different agricultural practices and indeed rates of economic development, or whether this picture merely reflects surviving records and the current state of knowledge is difficult to say. Thirdly, can football be linked to the maintenance of territorial boundaries? Tony Collins suggested that in ‘rural towns and villages’ playing ‘folk football’ may have been linked to Rogationtide festivities around Ascension Day, when many parishes observed the custom of beating the bounds.227 Once again, there is no evidence to support this. Indeed, we have seen that the camping fields of East Anglia did not mark the limits of a parish but rather were generally situated  Christopher Langton, An introduction into phisycke (1545?), fol. lxxviir–v.  John Caius, A boke, or counseill against the disease commonly called the sweate (1552), p. 29. 226  D.  Underdown, ‘Regional Cultures? Local Variations in Popular Culture during the Early Modern Period’, in Tim Harris (ed.), Popular Culture in England c.1500–1850 (Basingstoke, 1995), pp. 37–39. 227  T.  Collins, ‘Football’, in Tony Collins, John Martin and Wray Vamplew (eds.), Encyclopedia of Traditional British Rural Sports (London & New York, 2005), p. 116. 224 225

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close to the churchyard or else behind the houses of a nucleated village. All that can be said is that some rural folk travelled up to ten miles to play football, suggesting that through word of mouth news of a game could spread quite widely. Fourthly, were ball games intimately linked to local calendar customs? This generated some unwarranted speculation during the early part of the twentieth century. One scholar, for example, thought that some of the most popular and enduring village rites may have originated as animal—or even human—sacrifice, ‘the object being to propitiate the powers of evil which affect the fertility of the crops or injure children or cattle’.228 Similarly, in his study of The Mediaeval Stage E.K. Chambers suggested that in hockey and football ‘the ball is nothing else than the head of the sacrificial beast, and it is the endeavour of each player to get it into his own possession, or, if sides are taken, to get it over a particular boundary’.229 Again, in a brief article entitled ‘Football a survival of magic?’, W.B.  Johnson associated Shrove Tuesday with ancient fertility rites, going so far as to propose that ‘the kicking to and fro of a ball was a piece of play-acting based on the idea of contest between winter and summer for the possession of the sun, its heat and its generating properties’.230 Putting these far-fetched notions aside, we have ­several feast days and a couple of vigils during which ball games were played. So this certainly merits further research. Our attempts to answer these questions, however, still does not account for the prevalence of violence. Previously we noted the likelihood that excessive drinking and gambling could heighten tensions. But there is also the assertion of masculinity to consider. Thus there is some Scottish and Irish evidence from the mid-seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries linking football with ‘manlye exerceisses’.231 This invites a further question, was there a connection between being a good footballer and the esteem in which a man was held by his local community? There is a suggestion of this in Matthew Concanen’s mock-heroic poem A match at foot-ball (1720), concerning a game between teams from Swords and Lusk in county Dublin.232 But evidence for the pre-­ Reformation period is lacking. Again, Concanen linked male prowess on the football field with female admiration. In short, successful players could attract  W. Crooke, ‘The Legends of Krishna’, Folklore, 11 (1900), p. 21.  E.K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage (2 vols., Oxford, 1903), vol. 1, pp. 149–51. 230  W.B. Johnson, ‘Football a survival of magic?’, The Contemporary Review, 135 (1929), pp. 225–31 (at p. 229). 231  HMC. Earl of Mar & Kellie. Supplementary (London, 1930), pp. 71–72; William Lithgow, Scotlands Welcome to her native sonne (Edinburgh, 1633), sig. Dv; Concanen, Match at Foot-ball, pp. 11–12. 232  Concanen, Match at Foot-ball, p. 11; P. Fagan, ‘A Football Match at Swords in the early 18th Century’, Dublin Historical Record, 57 (2004), pp. 223–27. 228 229

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sexual partners.233 Once more, there is no evidence before the Reformation to support this. We are left therefore with the simplest of explanations. Football was violent because violence was endemic in society. Contrary to the thesis of Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning, with regard to football there was no ‘civilising process’—before the Reformation at any rate. The material presented here, which draws on a far wider range of sources than the few utilised in their study, makes that clear.234 Moreover, we have seen that during the early Tudor period players of humble status still entered the bounds of football and camping fields bearing knives, suggesting that legislation prohibiting the lower social orders from carrying weapons during peacetime had fallen into abeyance. These men, or at least many of them, must have been aware that removing their knives before a game would reduce the risk of serious injury, whether to themselves, their friends or their opponents. Yet in the handful of documented cases that we have, they did not do so—because the result was death or serious injury (supposedly accidental). The likelihood is that they retained possession of these weapons for self-defence. Why? Because it was probably understood that during football and camping contests men might use the accepted violence of these games as cover to settle scores. We know this was sometimes the case during the ‘Long Reformation’ and indeed well into the nineteenth century. The field of play as an outlet for various emotions—doubtless pride and anger among them—invites further questions still. So too does the relative success or failure with which civic and ecclesiastical authorities were able to maintain public order and prevent damage to private property as well as places of governance, education and worship. This will all be tackled in an accompanying essay. But the last words, for now at least, must go to an anonymous sixteenth-century Scottish quatrain against football: Brissit brawnis and brokin banis [Bruised muscles and broken bones] Stryf discorde and waistie wanis [Strife discord and futile blows] Cruikit in eild syn halt with all [Lamed in old age, then crippled withal] Thir are the bewteis of the fute bale [These are the beauties of football].235

 Concanen, Match at Foot-ball, pp. 12–13, 22; cf. The Spectator, no. 161 (4 September 1711), reprinted in Donald Bond (ed.), The Spectator (5 vols., Oxford, 1965), vol. 2, p. 132. 234  Cf. Dunning and Elias, ‘Folk Football’, pp. 116–32 (at p. 120). 235  W.A.  Craigie (ed.), The Maitland Folio Manuscript (Edinburgh & London, 1919), vol. 1, p.  242; Francis Magoun, The History of Football. From the beginning to 1871 (Bochum-Langendreer, 1938), pp.  89–90; cf. John Small (ed.), The Poetical Works of Gavin Douglas (Edinburgh, 1874), vol. 1, pp. 118–19. 233

Violence, Injury and the Politics of the Evolving Football Codes Liam O’Callaghan

A smug Irish Times correspondent began his report of the second ever Ireland v England rugby international in 1875 as follows: Not long ago football was regarded as a rude and somewhat barbarous pastime. It suggested the idea of contused ankles and broken legs; and [was] probably practised by rustics in their leisure hours; but like nearly all the athletic games of our ancestors, when toned down to scientific rules, and carried out by intelligent and gentlemanly minds, it becomes an amusement affording wholesome emulation and healthy exercise to those taking part in it.1

Here, we have a statement laden with ideological significance. Football, by this reckoning, was a brutal practice made civilised once it came into possession of the right kind of gentleman. In the wrong hands, it was brutal and dangerous. The conflation of class and gentlemanliness was a common discursive thread in the emergent world of modern sport and provided a theoretical blueprint for how certain games ought to be played. In the case of rugby, as in the report above, the game’s promoters envisaged an activity that should be manly but sportsmanlike, with its moral purity preserved by a strict adherence to amateurism. 1

 Irish Times, 14 December 1875.

L. O’Callaghan (*) Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_3

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The statement quoted above was also laden with hypocrisy, however. Rugby, as it emerged in the school that gave it its name, was a game in which acts of violence were tacitly accepted, and where the infliction of, and, especially, the toleration of pain were also measures of manliness. In rugby, the practice of ‘hacking’—the deliberate kicking of an opponent on the shins—remained common long after it was officially censured. ‘Hacking’ or ‘shinning’ and other notionally violent acts were also a traditional practice in the variants of football played at public schools other than Rugby.2 As late as 1863, Winchester College, for example, permitted tripping in its code of football.3 Steven Bailey has pointed out that ‘The general rule of the (Winchester) game was that it was a game of football, and not handball; and manly, straightforward play was more applauded than scientific dodging and sneaking’.4 At Shrewsbury, a type of football known as ‘douling’ was practised and was entwined with the school’s fagging system. Shin-kicking was permitted but only when carried out by senior boys on their younger counterparts, thus underscoring the hierarchical nature of school games. For those on the receiving end, this ritual was designed, according to a self-serving contemporary account, to ‘make them hardy’.5 In general, once these practices were conducted consensually among men of a certain status, the protagonists saw little harm.6 The politics of injury—or, more broadly, of danger—in football stemmed from this broader context of the conjunction of sport, manliness and morality that developed in the English public schools in the middle third of the nineteenth century.7 At the root of this conjunction was the reforming zeal of headmasters such as Thomas Arnold at Rugby School, who sought to eliminate vice and instil Christian principles in boys, thus developing men of action, fully imbued with moral character and English gentlemanliness. This ideology, popularly known as Muscular Christianity, had a decisive influence  See Tony Collins, ‘Violence, gamesmanship and the amateur ideal in Victorian middle class rugby’, in Mike Huggins and J.A. Mangan (eds.), Disreputable pleasures: less virtuous Victorians at play (London, Routledge, 2004), pp. 172–224. 3  Steven Bailey, ‘Living sport history: football at Winchester, Eton and Harrow’, The Sport Historian, vol. 15, no. 1 (1995), p. 47 [34–53]. 4  Ibid., p. 48. 5  Birmingham Daily Gazette, 15 February 1871. 6  See Collins, ‘Violence, gamesmanship and the amateur ideal in Victorian middle class rugby’. 7  This paragraph is based on Tony Collins, A social history of English Rugby Union, (London, Routledge, 2009), 1–22. T.J.L. Chandler, ‘The structuring of manliness and the development of Rugby Football at the public schools and Oxbridge, 1830–1880’, in John Nauright and T.J.L. Chandler (eds.), Making men: Rugby and masculine identity (London, Frank Cass), pp. 13–31. 2

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on all aspects of school life and in this context, sport came to be viewed as a powerful instrument of instilling values and orderliness among boys. Mens sana in corpore sano became a popularly held belief in elite educational institutions and codes of football soon became a popular vector through which boys could enjoy a balanced education that satisfied both intellectual and physical needs. Football thus came to be seen as a means of developing character, courage, leadership, selflessness and moral probity, all vital qualities for the putative future leaders of the Empire who attended public schools. Rugby School arguably became the exemplar of these developments, not least because the school’s experience was immortalised in Thomas Hughes’ spectacularly successful novel, Tom Brown’s Schooldays. The book made explicit the nascent links between sport, specifically the code of football played at the school, and values. ‘Not only did its description of football make the game attractive and exciting’, Tony Collins has asserted, ‘the book also gave the sport a “meaning”, above and beyond the intrinsic enjoyment of chasing a ball around a field’.8 Thus the sport acquired an ideological content that included ‘a commitment to a masculine and anti-effeminate worldview; a defence of social hierarchy and order; a belief in British national superiority, with England “first among British equals”; and an absolute certainty in one’s own moral purpose’.9 This experience was replicated across the public schools, where each developed a distinct code of its own or, in the case of some, emulated the variant developed at Rugby.10 As football went from a diffuse practice, with several codes operating behind the walls of public schools, to a mainstream, mass activity of national importance organised into two distinct variants—Rugby and Association—it received increased scrutiny from the press. This coverage included periodic coverage of the perceived dangers of the game. Thus injury, a common and usually mundane feature of sport, and the putative sources of it—violent or rough play—became ideological flashpoints both within and outside of football circles. As the official historian of Rugby School would ruefully comment, ‘When the papers began to take notice of the game, they were horribly shocked at the hacking that went on, and a crusade was begun against it…the public, always so tender-hearted, was aroused to a bitter denunciation of football and all its works. There was nothing for it but to abolish hacking, and this was accordingly done by the Rugby Union’.11  Collins, English Rugby Union, p. 11.  Ibid., p. 12. 10  Marlborough and Cheltenham, for example. 11  W.H.D.  Rouse, A History of Rugby School (London, Duckworth, 1898), p. 324. 8 9

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While it seems likely that much of this commentary was designed to assuage public opinion at a time when medical experts were often wary of the dangers of football, discourses around violence and injury in sport were, as this chapter will argue, socially and culturally conditioned. The following chapter seeks to examine this issue through the prism of different codes of football in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. While the objective dangers of games were certainly a concern for some—mainly medical—commentators, this chapter will argue that these debates were also rooted in factors of class and identity.

Hacking and the Codification of Football In this regard, the practice of hacking warrants detailed scrutiny. In the context of football’s arrival as a mainstream activity of national importance, the status of ‘hacking’, a feature of the Rugby code, acquired early ideological freight and was a recurring topic of debate in the press from the 1860s. There were two types of hacking: one type that occurred under the cover of the scrum and another, ‘hacking over’, which was a brutal method of upending an opponent carrying the ball in the open field. Technically, hacking in a scrummage was a means of propelling the ball; contact with the opponents’ shins was theoretically incidental. The debates prompted by the issue of hacking, though they went on for decades, were particularly lively from the 1850s to the 1870s and revealed slightly different inflections of what manliness meant in this period. The debates had several threads to them. For some of the supporters of hacking, the practice was a matter of faith and ideology, nothing short of the essence of the game. For others it was an inevitable, if undesirable feature of scrummaging, where there was no intent to inflict harm on an opponent. And for its opponents, it was a brutal, primitive practice. Its extent in the 1860s and 1870s was disputed: some commentators, generally opponents of hacking, claimed that it was widespread and insidious; others countered that it was associated with an earlier era and had, by the 1860s, largely died out. What we do know is that the practice lasted among some clubs long after it was formally prohibited. The politics of hacking originated as a small-scale dispute among middle-class sportsmen and scribblers but it had considerable ramifications. It became, for instance, a lightning rod in the pained efforts to develop a uniform set of rules for football in the 1860s. The leading public schools all

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had their own set of rules for football and took great pride in them, each jealously viewing their own as superior to that of their rivals.12 A correspondent to The Field, a journal devoted to the sports and pastimes of the well-to-do, first published in 1853, summed up the difficulties posed by school pride in drawing up of universal rules: The Eton man is enamoured of his own rules, and turns up his nose at Rugby, as not sufficiently aristocratic; while the Rugbeian retorts that ‘bullying’ and ‘sneaking’ are not to his taste and that he is not afraid of his shins or of a ‘maul’ or ‘scrimmage’. On hearing this an Harrovian pricks up his ears, and while he might have previously had sided with Rugby, yet his insinuation against the courage of those who do not allow ‘shinning’ rouses his ire, and causes him to refuse to play with one who has offered it. Thus it is found impossible to get up a game; and, unless the public schools will combine and draw up a code of rules under which football can be played by all classes, we despair of seeing it take the place it deserves to occupy as a national winter amusement.13

In this context, hacking was highlighted as feature of the Rugby game that inhibited its prospects of becoming the standard code. As early as 1861, another correspondent to The Field got to the heart of the matter, ‘the “Rugby” rule of hacking would be alone sufficient to unfit it as a code for universal adoption. It is indeed such a blot even in a school game, that it is to be hoped that the disgrace will shortly be removed…To kick a player on the shins purposely is neither fair play nor manly; nay, I do not hesitate to call it thoroughly un-English and barbarous’.14 The idea that hacking was somehow incompatible with English gentlemanliness was repeated in The Field in 1870 where a correspondent maintained that it was ‘unmanly and un-English and a degradation of the noble game of football…football, honestly played, is dangerous enough without importing into it an element of ferocity which debases the sport itself, brutalises the players, and furnishes a pretext for constant attacks upon a game already sufficiently abused’.15 Another correspondent claimed that devotees of the Rugby code were the obstacle to previous attempts to develop common rules for football. In 1846, attempts to found a club under shared rules at Cambridge University had floundered, ‘The Rugby game may be a very good game for those who have  See Tony Collins, How football began: a global history of how the world’s football codes were born (London, Routledge, 2018), pp. 4–8. 13  The Field, 7 November 1863. 14  The Field, 28 December 1861. 15  The Field, 17 December 1870. 12

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been educated in its mysteries…but…it is desirable to humanise the game as much as possible’.16 Ultimately the quest to develop common rules for football had undermined the status of hacking. The entire point of developing universal rules was that it would allow football to be assimilated into routine middle-class social interaction, to allow football clubs to become an adjunct to broader business and professional networks.17 A broad consensus on its inclusion or otherwise was needed. But this was far from straightforward. It took six meetings for the nascent Football Association’s delegates to agree on a uniform set of rules in 1863. Having originally agreed to adopt key features of Rugby rules, including carrying the ball and hacking, the FA executed an about-face and between meetings revised the proposed rules with the Rugby elements removed. Delegated from clubs favouring Rugby rules immediately seceded from the FA. It should be noted that the founding of the FA was an event of little immediate significance. It is easy to get carried away with the process of developing rules: many clubs throughout the 1860s and into the 1870s— before a large-scale competitive structure and commercialisation demanded more rigid standardisation of rules—played games where the precise rules were agreed on an ad hoc basis and to whom the internal politics of the new-­ fangled administrative bodies was remote and irrelevant.18 Thus clubs that favoured the handling variant would continue as they were and would agree to hack or not to hack depending on the tastes of the protagonists. Hacking retained its stout defenders. One letter to The Field in 1864 stated that ‘if football were deprived of running and hacking, two of the most essential parts of the game would be wanting’.19 F.B. Campbell, the secretary of Blackheath, vigorously defended hacking and told the assembled delegates at founding meeting of the Football Association in 1863 that ‘if it were abolished, he would bring over a lot of Frenchmen, who with a week’s practice would beat the exponents of the proposed code’.20 Notions of Englishness, it seems clear, could be marshalled either to defend or, indeed, to excoriate hacking. In 1866, in a letter to The Field, a defender of hacking, exasperated at what he considered sensationalist press coverage of the issue, exclaimed that, ‘From what has appeared in the various papers, a stranger to the Rugby game would be inclined to think that Rugbeians are a set of brute beasts,  The Field, 28 December 1861.  Collins, How football began, p. 6. 18  See Gavin Kitching, ‘The origins of football: history, ideology and the making of the “People’s Game”’, History Workshop Journal, 79 (2015), pp. 127–148. 19  The Field, 26 March 1864. 20  The Field, 17 February 1912. This story is also recounted in Collins, Rugby Union, p. 77. 16 17

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­ aking the object of the game a trial of toughness of each other’s shin bones… m I do not think it fair that Rugby should have the reputation of being a school that plays football only with pluck and never with science’.21 Another said, ‘I share with most Rugbeians a feeling that if hacking were done away with the game would slowly but too surely be merged in some much less exciting and skilful system’, while he ‘most strongly’ objected to ‘vindictive hacking’.22 These initial debates in the 1860s were, to some degree, academic. So long as football was confined to adolescents and their tendency to horseplay, hacking could remain a relatively minor issue. But three developments led to its demise. First, the game expanded into adult clubs, where young men made business and professional connections, and where some clubs themselves became part of what would later be termed ‘civil society’. Second, the game was the subject of additional scrutiny as it became more popular and as the media took an ever-increasing interest in sport and, third, a strand of medical opinion came to view football as dangerous. In this new dispensation, hacking was not only an undesirable, uncivilised practice, but an impractical one as well. As one commentator would later recall, ‘When the game…first became general, it was certainly attended by considerable danger to full-grown heavy men. Tripping was allowed and hacking formed one of its most important elements. A heavy fall or a hard kick on the shins matters little to a boy, but to a man either may be very serious’.23 A correspondent to The Field, responding to claims that football players were using boots with iron tips—a common traditional feature of football games at several public schools, cautioned that ‘To a man who is reading for the Universities, to one who hopes to get his diploma at the next examination, or to obtain a place in the Indian Civil Service, a week on the sick list after every game of football is a very serious matter…the practice is mean, unmanly, and beneath the dignity of English gentlemen’.24 Richmond FC, a club whose players were drawn from the London professional classes, had rejected hacking in most circumstances. It was a practice, ultimately, that could not, in the long term, survive the migration of the game from the school to the club. The issue of hacking in football had arguably its most famous, and decisive, public airing in 1870 when ‘A Surgeon’ wrote to The Times cataloguing a litany of injuries that he claimed to have encountered among boys in the previous

 The Field, 24 November 1866.  The Field, 24 November 1866. 23  The Field, 23 October 1880. 24  The Field, 9 November 1872. 21 22

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few weeks that had been sustained through ‘hacking’.25 A flurry of correspondence followed and amid such negative press attention, the Rugby Football Union, when founded the following January, explicitly forbade ‘hacking’. This was not the end of the matter. Hacking continued into the 1870s as and when opposing teams agreed to it and the captain of the Rugby School XV would claim as late as 1877 that it had only just recently been abolished.26 Indeed, long after the formal demise of hacking, a kind of sentimentality developed around it and a tendency to invoke the good old days when football was a less effeminate activity took hold. In 1882, writing The Boy’s Own Paper, Robert ‘Bulldog’ Irvine, a doctor and former Scotland captain, asserted that ‘The popular idea of football with hacking conjured up a lot of savages, with heavy clogs shod with iron, and whose sole pastime consists in kicking each other’s shins…Those of us who played in the hacking days know how unlike the truth such a picture is, and some may be forgiven if they think that when football lost hacking it lost a great charm’.27 Almost a decade later, a more strident correspondent to the National Observer, complaining about the contemporary use of shin pads, insisted that ‘For the gentry of these islands have ever prided itself on its courage and from its best favoured sports the spice of danger has never been absent…we may fairly hope that one great reason for this fondness [of football] consists in that very element of danger against which the effeminate continually do cry…Under the old Rugby Code…hacking was legal—was an essential of combat: yet no armour was worn’.28 For all the column inches that the hacking debate occupied, it was a remarkably shallow dispute. To some degree the debate stemmed from school pride, the belief that a particular institution’s rules were superior to all others. Yet, Tony Collins has convincingly argued that the bifurcation of football into rugby and association variants was not the product of a deep-seated status rivalry between different public schools.29 What seems certain is that the demise of hacking did not reveal a fundamental difference in attitudes to danger and injury among the alumni of different public schools. All public school football variants rewarded ‘manly pluck’ embodied in the ability to inflict acts of aggression and violence and to show forbearance when on the receiving end. Public schools, after all, were wellsprings of violence and bullying.30  Times, 23 November 1870.  The Field, 10 November 1877. 27  The Boy’s Own Paper, 25 March 1882. 28  The National Observer, 2 May 1891. 29  Tony Collins, ‘History, theory and the “Civilising Process”’, Sport in History, vol. 25, no. 2 (2005), pp. 289–306. 30  See, for example, JA Mangan, Bullies, beatings, battles and bruises: ‘great days and jolly days’, in Mike Huggins and J.A. Mangan (eds.), Disreputable pleasures: less virtuous Victorians at play (London, Routledge, 2004), pp. 3–34. 25 26

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Ultimately, the hacking controversy was embedded in its immediate context and did not have a great deal to do with high principle. It was a dispute between those who sought to maintain the ideological purity embodied in shin-kicking and those who wanted to assuage public opinion, especially when the latter might have taken a censorious turn against football, especially in light of contemporary medical opinion.

Ungentlemanly Professionals These debates revolved, ultimately, around the question of who decided what constituted manliness. One thing that ex-public schoolboys could agree on was that professional sportsmen fell short in that regard. Given the tradition of violent play in public school football, and the tacit acceptance of it as a feature of manly sport, it was more than mildly hypocritical when the perceived violence of Association Football and Rugby League was held by middle-­class commentators as the undesirable, yet inevitable, result of professionalism and working-class involvement in sport.31 Victorian newspapers, especially in the years immediately after Association adopted professionalism, abounded with commentary on the unique danger and roughness of professional football. This discourse was given the stamp of medical legitimacy as early as 1886 when a report in The Lancet claimed that the FA Cup had ‘much rough play to answer for’, and that professionalism ‘was much to be deprecated’.32 ‘The professional in any branch of sport is’, The Saturday Review concluded in 1888, ‘the servant of the amateur who practises it for his own amusement. When there is no room for such service, professionals should be rigidly excluded by amateurs from sharing in their sport…One is consistently hearing complaints of rough, and even foul, play on the part of professional teams…’33 The same publication, a few years later, specifically targeted its critique at areas where football had acquired a mass working-class following, ‘Among the professional clubs in the North of England and the Midlands this objectionable form of roughness…had gradually attained formidable dimensions’.34 The Times, in 1889, was even more precise in 1889, ‘…the Association game, which although it is apparently milder [than Rugby], is in truth by far the more dangerous of the two games. Factory operatives, miners, and artisans  For a discussion of the case of Rugby League, see Tony Collins, Rugby’s Great Split: class, culture and the origins of Rugby League Football (London, Frank Cass, 1997), pp. 123–127. 32  Quoted in Manchester Evening News, 20 February 1886. 33  The Saturday Review, 14 April 1888. 34  The Saturday Review, 10 December 1892. 31

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cannot, by reasonable persons be expected to play in the friendly and generous spirit with which gentlemen are imbued from their youth…the chivalrous generosity which marks the Englishman at play is not innate but is taught by example at school’.35 ‘Marlborough Nomad’, writing to The Times in 1892, asserted that The increasing brutality of football is becoming a positive danger. In London, where the players are usually gentlemen, the game is properly conducted, but in the provinces this is far from being the case. Between the two codes under which the game is played there is essential differences. Association permits the professional; Rugby does not. It is impossible that a professional player of low character…will refrain from using illegal tactics.36

Hely Hutchinson Almond, the famous headmaster at Loretto School in Scotland, complained in 1893 that the ‘newspapers have a perfect craze for reporting football accidents…My impression is…that the majority of the serious accidents arise out of the rough and foul play which seems to be a necessary result of professionalism and of the allied system of cup ties…Amateur football…is not more dangerous than almost any winter game’.37 This was a collective assessment of the relative dangers of the football codes funnelled through class ideology rather than rational, empirical assessment. Attitudes to violence in sport and debates surrounding it were heavily inflected with class-based assumptions and prejudice. As Tony Collins has asserted of rugby union and rugby league, violence ‘was perfectly acceptable when employed within the shared social circles inhabited by the former public school boys who led the game, but was unacceptable to the game’s rulers when used against them by those of a less exalted social background’.38 This attitude was also in evidence in the contrasting attitudes to rugby union and association football. The early pioneers of association football would have viewed with horror the game’s evolution into a professional, commercial sport with a mass working-class following. Ex-public schoolboys, irrespective of their favoured code, shared the same sporting values.39

 The Times, 3 April 1889.  Quoted in Yorkshire Evening Post, 3 December 1892. 37  H.H. Almond, ‘Football as a moral agent’, The Nineteenth Century: a monthly review (Dec. 1893), pp. 902–903. 38  Collins, Violence, gamesmanship and the amateur ideal, p. 221. 39  See Dilwyn Porter, ‘Revenge of the Crouch End Vampires: The AFA, the FA and English football’s “Great Split”’, Sport in History, vol. 26, no. 3 (December 2006), pp. 406–428. 35 36

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Gaelic Games There is one further context in which one can examine the issues already raised in this chapter; it is possible to cast the net wider when seeking to elucidate socially and culturally embedded narratives of the dangers of sport. Sport, as practised in the public schools, eventually became embedded in the culture of British imperialism, and was seen as a method of instilling civilised British values in conquered peoples. British sports, the codes of rules at least, if not always the values, were a remarkably successful export. The adoption of these sports was not always smooth, however. In Ireland, for example, where rugby, cricket and soccer had all acquired reasonable levels of popularity by the 1880s, an alternative sporting configuration that explicitly rejected British sports took root. The Gaelic Athletic Association was founded in 1884 as a sporting outgrowth of Irish nationalism and flourished, specifically, in the context of contemporary cultural revivalism in Ireland. With its unapologetic alignment with Irish nationalism and its brief, and almost fatal, infiltration by physical force separatists, the GAA naturally drew the disdain of the British establishment, both in Ireland and in Great Britain. This disdain was deepened by the GAA’s belligerent attitude towards sports such as rugby, soccer and cricket, all designated ‘foreign games’, and their devotees labelled unpatriotic. Indeed those who played, or followed, ‘foreign games’, were, from 1905, ineligible to join the GAA.40 True ‘Gaels’ were expected to confine themselves to the ‘native’ games of hurling and Gaelic football.41 The unionist press in Ireland—those newspapers that favoured Ireland remaining in the United Kingdom—and the mainland British press, on those rare occasions when they were minded to comment on it, tended to view the GAA with suspicion, seeing it at best as a narrow-minded, intolerant organisation, and at worst a dangerous, subversive one. Much of the language used to criticise the organisation, moreover, had a racial tinge. This arguably belonged to an older tradition of anti-Irish imagery in the British press. In the nineteenth century, certain British periodicals, most notoriously Punch, were peppered with simian, brutish visual depictions of the Irish, especially during periods of unrest in Ireland. The Irish were variously portrayed as chimpanzees, monkeys, pig-like creatures and monsters. As Martin Forker has observed, ‘In the nineteenth century, the word “Irish” was seldom linked to the word  For the history of the GAA see the various contributions to M Cronin, P Rouse and W Murphy (eds.), The Gaelic Athletic Association 1884–2009 (Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2009). 41  The GAA, until 1922, also ran athletics competitions but hurling and football had become its predominant focus before then. 40

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“civilization”. Consistently, the Irish were depicted as being inebriants, feral, charming, flagitious or corrupt, but not especially civilized’.42 These characterisations, of course, applied exclusively to the Catholic majority, or the ‘native’ Irish, among whose many purported defects was their devotion to an idolatrous, superstitious faith. Irish Protestants, typically unionist in their politics and generally more prosperous than the Catholic majority, were immune to such depictions. Sport in Ireland was partially divided along these cultural lines. Gaelic games were favoured by rural and small-town Catholics. Protestants (and a fair proportion, it ought to be said, of urban middle-class Catholics) tended towards sports of British origin. And while the GAA, as noted, created a cultural battleground out of this divide, the Association’s opponents could also exhibit a rather base intolerance. British sports, especially rugby, were seen by many of their promoters as a civilised counterpart to the archaic primitiveness of Gaelic games. And here is where we can observe again the perceived dangers of games being perceived through the prism of cultural prejudice rather than via thorough, neutral observation. This was neatly typified by Ernest Ensor, an English-born teacher based in Ireland, who, in a missive decrying the decline of Irish cricket in The Times in 1907 observed that There are two nations in Ireland, one small, the other large. The latter have never played cricket or Rugby football or any game that is limited by strict rules. Their temperament forbids it…[they] dislike games under rules, and, if they play anything, play “Gaelic football” or “hurley” under the nominal direction of a disregarded referee.43

Ensor added that cricket would have prospered if only the Anglo-Irish, ‘a most athletic race’ were not declining in number. It seems reasonable to surmise that Ensor is implicitly making a pointed reference to the lack of athleticism and civilisation of the ‘native’ mass. Ensor added a veiled swipe at professionalism in cricket, as if to round off his ‘gentleman amateur’ image. This was not the first time that Ensor had offered his opinion on Gaelic games. Seven years earlier he had offered the following description in The Cornhill magazine:

 Martin Forker, ‘The use of the “cartoonists armoury” in manipulating public opinion: anti-Irish imagery in British and American periodicals’, Journal of Irish Studies, vol. 27 (2012), p. 58 [58–71] ‘Flagitious’ means villainous or criminal. 43  The Times, 25 September 1907. 42

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The air is full of shouts from an upland field, where the wild lads are playing a wild game called Gaelic football, which Ireland invented of her own special grace and mere motion. In this game you can play at Rugby or Association according to the exigencies of the moment; rules are unworthy of a free people, or one striving to be free. The full teams are rarely playing at the same moment, as couples are wont to retire for a few moments and settle differences while they are fresh. If the spectators are numerous, faction fights are apt to occur, as in the electrical atmosphere feuds sometimes eighty years old sometimes recur to the mind. Gruesome stories will be told you, if you like to listen, of matches in which three or four men were fairly killed, and comfortably buries without the coroner or any other foreign official being informed.44

Ensor was the archetypal critic of Gaelic games. He had attended Trinity College Dublin, one of the most culturally British institutions in Ireland and one that maintained discriminatory measures against Catholics as late as the 1870s. Ensor’s words, therefore, offer us an insight into the British, or in his case Anglo-Irish, establishment view of Gaelic games. For others, the idea that the ‘mere Irish’ might attempt a project as demanding of rationality and sophistication as the development of a code of football rules drew commentary blending mirth and ruefulness. In an article in 1896 regaling readers with supposed instances of violence at Gaelic football matches, The Globe rhetorically asked ‘what can we expect if Irishmen will insist on playing football—Gaelic football too—in the dog days!’45 The Sportsman poked fun at the idea of an Irish code of football: ‘The “bhoys” have been playing a rale ould Oirish game of football at Ardee, in the county of Louth. The contest is locally described as “a Gaelic football match”. We do not quite know what that means; but it would seem that one of the features of the game…is to kick the referee as well as the ball’.46 These comments focused their critique of the supposed violence of Gaelic football and took their lead from an imperishable contribution by the Dublin journalist, JJ McCarthy, to Frank Marshall’s famous 1892 volume on rugby union. Surveying the contemporary football scene in Ireland, McCarthy offered a sneering precis of Gaelic football: The Gaels are a free and festive community who have their headquarters at Clonturk Park, Drumcondra, co. Dublin. This park is conveniently situated  Ernest Ensor, ‘Humours of an Irish country town’, The Cornhill Magazine, vol. 8, no. 44 (1900), 238–248, 243. 45  The Globe, 8 July 1896. 46  The Sportsman, 2 May 1888. 44

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between Glasnevin graveyard and the Mater Misericordia Hospital. A man has been known to pass from the football field direct to the hospital to the cemetery; another match being then got up to raise funds for the benefit of the next-of-­ kin, thus running the risk of killing a few more for the benefit of the deceased!47

This depiction of Gaelic football as lawless, violent and disorderly, became a metaphor for the Irish more generally. As one English commentator averred, ‘It can hardly be said that Ireland ever had a national game, such as cricket in England or golf in Scotland. Such sports demand that strict discipline and obedience to orders, to which the temperament of the native Irishman…is naturally averse’.48 Ireland, of course, did have a national sport, hurling, which The Globe described as ‘a compound of hockey, golf and football, with all the objectionable features of each, [and] is, we believe, the national game of Ireland, and from all accounts it is played in a peculiarly Irish way’. The ‘Irish way’ was in reference to the fact that a fight had broken out at a match and the hurley, the wooden stick used in hurling, described as a ‘weapon of war’.49 In February 1899, the Ireland versus England rugby international occurred on the same weekend as the All Ireland football final in Dublin. The England team and some accompanying press reporters attended the Gaelic football match and this yielded a quite extraordinary description of the action by a Yorkshire Post journalist. Under the headline ‘How the Gaels play football on the Sabbath’, the reporter described a game in which the ball could be ‘punched with your fists as hard as you like. Should an opponent’s nose be in the way that is no fault of yours’. The reporter then implied that the game was rougher than rugby league—a serious charge when made by a rugby union journalist—and claimed that the otherwise bewildered Englishmen present drew most of their enjoyment from the fist fights that broke out during the match, ‘the success of the match was measured in their minds by the number of times the Gaelic blood reached the flashpoint’.50 Gaelic football and Gaelic games more generally tended to attract the attention of the unionist press in Ireland only when there was disorder associated with it. For these newspapers, violence in Gaelic games flowed naturally from the fact that contests were held on Sundays, a day for earnest prayer, not for leisure. The Northern Whig, a Belfast newspaper aimed at strict Sabbath-­ observing Presbyterians, in 1889 deplored the ‘Sunday rowdyism’ that  JJ McCarthy, ‘Ireland’, in F Marshall, Football: the Rugby Union Game.  The Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 3 January 1888. 49  The Globe, 20 October 1896. 50  Yorkshire Evening Post, 8 February 1899. 47 48

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accompanied a Gaelic match in Armagh where an assault was committed.51 Such disregard for the Sabbath was of a piece with the habits of a wanton, slothful people. The Cork Constitution, a newspaper that appealed to the prosperous Protestant minority in Ireland’s third biggest city, in describing a fight that occurred at a Gaelic football match in Kerry, informed readers that ‘These disgraceful scenes occur at Gaelic football matches…nearly every Sunday’.52 A member of the Lees Gaelic Football Club (a club that had switched from rugby to Gaelic), exasperated at the Constitution’s partial coverage of the game, pointed out that ‘we know you are wont to report Gaelic matches, except on certain occasions, and when you have an ulterior object in view’.53 This frustration was understandable. Characterisations—whether explicit or implicit—of the GAA’s players and followers as uncivilised sits uneasily with the historical evidence. Tom Hunt’s research suggests that Gaelic games were played by young men from the prosperous tenant (later proprietor) farmer class in the countryside and by the artisans in towns.54 This demographic could hardly be considered uncivilised, but they were certainly below their sporting critics in the social ladder. Ultimately the politics of danger and injury in sport was paradoxical. ‘Football’, the Irish Times would claim in 1875, ‘is no longer a rough sport, characterised by horse play, surrounded with manifold dangers—cut shins, bruised muscles, and even broken bones. It is now organised in a manner which may be called scientific’.55 So while the Victorian gentleman might claim that his code of football was the sporting embodiment of rationality and ‘science’, no such objectivity applied to his judgement when those outside his social strata played the game or developed their own codes. Roughness or acts of violence were variously interpreted according to the social class or, in the case of Gaelic games, the ethnicity, of the persons committing them. Acts of violence, in and of themselves, were acceptable among consenting gentlemen; indeed, they reaffirmed manliness.

 Northern Whig, 29 January 1889.  Cork Constitution, 22 July 1890. 53  Cork Constitution, 27 October 1896. 54  Tom Hunt, ‘The GAA: social structure and associated clubs’, in Mike Cronin, Paul Rouse and William Murphy (eds.), The Gaelic Athletic Association: 1884–2009 (Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2009), pp. 183–202. 55  Irish Times, 13 December 1875. 51 52

“Though He Was Evidently Suffering Great Pain, He Bore It Well”: Public Discourse on Benefits, Risk, and Injury in North American Wrestling, 1880 to 1914 C. Nathan Hatton

In March 1911, Frank Gotch, the undisputed heavyweight catch-as-catch-­ can wrestling champion of the world, made his first and only appearance on Winnipeg mats. Professional wrestling was, at that time, a regular fixture in western Canada’s largest city, and fans occupied every seat and lined the aisles of the Walker, self-styled as “Canada’s Finest Theatre,” to get their first look at “the world’s greatest wrestler.” One man in particular, however, Ernie Sundberg, was hoping to catch the champion’s eye. As the best lightweight grappler in the city, Sundberg wanted to bring all of his skills to bear with the goal of impressing Gotch and, from there, receiving affirmation that he should pursue a career in the mat game beyond his usual local engagements. Sundberg was matched against another Winnipeg lightweight wrestler, Charles Dalager. After little more than a minute of wrestling, with both men struggling near the edge of the mat, Dalager’s right leg twisted and struck the wooden floorboards outside the padded canvas. The Winnipeg Tribune reported, “suddenly there was a snap that could be heard in nearly every corner of the theatre.”1 With his leg broken above the ankle, Dalager was carried away. Although acknowledged as a regrettable affair, observers were also quick to comment on how Dalager reacted to his injury. The Winnipeg Tribune praised  Winnipeg Tribune, 10 March 1911, p. 10.

1

C. N. Hatton (*) Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_4

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him, stating, “Dalager, though suffering intense pain, exhibited great pluck. He made no outcry when he was carried from the canvas through the ropes to the wings though his contorted features bore mute testimony of his agony.”2 The rival Manitoba Free Press noted similarly, while in the hospital, that, “though he was suffering great pain he bore it well.”3 Bearing evidence of his own “gameness,” the chloroformed athlete stated to the physician attending to him back stage at the Walker Theatre, “Give me ten minutes more and I will beat him.”4 The unfortunate incident that cut short the match between Ernie Sundberg and Charles Dalager is acutely illustrative of the perils associated with participation in the largely unregulated, and loosely structured, sport of wrestling during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Widely extolled as a recreational activity with myriad health benefits, wrestling also carried with it inherent risks to life and limb. For its serious acolytes in particular, in the three decades before the Great War, wrestling became a battlefield where the ability to both give and endure near-limitless punishment became hallmark features of the sport. While not everybody welcomed wrestling’s evolution in this direction, the mat game nevertheless enjoyed a sizeable following across North America. As evidenced by press commentary on Dalager’s disposition after his injury, many not only accepted the roughness of wrestling, but viewed this feature, and the danger that went along with it, as a vehicle for displaying important character traits. Chief among them, well illustrated by Dalager, was the quality of “gameness:” the willingness to continue your efforts with minimal complaint, in the face of daunting circumstances, great pain, and potentially great harm. Gameness had real risks, but it also had real appeal for a society navigating its place in the emerging industrial order. Wrestling and the risks it posed were a preferable alternative to a physically weak and coddled population that lacked the capacity for perseverance. The dangerous sport of wrestling was therefore a vehicle to both instill, and promote, the solution to such looming social malaise.

 Ibid.  Manitoba Free Press, 11 March 1911, p. 33. 4  Charles Dalager, quoted in ibid. 2 3

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Historical Background Wrestling was one of many folk sporting activities in North America dating back to the colonial period. Multiple “systems” of wrestling existed, most owing their origins to the regions of Europe, and particularly the British Isles, from which the practitioners, or their ancestors, had emigrated.5 Wrestling was generally a localized affair until the second half of the 1860s, but as was the case with many other sports, advancements in communications technology, including telegraph services and the proliferation of newspapers, a dedicated sporting press, and a growing list of sport-related publications, worked synergistically with higher rates of literacy to increase general interest and make the public aware of athletes beyond their own communities. The completion of a coast-to-coast railway infrastructure, first in the United States by 1869, and in Canada by 1885, provided burgeoning opportunities for a rapidly urbanizing and increasingly sports-literate population to attend matches staged by a newly emerging class of athlete: the traveling professional.6 Among the very first wrestlers to hold matches across the continent were Australia’s William Miller and France’s Thiebaud Bauer, who during the mid-1870s, pitted their skills against one another in such far-flung cities as San Francisco and Montreal.7 Many athletes followed, including William Muldoon (a protégé of Miller), the Scot, Duncan C. Ross, and Andre Christol of France. Importantly, publicity and commentary concerning each of these athletes, as well as many others, extended well beyond the cities where they appeared.8 While localized  For more on the general history of wrestling in North America prior to the late nineteenth century, see Charles Morrow Wilson, The Magnificent Scufflers: Revealing the Great Days When America Wrestled the World (Brattleboro, VT: The Stephen Greene Press, 1959); Glynn A. Leyshon, Of Mats and Men: The Story of Canadian Amateur and Olympic Wrestling from 1600 to 1984 (London, ON: Sports Dynamics, 1984), pp. 22–27; Scott R. Beekman Ringside: A History of Professional Wrestling in America (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2006), pp. 6–11. 6  Concerning the growth of transportation technology, communications technology, and news media, and their relation to sport generally, see John Rickards Betts, America’s Sporting Heritage: 1850–1950 (Don Mills, ON: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1974), pp. 232–234; Mary Keyes, “Sport and Technological Change,” in A Concise History of Sport in Canada, ed. Don Morrow et. al. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1898), pp. 256–258; and Stacy L. Lorenz, “A Lively Interest on the Prairies: Western Canada, the Mass Media, and a World of Sport, 1870–1939,” Journal of Sport History 27, 2 (Summer 2000), pp. 195–228. For further discussion of these matters as they pertain specifically to professional wrestling, see Beekman, Ringside, pp.  13, 15–17; and C.  Nathan Hatton, Thrashing Seasons: Manitoba Sporting Culture and the Genesis of Prairie Wrestling (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2016), pp. 35–37. 7  For accounts of their matches in both locales, see Rock Rims, When it Was Big Time: A One Hundred Year History of Northern California Professional Wrestling (Chino Hills, CA: By the Author, 2016), 8–10; and the Montreal Gazette, 1 December 1876, n.p. 8  Examples are numerous. William Muldoon’s victory over Thiebaud Bauer at Madison Square Garden, witnessed by 4000 spectators, for example, was reported not only in the New York Press, but in cities across the country such as Baltimore, Maryland, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Eugene, Oregon. See the 5

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customs did not disappear entirely, a common sporting culture, wherein people across the continent collectively shared in the same practices and sporting experiences, began to emerge during the last two decades of the nineteenth century.9 By the 1880s, catch-as-catch-can wrestling, imported from Lancashire, England, began to eclipse all other styles in popularity. As the name implies, catch-as-catch-can was a system of wrestling that granted considerable latitude to its contestants, allowing them to take grips on virtually any part of the body. Wrestling generally continued in the prone position until one contestant’s shoulders were brought in contact with the ground. Its wide-open potential for technical innovation, contrasted with many other styles such as Cumberland-Westmoreland and Cornwall-Devonshire, which limited all wrestling to standing maneuvers, and Greco-Roman, which included ground wrestling but limited grips to the upper body, contributed to its appeal.10 Due to catch-as-catch-can’s popularization by traveling professionals, the style became widely adopted in the amateur ranks, forming the foundation for today’s scholastic and intercollegiate wrestling.11 One scribe for the Hamilton Daily Democrat, in recognizing the role played by catch-as-catch-can wrestling standouts Joe Acton, Evan Lewis, and Dan McLeod in promulgating the sport, stated in 1893, “I pay this tribute to the professionals, because not only does their individual skill stand out pre-eminent, but a very great many of our amateurs have acquired the first and best principles of wrestling through them.”12

Baltimore Sun 20 January 1880, p. 1; Salt Lake City Daily Tribune, 21 January 1880, p. 1; and Eugene City Guard, 31 January 1880, p. 2. 9  For more on the emergence of a common North American sporting culture, see Richard Gruneau and David Whitson, Hockey Night in Canada: Sport, Identities, and Cultural Politics (Toronto: Garamond Press, 1993), pp. 61–62. 10  For samples of the rules governing these various wrestling styles, see George Bothner, Scientific Wrestling (New York: Richard K. Fox Publishing Company, 1912), pp. 11–25. 11  The first national amateur championship in wrestling was staged in 1887 by the National Amateur Athletic Association. Annual national championships were held under the banner of American Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) from 1888 onward. Matches were contested under catch-as-catch-can conventions. See Mike Chapman, Encyclopedia of American Wrestling (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1990), p. 77. For more on the role of the professional in popularizing amateur catch-as-catch-can wrestling, see also pp. 159, 472. 12  Hamilton Daily Democrat, 19 August 1893, p. 7.

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Wrestling’s Health Benefits The process of urbanization rapidly transformed society during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as the “gilded age” brought new technological innovations that reshaped people’s relationship with wrestling, but far more broadly, transformed daily life. However, not everyone saw the march of modernity as an unqualified improvement. Social critics and health pundits grew worried over what they perceived to be the flagging health of the nation’s young men. Robbed of the vigor associated with rural living, and increasingly confined to sedentary activities such as schooling and desk work, concerns emerged that men’s bodies were degenerating into mere specters of those possessed by their pastoral predecessors. By the mid-nineteenth century, alarms were already being sounded. Writing for Harper’s Magazine in 1856, one author mused: The American’s lungs are never inflated with a full breath, and his chest accordingly contracts, and his shoulders bend under their own weight; his muscles shrink, and his legs become lank from disuse; his face waxes pale from indoor life; his brain grows languid from exhaustion, and his nerves are raw and irritable from excitement. All the succulency of health is burnt out of him.13

Physician and essayist Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his famed “Breakfast-Table” essays, first published in the Atlantic Monthly a year later, agreed, stating, “I am satisfied that such a set of black coated, stiff jointed, soft-muscled, paste-­ complexioned youth as we can boast in the Atlantic cities never before sprung from the loins of the Anglo-Saxon lineage.”14 The American northeast was at the forefront of North American urbanization and industrialization, and in the ensuing decades, as cities across the continent grew, such concerns became commonplace.15 Sport offered one potential means of offsetting physical decline. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, sporting clubs and  Harper’s Magazine, December 1856, p. 60.  Holmes’ essays were later collected in a single volume, which saw several reprintings in subsequent years. For the cited quotation, see The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (Boston: Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1879), p. 197. 15  See, for example, William Blaikie, How to Get Strong and How to Stay So (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1879), pp. 5–6, pp. 14–16; Henry S. Williams, “The Educational and Healthgiving Values of Athletics,” Harper’s Weekly, 16 February 1895, p. 166; Luther Gulick, Spalding’s Athletic Library Vol. 1: Muscle Building (Renwick of Otley, 1916), p. 5; the Fort William Daily Journal, 23 July 1894, p. 1. For a further exploration of the connections between urbanization and physical degeneracy, see Morris Mott, “One Solution to the Urban Crisis: Manly Sports and Winnipeggers, 1900–1914,” Urban History Review/Revue d’histoire urbaine 12, 2 (October 1983), p. 60; and Colin D. Howell, Northern Sandlots: A Social History of Maritime Baseball (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), pp. 103–104. 13 14

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gymnasia proliferated across the United States and Canada, driven at least in part by a desire to re-build the general physical well-being of the nation. Once a traditional rural pastime, wrestling took on new importance within North America’s emerging urban spaces for its efficacy as a near-unparalleled bodybuilder. One of the central merits attributed to wrestling, especially as the catch-as-­ catch-can method came to predominate, was the belief that it exercised the entire body and thus promoted all-around physical development. This feature could be contrasted with other popular sports whose more specialized movement patterns were considered to produce imbalances in the participant’s physique.16 Loudest to sing the sport’s praises in this respect, unsurprisingly, were the sports’ foremost practitioners and promoters. George Bothner, who learned his craft at the New York Athletic Club under Hugh Leonard, and by 1899 claimed the world’s lightweight catch-as-catch-can championship, asserted to those who read his manual, Scientific Wrestling: There is no exercise which will tend to develop the mind and body like wrestling. Other athletic sports put in use certain sets of muscles at the expense of some other part of the body, but wrestling puts a man into action from his head to his heels. Dormant muscles find no room in the anatomy of the man on the mat, whether he be on the offensive or the defensive.17

Wrestler John C. Meyers, a contemporary to Bothner, similarly asserted at a later date, “As a tissue-making, blood-stirring pastime there is nothing to equal it. It stretches and massages every muscle, expands the chest, strengthens legs and arms.”18 Thomas Dickinson, wrestling coach at the Winnipeg YMCA and the man most responsible for laying the foundations for amateur wrestling in the province of Manitoba before the Great War, stated of his chosen vocation, “The wrestling art has certainly conferred many favours on the human race. As an unfailing aid to health and longevity and as a developer

 Rowing, for example, was criticized by physical educator William Blaikie for its overdevelopment of the legs and back at the expense of the chest and arms, resulting in a “hollowed” physique. However, Blaikie’s remedy for physical imbalances was a system of gymnastic exercises, not wrestling. See, How to Get Strong, pp. 36–37. 17  Bothner, Scientific Wrestling, p. 7. See also Bothner’s comments in Frederick R. Toombs, ed. Spalding Athletic Library: How to Wrestle (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1912), p. 29; and the Massillon Evening Independent, 4 February 1903, p. 5. Bothner’s instructor at the NYAC, Hugh Leonard, expressed similar sentiments to his famed student in his text, A Hand-Book of Wrestling (New York: E.R. Pelton, 1897), vii. 18  John C. Meyers, Wrestling from Antiquity to Date (St. Louis: By the Author, 1931), p. 19. 16

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of every muscle there are few better exercises.”19 Advocates of sport less directly connected with the mat game concurred with the general assessment of wrestling’s value as a comprehensive form of physical conditioning.20 Young males were certainly the main target audience for wrestling, and the focus for many of the concerns around declining physical standards in industrializing society. However, young women, too, were not entirely excluded from the proselytizing associated with wrestling’s physical benefits, particularly by the decades bookending the twentieth century. The general tenor of the message directed toward women was also very similar to the one aimed at their male counterparts. Laura Bennett, a turn-of-the-century wrestling pioneer who engaged in many matches and toured vaudeville with her two sisters putting on combat sport exhibitions, extolled the sport’s virtues, stating, “If a woman had to choose but one form of exercise they would do well to choose wrestling. It is the queen of exercises for women. Wrestling makes use of more muscles than any other exercise. … For health it is incomparable exercise, strengthening the internal organs, perfecting every function of the body”21 Kate Swan, an investigative reporter for the New York World, concluded following a class, “It is the only form of exercise that trains every muscle equally on both sides of the body and at the same time completely absorbs the mind.”22 The seemingly egalitarian appeal of the sport was nevertheless tempered by gender expectations of the period. Bennett, progressive for her era inasmuch as she not only engaged in a predominantly male sporting activity but also made money at it, stated, “if a woman considers beauty alone, wrestling is invaluable, for it develops her figure evenly, leaving no unsightly bunches of muscles showing in one place at the expense of others.”23 The emphasis on cultivating appropriate female aesthetics, and eschewing activities that made a woman “mannish” in appearance, steered the small number of women actively engaged in sports into a narrow spectrum of undertakings, among them light

 Thomas Dickinson, Manitoba Free Press, 14 November 1908, p. 29. See also comments by heavyweight wrestling champion Ernst Roeber (though pertaining more specifically to his preferred Greco-Roman wrestling style), in the Lowell Sun, 30 April 1898, p. 17; and by all-around athlete and wrestler Eugene Van Court in the Oakland Tribune, 3 April 1889, p. 3. 20  See, for example, the Baltimore Sun, 18 November 1901, p. 6; Manitoba Free Press, 18 May 1907, p. 22; Portsmouth Herald, 18 March 1902, p. 5; and the Salt Lake City Inter-Mountain Republican, 11 April 1908, p. 4. 21  Laura Bennett, quoted in the Chicago Examiner, 16 July 1911, p.  2. For more on Laura Bennett’s wrestling career, see Pat Laprade and Dan Murphy, Sisterhood of the Squared Circle: The History and Rise of Women’s Wrestling (Toronto: ECW Press, 2017), pp. 20–25. 22  Kate Swan, quoted in the New York World, 18 October 1896, p. 31. 23  Bennett, Chicago Examiner, 16 July 1911, p. 2. 19

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gymnastics, figure skating, and tennis.24 Bennett’s efforts to encourage women to take up wrestling, and in doing so challenge its status as a male sporting enterprise, required her to reposition wrestling as an activity that also built appropriate female physical traits. However, it did not challenge the very notion of innate gender-based aesthetic qualities. Her message did not catch on, and before the Great War, and for generations thereafter, young women received few opportunities and little encouragement to take up the sport. More than women, older men were also encouraged to take to the mats. Described as the “microcosmos of gymnastics” for its all-around physical benefits, wrestling was touted for the restorative value it offered to overworked office men desiring “hard muscular work after the tedious business hours of the day.”25 In a report to the Brandon Sun, an unnamed author, then over 40, testified that he “might still enjoy it much if my opponent is of my own weight or a little lighter and if it is deprived of its potential roughness by a gentlemanly spirit of the partners.”26 Down the railway line, in Winnipeg, it was stated in the Free Press, that “two old men living in a city can get excellent exercise by wrestling in a large, light room.”27 Underscoring its value for the older man, observations were made of the sizeable number of top-ranked professionals who were able to “stay in the game” well beyond the retirement age of athletes in other lines of sport. In particular, wrestling was contrasted with its combative counterpart, boxing, for the staying power characteristic to the profession. Reflecting broader lines of commentary, famed mat artist Ernst Roeber gushed, “A champion boxer is usually broken down physically before he reaches the age of 35 years, just when a wrestler is in his prime, while the latter often holds the championship at his game when he is past the half century mark. Is this not the best evidence in the world that wrestling is the healthiest of sports?”28 In an age of rapid economic expansion, when efficiency and productivity were prized above all other attributes, wrestling had the capacity to achieve for the human body what Taylorism, the railway, and the telegraph were accomplishing for the industrial capitalist order by getting more done in less time. Adding to its efficiency, building the body through wrestling carried over into other realms of life. For members of the middle class in particular, there was  M. Ann Hall, The Girl and the Game: A History of Women’s Sport in Canada, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), pp. 33–35. 25  Brandon Sun, 4 July 1907, p. 17. 26  Ibid. 27  Manitoba Free Press, 18 May 1907, p. 22. For similar comments, see also Leonard, A Text-Book, viii. 28  Fort Wayne Journal, 1 May 1898, p. 15. Similarly, see the Baltimore Sun, 28 January 1903, p. 9; and the Washington Post, 28 February 1909, p. 38. 24

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acute concern that sport be conducted on rational grounds, often with the objective of nurturing attributes that had direct application to the world of work.29 Frederick Toombs, editor of the Spalding sporting goods company’s manual, How to Wrestle, promoted wresting precisely on these grounds, stating, “The wrestler … is assertive, confident and enthusiastic. He does twice as much business as the men, narrow chested and weak kneed, who toil at their desks until dinner time, and then go home at odds with the world.”30 Martin “Farmer” Burns, one-time American heavyweight catch-as-catch-can champion and coach to thousands of athletes, including Frank Gotch, also promoted his successful 1914 mail-order wrestling course on the grounds that “Robust Health Means Success in Business.”31 Burns’ famed pupil agreed, calling wrestling, “an unapproachable exercise to fit the human body to help the mind do its wrestling in the business world of today.”32

Risks and Injury With its physical benefits and the sport’s carryover to the working world as key selling features, one might expect wrestling, as a participatory activity, to grow apace with many other sports that came into popularity during the late nineteenth century. Given its already long history as a familiar rural pastime, wrestling had an advantage over other sports that were of more recent vintage. As a professional sport, it also developed earlier than others (such as baseball) in the post-Civil War period, allowing aspiring athletes earlier opportunities for exposure to its most well-known and skilled practitioners.33 Although exact participation numbers are not available, it is nevertheless clear that wrestling ultimately failed to achieve the popularity of many other organized athletic pursuits. One key reason for this was its technical nature. Unlike many ball sports or even other combative sports such as boxing, the intricacies of wrestling were lost on the casual spectator. Whereas a touchdown, or a home run, or a knockout blow were easily intelligible and visually striking cues for  Bruce Kidd, The Struggle for Canadian Sport (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), p. 14.  Toombs, How to Wrestle, p. 6. 31  Farmer Burns School of Wrestling, Physical Culture Wrestling (Omaha, NB: By the Author, n.d.), p. 11. 32  Frank Gotch, quoted in the Lincoln Daily Star, 17 March 1907, p. 7. 33  Matt Hlinak, “Judo Comes to California: Judo vs. Wrestling in the American West, 1900–1920,” Journal of Asian Martial Arts 18, 2 (2009), p. 11. While baseball traces its professional origins to 1869, wrestlers such as James H. McLaughlin, Louis Ainsworth, Lew Thompson, and Homer Lane were engaging in professional matches and claiming championship honors in cities in the American northeast in the four years prior to that date. See, for example, the Buffalo Evening Courier and Republic, 31 August 1865, p. 3; Angelica Reporter, 3 June 1868, p. 2; and Philadelphia Inquirer, 21 August 1868, p. 1. 29 30

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achieving victory, catch-as-catch-can wrestling matches, usually characterized by heavy doses of mat wrestling prior to the Great War, generally lacked similar features. Commentators on the subject readily recognized the sport’s aesthetic shortcomings.34 Wrestling’s understated technical character likely hampered general interest in the sport and marked it as insufficiently-­inspiring for some would-be athletes. Exposure to wrestling frequently came from professionals who gave public exhibitions and offered instruction in the sport through local gymnasia. Since its proliferation as a participatory sport was dependent on those in the professional ranks, regular accusations of match fixing and other underhanded tactics, which plagued the mat game from inception, certainly put a bad taste in many people’s mouths. Journalists diatribes condemning fakery in wrestling were common. However, as one writer in the Logansport Pharos opined in 1911, were fixing the major factor that steered away interest, boxing should be even less popular than wrestling, for, “[n]ot only have ring fakes been as numerous as those on the mat, but the top notchers have been mixed up in them as well.”35 Nevertheless, one effect exposés did have was to chase accused athletes away from communities where their public performances were no longer welcomed, which, in turn, reduced the availability of skilled instructors.36 Wrestling’s technical character and the specter of illegitimacy within the pro ranks were two important elements working against people taking up the sport. However, a third factor, often only coming into play after a person decided to take to the mat, also dissuaded prospective grapplers from the sport: its daunting physical demands. While wrestling may have been heralded for its thoroughness in exercising the human body, it had the potential to do so in a rather jarring and unforgiving fashion. Those considered to be more vulnerable to its deleterious effects, women and older men, were strongly warned to exercise caution. Comments related to women wrestling, few as they were in number, were steeped in assumptions of female frailty. New York Athletic Club wrestling coach Hugh Leonard presupposed that women were not fully up to the task of strenuous wrestling. Given the movement limitations incumbent to middle-class Victorian-era female dress, characterized by high collars and restrictive corsets, he was asked what modifications women should make to their attire to better facilitate participation. Leonard replied,  See, for example, the Burlington Hawkeye, 7 February 1904, p. 4; Joplin Morning Tribune, 4 December 1912, p. 3; Logansport Pharos Tribune, 3 February 1911, p. 7; Winnipeg Tribune, 30 January 1904; p. 7. 35  Logansport Pharos Tribune, 3 February 1911, p. 7. 36  See, for instance, the case of E.W. Johnston in Hatton, Thrashing Seasons, pp. 53, 58. 34

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“Of course, you girls couldn’t carry wrestling to the same extent as men, and so dress would not make much difference.”37 Clearly sexist by twenty-first-­ century standards, notions of women as the weaker sex were also internalized by reporter Kate Swan, who stated, “Wrestling may be considered too violent for the petticoated sex, but it is not to be denied that taken under competent direction there are numerous motions which exercise muscles and cords that gymnasiums seldom touch effectively. And really it’s a great sport taken in homeopathic doses, or if you are handled like a butterfly.”38 Laura Bennett, who actually participated in wrestling, however, only offered general words of warning for the inexperienced practitioner that were not specific to her sex.39 For men of more advanced years, caution naturally had to be exercised. Participants were advised to pursue the sport with people of the same or lighter weight, and “that more gentleness be displayed in the struggle than two 12 year old boys would observe.”40 Even for young men, considered the sport’s main demographic, catch-as-­ catch-can wrestling could be a formidable activity for the uninitiated. Frank Gotch related one story of a man he met in a gymnasium in St. Louis who thought that wrestling would be easy given his physical strength. Though cautioned against it, he took to the mat with the champion. Gotch recalled, “After five minutes’ scuffling on the mat our German friend was all in, but he stuck to the task manfully and in the next minute fainted dead away.” Gotch further warned: I have seen stronger men than this one collapse while wrestling, for the sense of exhaustion is complete, comparable only to the state of the oarsman who rows himself out. I have seen a man die on the mat, and you can bet I was frightened on the occasion. We worked hard over the [man] … and finally he recovered consciousness.41

The effects of a strenuous encounter extended beyond the acute exhaustion experienced during and immediately afterward, providing disincentive for the neophyte grappler to continue with the sport. According to Gotch, “For a man not in condition a wrestling match is torture, if he is game and will do his best to keep from being thrown … and for days after the match is hardly  Hugh Leonard, quoted in the New York World, 18 October 1896, p. 31.  Kate Swan, quoted in ibid. 39  See Chicago Examiner, 16 July 1911, p. 2. 40  Brandon Sun, 4 July 1907, p. 17; Manitoba Free Press, 18 May 1907, p. 22. 41  Frank Gotch, quoted in the Lincoln Daily Star, 17 March 1907, p. 7. 37 38

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able to move.”42 The heavyweight champion’s warnings, however, were more cautionary tales than outright fear mongering. Although an advocate for the sport, he was not blinded to its risks, so his statements were judicious. Summing up his views, Gotch commented, “Wrestling is a serious, if not dangerous pastime for an improperly conditioned man, although it is the finest exercise in the world when one fits himself gradually, by work and good habits, to perform on the canvas.”43 A general survey of reports on informal wrestling matches between 1885 and 1914 bear evidence of the risks involved with participation. Casual wrestling encounters were rarely “news,” and reports of discomfort or small injuries did not attract notice. However, catastrophic (and particularly fatal) incidents were more likely to be noted by the press, illuminating Gotch’s most serious warnings. Examining available records around fatalities in informal wrestling encounters reveals the type of injuries that could occur. In total, 14 distinct fatalities where the cause of death is specified were identified during the three decades between 1885 and 1914. Causes of death can be divided into three main categories: abdominal rupture/internal injuries, head trauma, and spinal trauma (broken neck). In instances where there is an overlapping cause, as is seen with spinal trauma and head trauma, the initial injury, that being spinal trauma, is identified as the cause of death. Of the 14 recorded fatal events, then, six occurred due to abdominal rupture/internal injuries, six due to broken necks, and two due to head trauma. What is especially notable of these deaths, however, is the settings in which they occurred. Of the 14 identified fatalities, nine settings could be determined. Four occurred in or near the premises of a hotel or saloon, two outdoors on a farm, two in a home setting, and one in a school yard. None occurred in a gymnasium environment. Lack of safety equipment in the form of mats, lack of supervision, and likely the presence of alcohol, clearly multiplied the dangers of casual wrestling encounters.44 Perhaps most striking, however, is the small number of records for fatalities that could be found. In examining formal contests, staged among trained athletes, a similarly slim roster of deaths is recorded. During the same period,  Frank Gotch, quoted in the Baltimore Sun, 10 March 1906, p. 7.  Frank Gotch, quoted in the Lincoln Daily Star, 17 March 1907, p. 7. 44  For reports of the fatalities, see the Atlantic Daily Telegraph, 23 May 1889, p. 2; Bloomington Weekly Pantagraph, 22 November 1895, p. 1; Brainerd Daily Dispatch, 12 June 1903, p. 8; Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 20 May 1895, p. 1; Brooklyn Daily Gazette, 30 July 1888, p. 1; Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette, 17 August 1895, p. 5; Defiance Daily Crescent, 18 July 1905, p. 2; Manitoba Free Press, 10 February 1902, p. 12; Manitoba Free Press, 28 October 1909, p. 1; Marshall Herald, 27 July 1910, p. 1; Norwalk Daily Reflector, 14 June 1897, p. 1; Oshkosh Daily Western, 8 December 1904, p. 1; Richmond Times, 18 November 1898, p. 5; Traverse City Record Eagle, 3 June 1903, p. 1. 42 43

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seven encounters terminating in fatality were uncovered. All were due to broken necks, suggesting that good physical conditioning, coupled with a controlled setting that included a padded surface, could stave off the most devastating accidents.45 Other sports, by comparison, had much higher death tolls, most notable among them American football, which, for example, had between 140 and 142 fatalities from 1904 to 1911.46 Ongoing debate around fatalities in football and the sport’s general safety, did not, however, stop those involved in the gridiron game from raising issues around the dangers associated with wrestling. In 1910, for example, University of Pennsylvania football trainer Mike Murphy stated that he would no longer allow his players to wrestle during the off-season, citing the many injuries sustained by them over the winter.47 If someone took to wrestling with the goal of improving their general health, and did so in a conservative and controlled fashion, building up intensity over time, pundits commonly celebrated the sport’s worth. Equally, however, they cautioned against pursuing wrestling as a profession. Eugene Van Court, a well-known Oakland, California, athlete who in addition to being a jockey and umpire, also competed as a lightweight wrestler, argued that top wrestlers were born and not made. Beyond an enjoyment of the sport, they required specific physical attributes, chief among them “broad shoulders, deep chest, well developed lungs, good legs, spry and willowy, complete control of all muscles.” Van Court warned in 1889, “My advice to all young men who have not the qualities I have spoken of is never to try to become expert wrestlers. Wrestling is one of the hardest sports known and is much more severe on a man than boxing.”48 A reporter for the Washington Post, writing 20 years later, concurred. Although acknowledging the career longevity of professional wrestlers relative to prizefighters, they admonished:  Albert Lea Times, 29 October 1913, p.  2; Denver Rocky Mountain News, 1 February 1911, n.p.; Fitchburg Daily Sentinel, 31 March 1906, p. 8; Hamilton Evening Times, 9 September 1903, p. 8; Lincoln Daily Star, 11 December 1910, p.  8; Philadelphia Inquirer, 10 June 1905, p.  4; Richmond Times, 3 September 1898, p. 1. Analysis of both casual wrestling encounters and formally staged matches excludes instances where death was not directly related to the execution of conventional wrestling tactics. For example, one organized wrestling match ended when one of the contestants stabbed the other in the neck with a knife, killing him instantly. See the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 13 January 1897, p. 1. 46  Based on an aggregate of statistics from the Baltimore Sun, 28 November 1909, p. 11; Washington Post, 16 December 1906, p. 2; Philadelphia Inquirer, 3 December 1911, p. 14; and Waterloo Evening Times-­ Courier, 1 January 1912, p. 1. For a detailed analysis of football fatalities, injuries, and the public and medical debate surrounding them, see Roberta J. Park, “‘Mended or Ended?’: Football Injuries and the British and American Medical Press, 1870–1910,” International Journal of the History of Sport 18, 2 (June 2001), pp. 110–133. 47  Hutchinson News, 22 February 1910, p. 3. 48  Eugene Van Court, quoted in the Oakland Tribune, 3 April 1889, p. 3. 45

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[For] those who finally top the crest in grappling, there are many wrecks to look back upon. For each who attains the largest measure of success, there are hundreds—even thousands—who have discovered that wrestling is scarcely the game to adopt as a life work … it is rough work, hard work, and not only defeat, but a wrecked body, ever staring at the best and biggest of the professionals.49

As North America’s two prominent combat sports, comparisons were frequently made between pugilism and wrestling in terms of the dangers they posed. Undeniably, due to the acute head trauma incumbent to boxing, fatalities were far more common in the fistic arena.50 Beyond threats to life, however, many asserted that threats to limb were far greater for grapplers. Wrestling’s inherent danger stemmed, in part, from the general demands of the sport. Unlike boxing matches, where a participant was given an opportunity to rest, wrestlers were under constant and unremitting pressure. Writing for the Baltimore Sun, one observer stated, “You see, the strain on the man on the mat is almost unbearable sometimes. In fighting you have a chance to pick up a little between rounds, but in wrestling you frequently have every muscle at the full for an hour or more.”51 Tom Jenkins, American professional catch-­ as-­catch-can heavyweight champion, rival to Frank Gotch, and later wrestling coach at West Point Military Academy, was of a similar mind. He contended, The life of a wrestler is harder in every way than that of a fighter. The grappler is under severe strain from start to finish. If a match is for endurance, the wrestler has no chance of getting a rest. He must be at it all the time. A fighter, on the other hand, has a minute between rounds to recuperate. On the mat, even if a wrestler elects to lie on his stomach, he has to keep moving all the time to prevent his man from gaining a fall.52

Jenkins’ comments cannot be dismissed offhand as mere bias toward one’s chosen sport. Athletes who competed extensively in both wrestling and boxing were of a similar voice. “Sailor” Tom Sharkey, a top contender for the world’s heavyweight boxing title, switched to wrestling after prizefighting was banned in New  York in 1900. He stated, in regard to which was more  Washington Post, 28 February 1909, p. 38.  The most comprehensive analysis of boxing fatalities ever undertaken is contained in the Manuel Velazquez boxing fatality collection, which has been periodically updated over the years. Between 1885 and 1914, there were hundreds of deaths in boxing matches in Canada and the United States. See Joseph Svinth, “Death Under the Spotlight: The Manuel Velazquez Boxing Fatality Collection,” Journal of Combative Sport (November 2007), https://ejmas.com/jcs/jcsart_svinth_a_0700.htm, accessed 10 September 2019. Wrestling, as our previous analysis indicates, produced no similar death toll. 51  Baltimore Sun, 12 May 1903, p. 9. 52  Tom Jenkins, quoted in the Colorado Springs Weekly Gazette, 26 January 1905, p. 10. 49 50

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dangerous, “Wrestling. Unless a man has a good neck and shoulders he had better not wrestle. Talk about the brutality of fighting? Say, it doesn’t compare with that of wrestling.”53 Audiences often failed to appreciate the stress a wrestler was under because, just as the technical elements of the sport were lost to spectators, so too was the strain they faced. Sharkey remarked, “In the prize ring when a man gets a good punch and the blood flows from his mouth or nose everybody sees it at once; but on the mat a husky wrestler may be bending the wrist or the ankle bones of his opponent to the breaking point, and the suffering may be terrible, but the spectators won’t know anything about it.”54 Encapsulating general opinions on the matter, Frank Gotch asserted, “Wrestling is the toughest game in the world. I have participated in prizefights, but they are nothing in comparison to a wrestling match.”55 The conventions governing catch-as-catch-can wrestling made contests particularly arduous compared to other styles that only focused on upright wrestling. In the professional ranks, no single governing body existed to standardize the sport. Nevertheless, in addition to the generally accepted practice of requiring an athlete’s shoulders to be pinned to the mat, constituting a fall, matches were also usually contested on a best two-out-of-three falls basis. The most widely accepted rule set, endorsed by Richard Kyle Fox’s National Police Gazette, gave no time prescriptions for matches.56 Additionally, no provisions were made for victory to be won on points, though some commentators before the Great War advocated for such a system to be implemented.57 As a result, bouts between well-matched adversaries commonly devolved into extremely lengthy affairs. In differentiating friendly encounters from serious competition, Eugene Van Court declared: It is not so much fun, however, when you run across a man who is equally skilled and strong with yourself, for in that case you are likely to be compelled to wrestle four or five hours at a time without either gaining a fall, and of course in this event there can be no pleasure. In fact, I might add that it is almost impossible for one man, when he meets another equal in all respects, providing both are skillful men, to put the other on his back.58  Tom Sharkey, quoted in the Baltimore Sun, 12 May 1903, p. 9.  Ibid. 55  Frank Gotch, quoted in the Baltimore Sun, 10 March 1906, p. 7. 56  Martin “Farmer” Burns, in Lessons in Wrestling and Physical Culture: Book No. 2 (Omaha, NE: By the Author, 1914), p. 9, described the National Police Gazette rules as, “always used in America in catch-as-­ catch-can matches.” Fox’s rules were remarkably similar to those suggested by Tom Connors in his text, The Modern Athlete (Milwaukee: By the Author, 1890), p. 35. 57  See, for example, the Logansport Pharos Tribune, 3 February 1911, p. 7. 58  Eugene Van Court, quoted in the Oakland Tribune, 3 April 1889, p. 3. 53 54

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Given the difficult proposition of pinning someone’s shoulders to the mat, skilled professionals began to incorporate novel methods for winning contests which added greater risk of injury to the sport. The first of these was simply to apply tactics that would wear a man down to the point that he would concede from discomfort and exhaustion. Such brutal methods were, in fact, a continuation of older practices that were seen across rural North America prior to the industrial era.59 As a result, some attendees at wrestling matches in the nineteenth century were witnessing a repackaged variant of a rough-­ and-­tumble spectacle that was once familiar to many who lived in the countryside. Both Tom Jenkins and Frank Gotch exemplified this fierce style of wrestling during their championship matches of 1903 and 1904, regarded as among the roughest contests in history.60 Even during matches against lesser foes, however, Gotch employed similar methods. During his 1911 appearance in Winnipeg against the largely unheralded George Eberg, for example, a reporter for the Winnipeg Tribune observed, “Where Gotch undoubtedly wins a majority of his bouts is by using his weight at all times in a strategic manner. Several times he had Eberg stretched on the mat and his knee was always pressing some portion of Eberg’s body.”61 Gotch, though, was not singularly unique in this regard. More broadly, the Logansport Pharos commented, “Strength, endurance, and the ability to stand punishment are what decide championship matches in this country. … Most of the skill shown is not along the lines of obtaining a fall, but of punishing an opponent until he is so badly used up that he can offer but feeble resistance.”62 To this end, in offering advice to aspiring acolytes of professional wrestling, Frederick Toombs advised, “The violence of a wrestling combat is such that a man must not satisfy himself with inefficient training. His partners ought to be capable of making himself exert himself to the utmost. Many holds torture a man even when in form. He must be drilled in standing pain and strains that would ordinarily seem unbearable.”63  For a discussion of these practices in the rural United States, see Elliot J. Gorn, “Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch:” The Social Significance of Fighting in the Southern Backcountry,” American Historical Review 90, 1 (February 1895), pp. 18–43; and Mark S. Hewitt, Catch Wrestling: A Wild and Wooly Look at the Early Days of Pro Wrestling in America (Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 2005), p. 2; and in Canada, see Glynn S. Leyshon, Of Mats and Men: The Story of Canadian Amateur and Olympic Wrestling from 1600 to 1984 (London: Sports Dynamics, 1984), pp. 23, 29. 60  For descriptions and analysis of the Gotch-Jenkins matches, see Mike Chapman, Frank Gotch: World’s Greatest Wrestler (Buffalo: William S. Hein and Company, 1990), pp. 30–35; Mike Chapman, The Life and Legacy of Frank Gotch: King of the Catch-as-Catch-Can Wrestlers (Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 2008), pp. 15–18. 61  Winnipeg Tribune, 10 March 1911, p. 10. 62  Logansport Pharos, 3 February 1911, p. 7. 63  Toombs, How to Wrestle, p. 9. 59

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Beyond the siege tactics of battering a man into giving up a fall, wrestlers also devoted their energies to refining an array of submission holds that could bring a more immediate termination to a contest if properly applied. Between 1885 and 1914, submission holds became increasingly common because of the difficulties in winning matches by pin. In speaking of wrestling’s evolution away from the “lever and fulcrum” principle of pins, Frank Gotch stated in 1907: In the development of the game, however, it has been found that there is a more powerful influence toward making a man roll over on his back or simply quit outright and surrender the fall than mechanical principle. It is pain. If certain grips can be secured … and the contestant held in a lock than means a fracture, strangulation or unconsciousness, due to excruciating pain, is made to do in a few seconds what hours might not suffice to accomplish.64

Key submissions used by wrestlers of the era included strangle holds, hammer locks, and toe holds, though each experienced different periods of popularity during the three decades before the Great War.65 The strangle hold, of which there were multiple variations, was brought into vogue by wrestler Evan Lewis during the late 1880s, earning him the nickname, “the Strangler.”66 Ernst Roeber, contemporary to Lewis, stated of the maneuver in 1890, “This hold is simply choking a man to death.”67 Because of its potentially fatal consequences, and because it had no clear objective of pinning a man at all, the hold was generally banned unless articles of agreement for a match specifically stipulated to the contrary. Published rules commonly singled out the strangle hold for exclusion from catch-as-­ catch-can wrestling contests.68 By 1913, though skilled wrestlers continued to receive training in its execution, strangles were considered “a discarded relic of the earlier ages of wrestling.”69  Atchison Daily Globe, 23 January 1907, p. 6.  For an overview of submission methods from the period, see Frank Gotch’s comments in ibid. 66  Strangle holds could be executed from behind an opponent as well as directly facing them. For distinct examples of the hold, see Bothner, Scientific Wrestling, p. 86; Leonard, A Text-Book, pp. 64, 240; Toombs, How to Wrestle, pp. 68, 70, 72; and Martin “Farmer” Burns, Lessons in Wrestling and Physical Culture: Book No. 6 (Omaha, NE: By the Author, 1914), pp. 6, 8. 67  Milwaukee Weekly Wisconsin, 8 February 1890, p. 6. 68  See the “Police Gazette Rules for Catch-as-Catch-Can, article 2, in Bothner, Scientific Wrestling, p. 12; and the Spalding “Wrestling Rules: Catch-as-Catch-Can (or Lancashire Style), in Toombs, How to Wrestle, p. 132. 69  Chicago Eagle, 15 March 1913, p. 2. Frank Gotch, for example, noted of the strangle that “[D]uring the year that I spent under [Farmer Burns’] careful guidance he locked it onto me until I thought my head 64 65

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While the hammerlock, which targeted elbow and shoulder, was a constant feature in wrestling during the strangle hold era and afterward, the toe hold achieved its greatest fame in the first decade of the twentieth century. More a term of reference for a category of holds than a specific technique, toe holds attacked the bones, musculature, and connective tissue of the leg. They could be used effectively as a form of pain compliance to “persuade” an opponent into a pin, or to make them quit outright if they did not expose their shoulders to the mat.70 Though by no means a post-1900 invention, the hold was popularized by Frank Gotch after he ascended to the apex of the professional game.71 Indicative of the sport’s rapid adaptation to technical innovation, toe holds quickly entered the repertoire of wrestlers all across the continent.72 In commenting on the effects of his pet maneuver, Gotch stated, “This is a dangerous hold, and causes the most intense pain imaginable. It seems to stretch every ligament of the legs and back. When this hold is properly executed, the victim imagines that he is some kind of a string instrument, and that some one is tightening up the keys to see how much strain the strings will stand before breaking.”73 The heavy emphasis on inflicting pain and threatening injury with submission holds became so common by the early twentieth century, that working toward the objective of a pin came to be viewed as a virtual afterthought in many professional wrestling encounters.74 Written rules such as those published by the National Police Gazette, however, which ostensibly banned pain-­ inducing tactics and emphasized victories being achieved by putting a person’s and respiratory organs were going to blow off.” The champion further asserted, “This hold is now universally barred, and it is right that it should be.” See the Winnipeg Tribune, 11 December 1907, p. 6. 70  For examples of a variety of different toe holds, see Martin “Farmer” Burns, Lessons in Wrestling and Physical Culture: Book No. 4 (Omaha, NE: By the Author, 1914), pp. 10–13. 71  Although not named as such, Evan Lewis had employed the hold in his matches. In one instance, he held a man down in the prone position and, preventing the possibility of him turning to his back, “twisted the leg until the thigh ripped,” thus terminating the contest in favor of “the Strangler.” See the Washington Post, 28 February 1909, p. 38. 72  On the proliferation of the toe hold following Gotch’s example, see the Dubuque Daily Times Journal, 14 February 1911, p. 4; and Martin “Farmer” Burns, Lessons in Wrestling and Physical Culture: Book No. 4 (Omaha, NE: By the Author, 1914), p. 10. Its use as a method of obtaining a submission victory could be seen across North America. On 13 December 1909, in St. John’s, Newfoundland, for example, wrestler Otto Oppelt managed to subdue local mat artist Young Olsen after 3 hours and 45 minutes of struggle, Olsen quitting to prevent a broken leg. In Piqua, Ohio, on 3 December 1910, after a relatively brief interval of 53 minutes, Chris Jordan submitted to Al Ackerman, “only after Ackerman had almost dislocated his left foot.” See, respectively, the St. John’s Evening Telegram, 14 December 1909, p. 5; and Piqua Daily Call, 3 September 1910, p. 3. 73  Frank Gotch, quoted in the Winnipeg Tribune, 11 December 1907, p. 6. 74  For observations along these lines by sports writers, see, for example, the Logansport Pharos Tribune, 3 February 1911, p. 7; and the Fort William Daily Times Journal, 26 February 1921, p. 6.

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shoulders to the mat, did not reflect the “fast-and-loose” reality of the sport.75 The generally accepted (though uncodified) practices of catch-as-catch-can were moderated by the referee overseeing the contest, and in virtually no instance did they stick to the letter of the law. To the contrary, they were expected to “display a certain amount of discretion apart from the rules,” and therefore, under National Police Gazette conventions, “considerable roughing was to be expected.”76 Even use of the explicitly banned stranglehold was commonly overlooked.77 The central reason for this cavalier attitude was that the public demanded it. To disqualify athletes for such methods would derive the people of an evening of enjoyment. To this point, a reporter for the Dubuque Daily Times commented, “The thoughtful referee realises this, and may sometimes even stretch the rules (than which there is no more elastic in the Decalogue) in order to give the crowd a good run for its money, and at the same time be fair to the men, either of whom may at times lose his head and do things which appear uncalled for.”78 The custom of discretion certainly had its limits. Deliberately punching a wrestler could, for example, result in a disqualification, as occurred when Tom Jenkins aimed a blow at Frank Gotch during their January 1904 encounter.79 Additionally, what were judged to be malicious attempts at deliberate injury were commonly frowned upon.80 However, no uniform standards existed to judge what constituted deliberate injury. The conditions for victory in a wrestling match also reinforced use of potentially debilitating tactics. Since most matches were conducted on a two-­ out-­of-three fall basis, if an athlete was unable to continue due to injury, they surrendered the fall. If they were unable to continue wrestling after a rest period, they surrendered the match. This both incentivized utilizing injurious methods and disincentivized quitting due to pain and injury. The heavy role that gambling played in professional wrestling encounters had the potential to add to the severity. Established rules for professional wrestling said little about submissions, but they meticulously outlined the parameters around betting

 The “Police Gazette Rules for Catch-as-Catch-Can, article 3 stipulated that “Two shoulders touching the floor at the same time” constituted a fall. See Bothner, Scientific Wrestling, p. 12. 76  Manitoba Free Press, 4 June 1910, p. 45; Manitoba Free Press, 16 March 1910, p. 6. 77  On the continued presence of the stranglehold see comments by G.H. Sandison and Frank Gotch in, respectively, the Milwaukee Weekly Wisconsin, 8 February 1890, p. 6; and the Chicago Eagle, 15 March 1913, p. 2. 78  Dubuque Daily Times Journal, 14 February 1911, p. 4. 79  Bellingham Herald, 28 January, 1904, n.p. 80  Dubuque Daily Times Journal, 14 February 1911, p. 4. 75

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on a contest.81 That rule makers devoted so much column space to the matter speaks to the preeminent role that wagering played in mat encounters of the era. If an athlete was backing himself, or being backed by friends, he might endure more punishment than he would otherwise be willing to tolerate in the absence of financial incentive. Likewise, the financial gravity of a match could spur a man on to use the most aggressive of tactics. Frank Gotch observed: [I]n matches for side bets where the wrestlers, usually men of excellent physical courage, as well as endurance—necessarily so, in fact—are defending an amount of money which is placed on him by friends, while the first few minutes of the fray may be more legitimate order, when one contestant sees the tides turning against him he is sure to bring his reserves into the fray. And then it becomes a match for blood.82

Although the norm in professional wrestling matches, there was not universal acceptance of the sport’s conventions around the use of pain-inducing tactics and submission maneuvers: a fact highlighted in debates around the efficacy of the toe hold during the decade before the Great War. One reform-minded sportsman rejected the idea that the injurious hold was something the public wanted to see. Instead, he believed, “The majority of people go to see a wrestling match from pure love of good, clean sport, and are not actuated by the same motives that inspire the attendants of a bull fight.” To that end, he called for the prohibiting “such dangerous, cruel and entirely unsatisfactory freaks of the game as the toe hold.”83 Some American professional wrestlers agreed, at least in principle, including Dr. Benjamin Franklin Roller, a Seattle physician who became a top-flight professional during Gotch’s heyday. Roller expressed the view that he would like to see the hold banned, and though he had frequently used it himself in matches, could “never reconcile [him]self to the belief that the hold is not dangerous and unsportsmanlike.”84 Still, Roller, contended, “[i]f the hold is permitted under the agreement then, of course, it is up to the man to take advantage of it.”85 The physician’s rather ambivalent tone reflected a broad-reaching philosophy toward the sport that placed  Fully half the preamble to the National Police Gazette rules, as outlined in Bothner’s Scientific Wrestling, pertain to betting-related matters. See pp. 11–12. 82  Frank Gotch, quoted in the Burlington Evening Gazette, 25 March 1906, p. 5. Private matches, staged before a referee and a select clientele of backers, were particularly noted by Gotch for their viciousness. 83  Dubuque Daily Times Journal, 14 February 1911, p. 4. 84  Benjamin Franklin Roller, quoted in the Altoona Mirror, 14 February 1911, p. 14. 85  Ibid. 81

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c­ ompetitive success before upholding sporting purity.86 Similarly, after wrestler Chris Jordan nearly had his ankle dislocated due to toe hold, an observer, while acknowledging that the toe hold had, “many times ruined a man for life by crippling his leg,” argued that Jordan’s opponent, Al Ackerman, “[was] not to be blamed for using the toe hold upon any opponent in his efforts to bring home the money.”87 In removing the ethical responsibilities around pain and injury from the athletes, Roller turned it over to the promoters and the court of public opinion.88 The verdict they delivered was not in the reformers’ favor. No widespread campaign developed to ban either the toe hold or other punishing methods common to the sport. The public continued to flock to matches in the thousands where the toe hold decided the outcome of encounters, and while there were limits with respect to how much violence would be tolerated, there remained scarce evidence of indignation around the more common grueling methods of the mat game. Indeed, audiences even vocalized their desire to see such methods used in wrestling matches.89 Cognizant of their market’s tastes, wrestling promoters lacked incentive to enact change. For all its merit as an efficient and effective builder of bodies, wrestling, as practiced as a vocation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, could be equally as efficient and effective in destroying them. For a public concerned with cultivating health and fitness, competitive catch-as-catch-can therefore appeared to be antithetical to achieving these ends. Why, then, did the sport, under the conventions of catch-as-catch-can, persist for decades in North America after its rise to prominence in the 1880s? Centrally, this was because of the important values it came to exemplify.

The Value of Dangerous Sport Historians have emphasized the broader purposes attached to wrestling, among them promoting nationalism, as well as class and ethnic cohesion.90 While each of these are vital in understanding wrestling as a social ­phenomenon,  For similar observations around wrestling specifically, and American sport generally, see Kim Beckwith and Jan Todd, “George Hackenschmidt vs. Frank Gotch: Media Representations and the World Wrestling Title of 1908,” Iron Game History 11, 2 (June 2010), p. 23. 87  Piqua Daily Call, 3 September 1910, p. 3. 88  Altoona Mirror, 14 February 1911, p. 14. 89  A critic noted, to this effect, that “[Frank Gotch] has educated the lovers of the game so well in his use of this terrible hold that it is their cry of ‘Break his leg off, Al.’” Piqua Daily Call, 3 September 1910, p. 3. 90  See, for example, Matthew Lindaman, “Wrestling’s Hold on the Western World Before the Great War,” Historian 62 (Summer 2000), pp. 785–796; Beekman, Ringside, p. 37; C. Nathan Hatton, “Wrestling, 86

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they are inadequate in explaining why a particularly rough and dangerous variant of the sport took hold with audiences during the period associated with the rise of competitive organized sport in North America. In continental Europe, for example, characterized by intensified nationalism prior to the Great War, wrestlers competed in large tournaments under the banner of their respective countries. However, the methods used were nowhere near as brutal as in the United States and Canada. To that effect, famed Estonian wrestler Georg Lurich, commented following his defeat by Frank Gotch, “The toe hold is cruel, very cruel. It is not sport. But there is a lot of brain work in the American game. … But still I prefer my own way of wrestling. It is much safer and better for young men to practice. There is not the danger of a broken arm like in the American style.”91 Conversely, in speaking of North American attitudes toward practices on the other side of the Atlantic, a reporter with the Logansport Pharos Tribune observed that “Europeans are rather sneered at in this country because they wrestle shorter bouts and know but little about punishing and disabling an opponent.”92 With a longstanding tradition of violent one-on-one combat inherited from the pre-industrial era, portions of North American audiences were more preconditioned to accept similar methods in their wrestling once catch-as-catch-can emerged as the dominant system in the 1880s. Such practices had largely been the purview of the lower social orders during the antebellum period, but by the waning decades of the nineteenth century, it is clear that an appreciation for physical aggression and roughness had a wide audience that extended well beyond the “hunters, drifters, herdsmen, gamblers, roustabouts and rural poor” to encompass people across the socioeconomic spectrum.93 As the process of urbanization and industrialization catapulted the continent (and particularly the United States) to the forefront of global trade and commerce, it swelled the ranks of the middle class. But just as fears of an increasingly sedentary life were producing health concerns, they were also prompting moral concerns. In particular, it was thought, modern conditions were not only molding soft physical frames, but soft personal character as well. As numerous historians have shown, educators and theologians, more Immigration and Working-Class Culture: The Finns of the Thunder Bay Region,” in Hard Work Conquers All: Building the Finnish Community in Canada, eds. Michel S. Beaulieu et. al. (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018), pp. 106–107. 91  Boston Sunday Post, 19 January 1913, p. 31. 92  Logansport Pharos Tribune, 3 February 1911, p. 7. 93  Gorn, “Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch,” p. 28. For the broad popularity of violent spectacles among members of the middle class, see “Kevin B. Wamsley and David Whitson, “Celebrating Violent Masculinities: The Boxing Death of Luther McCarty,” Journal of Sport History 25, 3 (Fall 1998), pp. 421, 428–429.

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than in previous generations, began to draw connections between physical robustness and morality. Physicality and morality became connected to the extent that even the idealized image of Jesus was reconstituted from its meek and mild form to one that was formidable and muscular.94 Sport, in this context, became a vehicle for moral development. Serious wrestling was something that few were willing, or able, to engage in. However, the sport’s value was not just to be found through participation, and far greater numbers of people read about, or witnessed the sport, than ever stepped on to a competitive mat. Instead, for North American audiences, catch-as-catch-can wrestling became a vehicle for showcasing important ideals that represented an active form of resistance to the morally deleterious effects of modern life. As a moral enterprise, wrestling audiences accepted, and even celebrated, the possibility of injury because of the lessons that could be learned, and the example that was set, by consciously entering into such a dangerous venue for human interaction. This can be seen, in particular, through emphasis on the virtue of gameness. Gameness, in the context of the era, referred to the willingness to invite injury and, despite either being threatened with, or even experiencing, considerable pain and suffering, persist against the odds in the pursuit of victory. Though never explicitly defined, descriptions of wrestlers as “game” littered the literature of the period, forming a connective thread that spoke to its widespread exaltation as a personal quality. Ernie Sundberg, for example, in a match with his Winnipeg rival, Alex Stewart, experienced bruising on his back during the match, “but like the game little boy he [was], he continued to wrestle without a murmur.”95 Minnesota welterweight grappler Walter Miller fractured his ankle in a contest against Winnipeg middleweight standout Charles Gustafson, but continued to wrestle. As a result, “his grit and gameness made him many friends.”96 Even more remarkable was Henry Gehring. In a match with Fred “Demon” Bartl in Lima, Ohio, Gehring had his ankle dislocated due to a toe hold, forcing him to give up the first fall. Carried by his seconds, he returned to the ring to win the next two falls and the match. His actions were heralded as “real gameness and what can be done when a

 Colin D.  Howell, Blood, Sweat, and Cheers: Sport and the Making of Modern Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), pp. 32–34; Benjamin Rader, American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Televised Sports (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1983), pp. 101, 105; Clifford Putney, Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 1, 5, 45. 95  Winnipeg Tribune, 22 November 1910, p. 6. 96  Manitoba Free Press, 11 July 1911, p. 7. 94

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man does not know defeat.”97 The virtue of gameness, as exhibited through the sport of wrestling, even formed part of the public appeal attached to the famed “Roughrider,” Theodore Roosevelt. As governor of New  York, the future president of the United States received private lessons in wrestling from well-known professional, J.M. Dwyer. Dwyer stated, of Roosevelt, “He doesn’t mind hurts and he doesn’t care much if he hurts his opponent. He goes at it with all the earnestness and all the display of teeth that he has become so noted.”98 As gameness was so heavily admired, its apparent absence in a match was cause for criticism. In the two most heavily publicized, and financially lucrative, wrestling matches staged prior to the Great War, Estonian-born George Hackenschmidt was soundly defeated by the American, Frank Gotch. Following their second encounter, staged on 3 September 1911 in Chicago, Hackenschmidt surrendered to the toe hold after only a brief struggle. Although the match generated considerable controversy and has remained fodder for debate for generations of historians, much of the contemporary criticism leveled at Hackenschmidt centered on his (lack of ) gameness.99 Referee Ed Smith stated of the affair, “Gotch won honestly and fairly. Hack did not show his usual gameness or aggressiveness.”100 Hackenschmidt’s main training partner, B.F. Roller, was especially critical on these grounds, stating: I am intensely disappointed with Hack’s showing. In the gymnasium he is a greater man than he showed today, but, unfortunately, champion matches are not wrestled in gymnasiums. I have tried my best to make a winner out of him and put him into the ring in the best possible condition, but as I said yesterday, gameness is something you cannot put into a man.101

A lack of gameness was one of the most damning indictments that could be leveled on a wrestler of the era, and in the months that followed, a reporter  Ogden Evening Standard, 10 February 1913, p. 10.  J.M. Dwyer, quoted in the Baltimore Sun, 20 December 1899, p. 6. 99  The Gotch-Hackenschmidt encounters of 1908 and 1911 are by far the most studied and debated wrestling matches in the sport’s history, and worthy of historiographical analysis in their own right. Historians and commentators have variously praised and condemned the actions of both men before, during, and after the two encounters. For accounts that are more critical of Frank Gotch, see, for example, Beckwith and Todd, “George Hackenschmidt vs. Frank Gotch”; and Lou Thesz and Kit Baumann, Hooker (Gallatin, TN: Crowbar Press, 2011), pp. 57–58. For accounts more critical of Hackenschmidt, see, for example, Chapman, Frank Gotch, pp.  57–70, and 91–115; Chapman, The Life and Legacy, pp. 25–36; and Matt Furey, “Gotch vs. Hackenschmidt: The Real Truth?” Grappling Arts International Newsmagazine 1, 2 (February 1999), pp. 2–8. 100  Ed Smith, quoted in the New York Times, 5 September 1911, p. 12. 101  B.F. Roller, quoted in the Carroll Times and Carroll Sentinel, 14 September 1911, p. 7. 97 98

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with the Philadelphia Inquirer observed that Hackenschmidt’s defeat led to him being “widely criticized as having a ‘yellow streak.’”102 However, the Estonian’s mental state was evidently not in question the previous December, for in a match in Boston against Roller, “He was plainly suffering excruciating agony, but was game as a pepple[sic], and fought hard to keep from being thrown.”103 The paramount importance attached to gameness, and the social sanction associated with a failure to exhibit it, furthered the danger associated with an already dangerous sport. Not all wrestlers, though, were blind to fact that overemphasizing the quality was often to their own personal detriment. Hjalmar Lundin wrestled a series of two matches in Kansas City against Frank Gotch. In the first, he was forced to concede to the champion’s toe hold. In the second, he hoped to make a better showing and not lose in a similar fashion. Lundin recalled in his memoirs, “The second match in Kansas City lasted one hour and twenty minutes when Gotch’s toe-hold caught me. I was determined to be game and not to give up. Anyway, Frank was the winner again, and I was crippled—I hobbled around for almost two months—wishing I had been ‘wise’ again, instead of game!”104 The average person could not, nor were they expected to, endure such brutality as was the stock-and-trade of high-level wrestling matches. Nevertheless, they could pursue the sport, in moderation, to override the deleterious impact of a life of comfort made possible by the rising prosperity of the industrial era, and in doing so become more efficient and productive contributors to that society. Even this, of course, posed risks, but to deny them the opportunity to wrestle, the sport’s advocates insisted, was ultimately of greater detriment to society. Wrestling champion and fitness evangelist William Muldoon stated to this effect, “[W]ith a well sanded or padded floor the element of danger can hardly come into consideration. And then if every American boy is to be bantered and molly-coddled in this style what sort of imbecile will he be, and what kind of a race of men will there be 100 years from now if such manly sports as boxing and wrestling are outlawed?”105 For those who lacked the inclination or the ability to participate, wrestling still held great value. Far more people consumed information on wrestling or attended wrestling cards than pursued the sport as an athletic undertaking. In reading about top-flight wrestling in periodicals and newspapers, and by witnessing contests in  Philadelphia Inquirer, 24 December 1911, p. 12.  Boston Post, 27 December 1910, p. 10. 104  Lundin, On the Mat and Off, p. 87. 105  William Muldoon, quoted in the Philadelphia Inquirer, 30 September 1894, p. 20. 102 103

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theaters and arenas across the continent, the nation’s citizenry could also be taught, through example, important moral lessons. Professional wrestlers, by their daring performances on the mat, became exemplars of important cultural values, not the least of which was the importance of gamely persevering in the face of daunting odds. Certainly, the violence characteristic to wrestling did not receive universal acceptance, and subsequent generations of historians have likewise cast a critical eye toward the aggressive forms of masculinity promoted through sport.106 Yet, its appeal for audiences at the time cannot be denied. As one scribe with the Washington Post editorialized in 1909, “for all its rough-house drawbacks, it is the game of the hardiest manhood, and it is a sport that will endure as long as man and ambition rule—which will be until Gabriel plays his final solo and calls the erring brothers home; at least, until something happens with which we are largely unfamiliar.”107 To date, the Post’s prognostication has proven to have a measure of prophetic truth. Although professional wrestling evolved in the Interwar years into a form of muscular melodrama, the sport’s rough-and-tumble spirit, vividly on display between 1885 and 1914, was revived in North America in the modern guise of mixed martial arts.108 Although touted to have many benefits, participating in catch-as-catch-can wrestling had undeniable physical consequences. Deaths were few, but injuries were myriad and many of them had a lasting effect. Ernie Sundberg’s match against Charles Dalager in Winnipeg proved to be too short to allow the world’s heavyweight champion to gauge his abilities as a wrestler. Sundberg remained a local star. However, the ramifications were more serious for Charles Dalager. He never got his rematch with Sundberg, and in fact, never wrestled again. Gameness could not overcome the physiological danger of tackling the toughest game in the world, but for large portions of the population who looked to wrestling for the important lessons it offered, the risk was well worth it.

 See, for example, Bruce Kidd, “Sport and Masculinity,” Queen’s Quarterly 94, 1 (Spring 1987), pp. 125–128; Kevin Young, “Violence, Risk, and Liability in Male Sports Culture,” Sociology of Sport Journal 10 (1993), pp. 373–396; and Varda Burstyn, Rites of Men: Manhood, Politics and the Culture of Sport (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999). 107  Washington Post, 28 February 1909, p. 38. 108  For an exploration of the links between professional wrestling and the current mixed martial arts phenomenon, see Jake Shannon, Say Uncle! Catch-as-Catch-Can Wrestling and the Roots of Ultimate Fighting, Pro Wrestling, and Modern Grappling (Toronto: ECW Press, 2011). 106

Part II The NFL: Politics, Injury, and American National Identity

Inflaming the Civic Temper: Progress, Violence, and Concussion in Early American Football Emily A. Harrison

“Long ago,” wrote Harvard University President Charles W. Eliot in 1895, “it appeared clearly that the highly competitive sports were assuming an importance in the public mind, and developing evils both physical and moral.”1 He was speaking specifically about a new style of American football, first played three decades earlier on the playing fields of the Boston Common. Combining the running and kicking aspects of football elsewhere with the tackling and throwing elements of the rugby game, American football was spreading quickly among elite colleges by the last decade of the twentieth century. By 1895, cities and campuses across the country fielded professional as well as college teams. Eliot’s antipathy for the game was legendary. The office of the Harvard President overlooked college grounds nestled in a bend of the Charles, a major river flowing through the small agricultural towns of central Massachusetts, between athletic fields and campuses, alongside soldiers’ training fields, past the commercial city of Boston and out into the Atlantic, where fishing boats and ships crossing between continents busied the waters. The institution aimed to influence, in its own way, each of these public demesnes. Harvard was prominent among the elite American  Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1894–1895. Cambridge, MA: Published by the University, 1896: 18. 1

E. A. Harrison (*) Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_5

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colleges claiming responsibility for the moral and intellectual training of the young men who, their faculty hoped, would be the future leaders of a still-­ young nation. There was no shortage of evidence that, among the intervarsity sports, football was exceptionally dangerous. Decades before systematic injury counts were taken, newspapers around the country ran breathless descriptions of grotesque football disfigurements and deaths. Reporting on the Harvard-Yale game in 1984, the New York Times noted that Murphy, the “gigantic right tackle of the Yale team,” was “very badly hurt” and “suffering from contusion of the brain.” On the Harvard side, Brewer had a leg broken and Wrightington had a broken collar bone, and Hallowell was heading “back to Cambridge with a broken nose.” “Prize fighting seems a tame and perfectly harmless game in comparison with the sort of thing that people saw on the field here to-day,” the paper opined.2 Headlines rang with horror: “A Student Killed at Football,” “Dead from Football Injuries.” The Boston Daily Globe reported on the travels of one team captain to the funeral of another on the West Point team, killed in the line of recreation.3 In the minds of college faculty like Eliot, the damages of football extended beyond the sensational physical injury of individuals to collective social harms. From the practices that the popular game encouraged to the virtues it compromised, football threatened the moral mission of their universities. Should football be therefore abolished? Americans—academicians and otherwise—confronted this question on campuses and in public media across the country. Were the evils, both physical and moral, grounds for canceling the sport from college extra-curricular activity? Some Americans felt that football’s roughness and military ethic was not an evil but a good. With reactionary political views they feared that the post-bellum shift from spiritual to practical ideas about governance would destroy the American character.4 It was not these clearly conservative Americans, however, who deserve credit for “saving” the game. It was Americans with Progressive political views, many of them among the early critics of the game, whose support ultimately sustained football as a college sport in this early moment of crisis.  “Yale Again Triumphant,” New York Times, November 13, 1903.  “A Student Killed at Football,” New York Times, October 22, 1887; “Dead from Football Injuries,” New York Times, November 13, 1903; “Capt Fish of Crimson Team Goes to West Point for Byrne Funeral,” Boston Daily Globe, November 2, 1909. 4  Thomas C. Kennedy, “Homer Lea and the Peace Makers,” The Historian, 45(4), August 1983: 473–496. 2 3

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Esteemed Progressives like Eliot, sitting on college faculties and claiming to abhor the game’s dangers and military ethic, rarely went so far as to call for its abolishment. Football had a function in their plan to re-shape society and was too valuable to terminate altogether. It was Progressives who led the charge for safety reforms, not abolishment, which made the game more acceptable to many while retaining its essential cultural construct of “manliness.” Manliness did not threaten the likes of Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive vision, for example, and his advocacy of football in the early twentieth century is well documented. Less well-known is that there were also a number of famous Progressives demanding absolute abolishment of the new football game, not satisfied with reform or with the idea that “manliness” was the quality Americans should aspire to embody. Not often distinguished from the more tolerant reform position in histories of football’s injuries, the specificity of these pacifist views in the football crisis of the late nineteenth century illuminates an essential debate within the American Progressive movement about the role of football—and other instantiations of “manliness”—in the improvement of society. Past and present observers of football’s triumphal rise and endurance have often alluded to a proclivity for violence in US society, as though this is somehow a natural characteristic of Americans. This chapter demonstrates that the argument for abolishment deflated through the mid-twentieth century not because of a “natural” inclination among Americans for violence, but because of specific historical contingencies that eroded one ethical understanding of violence while empowering others. After examining the place of football in nascent Progressive public health imaginaries, and laying out the violence debates within the Progressive movement, this chapter highlights the work that injuries—in particular brain concussion—did for and against the argument for abolishment. This chapter, then, is about the way football was challenged, and survived, through its early health crisis. It is, by association, about the endurance of particular ideas about harm, benefit, and the public good in American institutions of public health. The football health crisis in the game’s early years differed from the football safety crisis that rose in the late twentieth century (which is explored in other contributions to this book). But debates have histories, and as injuries like concussion are being used yet again to draw critical attention to football in what has been labeled “The Concussion Crisis,” this story about the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century football health crisis speaks to what may be the game’s most essential vulnerabilities in the twenty-first century.

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A Public Health Problem As the United States passed its first centennial (in 1876), faculty at the country’s leading liberal arts colleges worried about the incivility they observed in popular life. Industrialization had bred social division between classes of rich and poor, immigrant and “American.” The cities attracting eager workers appeared insalubrious, fostering disease, and moral dissolution. The institution of slavery had been abolished, but the people it had liberated remained unequal on measures of health and thriving. The complex quality of incivility that Progressives observed across society had a name in the late nineteenth century: Brutality. Brutality was more than physical violence; it was a lack of refinement that could qualify both individuals and groups, and affect not only the present but the future of society. Characterized by inefficiency and waste, the opposite of smooth, integrated, coordinated action, brutality was seen as the wild state from which humanity needed to be saved. In the minds of leading Progressives like Charles Eliot, brutality was a problem of public health. Eliot listened closely to the advice of his friend and colleague Henry P. Walcott, president of the American Public Health Association and chairman of the Massachusetts State Board of Health. He supported Walcott’s intuition that public health problems were the social and moral failings not of individuals, as many American Victorians had been inclined to believe, but of collective society. For Walcott and his cohort of public health leaders, diseases were products of “the immorality and irresponsibility of society as a whole.”5 The Progressive movement in which Eliot and Walcott did their work was a diverse collection of reformers and their social, political, and cultural ideas. 6 Motivated by the insalubrity they observed in life and politics, Progressives reacted in common against the laissez faire ideal that had dominated American life in the nineteenth century. Laissez faire ideology had fostered political machines and other forms of government that fed on inequalities, and while its elevation of the individual was sacred in the minds of Progressives, its denigration of state authority, they argued, had harmed the Republic. Progressives favored state regulation and support for addressing the problems of industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political corruption. Regulations and standards were not imagined to be coercive controls. Rather, they were  Barbara Gutman Rosenkrantz, Public Health and the State: Changing Views in Massachusetts (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972): 94. 6  Theodore Brown and Elizabeth Fee, “Social Movements in Health,” Annual Review of Public Health, 35, 2014: 385–398. 5

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intended to control through attraction. Progressives expected individuals to exercise self-restraint, bringing themselves into conformation with a standard system of their own free will. In the absence of these provisions for both regulation and freedom, Progressives believed, brutality endured.7 In the second half of the nineteenth century, this brutality was evident on the playing fields of the new American sports. Critical observers of baseball, for example, lamented not only the player fights that broke out on the baseball pitch, but also the “disgraceful rowdyism” of the fans and the corruption that pervaded management. When a Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players sought “to cast off the yoke of the league bosses” in 1885, they formed a new league that promised a more civilized approach to the game.8 Nothing convinced the college faculty of brutality’s present hold on the public imagination more than the rising popularity of the new style of football across their campuses. This popularity presented a paradox: a threat and an opportunity. College sports played a key role in the Progressive imaginary, and herein lay the opportunity. In the training grounds for the mind that liberal arts colleges like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania were imagined to be, sports had proven to be attractive and entertaining to students and the public alike. As Eliot observed from his position at Harvard, “The sports which have intercollegiate interest affect strongly the physical welfare, the manners, and the morals of the students who take part in them, or who aspire to take part in them.”9 Sports drew and held the attention of not only the people who played them but also the spectators—the public—who played them in fantasy, if not in fact. Among the popular sports of the time, football had a particular power. Progressive reformers, militant reactionaries, and the popular masses all found at least some aspects of the game appealing. Its essential character had emerged in the context of the Social Darwinist and militaristic ideas that dominated mainstream nineteenth-century American culture. Competitiveness, obedience, the ability to withstand pain and navigate risk, to sacrifice the personal for the collective, and to display not only toughness but “contempt of  McGerr, A Fierce Discontent: the Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870–1920 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Frankel and Dye (eds.) Gender, Class, Race, and Reform in the Progressive Era (Lexington, University of Kentucky Press, 1991); Allen Davis, Spearheads for Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement, 1890–1914 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1984). 8  “The Ball Players’ Revolt,” New York Times, Sept 23, 1885; Warren Goldstein, Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989); Emily Harrison, “Loyalty and Noise: Nuf Sed McGreevy and the First Baseball Fans.” Tempus, Spring 2002. 9  Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1894–1895. Cambridge, MA: Published by the University, 1896: 19. 7

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softness,” defined the game. And yet, many aspects of football also served the ideas of Progressive social reformers reacting against laissez faire Victorian ideals. Some social reformers, observing rapid urbanization and attributing a host of sicknesses to city life, believed that well-designed environmental settings could foster resilience against the insalubrious influences of the city. Others argued that well-developed physical stamina could counter the diverse effects of urban life. Football contributed to both recreational environments and physical development. Football, in other words, was imagined as a bridge across political boundaries, linking those longing for the past and those dreaming of a different future, those anxious about national strength and those hopeful about individual freedoms. At colleges, therefore, the game was imagined to have an enormous and simple utility: it attracted students to college life and gave the public reason to admire these future leaders. And yet, at the same time that football held promise for the Progressive project, the practices it encouraged threatened their vision of a healthy public. The gruesome physical disfigurations documented by the popular papers were only the symptom of the problem. Football primarily harmed the public by promoting immorality and irresponsibility. The resolution to the paradox was to tame the game: to reform it in such a way that maintained its utility without undermining the values that the Progressives wished to instill through their institutions. In 1882, the Harvard faculty formed a new Committee on the Regulation of Athletic Sports, tasked with exorcising the “crying evils” of the game. Originally comprised of two members of the Harvard Corporation and the director of the college gymnasium, by 1885 the governing board had reconstituted the committee to include a physician, the director of the Harvard gymnasium, a recent graduate who had participated in athletics, and two current undergraduate athletes. The physician appointed was none other than the formative public health figure Henry P. Walcott. While this faculty committee noted the physical roughness of football, their prominent concerns were not individual bodily injuries but distraction, deception, and “professionalism.” Early college teams, it was felt, fostered these evils by taking time away from devoted scholarship, by fielding professional players, and by charging entrance fees. The committee’s essential charges were “to preserve the college character of the contests themselves and of the training therefore,” “to exclude all players who are not genuine students and amateurs,” and “to procure proper use of the money derived from the sports.” The games’ material injuries were acknowledged, but relatively tolerated. The

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Committee only aspired “to secure the physical safety of the players so far as it is possible.”10 Through the turn of the century, this committee led work across campuses to bring the game in accordance with their vision. The way to do so—to counter immorality, irresponsibility, and injury—was by making the game more “scientific.” With peer committees at other colleges, they standardized the rules of the game and created an intercollegiate supervisory body, which would later become the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), to police adherence to the standards across teams.11 By 1895, the faculty at Harvard generally felt their committee had made sufficient progress to allow football to continue on their campus. Reforms had addressed their concerns about amateurism. The standardization of rules had created a system of football that teams across the country were adopting. They were pleased by the widespread changes they observed in public attitudes about such regulatory systems. “These efforts were resisted and derived for years by students, graduates, and the public press,” Charles Eliot wrote in his annual report that year, “until experience proved their wisdom.” The attitudinal change went beyond players and coaches. “It has now become obvious that the great majority of intelligent people in this country are of this opinion, and that judicious parents are likely to make the opinion felt.”12 With the moral reforms enacted and sustained by the new regulatory system, many formerly opposed faculty reasoned that football was now tolerable. It attracted both students and public admiration to these students, raising the support for the university as an institution. Playing the game seemed, to many of its Progressive promoters, to attract not only youth but other “brutish” characters held at the margins of white American society, offering an opportunity to “civilize” them. And football appeared to be functioning at an even deeper cultural level. Eliot, for one, felt that the work done by the Committee on the Regulation of Athletic Sports and its intercollegiate peers had convinced even the public that “steady and watchful control” was a more desirable approach to governance than the absence of controls that laissez faire ideology had ostensibly endorsed. Down the Atlantic coast, footballers were increasingly praised as being in harmony with the Progressive vision. In New York, for example, a city famously dominated by the kind of political  Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1894–1895. Cambridge, MA: Published by the University, 1896: 18. 11  John Hammond Moore, “Football’s Ugly Decades, 1893–1913,” Smithsonian Journal of History 2 (Fall 1967):49–68. 12  Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1894–1895. Cambridge, MA: Published by the University, 1896: 18–19. 10

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machinery at the heart of the Progressive protest, four Brooklyn high schools forming a championship football league in 1893 chose the title of “boss kickers of Brooklyn” as the appropriate honorific for the winner. The image of kicking a ward boss was a political cartoon for the Progressive reforms.13 Not all of football’s stakeholders would be fully satisfied with the state of the game, but few would call for anything more drastic than technical reforms. Harvard’s team doctors, for example, raised an alarm in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (BMSJ) in 1906.14 The problem of injuries had not been solved by the previous two decades of reforms, they argued, giving extensive counts of fractures, sprains, and contusions. Despite their concerns about the seriousness of the injuries “inherent in the game itself,” however, they only went so far as to suggest that the game be “modified” to make it acceptable. Confining themselves to counting player injuries, and not assessing the game’s moral rectitude or public virtue, they called for more individual-level supervision of the game by qualified medical personnel such as themselves. When the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) picked up the Harvard study, it noted cynically that academia more generally had an interest in finding ways to continue to support the dangerous game. The biggest challenge to addressing the game’s dangers, they wrote, would be if “our university authorities fear unpopularity more than they dare to be right.” Still, even JAMA went only so far as to condemn football’s “present form.”15 The problem of injuries that took center stage in the first decade of the twentieth century seemed more a medical problem than it did a problem of public health. Surely, greater efforts to make the game more “scientific”— through regulation, new protective technologies, and expert supervision— could solve it.

Values and Violence As strong as the reform intuition was on college campuses, reform was not the only Progressive position on the question of football’s place in society. “Football Reform by Abolition,” read a headline in the Nation published in 1905. The article commended Eliot and other college presidents brave enough to continue calling for reform of the game as it grew ever more popular across  “Schoolboys Have Crack Teams: Never So Much Interest Shown as Now in Interscholastic Football,” New York Times, Oct 31, 1893: 11. 14  Edward H. Nichols and Homer B. Smith, “The Physical Aspect of American Football,” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, CLIV(1), Jan 4, 1906: 1–8. 15  “Surgical Aspects of Football,” Journal of the American Medical Association, Jan 13, 1906:122–123. 13

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the country. Many faculty were not willing to be even so bold. “College presidents and faculties have everywhere been terrorized by student opinion,” the Nation observed. “Hence the college authorities have abdicated their proper functions, always trembling lest a radical stand decrease the enrollment and drive students to a rival institution where teams, mayhap, have won three or four years out of five.”16 But Eliot, in accepting reform instead of abolition, had not gone far enough. The reforms initiated to remediate the game, the Nation argued, were distractions from the essential issue that needed to be addressed. “The real question before the public today is whether it is worth while to attempt to modify the game, or whether it should not be abolished forthwith.” Pointing to “timid souls” who worried that Eliot’s hostility to the game explained lower enrollments in the past year, the Nation chastised the reform-satiated faculty. While many critical media outlets had documented particular evils that came “in the train of football” over the years, this article in the Nation sought to name a problem at the game’s core. The essential problem with football, the article explained, was that it was exploitative. The game was widely attractive and entertaining to the public because of the risks taken on by players, not despite them. But, the Nation argued, just because the public liked watching violence didn’t mean players liked taking risks or getting hurt, or did so without coercion. While it was perhaps convenient for reformers to imagine that football, as an aggressive game, was naturally appealing to the most brutish of characters—youth being just one of the qualities that signaled lack of “finishing” or refinement—the attractions for young men were more akin to a quid pro quo arrangement. Some coercion was diffuse and ambient. Getting into social clubs that opened doors to future society was easier as a football star than as a star student, the article noted in one example. “Your ‘grind’ may rank as high as he pleases in his studies; it is the fellow who has broken an arm in a scrimmage who has the plaudits and the admiration of his mates, and before whom the doors of the chapter houses swing open as if by magic.” There were also direct pressures. In “instance after instance,” the Nation reported, teachers in preparatory schools pressured their pupils to play football. The pressure on pupils came “often against their own and their parents’ wishes, and under penalty of ostracism.”17 Although the Nation focused its critique on the way football exploited the vulnerabilities of youth, the coercive nature of football was evident in the 16 17

 “Football Reform by Abolition,” The Nation, 81, November 30, 1905: 437.  Ibid., 437.

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popular media of other marginalized groups deemed unrefined by mainstream white adult American society. In January 1905 the Baltimore paper Afro-­ American reprinted an article from Ohio daily The Toledo Blade. “Does football ever help a man to a good position in after years?” the article began. It remarked on the way that Frank Hudson, a member of the Native American Carlisle Indians team in the 1890s, had become “gentlemanly in his appearance and neatly dressed,” despite the fact that he “bore every mark of being a redskin.” “A little inquiry brought out the fact that he is a trusted employe [sic] of a large Pittsburg bank, where he is a teller. That is what Hudson, the Indian, did, and what his notoriety as a football player also helped him do through fame secured in this manner.” In reprinting this article, under the headline “What Football Did for an Indian,” the paper was, not subtly, proposing football to African Americans as a pathway for their own social and economic aspirations.18 Medical supervision and technical regulations would not suffice to solve such political problems, the Nation insisted. Calling out “most surgeons of athletic teams” who “have been content to drug and stimulate the players, to patch them up so that they may enter the fray again, even at the risk of their own lives,” they commended only those team physicians who, like Columbia’s football doctor R.R. Oastler, had come to demand abolition of the game. “A few schools and small colleges have abolished football,” the Nation concluded, “but its death-blow must come from such an institution as Harvard or Columbia. There should be no lack of rivalry for the honor, and no time wasted in considering how the game can be ‘radically altered’ or ‘made over.’”19 Shailer Matthews, dean of the Divinity School of Chicago University, summarized the abolition stance on the game in a long quotation. He highlighted football’s exploitative nature by explicitly calling it “gladiatorial.” It was, he said, a “social obsession.” The manly virtues it instilled were not by any means to be seen as good, let alone as justification for its costs. “It teaches virility and courage, but so does war,” he stated. “I do not know what should take its place, but the new game should not require the services of a physician, the maintenance of a hospital, and the celebration of funerals.” Congregationalist paper The Independent published another strong case against the game the following year. Challenging the position that late nineteenth-­century reforms had made the game safe enough for Progressivism, they outlined the findings that Harvard team doctors Nichols and Smith had published in the BMSJ. The game did not fulfill the Progressive rationales and  “What Football Did for an Indian,” Afro-American, January 14, 1905: 4.  The Nation, 1905: 438.

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criteria for acceptable rough sports, they insisted. It did “excess” damage; that is it didn’t work physically to achieve the goals of sports claimed by other Progressives—namely, it developed not “nervous energy” or skill but “weight.” Moreover, it could not be made adequately safe by scientific regulation. Conventional wisdom held that fatalities and major injuries did not happen in the controlled environments of the elite colleges where “men were in proper condition for the game,” and therefore could be controlled with adequate scientific supervision. In rebuttal of this popular intuition, the Independent drew attention to recent events at Harvard. “The fact that Harvard’s football captain could not play in the star game of last year because of a hemorrhage within his skull also somewhat jarred the foundation of the legend with regard to the comparative innocuousness of university football.” Accusing the faculty of cow-towing to popular demand, they argued that the injuries continuing to accrue did indeed amount to a public health problem that threw claims to be a civilized culture into the wind.20 The abolition position was more than mere sentimental opposition to roughness, but a reflection of a serious intellectual disagreement within the Progressive movement on the nature of conflict and its place in the achievement of the Progressive ideal of a balanced, equal, and efficiently coordinated society. Abolition was the position held by Progressives affiliated with the intellectual tradition of pacifism articulated by the powerful intellectual and social worker Jane Addams. Through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Addams insisted that antagonism was never the right path of Progress, nor did it have natural value. Rather, antagonism was the path chosen by people who expected that it was inevitable. This expectation, Addams argued, was born of what she called “personal reactions” rather than something natural about it. Umbrage, for example, could make a person believe antagonism was inevitable. So could a desire to avoid being labeled a moral coward, or a tendency to derive pleasure from being defiant. Roughness and antagonism were always harmful, in the long as well as the short term, as they generated fuel for the continuation of such personal reactions. The goal of a balanced and stable society would never be achieved by fighting until all groups fit a mold set by one. Rather, discordant groups needed to struggle together, not against each other, and change mutually, to achieve a true peace. For Addams, means were the essence of Progress, and her arguments typified the Social Gospel movement that also

20

 “University Football Injuries,” The Independent, 60(11), Jan 1906: 115.

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flowed through institutions like the Independent and liberal Christian theologians like Shailer Matthews.21 But Addams’s tradition of pacifism was not the most enduring within the Progressive movement. For other Progressives, conflict and strife could be justified if part of the means of achieving the “balanced” and “equal” society. Where Addams envisioned cooperative work across differences and mutual change to achieve a “kingdom of heaven on earth,” other Progressives imagined that members of the enlightened class—overwhelmingly male and of white European descent—should prescribe the blueprints for the good society and carefully procure their achievement, guided in both of these tasks by scientific reasoning. The scientific managers understood humans, as well as plants and minerals, to be natural resources in need of stewardship through regulation. Roosevelt, notable among such conservationists, stated in 1910 that “the health and vitality of our people are at least as well worth conserving as their forests, waters, lands, and minerals.”22 In Progressive and geologist Charles Richard Van Hise’s landmark study The Conservation of Natural Resources in the United States, published that same year, the last chapter addressed “The Conservation of Man Himself.”23 Such limited assignment of the standard-setting role to white men of “good stock” compromised the ideal of democracy, even as it aspired to strengthen the Republic. Not all were political equals in this social imaginary. The exclusions, as historian Jedediah Purdy has explained, were in some cases intentional: fueled by anti-immigrant, anti-Negro, and pro-Nordic sentiments.24 But all adherents to this worldview accepted the compromised ideals, at least implicitly, and justified this by rationalizing management and administration decisions as a technical, not a democratic problem. They imagined the privileged classes to be best suited, and later best technically trained, to deduce the “natural laws” underlying their idea of healthy societies. As noted by Purdy, “those with more modest gifts or prospects would have to satisfy themselves with a clear understanding of their ink dot’s place in history’s long arc.”25 Among reformers with this conservationist bent, a bit of roughness was not without utility. If their good scientific resource management led to prosperity,  Jean Bethke Elshtain, Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy: A Life (New York: Basic Books, 2002). 22  Theodore Roosevelt, The New Nationalism (New York: The Outlook Company, 1910). 23  Charles van Hise, Conservation of National Resources in the United States (New York: Macmillan Co, 1910). 24  Jedediah Purdy, After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015): 181–182. 25  Ibid., 159. 21

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they fretted, then citizens would grow too comfortable. Comfortable citizens would no longer participate in civic life, nor would they make sacrifices for ideas larger than their own personal interests. The “strenuous life” was an antidote. Physical challenge could, they believed, protect newly prosperous Americans from decay due to selfishness, ennui, and cowardice. Progressives like Theodore Roosevelt are most famous for such arguments, casting not only outdoor recreation and football but also war and imperial projects as ultimately salubrious activities. But the willingness to compromise democratic ideals in the achievement of a peaceful society reached beyond the characters who became famous for it. Even the likes of John Dewey, a philosopher and educationist who identified as a pacifist, argued for the acceptability and benefit of war and other forms of aggressiveness under certain conditions.26 To rationalize his support of war Dewey reasoned that not all roughness was the moral equivalent of violence. Rather, if aggression was not excessive or wasteful then it was not violence at all, but merely “force.” Force, he reasoned, was good for the public health.27 While Dewey found logical flaws in Addams’s form of pacifism, the renowned Progressive academic and psychologist William James found a moral and aesthetic one. In a 1906 speech made at Stanford University, while a 64-year-old visiting scholar from Harvard, James criticized Addams’s brand of pacifism and its underlying belief in internationalism as a substitute for war. James called instead for a “moral equivalent of war.”28 Pacifism based on a “pleasure economy,” James stated, was not attractive enough across the political spectrum to truly ignite the public imagination and have lasting effect. Such pacifism ignored the lived realities of “people who still keep a sense for life’s more bitter flavors.” Militaristic ideals of “manliness” were still popular, he reasoned, because they still made sense to many of the world’s people. What this required was clear to James: “In the more or less socialistic future toward which mankind seems drifting we must still subject ourselves ­collectively to those severities which answer to our real position upon this only partly inhabitable globe.” While Addams wanted a pacifism that could substitute international cooperation for war, James wanted a pacifism that could be war’s moral twin. “We must make new energies and hardihoods [boldness] continue the manliness to which the military mind so faithfully  Louise W. Knight, “John Dewey and Jane Addams Debate War” in Brian Jackson and Gregory Clark (eds.), in Trained Capacities: John Dewey, Rhetoric, and Democratic Practice (Raleigh: University of South Carolina Press, 2014). 27  John Dewey: “Force, Violence, and Law,” The New Republic, Jan 22, 1916: 295 28  William James, The Moral Equivalent of War (New York: American Association for International Conciliation, 1910). 26

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clings,” he said. “Martial virtues must be the enduring cement; intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command, must still remain the rock upon which states are built.” What the country truly needed in that early twentieth-century moment, according to James, was a challenging activity that would require a manly response without relying on fear to instill “ideals of honor and standards of efficiency” into the natures of Americans. The deployment of fear in the past had produced a “military temper.” James called for an activity that would “awaken the higher ranges of men’s spiritual energy” and “inflame the civic temper.” What James called for was this: “instead of military conscription, a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against Nature.” He imagined that “our gilded youth” would choose such opportunities, “drafted off, according to their choice, to get the childishness knocked out of them, and to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideas. They would have paid their blood-tax, done their own part in the immemorial human warfare against nature; they would tread the earth more proudly, the women would value them more highly, they would be better fathers and teachers of the following generation.” James’s call would be cast by others as a justification for football. Published as an essay by McClure’s Magazine in 1910,29 it attracted the attention of Progressives looking for an approach to peaceful progress that did not cast them as un-patriotic or “soft.” After World War I, pacifism of any kind seemed to hold even less appeal than it had when James first penned his Moral Equivalent speech. Even Addams herself, held up as national hero in the first decade of the twentieth century, had fallen out of favor with political figures as prominent as Woodrow Wilson for her “unpatriotic” lack of support for the war. In the minds of many, football was the closest existing activity to what James had described. “In the lack of a system of universal service in the arts of peace, such as James proposed,” opined a writer in the New York Times in 1922, “intervarsity contests afford beyond doubt the nearest equivalent for the physical training, the self-sacrifice in cooperation, and indeed for the patriotism, that are developed in a national war.”30 The Times noted that Professor R. Tait McKenzie at the University of Pennsylvania had recently made the same argument.

 William James, “The Moral Equivalent of War,” McClure’s Magazine, August 1910: 463–468.  “Moral Equivalents,” New York Times, Feb 5, 1922: 30.

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The popularization of James’s proposal as a case for football had consequences for the abolition stance. In the article noted above, the Times trained its strongest critique on those who would banish football from college campuses. “In their zeal for reform have they any thought of providing a moral equivalent of football?”. The weight of their challenge fell on the educators’ own failings and the role that this played in the popularity of the game. While students would throw themselves into football with “souls aflame,” the Times observed, the same could not be said for their attitude toward academics. The educational system failed to make scholarship exciting and admirable. “In the general run of business and the professions the more honored distinction— more valuable, too, as leading to preferment—is membership on a varsity team.” The level of scholarship was lower in the US than in countries like the UK where sports were ranked morally lower than scholarship in universities. Football was filling in for the thrill missing in a subpar educational system. And until this problem of the relatively low moral authority of scholarship was addressed in the United States, the Times argued, faculties were not justified in abolishing any popular sport. “It seems fairly obvious that until Faculties can provide a moral equivalent, they are scarcely justified in abolishing intervarsity sports,” the article concluded. “It is not unlikely that when they do proffer a fuller life of the mind there will be far less emphasis laid even upon football.” The mainstream liberal media parleyed criticism of football into criticism of the universities that provided, in their view, no real civic alternative.

The Potential of Concussion The strong call for abolishment slipped into quiet havens for much of the twentieth century. A turn against pacifism and those identifying as pacifists contributed to its disappearance. During wartime, individual pacifists who held a staunch line against “antagonism” faced accusations of being “un-­ American” by those wanting strong support for the war from the American public. These individuals, often the same set who had called for the abolition of football, lost the public platform they had held when honored by the state as exemplary national heroes in the late nineteenth century.31 A general backlash against Progressivism also contributed to the weakening of the argument for abolishment. While William James was not bothered by the “more or less socialistic future toward which mankind seems drifting,” many 31

 Elshtain, 2002.

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others re-cast this as a great source of anxiety. In a backlash to the Progressive vision of individualism, for example, presidential candidate Herbert Hoover ran a winning campaign on the notion of “rugged individualism” in 1928. In contrast to Roosevelt’s brand of individualism, which advocated a “strenuous life” at the same time that it sponsored state-level support systems,32 Hoover’s “rugged individual” created a fiction that traditional Americans were self-supporting, tough, and not dependent on state systems for support. As the popularity of this fiction grew, the abolition argument suffered from denigration by those Progressives who found manliness, and its “contempt for softness” as characterized by William James, the more viable public option. The sound intellectual basis of the physically gentle pacifist position was clouded by its re-casting as an unrealistic position based in mere sentimentality. Related fictions shaped the institutions of modern US public health as they formalized. By the late nineteenth century, the field was already growing from its early moral and social movements into a secular, technocratic project. The intuitions of the elite regulator became the standards of the technical expert. These shifts reflected the benefits of casting public health as an apolitical, objective project, which helped gain wider acceptance than if its moral foundations were left bare. The technical aegis thickened, over the next several decades, amidst a desire to distance the nascent institutions from accusations of being soft, socialistic, and “un-American.” Such accusations had real consequences during the century’s first Red Scare. So did accommodations to them.33 Verbal arguments about social concerns grew less cogent as counts and statistics took on new moral force. Public health had long relied on statistical reports and records for public administration. Following Pragmatists like Charles Sanders Pearce, many with interests in the public health project appreciated the simplicity of reasoning about “truth” and “falsity” using sets of numbers in the form of statistics. But as public health sciences increasingly relied on laboratory experimentation and bacteriological ideas, the importance of making social arguments on quantitative terms—more visually demonstrable and seemingly concrete—grew stronger. The profession  Patricia O’Toole, “Theodore Roosevelt Cared Deeply About the Sick. Who Knew?” New York Times, January 6, 2019. 33  Allan Brandt and Martha Gardner, “Antagonism and Accommodation,” American Journal of Public Health 90(5), May 2000: 707–715; Nancy Tomes, “Speaking for the Public: The Ambivalent Quest of 20th Century Public Health,” in James Colgrove, Gerald Markowitz, and David Rosner (eds.), The Contested Boundaries of American Public Health (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008). 32

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expected experimental proof from laboratory chemistry, physics, and biology, and by analogy came to expect quasi-experimental proof from statistical observations. In this quantitative climate, injuries and countable, well-defined diseases achieved new importance in public health arguments. Nichols and Smith’s pathbreaking report on injuries sustained by the Harvard football squad marked this moment of transition, a shift in the weight that injuries would play in the football health debates in years to come. The shift is evident in the tactics of football abolitionists. The Independent, for example, made its case for abolishment on the grounds of injury, not power or exploitation as the Nation had done. With passing of time, injuries increasingly became the substitute for social and moral concerns about the game. The Independent’s choice to highlight concussion in their coverage of Nichols and Smith’s injury study was significant. Most injuries seemed to obligate only safety reforms and regulations. Padding could be added to prevent broken arms and legs. Helmets could be made mandatory to prevent cracked skulls and faceguards could protect the nose. All the while, collisions could continue. But concussion was exceptional among injuries, and presented as an opportunity for those who would do more than reform the game. Concussion challenged the idea that the game could be sufficiently reformed to prevent injury while still retaining its attractive features. Collision was what made football specifically exciting in relation to other athletic contests. Concussion was the product of collisions. As such, it could not be prevented through “proper training,” as the Independent pointed out in its allusion to the Harvard football captain’s season-ending concussion of 1905. According to Nichols and Smith, concussion seemed to occur even in collisions that were not particularly dramatic or forceful. Other aspects of concussion made it particularly threatening to its casting as a good way of inflaming the civic temper. Head injuries and other shocks to the brain harmed not only the physical body but also the “nervous energy” deemed essential to the functioning of mind. In James’s own Principles of Psychology, a widely read text in the early twentieth century, he explained that “if the nervous communication be cut off between the brain and other parts, the experiences of those other parts are non-existent for the mind. … And conversely, if the brain be injured, consciousness is abolished or altered, even although every other organ in the body be ready to play its normal part. A blow on the head, a sudden subtraction of blood, the pressure of an apoplectic hemorrhage, may have the first effect.”34 The Journal of the American Medical 34

 William James, The Principles of Psychology I (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1902 c1890): 4.

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Association, reporting on the study by Nichols and Smith, concluded that the game’s encouragement of “weight at the expense of nervous energy” was the strongest argument against it. For institutions committed to intellectual development, like the colleges, allowing such injuries was specifically troubling. Beyond its immediate risks, concussion hosted the specter of latent effects. In his moral equivalent essay, James had identified the potential for lasting damage as one of the key problems with military service as a mode of promoting social engagement and responsibility. His alternative would achieve, ideally, “toughness without callousness, authority with as little criminal cruelty as possible, and painful work done cheerily because the duty is temporary, and threatens not, as now, to degrade the whole remainder of one’s life.” But there were strong reasons to believe that concussion could do just such lasting harm. Even if the short-term effects of concussion seemed mild, longer-term effects, initially quiescent, could appear in later life as mental dysfunction. Concussion therefore challenged the acceptability of the game from a public health standpoint in a way that “merely” physical injuries, ones that occurred to the body in youth and then healed, did not. Abolition advocates latched on to the possibility of concussion’s latent effects. The Independent drew attention to the injuries in Nichols and Smith’s report that were “likely to be sources of trouble with advancing years.” Concussions were worth “special consideration,” they argued, and should be considered seriously as potential causes of “serious nervous ailments.” The Independent noted that childhood concussions were coming to be considered potential causes of a wide range of problems, ranging from epilepsy, idiocy, weakness of the heart, irregularity of the pulse, tremulousness, and disturbance of vision, to “hypochondriacal depression even to the degree of melancholia,” and various other psychoses.35 This medical acknowledgment of concussion’s potential in children should apply also to football players, requiring, they said, that in “taking a history of any serious nervous ailment such accidents would be set down as of the gravest import.” Facing the distinct challenge presented by concussion, those who had stakes in the game found ways of interfering with the generation of evidence about its harms. There were early signs of this work being done in the production of a survey that Walter Camp, one of the early champions of college football, sent around to former players. When Penn footballer William Harvey responded with a description of a head injury and its sequella, for example, 35  Adolf Seeligmueller, “Nerves and Narcotics,” Deutsche Revue in The Western Druggist, Vol 15, February 1893: 57–58. See also: Alexander Morison, “Sleep and Sleeplessness,” Lancet February 8, 1908: 405–411.

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Camp cut this detail from the published survey results, leaving only the player’s talk of love for the game. But there were even more subtle omissions. Many who had stakes in the continuation of the game were not willing to go so far as endorsing the possibility that concussion had latent effects.36 Nichols and Smith, for instance, mentioned that there was a question about whether or not concussions had lasting or future effects; the point of their comment was to imply that there was much debate and no certainty on the issue. The Journal of the American Medical Association was willing to lean a bit further in their assessment of concussion’s risks. “Perhaps the most serious feature of these accidents is the number of concussions of the brain reported,” they noted in their coverage of Nichols and Smith’s study. “There was a time when it was considered that convulsions and other untoward incidents in the conscious life of the individual were not likely to be followed by serious consequences. This is not the opinion at the present time, however.” Like the Independent, JAMA drew attention to the fact that the relationship between childhood convulsions and later life effects was standard accepted knowledge in medical practice. “One of the questions always asked by nerve specialists with regard to nervous diseases developing later on in life, is whether or not the individual ever suffered from convulsions in childhood.” They argued that the nature of a concussion was “not so different in character,” and that “if the one is supposed to have serious consequences so may the other.” Still, the journal retained the right to ambivalence on the question of concussion’s “serious consequences in after life,” and only called for reform of the game. Willingness to believe in concussion’s dangers aligned with the rigorous ethical argument of the strong pacifists; reluctance increasingly aligned with personal interests. Nichols, as a team doctor, had an immediate interest in football’s continuation that grew with its popularity and the dawn of the sports medicine specialty. But Nichols, and the American Medical Association, also had a longer-term interest in promoting medicine as a scientific profession. It was increasingly important that medical professionals, and particularly those working in non-bacteriological areas of specialty like injuries, showed fealty to evolving standards of evidence. These interests would only grow stronger with the reform of medical education laid out in the landmark Flexner Report of 1910. The changing standards of evidence in establishing medical knowledge, amidst the increasingly technocratic nature of the public health profession, would present a technical challenge for those trying to build their case against  Emily Harrison, “The First Concussion Crisis,” American Journal of Public Health, 104(5), May 2014:822–833. 36

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football through the problem of concussion. Most fundamentally, concussions were hard to count. Without reliable counts, it was difficult for many to believe that they happened frequently, and in anything but the most extreme collisions. James himself stated that, while blows to the head could cut off nervous communication between brain and other parts of the body, “only the severest shocks can give them a concussion.”37 Beyond the problem of counting concussions, it was difficult to prove, technically, that they had latent effects. Modern statistical methods for proving that one kind of injury “caused” a later disability were not yet in the toolkit of epidemiological science. Meanwhile, alternate explanations for adult-onset mental disabilities—such as a weak constitution, or a tendency to drink to excess, or poverty, or the intersection of any of the above—were more politically acceptable. This was increasingly so as states across the country passed worker compensation laws and employers became financially liable for injuries sustained on the job. Concussion, then, did not gain cogency in the early twentieth century, and football’s first concussion crisis dissipated alongside calls for the game’s abolition. It was the, idea of reform that endured and became, along with concerns about personal safety, the primary ground for debates about the game’s inherent risks and how to respond to them.

Conclusion In the 1980s, concussion resurfaced as a critical problem for the game of American football. Social changes had brought the problem back into the public mind. It took hold with a new grip. Attention to chronic disease, amplified through concerns about soldier fitness in World War II and its aftermath, had fed a more general interest in the problem of latent injuries. Rather than thinking about age-related health problems as natural degenerative diseases, later-life declines had grown increasingly understood as being “man-­ made:” due to environmental causes and personal behaviors. As such they were seen as technically preventable and subject to public health intervention. Amidst these epidemiological priorities, an increasingly health-conscious culture, and re-animated social anxieties about urban life, concerns about childhood traumas that affected later health had come to public attention. Concussion in youth sports was among them. Rising concerns about the severe consequences of multiple concussions, in short succession and  James, Principles of Psychology I: 107–108.

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cumulatively over longer periods of time, led to new medical advisories about when and if children could return to play. Neurosurgeon Robert Cantu, who wrote the first published return to play guidelines, became a well-known voice on the problem and remained so as attention to concussion spread to the collegiate-­level and the National Football League (NFL). He drew on popular commercial imagery of the time that targeted children, such as Bill Cosby’s iconic TV advertisements for Jell-O brand gelatin. “The brain is shaken in the cranium like Jell-O in a bowl,” Cantu told Time magazine in 1994. Techniques for a quantitative epidemiology of concussion had meanwhile been evolving. Systems for generating large amounts of population data had normalized. Researchers, governments, and industries had invested in the creation of registries for cancer, congenital malformations, heart disease, and other afflictions. As moral concerns about football transformed into safety concerns and numbers became the arbiters, regulatory agencies began conducting periodic surveys of football injuries. The American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), for example, had formed in 1921 in response to the new American Professional Football Association, which would re-label itself the National Football League. Initially tasked with defending amateurism in football, by 1931 its priorities had shifted to counting injuries. In that year the AFCA initiated an annual survey of deaths and severe injuries in order to generate data that could argue, with administrative data, that football injuries were being addressed.38 In epidemiological science, new quantitative methods for causal analyses were also in active development. Following the rise of worker’s compensation law across the United States, there had been growing interest from the 1930s forward in creating statistical methods that could be used to prove or disprove that particular injuries were the “causes” of later disabilities. The methods were accompanied by new study designs and standards for the generation of epidemiological data. The field of epidemiology professionalized through these years, with new scientific societies standardizing methods and other norms. The Epidemiology Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA) formalized in 1927, the American Epidemiological Society (AES) was founded in 1928, and the Society for Epidemiologic Research (SER) followed in 1968, growing from 378 to 1761 members between 1968 and 1982. The professionalization of the field, and its growing popularity, lent new public weight to epidemiological claims. The search for causes became, as

 Frederick Mueller and Robert Cantu, Football Fatalities and Catastrophic Injuries, 1931–2008 (Durham: Carolina Academies Press, 2011.) 38

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academic epidemiologist Mervyn Susser noted in 1985, “the nub of the discipline.” 39 Controversy drew even more public attention to the problem. As the idea of concussion was gaining a foothold in popular culture, those with the deepest stakes in the football industry turned its proposed risks into a matter of intense debate. Picking up on the authority of research and its potential for generating doubt in the legal and policy domains, the NFL commissioner appointed a committee to study “mild traumatic brain injury.” NFL-funded researchers urged physicians to “keep an open mind” about the possibility that doctors like Cantu were being too cautious about return to play times. The controversy escalated to the level of Congressional hearings in 2009–2010, where laws that might address the problem were considered. Washington was a path breaking state in this regard, passing a law requiring that youth be medically cleared before returning to play. Called “Lystedt laws,” for the Washington family who had advocated for their passage after their son’s death from catastrophic brain injury, they had been passed in all 50 states by 2014. Concussion risk was, by the early twenty-first century, a piece of the popular culture. The phrase “this is your brain on football” became a popular headline in media outlets ranging from the New York Daily News to Rolling Stone, referring back to the ubiquitous “this is your brain on drugs” campaign of the 1980s. The century-old hope and fear that concussion would be the death knell of football had been re-animated. With it came the familiar refrain that new reforms, in particular new helmet designs, could “save football.” Concussion held a special power over the public imagination, even as the crisis expanded to include other health concerns, like the effects of excess weight on the players’ health. While it is tempting to see the present in the past, the health crisis of the late twentieth century is different than that of the late nineteenth century. One immediately obvious difference is a shift from a social to a technical take on the essential problems with football. A second and less obvious difference reflects the shift from social to personal and parental responsibility for health that has transpired over the last century. What was a matter of social and moral harms, for which responsibility lay with collective society or the state, is now debated on terms of individual rights and freedoms. Many of the “Lystedt laws” passed in the early 2000s, for example, require that parents and  Mervyn Susser, “Epidemiology in the United States after World War II: The Evolution of Technique,” Epidemiologic Reviews, 7, 1985: 147–177; George Davey Smith, “Post-Modern Epidemiology: When Methods Meet Matter,” American Journal of Epidemiology 188(8), Mach 16, 2019:1410–1419. 39

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coaches of youth players receive educational information about brain injuries, implying that it is their responsibility to detect and respond to such injuries. When the NFL responded to growing concerns by hanging posters with information about concussion’s risks in team locker rooms, this too signaled an individualization of responsibility. This action reflects the opinion that NFL players are making a choice to play despite risks and that it is their right to risk their bodies if they wish to make a living this way. It is not only owners and administrators who encourage this kind of personal choice perspective. It is also prominent political figures. “I tend to be more worried about college players than NFL players in the sense that the NFL players have a union, they’re grown men, they can make some of these decisions on their own, and most of them are well-compensated for the violence they do to their bodies,” stated President Barack Obama in a 2013 interview with the New Republic, reinforcing the idea that the distinction between college and professional players was a matter of choices and compensation for the effects of those choices.40 In 2014, when asked by the New Yorker if he had any misgivings about following the NFL, the broad notion of an inherently exploitative nature to the game was not on Obama’s mind. “At this point, there’s a little bit of caveat emptor,” he went on. “These guys, they know what they’re doing. They know what they’re buying into. It is no longer a secret. It’s sort of the feeling I have about smokers, you know?”41 Despite the fact that football’s fans span the political spectrum, its roughness has come to be primarily associated with the right of this spectrum. This too is a difference from the late nineteenth century and the overt valorization of manliness across opposing political parties. Since the 1970s, as political polarization accelerated in the United States, football has been re-cast as a force for maintaining “traditional” values and associated with Conservatives.42 In April 2020, when President Donald Trump called for the re-opening of sports amidst the escalating COVID-19 epidemic, The Nation commented that “football is the only major mass entertainment (other than Trumpism) that endorses tribalism and toxic masculinity so flagrantly and keeps violence in vogue. Football supports Trump in its promotion of racial division, the crushing of dissent, and the spread of misinformation, inequality, and brutality.”43 The rise of a nationalistic worldview, wherein injuries are for  Franklin Foer and Chris Hughes, “Barack Obama Is Not Pleased,” The New Republic, January 27, 2013.  David Remnick, “Going the Distance: On and off the road with Barack Obama.” The New  Yorker, January 27, 2014. 42  Kathleen Bachynski, No Game for Boys to Play (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2019). 43  Lypsyte, “Trump Wants Sports Back Safety Be Damned” The Nation, April 24, 2020. 40 41

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“losers,” does its own harm. But so does the assignment of football’s darker side to a single political movement. To say that football supports Trump, and to suggest that its essential character has been vanquished but for a last extreme bastion on the political spectrum, obfuscates the fact that acceptance of “manliness” values is widespread in the present world. These differences, between the football health crisis of the late nineteenth century and that which rose in the dawn of the twenty-first century, exemplify challenges that have evolved for the notion of public health itself. But some differences offer the possibility of new opportunities for those seeking the best protections against concussion’s risks. The Progressive argument in support of manliness values, and its tolerance for violence to some bodies for the entertainment of others, does not hold the same water that it did in 1918. The logics that underlay that earlier Progressive support have been eroding in the face of protests against structural violence, demands for democratization of governing institutions, and articulation of the ways racism is built into professional sports. The epidemiologic sciences have been confronting their own limitations and attempting to reintroduce social concerns and discourses into the theories and methods of public health. Finally, as football is increasingly tied to an extreme political vision, the leading complaint becomes less about particular injuries, and more about the inherent values in football and whether these are acceptable. Arguments that parents and adults have a right to choose whether or not to play are being challenged by players and members of the public who point out the ways in which power structures undergirding the game are violent, and expert metrics alone fail to capture the measures of harm and worth that matter. What is being challenged in these critiques is not the safety of the game, but the kinds of ideals that supported football through its early existential crisis: the willingness to subject certain disenfranchised bodies to harm for the entertainment of others. On the eve of Superbowl LIV, for instance, doctors Jennifer Tsai and Michelle Morse questioned whether the medical profession can do their duty to patients while also being fans of professional football. “We are increasingly convinced that supporting the National Football League (NFL) represents a collective agreement to ignore the brutal suffering of bodies, particularly black bodies,” they wrote in a Scientific American opinion column. “In the past, American culture, and medicine specifically, have been slow to condemn

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public health crises that afflict communities of color. Football is another iteration of this willing racial bias.”44 It is important to recall, in light of the present complaints, that challenges to the toxic masculinity, tribalism, and exploitative nature of football are not without historical precedent. In the history of debates about football, there is a tradition of strong pacifism that raised many similar concerns. Though it was intellectually rigorous and ethically profound, this demand for the abolishment of football has been largely missed; glommed into a general idea that there has always been resistance to football and anxieties about its injuries. What was once said of pacifist Jane Addams herself may also apply to the abolition argument: “Her greatness has been veiled by her goodness.”45 Memory of the specificity and intellectual rigor of the abolition argument has suffered from the widespread tendency to reduce ideas that were physically gentle and therefore gendered as feminine to mere sentiment. What could make these arguments powerful now, where they faltered before, is a new social and cultural context.  The future of the rising social complaint about football’s harms will flow through injury counts and technical analyses. But it will also be shaped by arguments about the inherent rightness or wrongness of a game that trades off risk onto marginalized bodies for entertainment, and whether such historically gendered concerns are given fuel as they ignite the civic temper.

 Jennifer Tsai and Michelle Morse, “Doctors, will you be watching the Super Bowl?” Scientific American: Blogs, January 30, 2020. Available at: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/ doctors-will-you-be-watching-the-super-bowl/ 45  Christopher Lasch (ed.), The Social Thought of Jane Addams (Indianapolis/New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965): xiii, quoting Emily Balsch. 44

A Problem that Cries Out for Standards: Football Helmets, Conceptions of Risk, and the National Commission on Product Safety, 1961–1970 Kathleen Bachynski

In September 1961, a Nappanee, Indiana high school student named Larry Slabaugh took to the football field in a match against Bremen, a town less than ten miles away.1 Nappanee was one of 251 Indiana high schools that offered interscholastic football in the 1961–1962 school year. The sport was growing in popularity, with 26 more teams in the state as compared to the preceding year.2 Using a common football technique that would be decried yet one repeated many times before and since that fateful day, Slabaugh dove headfirst at the ball carrier for the opposing team. But the 15 year old student didn’t get up. He was rushed to the hospital, where he died before the game was over.3 Slabaugh’s death, attributed to a brain injury, became the eleventh high school football fatality that season. There would soon be more, prompting American writer and Sports Illustrated reporter George Walsh to examine the  “Football Deaths at 11,” New York Times, September 28, 1961.  IHSAA Board of Control and Athletic Council, “The Indiana High School Athletic Association Fifty-­ Ninth Annual Handbook,” (Indianapolis, IN: IHSAA Board of Control, 1962). Accessed December 31, 2019 at https://ihsaa.org/Portals/0/ihsaa/documents/Yearbooks%20&%20Handbooks/1961-­62_ IHSAA.pdf 3  George Walsh, “18 Football Deaths: Is It the Helmet?” Sports Illustrated, November 6, 1961. 1 2

K. Bachynski (*) Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_6

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spate of deaths in November 1961. By the time of publication, the high school football death toll had risen to 14, in addition to 4 college deaths that were also attributed to the sport that season. The magazine pointed out that three-­ quarters of these deaths had been from injuries to players’ heads and necks that were supposedly protected by equipment. “Is it the helmet?” the headline asked.4 Walsh was just one of many sportswriters, doctors, and coaches sounding the alarm that year. Their concerns primarily centered on the plastic helmets with faceguards that had been recently introduced to the sport. Many observers worried that this technological development was in fact increasing the risk of death and injury as compared to older, leather helmets. Nonetheless, virtually no experts treated eliminating helmets from football as a serious option for consideration. Instead, doctors and engineers promoted efforts to further adjust helmet design and to set standards for the equipment. Drawing on medical journal articles, newspaper accounts, and testimony from the National Commission on Product Safety’s (NCPS) congressional hearings, this chapter examines how American physicians, sports organizations, and policymakers identified protective athletic headgear as a product in need of regulation, and how that regulation ultimately did not come from the government. The NCPS hearings set the stage for the development of the first American football helmet standard in the 1970s. They also revealed competing conceptions of the nature of youth sports injury risks, the possibilities and limitations of technology, and the responsibilities of industry and government to address the hazards.

F ace Guards, Plastic Helmets, and an Equipment Crisis After World War II, competitive youth sports surged in popularity in the United States, particularly tackle football programs for boys.5 Proponents of youth football programs, including coaches, administrators, and team doctors, emphasized that proper equipment was key to making the sport safe for elementary and middle school aged participants. For example, Joseph Burnett, a Massachusetts-based team physician, advised that well fitted headguards were “a must for boys.” In response to “old timers” who considered the sport’s extensive padding and protective equipment unnecessary, Burnett countered that “modern football combines more blocking and speed than the game of  George Walsh, “18 Football Deaths: Is It the Helmet?” Sports Illustrated, November 6, 1961.  Kathleen Bachynski, No Game for Boys to Play: The History of Youth Football and the Origins of a Public Health Crisis (University of North Carolina Press, 2019). 4 5

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yesterday.” Consequently, he insisted that adequate equipment was crucial, especially for younger boys with relatively little physical conditioning and knowledge of the sport.6 Yet no design standards existed for the mid-twentieth-century helmets that were widely adopted to protect young athletes from injury. Instead, as a 1955 Sports Illustrated article put it, the equipment represented an “unscientific patchwork.” Even though those football athletes who were covered head to toe in protective gear might resemble “St. George armed to battle a dragon,” researchers and engineers warned that the helmets failed to sufficiently protect their wearers against concussions and other harms.7 The American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) agreed, acknowledging in 1958 that helmet construction had lagged behind developments in the game. The AFCA specifically sought “a helmet that could withstand high velocity blows from an opponent’s knee and thigh.”8 Such high velocity impacts were considered inevitable, football being a collision sport. Yet rather than recommending limits on children’s exposure to such blows, the AFCA instead emphasized improving helmet design as the solution to the injury problem. In the 1950s, two major developments in helmet design drew further attention to safety concerns. First, in order to prevent such common injuries as chipped teeth and broken noses, football athletes increasingly adopted face and teeth guards. By 1954, the executive secretary of the National Federation of State High School Athletic Associations (NFHS) reported that three-­ quarters of the NFHS’s members schools were providing one or more players with these guards.9 Magazines aimed at boys, such as Boys’ Life, carried advertisements for a “Jr. Guardsman” face mask that could be attached to youth-­ sized helmets.10 Yet numerous doctors, coaches, athletic directors, and trainers reported that the masks were frequently used as weapons and in fact increased the sport’s risks to players who might get hit with them. Woburn High School team physician Daniel L. Joyce told the Daily Boston Globe that he favored “getting rid of the mask entirely” to better protect players.11 Second, the adoption of plastic helmets similarly prompted concerns that new equipment was increasing, rather than diminishing, the sport’s hazards.  Joseph Burnett, “Football Can Be Safe,” Journal of the American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation 22;9 (1951): 14–16, 21. 7  William H. White, “Armor That Does as Much Harm as Good,” Sports Illustrated, October 31, 1955. 8  “Coaches Seek Better Helmets, Citing 16 Deaths in ‘57 Football,” New York Times, January 7, 1958. 9  “Use of Face Guards Increases in High Schools,” The Washington Post and Times Herald, December 22, 1954. 10  Athletic Products Company, Inc. “Football Safety!” [Advertisement]. Boys’ Life (December 1955), 79. 11  John Ahern, “Does Face Mask Prevent Injury or Cause It?” Daily Boston Globe, November 20, 1955. 6

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In 1959, researcher Edward Dye noted that the risks the hard shells posed to other players needed to be reduced “since football is a competitive athletic sport, not a war.”12 In 1960, describing a man whose hand was split open while making a tackle, one coach warned that the new, “unyielding” plastic material meant “that men are getting hurt more.”13 But it was the 1961 football season, during which over 20 football players died and countless more were injured, that particularly led coaches and journalists to question the safety effects of plastic helmets. “Those plastic jobs are causing more broken ribs than you could believe possible,” University of Maryland football coach Tom Nugent warned. He suggested either returning to leather helmets or covering the plastic helmets in soft sponge rubber.14 A 1961 medical report on serious and fatal football injuries by neuroscientist Richard Schneider and colleagues similarly recommended considering “the use of a more resilient material for helmets to permit more deformation and more gradual deceleration of the head.”15 The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)’s subcommittee on injuries and equipment focused an inquiry on plastic helmets with face protectors.16 The outpouring of criticism prompted some efforts to adopt less rigid helmet materials. For example, in January 1962, sporting goods company Spalding introduced a new cushioned football helmet with a six-inch strip of vinyl padding across the crown.17 Yet efforts to move toward softer helmet exteriors were short-lived, and a number of doctors, coaches, and reporters pushed back against the “anti-plastic helmet band wagon” throughout 1962.18 Allan J. Ryan, president-elect of the American College of Sports Medicine, penned a column arguing that blame had incorrectly been placed upon plastic football helmets, and that statistics backed the use of this equipment.19 In addition to arguments supporting the protective benefits of plastic headgear, others suggested that some prevailing concerns with alternative materials had more to do with sports performance than athlete welfare. According to the Christian Science Monitor, despite being concerned about player safety, coaches  Edward R.  Dye, “Engineering Research on Protective Headgear,” American Journal of Surgery 98 (September 1959): 368–372. 13  Clif Keane, “Injuries Stir Coaches,” Boston Globe, September 29, 1960. 14  “Blames Modern Equipment for Football’s 20 Deaths,” Chicago Daily Defender, October 17, 1961. 15  Richard C. Schneider et al., “Serious and Fatal Football Injuries Involving the Head and Spinal Cord,” Journal of the American Medical Association 177; 6 (1961): 362–367. Deformation refers to a change in shape or size of an object due to the application of a force. 16  “Colleges Weigh Helmet Changes,” New York Times, October 29, 1961. 17  “New Football Helmets Designed to Soften Impact,” New York Times, January 6, 1962. 18  Marc Michaelson, “Should Your Son Play Football?” Popular Mechanics, September 1962. 19  Allan J. Ryan, “Let’s Stop Football Tragedies,” New York Herald Tribune, September 2, 1962. 12

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were reluctant to “see any return to a softer material that would make the helmet heavier—and hence its user slower.”20 Amid this extensive public conversation regarding the pros and cons of plastic football helmets, in May 1962, the American Medical Association (AMA)’s Committee on the Medical Aspects of Sports sponsored a national conference focused on head protection for athletes. This committee had been established in 1960, shortly following the creation of the American College of Sports Medicine and National Athletic Trainers Association in the 1950s.21 The AMA assembled many of these emerging sports medicine professionals and other interested parties at annual clinical seminars. Attendees at the 1962 conference included sports medicine physicians, representatives from sporting goods manufacturers, football coaches, military doctors, athletic trainers, and the executive secretary of the NFHS. Although the conference proceedings made note of the need for additional research on protective equipment in other sports, the symposium and workshops largely focused on football helmets.22 Conference attendees acknowledged significant limitations with the plastic helmets of the day, but ultimately did not recommend removing them, returning to their leather predecessors, or limiting children’s exposure to tackling. At one workshop session, “everyone seemed to agree that the hard shell plastic helmet is the best.”23 Many news stories and sports administrators focused on this takeaway. For example, the Baltimore Sun described doctors as praising plastic helmets, and noted that professional football coach Clark Shaughnessy agreed with their conclusions, as did “representatives of manufacturers of protective head equipment and the committee’s consultants.”24 A September 1962 Popular Mechanics article informed readers that “the plastic helmet is superior to anything used before.”25 In October 1962, Ernest McCoy, Penn State athletic director and chair of the NCAA’s committee on sports injuries, told attendees at a Football Writers’ Luncheon in New  York that “doctors agree that the plastic helmet is the finest protection yet devised.” Instead, McCoy attributed injuries to “lax officiating” and urged referees to prevent  L. Dana Gatlin, “Football Helmets Under Scrutiny,” Christian Science Monitor, November 8, 1962.  Douglas W. Jackson, “The History of Sports Medicine, Part 2,” The American Journal of Sports Medicine 12; 4 (1984): 255–257. 22  AMA Committee on the Medical Aspects of Sports, Proceedings of the National Conference on Head Protection for Athletes (Chicago: American Medical Association, 1962). 23  Owen B.  Murphy and Allan J.  Ryan, “Group IV,” in AMA Committee on the Medical Aspects of Sports, Proceedings of the National Conference on Head Protection for Athletes (Chicago: American Medical Association, 1962), 70. 24  “Medical Group Praises Helmet,” Baltimore Sun, May 22, 1962. 25  Marc Michaelson, “Should Your Son Play Football?” Popular Mechanics, September 1962. 20 21

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“unnecessary roughness and piling on.”26 Plastic helmets were thus treated as having received the seal of approval from sports medicine experts. The moment where numerous coaches, journalists, and other critics questioned the benefits of retaining plastic helmets in tackle football had largely passed. Instead, the widely accepted solution became to focus on improving referee and athlete behavior, and to standardize plastic helmets for all football players.

The Right to Safety While doctors, coaches, and sports leagues debated the merits of plastic helmets, on March 15, 1962, President John F. Kennedy delivered a special message to the U.S. Congress on protecting the consumer interest. He listed four rights to which American consumers should be entitled; the first was “the right to safety—to be protected against the marketing of goods which are hazardous to health or life.”27 Kennedy’s speech has often been used to mark the beginning of a new wave of the consumer movement, which included numerous developments that addressed issues of product safety and injury prevention.28 The subsequent decade saw landmark federal legislation passed, such as the 1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, as well as increasing federal regulatory authority through new agencies such as the Occupational Health and Safety Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).29 Historian Lizabeth Cohen has described the 1960s and 1970s as “the era of greatest activism and achievement for all consumers.”30 Among these efforts to address a broad range of consumer products, from motor vehicles to charcoal lighters, federal policymakers also took a look at plastic football helmets. U.S. Democratic Senator Warren Magnuson, himself a former high school and college football athlete, played a crucial role in numerous consumer

 Lincoln A. Werden, “McCoy Criticizes Lax Officiating,” New York Times, October 16, 1962.  John F. Kennedy, “Special Message to the Congress on Protecting the Consumer Interest,” March 15, 1962. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/special-message-the-congress-protecting-theconsumer-interest 28  Robert N. Mayer, “The U.S. Consumer Movement: A New Era Amid Old Challenges,” The Journal of Consumer Affairs 46; 2 (2012): 171–189. 29  Lizabeth Cohen, “Is it Time for Another Round of Consumer Protection? The Lessons of Twentieth-­ Century U.S. History,” Journal of Consumer Affairs 44 (Spring): 234–247. 30  Lizabeth Cohen, “Is it Time for Another Round of Consumer Protection? The Lessons of Twentieth-­ Century U.S. History,” Journal of Consumer Affairs 44 (Spring): 234–247. 26 27

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product safety initiatives of the period.31 In 1967, Magnuson introduced a bill asking Congress to set up a National Commission on Product Safety (NCPS), with $2 million in funding to investigate common household hazards.32 The commission was established under a joint resolution that was unanimously passed by Congress. According to Washington correspondent Josephine Ripley, this made the NCPS “probably the least controversial piece of consumer legislation ever enacted.”33 Michael Pertschuk, then the consumer counsel for the U.S. Senate’s Commerce Committee, explained the strategy behind the creation of a temporary commission: Senator Magnuson and his staff anticipated that the resulting hearings and deliberations would ultimately lead to “the creation of a permanent consumer product safety commission, with full authority to set product safety standards and to order recalls.” Congressional hearings would achieve this by allowing for the development of a public record regarding the design flaws and safety hazards of numerous household products.34 To this end, beginning in October 1968, NCPS held a series of public hearings chaired by Arnold Elkind, a lawyer involved in consumer activities with the American Trial Lawyers Association.35 Morton Mintz, an investigative reporter who had broken the story of thalidomide’s harms in 1962, “sought, and was assigned by the Washington Post, to follow the commission from city to city.” According to Pertschuk, this news coverage ensured the hearings would receive a national audience.36 In his story on the commission’s first public hearing, Mintz noted that the NCPS would be considering proposals that, if adopted, “would work radical changes in the relations between consumers and producers of household products.” Quotes from U.S. representatives, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, the legislative director of the President’s Committee on Consumer Interests, and the head of the Chamber of Commerce’s Consumer Issues Committee further highlighted the potential political and economic stakes.37 Elkind summarized the purpose of the hearings as intended to address “how voluntary standards are developed, what they mean at the present time,  Shelby Scates, Warren G Magnuson and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century America Seattle (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997). 32  “Magnuson Asks Study of Household Hazards,” New York Times, February 9, 1967. 33  Josephine Ripley, “Safety Comes First,” Christian Science Monitor, July 18, 1969. 34  Michael Pertschuk, Revolt Against Regulation: The Rise and Pause of the Consumer Movement (Berkeley: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 42. 35  “Humphrey Installs 7-Man Commission on Product Safety,” New York Times, May 16, 1968. 36  Michael Pertschuk, Revolt Against Regulation: The Rise and Pause of the Consumer Movement (Berkeley: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 42–43. 37  Morton Mintz, “Product Safety Steps are Urged,” Washington Post, October 22, 1968. 31

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what they should mean ideally, how and whether they are enforced, how it comes about that there are standards for some products, no standards for others, and how within given industries there is competition between those who subscribe to standards and those who do not.”38 In a May 1969 overview of the initial hearings, Mintz told readers that the “supreme issue” facing the commission had already emerged: whether or not manufacturers should retain exclusive authority over the standards to which their products would be held. Mintz cited numerous examples of dangerous toys, medical equipment, and appliances that might be affected. He also noted “football helmets that do not prevent brain concussions” as included among the relevant products to be addressed by the NCPS hearings.39

A Problem That Cries Out for Standards Plastic football helmets received substantial attention at the hearings held on February 18, 1969, with testimony that helped set the stage for the development of football standards by a new, private organization funded by sporting goods manufacturers. The commission heard from a physician involved in testing football helmets, as well as a professional football player, parents of a child who had been catastrophically injured playing football, and several attorneys involved in lawsuits related to football injuries. The testimony raised questions about how to interpret available football injury data, which types of sports injuries parents might or might not be willing to consent to on behalf of their children, the extent to which sporting goods manufacturers may have known about the limitations of their equipment, and which types of injuries might be preventable with changing equipment design.40 NFL player Larry Csonka, a fullback who had been drafted by the Miami Dolphins in 1968, described a serious head injury he had experienced when he was hit by a member of the opposing team in such a way that he could not put a hand out to break his fall before hitting the ground. He told the commission that he landed directly on his head, lost track of the ball, and staggered off the field, then blacked out and lost consciousness on the sideline. Csonka displayed the Riddell helmet he had been wearing at the time, and explained that he subsequently obtained a newer “Micro-Fit” helmet that  National Commission on Product Safety Hearings, Washington, Jan-Feb 1969 (New York: Law-Arts Publishers, 1970), 219. 39  Morton Mintz, “Product Safety Gains Impetus,” Washington Post, May 11, 1969. 40  Kathleen Bachynski, No Game for Boys to Play: The History of Youth Football and the Origins of a Public Health Crisis (University of North Carolina Press, 2019). 38

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better fit his head. He contended that he later suffered similar blows to the head “with no discomfort, and no further injury” thanks to the new helmet.41 Csonka was convinced that safe helmets were available, but that consumers were not able to determine which helmets would provide protection. He was particularly concerned about children having access to adequate equipment, highlighting that he could not tell just by looking at helmets in a sporting goods store whether they would provide the greatest degree of safety for his sons.42 Csonka’s perspective was based on his “great deal of faith” in his new fitted helmet, as well as his more general belief that it was possible for at least some helmets to provide sufficient protection. At the same time, he considered it impossible for players—even professional athletes—to determine which helmets on the market were safe. Moreover, he acknowledged that it was extremely common for a “light concussion” to occur on the football field, estimating that about 30 percent of his Miami Dolphins teammates in the preceding year experienced one. The frequency of these injuries implied that even at the highest level of the sport, helmets were not protecting athletes’ brains from trauma.43 The commission next invited the parents of an injured football player, Mr. and Mrs. McLelland, to testify. Their eighth-grade son, Michael, had been “a normal boy” before requiring five brain surgeries due to a catastrophic injury he suffered during a blocking drill. His father explained that while Michael was no longer in a coma, he still had a serious speech defect, which was why he could not testify himself. Mr. McLelland told the commission that young football players had grown bigger and played the sport differently as compared to previous years, and expressed his doubt that protective equipment had kept up with these developments in the game. Mrs. McLelland emphasized the suffering such a brain injury had caused both to Michael and to his family and expressed concern for other children and families who might be experiencing similar pain. The inclusion of such personal testimony in the public hearings highlighted the devastating long-term consequences of brain injuries and the potential risk to children across the country who played the sport.44  “Statement of Larry Csonka,” National Commission on Product Safety Hearings, Washington, Jan-Feb 1969 (New York: Law-Art Publishers, 1970), 391–394. 42  Kathleen Bachynski, No Game for Boys to Play: The History of Youth Football and the Origins of a Public Health Crisis (University of North Carolina Press, 2019). 43  “Statement of Larry Csonka,” National Commission on Product Safety Hearings, Washington, Jan-Feb 1969 (New York: Law-Art Publishers, 1970), 391–394. 44  “Statement of Mr. Thomas McLelland” and “Statement of Mrs. Dorothy McLelland,” National Commission on Product Safety Hearings, Washington, Jan-Feb 1969 (New York: Law-Art Publishers, 1970), 394–496. 41

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The commission next heard from Harry Philo, a trial lawyer from Detroit, Michigan. In 1965, Philo had co-authored the Lawyers Desk Reference, a text that helped position his law firm at the forefront of the field of personal injury law in the United States.45 He also penned a law review article on the use of safety standards in tort litigation, arguing that there had been a significant lag in standards for manufactured products as compared to the safety codes and practices that had been developed to protect workers on the job. The cause for this lag, he contended, was the lack of product liability lawsuits.46 But this was quickly changing due to a number of legal trends in the 1960s that made it increasingly possible to hold manufacturers, including sporting goods manufacturers, liable for injuries caused by their products. Among the other injury cases Philo took on throughout his decades-long career, in the 1960s he represented several young athletes who had been seriously injured despite wearing a protective football helmet.47 At the NCPS hearings, Philo reiterated his view that liability was essential to make manufacturers incorporate injury prevention into the design of their products, and that football helmets were a prime example of this principle. He testified that every year, approximately 15 American football players died from head injuries.48 Philo likely derived this estimate from the AFCA’s annual survey of football fatalities, which the association had initiated in 1931 and published based on news reports of player deaths. For example, the AFCA reported that in 1964, a total of 27 football players died of causes directly attributable to football; moreover, from 1947 to 1964, 72.32 percent of all fatalities were “due to traumatic blows to the head and torsion in the neck.”49 Philo further expressed his belief that somewhere between 50 and 100 boys suffered nonfatal subdural hematomas requiring operations while playing football each year.50 The potential sources that might have informed this estimate are unclear. Medical reports from the 1960s noted cases of fatal subdural hematoma among football players, but no national systematic data tracking  Steve Babson, Dave Riddle, and David Elsila, The Color of Law: Ernie Goodman, Detroit, and the Struggle for Labor and Civil Rights (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010). 46  Harry M. Philo, “Use of Safety Standards, Codes and Practices in Tort Litigation,” Notre Dame Lawyer 41;1 (1965): 1–12. 47  Kathleen Bachynski, No Game for Boys to Play: The History of Youth Football and the Origins of a Public Health Crisis (University of North Carolina Press, 2019). 48  “Statement of Mr. Harry Philo,” National Commission on Product Safety Hearings, Washington, Jan-Feb 1969 (New York: Law-Arts Publishers, 1970), 396–401. 49  AFCA Committee on Injuries and Fatalities, The Thirty-Third Annual Survey of Football Fatalities, 1931–1964 (Chicago, IL: American Football Coaches Association, 1965), 5. 50  “Statement of Mr. Harry Philo,” National Commission on Product Safety Hearings, Washington, Jan-Feb 1969 (New York: Law-Arts Publishers, 1970), 396–401. 45

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the number of these nonfatal injuries that required operations appear to have been collected during this period.51 A 1964 study of high school football players in Southern California identified one player with acute subdural hematoma who required an emergency craniotomy, which suggests the possibility of more such injuries across all 50 states.52 Regardless, Philo painted for the commission a picture of numerous catastrophic head injuries, as well as “five to ten thousand serious brain concussions,” whose existence was hidden from public view.53 Philo accused sporting goods manufacturers of concealing these risks from parents who made the decision to consent to allow their sons to play football, while marketing helmets that were not designed to effectively prevent players against the “reasonably foreseeable blows” that they would experience tackling one another in football games. His testimony also highlighted an awareness that nonfatal, even invisible, brain injuries could have significant long-term health implications. He told the commission that medical understanding of the effects of concussions on people’s ability to withstand additional blows, as well as their potential effects on the development of an athlete’s personality, “makes this a problem that cries out for standards.”54 Unsurprisingly, David Rust, a trial lawyer who represented helmet manufacturers, took a different perspective from Philo’s. He emphasized that unlike motorcycle helmets, football helmets were “entitled to take millions, and I mean literally millions of soft—of minor impacts” over the lifetime of their use. He further observed that in the absence of an adequate helmet, boys playing football would “begin to develop headaches in the course of that game from the constant pounding of their head.” Effectively protecting against such pain, he explained, was one of the major criteria helmet manufacturers needed to meet. Given the number of hits that athletes regularly sustained in football, uncertainty over the magnitude of impacts that the human brain could withstand, and design challenges given the anatomy of the human head, Rust argued that the industry’s record was excellent considering these constraints.55 While Philo emphasized helmets’ failure to protect athletes against severe,  Richard C. Schneider et al., “Serious and Fatal Football Injuries Involving the Head and Spinal Cord,” Journal of the American Medical Association 177; 6 (1961): 362–367. 52  Richard H. Alley, “Head and Neck Injuries in High School Football,” Journal of the American Medical Association 188; 5 (1964): 53  “Statement of Mr. Harry Philo,” National Commission on Product Safety Hearings, Washington, Jan-Feb 1969 (New York: Law-Arts Publishers, 1970), 396–401. 54  “Statement of Mr. Harry Philo,” National Commission on Product Safety Hearings, Washington, Jan-Feb 1969 (New York: Law-Arts Publishers, 1970), 399. 55  “Statement of David Rust,” National Commission on Product Safety Hearings, Washington, Jan-Feb 1969 (New York: Law-Arts Publishers, 1970), 421–432. 51

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acute injuries as well as the long-term effects of microscopic brain damage, Rust focused on the ability of helmets to prevent immediate symptoms such as pounding headaches that presumably would limit children’s ability to participate in football. Commissioner Emory J.  Crofoot, a city deputy attorney of Portland, Oregon, appears to have been particularly skeptical of the manufacturers’ perspective that existing helmets were challenging to improve upon. When questioning the subsequent witness, physician George Snively, Crofoot inquired whether applying a portion of a United States of America Standards Institute (USASI) head protection standard to a football helmet would “unduly weight it down or unduly cause sweat problems.” His remark was evidently a reference to Rust’s contention that using heavier material to protect against higher magnitude impacts would lead to players sweating excessively and refusing to wear the equipment. Snively replied that athletes in New Mexico who had adopted such helmets had “apparently solved their sweat problems, and I am told by my friends there that this is a hot part of the country in the spring practice.”56 Snively had in fact designed those helmets tested in New Mexico; his colleague Harold Fenner who oversaw the experiment concluded that the prototype fiberglass helmets were superior to their standard plastic counterparts in several respects. For instance, Fenner claimed that of 61 players who had experienced “momentary periods of disorientation immediately after heavy contact”—in other words, symptoms suggestive of a concussion—59 did not experience the sensation while wearing the helmets of Snively’s design. In his write-up, Fenner did not provide details of precisely how these athletes were surveyed.57 Nonetheless, Snively clearly conveyed to the committee that football helmet manufacturers were far from making the best possible helmets, and that standards were crucial to change this state of affairs. His experience writing standards included chairing the USASI committee on head protective devices, which had published a helmets standard for road users in 1966. The committee next had considered broadening its scope to include athletic headgear. Yet Snively warned that inadequate enforcement was a problem with all voluntary standards, including USASI voluntary helmet standards, which would need to be addressed in order to ensure the protection of athletes.58  “Statement of Dr. George Snively,” National Commission on Product Safety Hearings, Washington, Jan-­ Feb 1969 (New York: Law-Arts Publishers, 1970), 436. 57  Harold A. Fenner, Jr., “Football Injuries and Helmet Design,” General Practice 30; 4 (1964): 106–113. 58  “Statement of Dr. George Snively,” National Commission on Product Safety Hearings, Washington, Jan-­ Feb 1969 (New York: Law-Arts Publishers, 1970), 432–442. 56

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Although Snively argued that there was sufficient information upon which to make improvements over existing helmets, he also emphasized that there was insufficient data “upon which standards may be intelligently built in their ultimate form in the area of head protection.”59 He noted that the National Institute of Health had funded some significant basic research relevant to head protection research, but such work had not been supported elsewhere. He advised the careful collection of sports injury data, citing automobile studies as an example of how such research could inform safety improvements. Snively thus positioned brain injuries in sports as amenable to both research approaches and consumer protection that had recently informed changes in federal traffic policy, notably the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 to provide for the establishment of safety standards for cars.60 The NCPS commission evidently agreed. In its 1970 final report to the president and Congress, the commission recommended the establishment of a permanent, independent agency to investigate hazards and set safety standards for consumer products. Football’s risks featured several times throughout the report’s overview of the evidence it had collected indicating that numerous products posed unreasonable risks that required intervention. For example, the report estimated that approximately one out of every six football players suffered a concussion, with 250,000–500,000 players affected each year. Moreover, no industry-wide standard had been developed for athletic headgear and no U.S. states prescribed any such standards. Because consumers were unable to test the effectiveness of helmets themselves, they were entirely dependent on manufacturers. Athletes might unintentionally expose themselves to injuries if they falsely assumed that the products conferred sufficient protection. Consequently, federal action was needed to protect consumers.61

Public Risks, Private Standards In 1972, Congress passed legislation to establish the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and just two years later the CPSC published an analysis of football’s hazards, finding that many injuries occurred despite the  “Statement of Dr. George Snively,” National Commission on Product Safety Hearings, Washington, Jan-­ Feb 1969 (New York: Law-Arts Publishers, 1970), 433. 60  “National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966.” Public Law 89–563, September 9, 1966. Accessed January 10, 2020 at https://uscode.house.gov/statutes/pl/89/563.pdf 61  National Commission on Product Safety: Final Report Presented to the President and Congress, June 1970 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970). 59

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use of a protective helmet.62 Yet no government standard for football helmets was published. Instead, in 1969, as the NCPS commission hearings were under way, leading American sports organizations, including the NCAA and the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), joined together to form the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE). Sporting goods manufacturers provided NOCSAE with financial support.63 As one NJCAA member explained, sports organizations were concerned about equipment standards “being formulated by outside groups” which purportedly lacked the requisite knowledge and research capabilities. Moreover, the NCAA News observed, lawsuits alleging injuries due to inadequate equipment represented an additional major reason for the formation of NOCSAE.64 Sports organizations, then, sought to implement their own football helmet standards to ward off legal threats and to forestall government-­ designed standards or the involvement of other “outside” organizations. As NOCSAE finalized its standards, the NCAA News reassured readers that the current design of football helmets had reached the point where most helmets provided “concussion protection up to levels which are rarely exceeded,” and that further improvements were imminent.65 In 1973, NOCSAE developed its first helmet standard based on a testing method of linear drop tests. These involved placing helmets on models of human heads and dropping them 5 feet, from multiple locations, onto a half inch thick rubber pad covering a rigid base.66 Sports leagues swiftly adopted NOCSAE’s standards. Elmer A. Blasco, the publisher of Athletic Journal, celebrated the changes to helmet design prompted by NOCSAE since, as he saw it, they “were made voluntarily by the manufacturers.”67 In 1980, NOCSAE principal investigators L. Murray Thomas and Voigt R. Hodgson contended that the helmets of the day had become almost as safe as they were ever going to be. “You’ll find that human error is the biggest cause of injuries in football today,” explained Hodgson.68  Kathleen Bachynski, No Game for Boys to Play: The History of Youth Football and the Origins of a Public Health Crisis (University of North Carolina Press, 2019). 63  J. Nadine Gelberg, “The Lethal Weapon: How the Plastic Football Helmet Transformed the Game of Football, 1939–1994,” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 15;5–6 (1995): 302–309. 64  “Committee to Set Equipment Standards Is Created,” NCAA News 7;6 (June 1970): 5. 65  “NOCSAE Football Helmet Study Should Stimulate Safer Product,” NCAA News 9;7 (May 1972): 6. Accessed January 12, 2020 at https://ncaanewsarchive.s3.amazonaws.com/1972/19720515.pdf 66  Voigt R.  Hodgson, “National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment Football Helmet Certification Program,” Medicine and Science in Sports 7;3 (1975): 225–232. 67  Elmer A. Blasco, “What Every Football Coach Should Know About NOCSAE and Football Helmets,” Athletic Journal 61; 10 (1981): 62. 68  “Researchers Use Heads, Make Helmets Safer,” Dallas Morning News, May 18, 1980. 62

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Yet football players continued to experience high rates of brain injuries that were not simply due to user error, but rather due to the nature of a collision sport involving repeated impacts and the inability of protective gear to prevent such trauma. Specifically, NOCSAE’s drop test method could help assess a helmet’s ability to protect against linear impacts, such as skull fractures. But as sociologist Daniel Morrison has observed, the extent to which each football helmet can be expected to lessen the chances of concussion or sub-concussive brain trauma “is systematically unknown in current testing procedures mandated by NOCSAE.”69 The helmet standards that American football leagues widely adopted in the 1970s and have depended on for decades, then, did not fundamentally address the issue of concussions that prompted much of NCPS’s concern over helmet safety in its 1969 hearings. The NCPS hearings’ examination of football helmet safety grew out of widespread concern over whether recently introduced plastic helmets were causing more harm than good, as well as a broader consumer product safety movement. Although the limits of football helmets and risks of brain injuries were discussed at length, however, the NCPS hearings ultimately did not lead to government oversight of this equipment, despite the creation of a federal agency to regulate the manufacture and sale of numerous consumer products. Rather, a private committee created and funded by sports organizations formulated the first standards for football helmets. Yet, although football helmets were tested to protect against skull fractures, the standards implemented by NOCSAE did not fundamentally reduce the risk of concussions.70 NOCSAE standards may have prevented government regulation, averted legal challenges and reduced catastrophic injuries and deaths, but they also failed to prevent one of the sport’s most common injuries. Concussions would persist and continue to have serious medical, political, and cultural consequences for American football well into the twenty-first century.

 Daniel R. Morrison, “Football Helmet Safety, Veil of Standards,” in Sociocultural Examinations of Sports Concussions, ed. Matt Ventresca and Mary G. McDonald (New York: Routledge, 2019), 59–77. 70  Thomas P.  Dompier, Zachary Y.  Kerr, Stephen W.  Marshall, Brian Hainline, Erin M.  Snook, Ross Hayden, and Janet E. Simon, “Incidence of concussion during practice and games in youth, high school, and collegiate American football players,” JAMA Pediatrics 169, no. 7 (2015): 659–665. 69

Lights Out: Concussion Research, the National Football League, and Employer Duty of Care Lucia Trimbur

Introduction On August 24, 2019, Andrew Luck, quarterback for the American football team the Indianapolis Colts, called a press conference. At the height of the preseason and the tender age of 29, Luck decided to retire. Citing an endless rotation of injury, rehabilitation, and recovery, Luck was exhausted. Over the course of his career, he had been diagnosed with torn cartilage in two ribs, a torn abdomen, a torn labrum, a lacerated kidney, a concussion, and calf and ankle injuries (Harwood, 2019). He lamented, I’ve been stuck in this process. I haven’t been able to live the life I want to live. It’s taken the joy out of this game. The only way forward for me is to remove myself from football. This is not an easy decision. It’s the hardest decision of my life. But it is the right decision for me (Wells, 2019).

Luck, who had been the National Football League’s No. 1 overall draft pick seven years earlier, was in the prime of his career and his decision stunned the world of football. Indianapolis Colts fans, who were hoping for Superbowl contention, booed Luck when he left the stadium for the last time and

L. Trimbur (*) The City University of New York (CUNY), New York, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_7

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excoriated him on social media. The negative—often abusive—treatment of Luck reflected disappointment in the Colts upcoming season as well as the irrational investment fans often have in the teams they follow. But Colts fans expressed a larger confusion that many football commentators, coaches, and athletes also shared: dismay that a player would not only forfeit tens of millions of dollars but also exercise control over his own body, electing health over injury.1 Luck was not the first player to leave the National Football League (NFL) to uphold some semblance of bodily integrity but he represented a high-­ profile addition to an ever-growing list of young, competitive athletes choosing early retirement in order to protect long-term health. Several months before the Luck retirement, Rob Gronkowski of the New England Patriots surprised fans by retiring at 29, after playing through an extremely serious thigh injury in Superbowl LIII. In a sport hemorrhaging toughness, physical brutality, and corporeal suffering, public retirements eschewing chronic and acute pain marked a new conjuncture in American football. If the sporting public was not ready for early departures because of relatively common football ailments, it has been even more unprepared for players who specify concussion, other brain injuries,2 and the risk of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) as the reason for their premature exits. CTE, a neurodegenerative disease that can cause behavioral problems, mood disorders, and problems thinking, has terrified players, their families, and fans alike, prompting a reconsideration of the risks inherent to the sport. Linebacker Chris Borland left the San Francisco 49ers specifying he did not want to suffer “any neurological diseases or die younger” (Block, 2016). Six months before New York Jets offensive tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson retired at 32, he wrote an essay in Sports Illustrated about the anxiety generated from the movie Concussion. Husain Abdullah, a free safety, sought retirement in order keep “a sound mind” (Block, 2016).3 And John Urschel, a Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman, left the league at 26 to pursue his doctorate at M.I.T, one day after a damning CTE study was released (Belson, 2017).

 Because the focus of this paper is on the National Football League (NFL), which right now is exclusively male, I look at concussion, CTE, and male American football players. There are an increasing number of women taking up the sport and their rigor and commitment often matches that of their male counterparts. Future research will need to take into account their experiences. 2  Other brain injuries include scalp abrasions, contusions, and lacerations; skull fractures; and brain contusions and lacerations (Omalu, 2008, p. 9). 3  The National Football League was not the only level of play that saw early career ends. Between the 2013 and 2015 season, at least 26 players in competitive Division 1 NCAA programs left the sport because of concussions (Bella, 2015). 1

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The National Football League would have been naïve to suggest that knee, ankle, and shoulder injuries are not caused by playing football, but it vigorously denied any connection among football, brain trauma, and CTE. When CTE was first found in a football player in the early 2000s, it shook the foundations of the sport, and the NFL immediately went on the offensive, determined to protect its massive resources and survival. The most powerful sport league in the world fought researchers, players, former players, and their families, all of whom were desperately trying to understand the relationship between football and this neurodegenerative disorder. The battle has been waged for nearly two decades and continues today. This article looks at the epic struggle between the National Football League and social actors concerned about football, brain injury, and CTE. In particular, I analyze the registers in which the NFL, on the one hand, and research scientists who work with players and their families, on the other, have situated their evidence and arguments. I argue that though both sides have strong investments in either proving or minimizing the football-concussion-CTE connection, what has been missing from the entire debate is any conception or even language of labor: how players are workers, how the football field is their worksite, and how athletes should be afforded attendant occupational health protections to reduce risk of injury. Both sides have treated the controversy as football specific and labor as incidental—to different ends. The NFL has mystified CTE, created doubt, confused current and future players, and suppressed data. Research scientists have pushed medicalization and the uniqueness of American football’s rules of play and patterns of violence, failing to make connections with other sporting workers, which could have bolstered their case and garnered greater attention about the occupational risks of contact, low-contact, and even non-contact sports. I conclude by suggesting that what has been lost is an opportunity to create cross-sport solidarities so that all workers can demand their professional leagues’ duty of care.

CTE in American Football Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease caused by repetitive brain trauma. It can produce cognitive symptoms, such as memory loss, attention deficits, and language difficulties, behavioral and mood symptoms, such as impulsivity, depression, apathy, anxiety, hopelessness, and aggression, substance use disorders, motor system problems, such as gait instability, falls, tremors, and slowness as well as debilitating headaches (Mez et al., 2017). Symptoms range from negligible to incapacitating, and,

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while the severity of brain injury that produces CTE is unknown, most cases have been found in people who have experienced recurring hits to the head (Omalu, 2008, pp.  279–280). Athletes generate the most attention in the media but women who survive gender-based violence and service people who suffer explosive blasts in the combat zone, on regular duty, or during training exercises also develop CTE. The disease is difficult to diagnose, largely because symptoms develop years or even decades after the trauma, and a definitive diagnosis is only possible through autopsy (Omalu, 2008, pp. 273–278). The scope of CTE is also difficult to assess as there is also no baseline for the disorder in the general population. Neurological damage from boxing was established in the medical record as early as 1928 when US physician Harrison S. Martland coined the term “punch drunk syndrome” to describe the harm pugilists suffered from the practices of their sport. Punch drunk, or dementia pugilistica, later became known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and was first identified in an American football player in 2002. Mike Webster, a center for the Pittsburgh Steelers who played in the NFL for 17 years, died at 50, bankrupt, depressed, disoriented, and homeless. Webster’s cause of death was initially listed as coronary atherosclerosis but Bennet Omalu, a neuropathologist who performed Webster’s autopsy, remained unconvinced (Omalu, 2017, p. 121). He asked that the brain tissue be processed by a histologist and after examining the slides found significant abnormalities. Webster’s brain showed damage but not in the same patterns or distributions as in patients suffering from other types of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s. After months of research, Omalu realized that he was looking at the first case of CTE in an American football player. He attributed the disorder to repeated blunt force trauma and believed it caused Webster’s erratic behavior, mood swings, and depression. He also suspected that other football players were suffering from the same disease (Omalu, 2017, p. 148). Though much about CTE is still unknown—and even definitions of it can differ by researcher—there is general agreement that the disease develops when a protein called tau is dislodged from the brain and accumulates. Tau proteins then clump together and spread throughout the brain, causing abnormal configurations, killing brain cells, and interrupting critical brain function (Concussion Legacy Foundation, 2019). It is now thought that hits to the head in general rather than concussion specifically cause CTE.4 But as  Much is still unknown about the causes of CTE and scientists do not know why people with similar histories of brain trauma have different outcomes. There are cases of people who experienced repetitive brain injury and did not develop CTE. And the disorder has never been found in someone who only had 4

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the most detectable brain injury is concussion, concussive collisions tend to be the most common way researchers, the media, and the football world talk about the risks of CTE. American football has received the most media and scientific attention but athletes in a range of sports suffer concussion at similar rates. Boxing, wrestling, ice hockey, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, and rugby as well as horse and motor-car racing produce high numbers of concussions (American Association of Neurological Surgeons, 2019). It had been thought that female athletes suffered concussion at higher rates than their male counterparts but a recent study debunked that myth (Tarzi et al., 2020). Within the sport of American football, certain positions are more at risk of concussive hits than others, though again, experts differ in their assessments and athlete self-reporting affects statistics. Linemen sustain the most contact, whether concussive or subconcussive, because of their place and tasks on the field, so they may endure the highest number of hits. Offensive and defensive skill positions, such as wide receivers and cornerbacks, experience high-magnitude collisions due to the speed at which they are moving when tackled so they may endure more serious concussions (Baugh et al., 2015; Leavy, 2012). Ultimately no position is completely safe from harm, a point that scientists are quick to emphasize.

CTE Research and American Football CTE researchers are fond of saying that man is not a woodpecker. The latter have shock absorbers that protect the brain as they drill and drum trees with their beaks to extract insects. Humans have no such shock absorber so no matter how sophisticated the helmet, the human brain cannot be safely shielded from collisions, whether the contact is from another player’s helmet, body part, or football turf (Omalu, 2017, p. 14). Boxers have suffered from CTE for decades, if not centuries, with little media coverage or even research interest, but when CTE was first found in an American football player it created a national incident. When Bennet Omalu, who performed Mike Webster’s autopsy in 2002, examined his brain for the first time, he saw nothing abnormal.5 But disturbed by Webster’s history of mood disorders and extraordinary life struggles, one concussion. Why one develops CTE and another does not is still unclear (Concussion Legacy Foundation, 2019). 5  Omalu’s work has come under fire by researchers in the field and pieces such as “From Salesman to Scientist” published on January 22, 2020, in The Washington Post, question the validity of his scientific

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Omalu ordered extra tests at his own expense. Looking at the slides of Webster’s brain tissue, Omalu was shocked. In slide after slide he saw, numerous brain cells, yet many had died and disappeared, and many appeared like ghost cells. A large number of the remaining cells appeared shriveled, as if in the midst of the throes of death. I observed spaces—spongiosis—in the substance of the brain, with shriveled brain skeleton and skeins of brain scars, like a partially demolished building stripped of its windows and its aesthetics gone, leaving behind just the main frames, pillars, and broken-down walls (Omalu, 2017, p. 140).

He also noticed large deposits of tau proteins. Omalu could not understand the presence of ghost cells and tau. He was skeptical of diagnosing Webster with dementia pugilistica because boxers’ brains typically show some physical damage visible to the naked eye (Omalu, 2017, p. 145). But after months of library research in medical journals from around the world, Omalu determined Webster did, in fact, have chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). He reported his findings in Neurosurgery, the official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, and one of the most respected journals in the world. Neurosurgery was also the journal in which the National Football League had published a number of articles dismissing the link between concussion and brain damage (Omalu, 2017, p. 167). “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in a National Football Player” was published in July of 2005 (Omalu, 2008, p. 39). Just one month before Omalu’s article came out, Terry Long, a former right guard for the Pittsburgh Steelers, died by suicide. Long had played in the NFL for eight seasons and, at 47, showed similar symptoms to Mike Webster. He, too, had filed for bankruptcy, his home was being foreclosed on, and he was embroiled in legal troubles. Omalu considered the resemblance too coincidental and after looking at tissue samples found CTE in Long’s brain. Omalu published “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in a National Football Player: Part II” on Long in Neurosurgery in November of 2006 (Omalu, 2017, pp.  187–191). As the journal that the NFL had published its findings in, Omalu chose Neurosurgery to engage with previous studies. In 2010 Omalu published his third piece, this time on former Eagles player Andre Waters who had also died by suicide in 2006. The article appeared in the Journal of Forensic Nursing after it was rejected by Neurosurgery (Omalu, 2017, pp. 228–230). conclusions. I am in no position to evaluate his findings but I do not believe that CTE would be on the world stage if Omalu had not examined Mike Webster’s brain and researched its pathology.

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Omalu’s findings quickly became headline news and outlets from around the United States covered his work. The New York Times took up the story after Waters’s death and other papers ran pieces on what became known as the Webster-Long-Waters syndrome. Omalu had anticipated celebration for his discovery and, he hoped, opportunities to collaborate with the NFL on future studies, examining the long-term outcomes of American football players. He was met with opposite. His findings were publicly contested and discredited by the NFL. He endured threats of violence to his family, his car tires were slashed, and an unmarked car followed him on at least one occasion. Defeated and worried, he judged the situation untenable and left the Alleghany County coroner’s office in Pittsburgh for Lodi, California, though he continued to quietly work on CTE (Omalu, pp. 196–197). Just as Bennet Omalu was leaving the field, a new group of researchers was becoming interested in CTE. Ann McKee had worked as an Alzheimer’s scientist for roughly 25 years, but in 2003 her career took a turn when she performed an autopsy on a former boxer. After conducting another autopsy of an ex-pugilist two years later, she decided she wanted to better understand CTE (Freeman, 2018). In 2008 she formed the Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center (CTEC) at Boston University with Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard football player and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) wrestler; Robert Stern, the director of Boston University’s Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical and Research Program; and Robert Cantu, a clinical professor of neurosurgery (Leavy, 2012). The CTEC’s goal was to examine the relationships between CTE and sport in a long-term and systematic way. Bennet Omalu had been subject to attacks as the first researcher to work on CTE in the US’s most popular sport and because he labored in relative isolation with very little institutional support.6 McKee entered the field several years later right as CTE cases were mounting, the media’s interest piqued, players asking questions, and families demanding answers. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell could no longer ignore the issue and scrambled to produce a coherent response for both the sport community as well as for other entities, such as the House Judiciary Committee, which found the topic troubling enough to hold hearings. As a result, McKee’s work couldn’t be publicly dismissed to the degree that Omalu’s had been, and in 2009, she was asked to present her work to the NFL’s Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI) committee.

 Anti-black racism and xenophobia no doubt affected the reception of Omalu’s work as he was born in Nigeria and migrated to the US in 1994. 6

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If McKee’s invitation indicated interest in her research, the committee’s reception of her findings suggested the opposite. Behind the closed doors of the NFL’s board room, the MTBI committee grilled McKee with questions they knew she could not possibly answer, nor could anyone at that point: what was the prevalence of CTE? what of causation? how to consider confounding factors such as genetics? (Freeman, 2018). McKee described the environment as “cool and noticeably testosterone-filled.” Of the sexism she encountered McKee later reflected, The reception was one of complete dismissal. The men representing the NFL had made up their minds that anything I had to say was not accurate or not applicable. After I spoke, there was continued denial that the findings had any merit, and they proceeded to let me know that (Leavy, 2012).

McKee and her colleagues continued their work and in 2017 released the results from a large-scale and highly damning study. In the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), McKee’s team explained that they had examined the brains of 202 deceased American football players and found CTE in 177—or 87%—across all levels of play. Among athletes who had played in the National Football League, the numbers were even more distressing: CTE had been diagnosed in 110 of the 111 brains, or over 99% of players (Mez et al., 2017). The concussion, brain damage, and football connection was now very difficult to deny. Bennet Omalu and Ann McKee’s research was—and continues to be—crucial for uncovering and making public a disease that had gone unnoticed for decades. When disseminating their findings, both scientists located their work in the discourse of their field, emphasizing the neurobiological consequences of repetitive hits to football players’ heads and explaining the severity of abnormal biological processes, such as the accumulation of tau proteins. They drew on a medical register to convince the league, scientific community, and interested public of CTE’s existence and its gravity in American football. Using extraordinary examples of famous former players such as Mike Webster, Terry Long, Andrew Waters and later Junior Seau and Aaron Hernandez, who endured almost unimaginable suffering living in dire social conditions, they cast CTE as an assault of the brain against itself possible only on the gridiron. Stories that covered Omalu, McKee, and McKee’s team described men and women with furrowed brows in white lab coats leaning over an autopsy table or holding a human brain, scrutinizing it closely. CTE was medicalized and comfortably situated in the domain of science.

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And yet by divorcing CTE from its social, economic, and political contexts, an opportunity was lost. With CTE safely in the medical sphere, there was little discussion of how players are not merely brains that may or may not develop a serious neurological disorder but rather workers who may develop a life-altering disease through the requirements of their occupation. When Omalu and McKee chose to focus on the uniqueness of football’s practices on the human brain, they also pre-empted conversations with researchers of other professional sports such as rugby, soccer, hockey, wrestling, cycling, motor-car racing, boxing, and horse racing. That is, eager to establish a football-­brain injury connection, they forfeited the chance to locate CTE in another register: the world of work and occupational health. By failing to create a cross-sport dialogue centered on the labor of athletes, they lost a collaboration that could have bolstered the credibility of concussion and CTE research.

Industry Doubt and Denial: The NFL Though audacious, the National Football League vehemently denied the connection between football and long-term brain injury for over two decades. Until 2016, the NFL’s modus operandi was to provide the standard industry response to occupational harm. They suppressed any data that suggested a football-CTE connection, including studies that they, themselves, had commissioned. They circulated their own findings, which demonstrated a lack of correlation, in highly read journals. And they publically and aggressively questioned the work of any scientist who challenged  the company line. They focused on management, such as mandating the use of helmet chin-straps rather than engaging correlation, causation, or even basic science. Since the National Football League began in 1920—at that time called the American Professional Football Association—sustaining “dings,” getting “dazed,” and having one’s “bell rung” was considered an annoying though unalterable part of the game. After a series of high-profile concussions in the mid-1990s—almost a decade before Bennet Omalu was to meet Mike Webster on the autopsy table—the league was forced to address the public’s increasing concern about concussive hits. Future Hall of Famers Steve Young and Troy Aikman had suffered brutal and very public concussions: Young retired after his seventh while Aikman, who was taken off the field in the second half of the game, could not remember the entire contest or even his location when he was in the hospital hours later (Bonesteel, 2017). Both the New York Times

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and Sports Illustrated ran stories on what was quickly becoming known as football’s “concussion crisis” (Omalu, 2017, p. 167). In 1994, NFL Commissioner and former Washington lawyer Paul Tagliabue created the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI) committee to look at concussion in the league and appointed rheumatologist and Jets team physician Elliot Pellman as chair. Pellman was a concussion skeptic who once told Sports Illustrated “Concussions are part of the profession” likening a player to “a steelworker who goes up 100 stories, or a soldier” and he staffed half of the committee with team doctors who lacked any brain science expertise (Coates, 2013).7 For the next 15 years, the committee assured nervous players, family members, and fans that it was conducting rigorous research. In the 2000s they flooded scientific journals, such as Neurosurgery, with articles denying any relationship between concussion in football and long-term brain damage.8 In 2003 alone, they published four articles asserting that concussion was a relatively rare event and that its mitigation lay in helmet design (Omalu, 2017, p. 168; Fainaru and Fainaru-Wada, 2013; Omalu, 2008, p. 38). Neurosurgery’s editor-in-chief was a consultant to the New York Giants (UCS, 2017). The MTBI committee focused on the biomechanics and immediate side effects of brain injury rather than chronic effects. Their studies covered short time frames—typically 2–3 years—which made it impossible to understand consequences over the life course, though the committee did argue that rapid return-to-play protocols did not pose long-term dangers to players (Omalu, 2008, pp. 10, 38, 43). By treating concussion as transient and drawing attention to protocol rather than etiology, the NFL was able to successfully frame the crisis as one simply of management. When CTE became part of the discussion about brain injury and football, the MTBI committee again denied any connection and went on the attack, engaging in practices highly uncommon in academic journal publishing (Omalu, 2017, p.  171). Immediately after Bennet Omalu released Mike Webster’s CTE findings in 2005, Elliot Pellman penned a letter on behalf of his committee to the editor of Neurosurgery that, according to Omalu, was “long, defensive, and non-collegial” (Omalu, 2008, p. 39). Despite working as NFL physicians rather than as neuropathologists, the committee judged  Pellman was not only skeptical of concussion, he was also skeptical of people who suffered them. He suggested, “Veterans clear more quickly than rookies. … They can unscramble their brains a little faster, maybe because they’re not afraid after being dinged. A rookie won’t know what’s happened to him and will be a little panicky. The veterans almost expect the dings. You have to watch them, though, because vets will try to fool you. They memorize the answers. They’ll run off the field staring at the scoreboard” (Coates, 2013). 8  Several of these articles were rejected by peer reviewers and editors and later were disavowed by the journal as well as some of the authors (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2017). 7

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Omalu’s work scientifically invalid and flawed and demanded a retraction. The journal’s editor did not require Omalu to respond, but Omalu offered to work with the NFL on a nationwide, multi-institutional, and interdisciplinary study that would follow players over the course of their lives. He never received a response. Instead the MTBI committee relentlessly dogged him, contesting his findings at every turn. Even when Pellman was replaced by New York neurologist Ira Casson, the league continued to reject Omalu’s conclusions and the football-brain injury-CTE connection (Omalu, 2008, pp. 40–46). When not rejecting his research, the NFL isolated Omalu, excluding him from key conversations and important meetings on football, head trauma, and CTE. In June of 2007, as NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was rolling out the league’s new protocol for brain injury, the NFL held a seminar for athletic trainers and team physicians from every NFL team as well as active players and representatives from the NFL Players Association (NFLPA). Directed by Ira Casson, the conference reviewed current research and taught medical personnel how to manage concussion. Omalu was not even aware of the seminar until Dr. Julian Bailes, a former NFL and National  Collegiate Athletic  Association (NCAA) physician, asked if he would be presenting. Without a platform but armed with important findings, Omalu gave his data to Bailes, who presented them at the conference (Omalu, 2008, p. 48). By August of 2007, the National Football League had created a savvy brain injury management campaign, assuring the football community that the situation was under control and that it was safe to play the game, effectively relegating the dangers of head trauma to the past. Goodell announced, We want to make sure all NFL players, coaches, and staff members are fully informed and take advantage of the most up-to-date information and resources as we continue to study the long-term impact of concussions. Because of the unique and complex nature of the brain, our goal is to continue to have concussions managed conservatively by outstanding medical personnel in a way that clearly emphasizes player safety over competitive concerns (NFL, 8.14.2007).

In addition to Casson’s medical conference, the NFL produced an “informational pamphlet” for NFL players and their families that explained what concussion is, what its symptoms are, and what to do in the event of a suspected concussive event. They established a hotline for players to seek guidance and report violations of return-to-play policies and on a confidential basis. The league tightened rules about helmets, mandating that chin-straps be fully and correctly buckled for full protection. And they expanded neuropsychological

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testing to all players diagnosed with a concussion and promised long-term study (NFL.com, 2007). In 2009, with mounting pressure of legal action from former players and widows as well as from the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Legal Issues Relating to Football Head Injuries, Roger Goodell intensified the NFL’s response. The league created stricter concussion readiness guidelines and introduced penalties for noncompliance. It donated $1 billion to the Boston University’s CTEC, renamed the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury committee the Head, Neck, and Spine committee, and pledged millions of dollars for future brain injury research (CNN Library, 2018). In 2016 the league admitted for the first time a connection between brain injury and football, and settled a class-action suit about traumatic brain injury with former players, though the settlement's terms continue to be disputed and highly problematic. Like CTE researchers, the National Football League contained brain injury in the medical sphere and treated the situation as specific to American football. Focusing only on football allowed the NFL to mystify the disease, create uncertainty about research findings, and crucially, to take control of the narrative. As the largest sporting league in the world, the National Football League was always one step ahead of researchers, players, their families, and other interested social actors. Asserting that they knew football, the NFL attacked anyone who suggested otherwise and was able to control the terms of the debate. In this case, controlling the terms meant not only giving full attention to concussion management but also circulating questionable science and suppressing research findings. The NFL also successfully prevented players, the players association, widows, and fans from linking brain injury sustained in football to larger issues of labor and occupational health. By questioning the certainty of brain science at every step, the NFL kept those interested in concussion and CTE disoriented and unable to frame the disease as occupational. It reduced risk to personal choice, a common feature of neoliberal governance: rather than acknowledging the harm of concussive and subconcussive hits as inherent to football or even sport, each individual player had to decide for himself whether or not to engage the game.

The Loss of Labor When the football-brain injury-chronic traumatic encephalopathy connection was firmly established, many commentators predicted the end of the sport. Media outlets anticipated that mothers would forbid their sons from playing and that fans would stop watching games, disturbed by the

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consequences of tackles and collisions. And yet NFL ratings jumped 5% for the 2018–2019 season, merely a year after Ann McKee’s CTE findings were released, and American football remains the US’s most watched sport (Goldman, 2019). While overall participation in high school football has declined 6.6% over the past decade, it rose 25% among low-income boys and boys of color (Morris, 2019). American football, it seems, will endure. And with that endurance comes an opportunity to reconsider the centrality of labor, work, and occupational health in the sport. It would be easy to dismiss the National Football League’s practices of denial and suppression as an anomaly or unique to American football. But they were a familiar response in the long history of occupational health that industry employers, company doctors, and the state have used to render invisible harm to workers. Now that the NFL has acknowledged the football-brain trauma-CTE link, head injuries in contact sports can be moved from being solely sequestered in a medical register and framed as a labor issue as well. In particular, an occupational health framework allows the interested public to both learn lessons from past occupational diseases and demand better and stronger worker protections for players of American football—and other sports. Articulating the NFL’s duty of care, for example, which legally compels employers to provide reasonable care and reduce harm, would necessitate industry-specific interventions, such as life-long health insurance, compensation for injury sustained in training or in competition, funding for CTE and other occupational disease studies, and even reasonable rule changes. A commitment to duty of care across sporting leagues would acknowledge the harm of past practices as well as current risks while providing protections for an international group of current and future workers. As a large international workforce, professional athletes would have more bargaining power to negotiate with their employers the terms they find suitable and the levels of risk they deem tolerable. Duty of care replaces the atomized individualism of neoliberal constructions of risk with worker solidarity and workplace protections.

References American Association of Neurological Surgeons. (2019). Sports-related head injury. https://www.aans.org/en/Patients/Neurosurgical-­Conditions-­and-­Treatments/ Sports-­related-­Head-­Injury Baugh, C., Kiernan, P. T., Kroshus, E., Daneshvar, D. H., Montenigro, P. H., McKee, A.  C., & Stern, R.  A. (2015, March 1). Frequency of head-impact-related

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o­ utcomes by position in NCAA division I collegiate football players. Journal of Neurotrauma., 32(5), 314–326. Bella, T. (2015). No man’s land: When concussions force a college football player to retire. AlJazeera America. http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-­ tonight/articles/2015/12/1/casey-­cochran-­ncaa-­football-­concussions-­retire.html Belson, K. (2017). For Ravens’ John Urschel, Playing in the N.F.L. no longer adds up. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/sports/football/john-­ urschel-­baltimore-­ravens-­retires-­nfl-­cte-­study.html Block, J. (2016). We shouldn’t be surprised when NFL players retire early anymore. Huffington Post. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dbrickashaw-­ferguson-­nfl-­early-­ retirement-­no-­surprise_n_5707c4d5e4b0c4e26a2273fa Bonesteel, M. (2017). Troy Aikman says he has no memory of playing in the 1994 NFC championship game. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost. com/news/early-­lead/wp/2017/02/03/troy-­aikman-­says-­he-­has-­no-­memory-­of-­ playing-­in-­the-­1994-­nfc-­championship-­game/ CNN Library. (2018). NFL concussion fast facts. CNN.com. https://www.cnn. com/2013/08/30/us/nfl-­concussions-­fast-­facts/index.html Coates, T-N. (2013). The NFL’s response to brain trauma: A brief history. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/01/ the-­nfls-­response-­to-­brain-­trauma-­a-­brief-­history/272520/ Concussion Legacy Foundation. (2019). What is CTE? concussionfoundation.org. Fainaru, S., & Fainaru-Wada, M. (2013). League of Denial. PBS: Frontline. Freeman, K. (2018). Conversations with Ken: Dr. Ann McKee. Questrom School of Business, Boston University. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPOtweXTSdY Goldman, T. (2019). Exciting games help to propel NFL TV ratings higher. NRP: Morning Edition. Harwood, J. (2019). Andrew Luck’s retirement stunned the NFL- and left behind a big message for the game. NPR: On Point. https://www.wbur.org/ onpoint/2019/08/30/andrew-­luck-­retirement Leavy, J. (2012). The woman who would save football. Grantland.com. http://grantland.com/features/neuropathologist-­dr-­ann-­mckee-­accused-­killing-­football-­be-­ sport-­only-­hope/ Mez, J., et al. (2017). Clinicopathological evaluation of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in players of American football. Journal of the American Medical Association., 318(4), 360–370. Morris, A. (2019). Poor students more likely to play football, despite brain injury concerns. NPR: All Things Considered. National Football League. (2007). NFL outlines for players steps taken to address concussions. NFL.com. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d8017cc67/ article/nfl-­outlines-­for-­players-­steps-­taken-­to-­address-­concussions Omalu, B. (2008). Play hard, die young: Football dementia, depression, and death. Neo-­ Forenxis Books.

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Omalu, B. (2017). Truth doesn’t have a side: My Alarming discovery about the danger of contact sports. Zondervan. Tarzi, C., Tarzi, G., Walker, M., Saarela, O., & Cusimano, M. D. (2020). Medical Assessment of head collision events in elite women’s and men’s soccer. Journal of the American Medical Association., 323(3), 275–276. Union of Concerned Scientists. (2017). The NFL tried to intimidate scientists studying the link between pro football and traumatic brain injury. https://www.ucsusa. org/resources/nfl-­tried-­intimidate-­scientists-­studying-­link-­between-­pro-­football-­ and-­traumatic-­brain Wells, M. (2019). Luck retires, calls decision ‘hardest of my life.’ ESPN.com. https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/27456682/luck-retires-calls-decisionhardest-my-life

Race and Injury in American Football Peter Benson, José Figueroa-López, Richard Kuehn, Andrew Whitaker, and Adam Rugg

The word “injury” in the case of American football is already a euphemistic starting point. A more critical vocabulary is required to accurately, sensitively, historically, and contextually describe the multiple, intersecting forms of harm, pathophysiology, corporeal extractivism—that is, the looting of the body’s resources—and racial spectacle that are defining parts of the sport. Proliferating discourses about safety in football tend to focus on a harm reduction strategy (i.e., minimizing risks for specific clinical injuries, diseases, or suboptimal biomarkers). These discourses stem from corporate and mass media efforts to enshroud American football with airs of public health, medicalization, science, and technology. This strategy focuses on a vague idea of injury and neglects the aspects of class, race, masculinity, and commercialization that are crucial for the sport’s marketability and the production of harm in football.

P. Benson (*) University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. Figueroa-López • R. Kuehn • A. Whitaker Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA A. Rugg Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_8

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There is a further ideological problem in construing the massive scandal of football-related brain trauma as the main cause of the sport’s potentially declining television ratings and overall problematic nature. This theory deflects attention from the importance of critique among athletes in the context of White nationalism. The National Football League (NFL) can attempt to make the sport as safe as it wants. But if the league is unable to politically contain critiques of race and class, then issues of audience and acceptability are going to have more to do with problematic constructs of racialized patriotism than brain trauma.

Intersections of Injury and Demography The rise in popularity of the ongoing research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in NFL players and their links to constant traumatic brain injury has seemingly sparked a shift in interests in playing football among some populations, with, for example, the level of high school play at the lowest point in two decades.1 But only certain demographics are moving in this direction, with the preponderance of the decline coming mainly among White athletes.2 In the population of high school players, the current demographic is around 44% of players being Black, compared to 29% White players.2 Perhaps football is a pathway for vertical mobility and a socioeconomic ladder. It provides an opportunity to get a higher education through scholarships. Perhaps there are other social, educational, and cultural reasons for these discrepancies. Certainly, in terms of cost to play, football is one of the most accessible sports available in high school. Consequently, Black athletes now comprise nearly half of all Division-1 college players, a substantial increase in recent decades.3 This intersectional race and class dynamic driving demographic changes in the composition of college and (as a result) professional football is a crucial issue for considering questions of injury in the sport, for if injury is inherent to this contact sport, it is also the case that racialized injury is a defining feature of how health problems manifest through the sport’s structural  Cook, Bob. (2019,  August 29).  High school football participation is on a decade-long decline. Forbes. www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2019/08/29/high-school-football-participation-is-on-a-decadelong-decline/#5b87d4ae33de 2  Semuels, Alana. (2019, February). The white flight from football. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic. com/health/archive/2019/02/football-white-flight-racial-divide/581623/ 3  NCAA. (2020, March 4). NCAA demographics database. NCAA.org. www.ncaa.org/about/resources/ research/ncaa-demographics-database 1

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organization. Football might function like a way to move up the socioeconomic ladder and access resources such as education, health care, and social security. These incentive structures have perhaps only worsened under the duress of a crippling social welfare system in present-day America. Like the military, football operates as a system of racialized conscription into conditions of injury and death. The NFL public relations strategy has actually reflected an embrace of a medicalization of injury, calling attention to precarity and the risk related to physical play and the league’s attentiveness in allaying them, and coming up with programs and rules changes to make the sport seem safer. The league has spent dozens of millions of dollars on these efforts, including educational campaigns, investments in protective equipment development and CTE research, and donations to the National Institute of Health.4 We call attention to two main problems with this corporate social responsibility campaign. First, while the NFL now posits itself as a “safety first” organization, its historical strategy toward the dangers of CTE has been largely focused on protecting the sport from deeper scrutiny and downplaying the inherent dangers of playing football. As detailed in the exposé League of Denial, the NFL aggressively sought to marginalize and discredit early medical research into CTE and its prevalence within football.5 Even now, as the issue has become too large to ignore and the NFL has been forced to adopt increased safety measures, the league’s focused investment in “safer” helmet technology to confront CTE has been criticized by Bennet Omalu, the renowned neurologist who discovered the first case of CTE in an NFL player. “There is no equipment that can prevent this kind of injury,” he has stated, noting that an emphasis on technological reforms can deflect attention from the inherently dangerous nature of the sport and the cumulative effects of the traumatic low-level hits that are common in football.6 Second, and perhaps more to the point for our paper, the NFL’s focus on brain injury is fundamentally de-racialized. In other words, it is radically inattentive to issues of health disparities and inequality. We now outline a set of notes and propositions that are related to the theme of race, injury, and politics in American football.  Belson, Ken. (2016, September 14). N.F.L. to spend $100 million to address head trauma. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/sports/football/nfl-concussions-100-million-roger-­­ goodell.html 5  Fainaru-Wada, Mark., & Steve Fainaru. (2014). League of denial: The NFL, concussions, and the battle for truth. New York: Three Rivers Press. 6  Lartey, Jamiles. (2015, December 28). Concussion: Doctor who fought NFL says “no equipment can prevent” such injuries. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/28/ concussion-prevention-football-safety-brain-injury-bennet-omalu-nfl-will-smith 4

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Race and the Politics of Resistance The NFL has a predominantly racial minority athlete population. A 2016 player consensus found that at least two-thirds of players identified as Black, which contrasted markedly with the demographic composition of management, media, and viewers.7 Team owners are nearly all White and are well-­ known for a shared conservative politics of labor and nation.8 Meanwhile, managers in the league office and head coaches on the sidelines are roughly two-thirds White.9 Only about 20% of broadcasters identify as Black, and only about 30% of analysts, who are almost always hired because of their insight as former players, identify as Black, contrary to the demography of the player population in general.10 These disparities in racial demography across athletes, management, and media are not unique in major sports within the United States. But there is a significant divergence in that the NFL is dominated by a more than two-­ thirds White audience, whereas the National Basketball Association (NBA) is watched by a non-White majority audience and this aspect of consumption is much closer to the racial demography of the player population.11 It is likely that a difference in audience demographics will help to explain the social justice orientations of the league front offices. For example, when an audio recording of then-owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling, making racist remarks about Black fans was released by tabloid news website TMZ in 2014, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver responded swiftly with a maximum monetary fine and lifelong ban. The other NBA owners later voted to revoke Sterling’s ownership of the team and to end his association with the league.12  Gertz, Michael. (2017, April 19).  NFL census 2016. ProFootballLogic. http://www.profootballlogic. com/articles/nfl-census-2016/ 8  Morgan, Chris. (2019, November 7).  NFL owners, from oldest to youngest. Yardbarker. www.yardbarker.com/nfl/articles/nfl_owners_from_oldest_to_youngest/s1__29789828#slide_1 9  Sonnad, Nikhil. (2018, May 24). The NFL’s racial divide, in one chart. Yahoo. https://www.yahoo.com/ news/nfl-racial-divide-one-chart-154059660.html 10   Lawrence, Andrew. (2019, January 31).  The NFL is 70% black, so why is its TV coverage so white? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jan/31/ nfl-tv-coverage-racial-demographics-super-bowl 11  Kertscher, Tom. (2017, September 28). Amid anthem protests, checking if “NFL family” is diverse. PolitiFact.  https://www.politifact.com/article/2017/sep/28/amid-anthem-protests-checking-if-nflfamily-­divers/; Branch, John (2018, June 22)  Why the NFL and the NBA are so far apart on social justice stances. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/sports/nfl-nba-social-justiceprotests.html 12  Spears, Marc. (2019, April 24). Inside the Clippers’ final days with Donald Sterling as owner The Undefeated. https://theundefeated.com/features/inside-los-angeles-clippers-final-days-with-donald-sterling-as-owner/ 7

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The NFL’s response to the protests against the treatment of minorities in the United States led by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick beginning in 2016 stand as a stark contrast.13 Although players increasingly protested in solidarity across the league, the NFL has essentially always avoided direct confrontation with the specific political issues of societal racism that were the core of Kaepernick’s kneeling gesture. Indeed, during a meeting of NFL owners, Bob McNair, owner of the Houston Texans, was quoted as saying, “We can’t have the inmates running the prison,” in reference to the kneeling protest movement.14 Following a formal apology from McNair, no action was taken against him by the NFL. We suggest that, more than the problem of CTE, the flashpoint issue of the national anthem as a touchstone for racial politics has been a primary reason for waning NFL viewership in recent years, and the league is keenly aware that its revenue stream is linked to upholding the conservative politics of manhood that the league helped foster in the first place.15 The NFL’s new “anthem policy” that was implemented in response to the kneeling protests demonstrated a lack of willingness from the organization to acknowledge the racial problems occurring in the United States. Instead, the policy focused on addressing appropriate “respect for the flag and the anthem.”16 ESPN Writer Dan Graziano directly compared this to an incident that occurred in Milwaukee between the Milwaukee police and the Buck’s basketball star Sterling Brown. Footage showed Sterling being arrested and tasered by police. The Bucks did not hesitate to release a statement condemning that behavior, shining a light on the racial vulnerabilities and violence of contemporary society rather than obfuscating them.17 The NFL’s response to Kaepernick carries the weight of significant investments in, and relationships to, the United States military and patriotic ideals going back decades, and  Mindock, Clark. (2019, January 4). Taking a knee: Why are NFL players protesting and when did they start to kneel? Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/taking-a-­ knee-national-anthem-nfl-trump-why-meaning-origins-racism-us-colin-kaepernick-a8521741.html 14  Bonesteel, Matt. (2017, October 27). “We can’t have the inmates running the prison”: Anti-protest NFL owners are fighting a losing battle. Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/10/27/ we-cant-have-the-inmates-running-the-prison-anti-protest-nfl-owners-are-fighting-a-losing-battle/ 15  Kilgore, Adam. (2018, September 6). For decades, the NFL wrapped itself in the flag. Now, that’s made business uneasy.  Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/sports/for-decades-the-nfl-wrapped-itselfin-the-flag-now-thats-made-business-uneasy/2018/09/06/bc9aab64-b05d-11e8-9a6a-565d92a3585d_ story.html 16  National Football League. (2018, May 23).  Roger Goodell’s statement on national anthem policy. NFL.com.  https://www.nfl.com/news/roger-goodell-s-statement-on-national-anthem-policy0ap3000000933962 17   Graziano, Dan. (2018, May 24).  Why the NFL is light-years behind the NBA on social justic front. ESPN. www.espn.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/276029/ why-the-nfl-is-light-years-behind-nba-on-social-justice-front 13

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these entanglements with the flag determine the league’s approach to Kaepernick’s protest against the national anthem. In 1968, David Meggyesy of the St. Louis Cardinals bowed his head and held his helmet between his legs during the national anthem to protest the Vietnam War. Despite being an elite linebacker, Meggyesy was benched and dropped by the Cardinals the following season. He was shunned by other teams and never played for the league again. He recalls an “overt burden of the players,” where “You’re the chattel out here, and you’ve got no say how we’re going to do it and salute the flag.”18 Indeed, for well over a century, both professional and college football leagues in the United States have stood in deep embrace with the military, drawing from it in the conceptualization, meanings, and tactical language of the game and in larger, public displays that have long situated the football field as the civic home of military celebration. In the aftermath of 9/11 (the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001), the relationship between the military and sport further deepened as major US sporting leagues, led by the NFL, became the locus for galvanizing public support for military action and emboldening US nationalistic fervor. In the decades since, the NFL has continued to expand its long-standing military affiliation by accepting Department of Defense funds for military tributes, creating a “Salute to Service” month dedicated to military non-profits, and even requiring players and coaches to wear camouflage to show their support. The ubiquitous presence of the military in the staging of NFL games, most intense during the “Salute to Service” games in November but omnipresent throughout the year, has allowed the league to infuse its own games and the sport in general with military connotations and meanings. In presenting football as a kindred activity to military service, one that carries the same moralities, values, motivations, and, importantly, sacrifice, the NFL has been able to leverage its association with the military to assert itself as an institution that carries with it a gravitas and legitimacy beyond other sporting leagues and to justify the danger of playing of football within a familiar framework of masculine honor, noble sacrifice, and necessary risk. Further, challenges to the sport that question its concern for its players, their health, or their political agency are often dismissed as attacks on larger US social structures and values that football has come to embody.  Kilgore, Adam. (2018, September 6). For decades, the NFL wrapped itself in the flag. Now, that’s made business uneasy.” Washington Post.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/for-decades-the-nflw r a p p e d -­i t s e l f - i n - t h e - f l a g - n ow - t h a t s - m a d e - b u s i n e s s - u n e a s y / 2 0 1 8 / 0 9 / 0 6 / b c 9 a a b 6 4 -­ b05d-­11e8-9a6a-565d92a3585d_story.html 18

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The Racial Landscape of Football Injuries NFL contracts rarely allow for guaranteed salary money, making it easy for a team to remove an injured player at any time. The main source of guaranteed money is in the form of a signing bonus. The current arrangement for the NFL provides little to no job security for players sacrificing their minds and bodies for a franchise. In contrast, most NBA contracts are fully guaranteed. Also, the NFL owners have been opposed to labor negotiations about guaranteed contracts. A league rule basically discourages owners from offering these types of contracts. It dictates future fully guaranteed money must be deposited into escrow. Although most owners are billionaires and would not have cash flow issues, they often use this as an excuse to limit guarantees within negotiations. The inherent imbalanced power structure of the sport makes it challenging for players to get their demands met. African American League superstars such as Le’Veon Bell and Earl Thomas have held out on their contracts for more guaranteed money (Bell at Pittsburgh Steelers, Thomas at Seattle Seahawks) but both subsequently were released from their teams.19 Head trauma is but one slice of the picture of football injuries. Lower extremity injuries account for roughly half of reported injuries. Knees account for over one-third. These injuries can end a season or even a career, whereas concussions (5% of reported injuries) can sometimes be cleared to allow a player to return to play within days.20 Lower extremity injuries affect the likelihood of college players being drafted and subsequently they affect player salaries, whereas “concussions … have no statistical impact on … getting drafted or performance,” a sports analytics firm states.21 In a 2014 survey, one-quarter of professional players said they were most concerned about head injuries. Half emphasized lower limbs. Some suggested that the league’s effort to manage headshots caused players to target lower  Weiner, Natalie. (2018, September 30). Earl Thomas and Le’Veon Bell are leading the way in how NFL players fight for their salaries. Sbnation. https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2018/9/30/17911228/earl-­ thomas-­leveon-bell-holdouts-nfl-players-salaries-leverage 30 20  Saal, J.  A. (1991). Common American football injuries. Sports Medicine 12: 132–147; Jenkins, Sally, Rick  Maese, & Scott  Clement. (2013, May 16).  Do no harm: Retired NFL players endure a lifetime of hurt. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/05/16/ do-no-harm-retired-nfl-players-endure-a-lifetime-of-hurt/ 21   Barzilai, Peter, & Erik  Brady. (2014, January 27).  Knee injuries worry NFL players more than concussions. USA Today. www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2014/01/27/ nfl-players-injury-survey-knee-head-concussions/4918341/ 19

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extremities, thus producing more of these costly injuries. “You saw what happened to Gronkowski,” said one player, referring to a helmet-to-knee impact that sidelined a receiver. “That’s because of a rule change. The way it was before, he would have just got hit in the head. He would have been there for the next play.”22 Players also criticize rules as benefitting the “skill positions” directly associated with scoring points (i.e., quarterbacks, running backs, and receivers). Importantly, linemen, who do not play in the skill positions and earn much less money, are at a higher risk of CTE, accounting for 40% of cases, because of their role as blockers and tacklers, “subject to violent collisions on almost every play.”23 One lineman told reporters that linemen are seen as more “disposable” than quarterbacks. “The game is safer for certain players,” a defensive player says, suggesting that new rules are meant to protect quarterbacks and receivers. “The rest of us,” he says, referring to blocking and tackling, where regular dings and blows are inescapable, “still get the crap beat out of us.”24 Special rules protect quarterbacks, the majority of whom are White. Quarterbacks are permitted to fall on the ground to avoid being hit. Players who excessively strike them are penalized. Quarterbacks suffer the fewest injuries in football, although their injuries are more “high-profile” because quarterbacks are valuable marketing resources.25 This position has historically been idolized by NFL viewers as the most important and prestigious. Quarterbacks are viewed as the face of teams. They have long been associated with racial stereotypes of intelligence and management as compared to the bodywork of other positions.26

  Barzilai, Peter, & Erik  Brady.  (2014, January 27). Knee injuries worry NFL players more than concussions. USA Today. www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2014/01/27/ nfl-players-injury-survey-knee-head-concussions/4918341/ 23   Breech, John. (2015, September 18).  Study: 95.6 percent of deceased NFL players tested positive for CTE CBS Sports. http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/ study-956-percent-of-deceased-nfl-players-tested-positive-for-cte/ 24   Barzilai, Peter, & Erik Brady. (2014, January 27).  Knee injuries worry NFL players more than concussions. USA Today. www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2014/01/27/ nfl-players-injury-survey-knee-head-concussions/4918341/ 25  Jenkins, Sally, Rick Maese, & Scott Clement. (2013, March 13) Do no harm: Retired NFL players endure a lifetime of hurt. Washington Post.  www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/05/16/ do-no-harm-retired-nfl-players-endure-a-lifetime-of-hurt/ 26  Van Otterloo, Jennifer. (2013) ‘Keep the quarterback white!’ Rush Limbaugh’s Social construction of the black quarterback.” Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado 2(3):1. 22

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Youth Football as Labor Conscription While the recent past has seen numerous players leave the game out of fear of CTE, one of the greatest risks to the future of the league and the sport is in the abandonment of the game at the youth levels, which threatens to sever the institutional and cultural structures that cultivate diehard fans as well as produce a consistent labor pool of willing and able players. According to the NFL’s own research, 60% of its most avid fans began following football in elementary school.27 As medical research continually finds evidence of CTE in younger athletes and researchers stress the increased susceptibility of young brains to developmental damage from concussive and sub-concussive hits, there is an increasing insistence among medical researchers, prominent cultural figures, and sports analysts that parents restrict their children from playing football in favor of less dangerous sports. Already, prominent former football players such as Troy Aikman and Brett Favre, and other famous athletes such as NBA star LeBron James, have made news by stating they did not want their children playing football.28 A significant number of parents seem to agree, with 40% admitting they would steer their kids away from football.29 In 2015, Bennet Omalu, the famed medical researcher who first published on CTE in US football players, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times simply titled, “Don’t let kids play football,” which clearly and forcefully stated that preventing children from playing football was a “moral duty.”30 The NFL has responded to this threat with a 360 degree approach—a holistic marketing ploy that incorporates television, gaming, mobile marketing, school programming, and direct visits by officials to immerse a child in its brand. The NFL infiltrated schools by shielding its youth recruitment mechanisms within the health, wellness-oriented shroud of its corporate social responsibility initiative, the Play 60 campaign to end childhood obesity. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) approved program, which operates in three-quarters of all US school districts, steps in to the gaps left by  Karp, Hannah. (2010, September 23). The NFL just tackled your kids. Wall Street Journal. www.wsj. com/articles/SB10001424052748703860104575508293696582522 28  Florio, Mike. (2012, June 14).  Bradshaw thinks NFL doesn’t truly care about former players. Pro Football Talk. https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/06/14/bradshaw-doesnt-think-nfl-truly-caresabout-former-players/; Broussard, Chris.  (2014, November 13). LeBron: No football in my house. ESPN. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/11866239/lebron-james-says-kids-allowed-play-football 29   Murray, Mark. (2014, January 30).  Poll: Forty percent would steer kids away from football.” NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/poll-forty-percent-would-steer-kidsaway-football-flna2d12029954 30  Omalu, Bennet. (2015, December 7).  Don’t let kids play football. New York Times. www.nytimes. com/2015/12/07/opinion/dont-let-kids-play-football.html 27

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the decreased funding of physical education programs to position the NFL as an educational authority on health and fitness and allows the league to exert significant influence within physical education curricula.31 Additionally, the NFL contracted Young Minds Inspired (YMI) to create NFL-sponsored educational curriculum. As scholars have shown, the NFL has used this influence to captivate students with the rituals and knowledge of football fandom, push them to participate in football and football-related activities, and guide them into general support of the sport and the league itself.32 Ironically, Play 60 undermines its fundamental beliefs about a healthy diet by promoting the NFL brand. The league consistently promotes junk food in accepting official sponsorship from Frito-Lays, Pepsi, Mars Candy, and Pizza Hut.33 The NFL is clearly open to accusations of hypocrisy with regard to youth health in the sponsorship of school wellness programming. As the programs have matured, they have become deeply aligned with the NFL’s significant investments into the “safety” focused youth football programs it runs, NFL FLAG and USA Football.34 The interweaving of these programs, all of which are marketed under a branding of education, health, and safety, creates a significant infrastructure in which to enlist children to support and participate in footballing activities.

Conclusion The NFL is currently involved in a proactive movement of corporate citizenship that has been seen in several other industries, such as tobacco, mining, fossil fuels, and chemicals.35 But even though there might be a patina of “good intentions,” the Washington Post writes, “emphasizing good corporate citizenship is not a solution to the problems of inequality and injustice that often  Wilking, Cara, Josh Golin, & Charlie Feick. (2015). Out of bounds: The NFL’s intensive campaign to target children.  Campaign for a Commercial-Free Children. https://fairplayforkids.org/wp-content/ uploads/archive/outofbounds.pdf  32  Rugg, Adam. (2019). Working out their future: The NFL’s Play 60 campaign and the production of adolescent fans and players. Journal of Sport & Social Issues 43: 69–88; Montez de Oca, J., B. Meyer, & J. Scholes. (2016). The children are our future: The NFL, corporate social responsibility, and the production of “avid fans.” In M. A. Messner and M. Musto (Eds.), Child’s play: Sport in kids’ worlds (pp. 102–122). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 33  McIntyre, Douglas A. (2019, September 12). These are the sponsors of the NFL’s 100th anniversary. 24/7 Wall St. https://247wallst.com/media/2019/09/12/these-are-the-sponsors-of-the-nfls-100th-anniversary/ 34  National Football League. (2018). Beyond the game: NFLsocial responsibility annual report. NFL.com. https://static.www.nfl.com/image/upload/v1598658750/league/jcglnmchl8d3w5cs1r7u.pdf 35  Benson, Peter. (2017). Big football: Corporate social responsibility and the culture and color of injury in America’s most popular sport. Journal of Sport & Social Issues 41(4): 307–334. 31

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spawn protests. … Instead, it can—and frequently does—distract us from the important work of redressing past and present injustices, especially against people of color.”36 The league does not want to risk alienating the majority White fanbase or putting revenues predicated upon a racialized labor force at risk by addressing race-related protests and social justice claims. Meanwhile, the NFL is very comfortable engaging in health-related wellness and innovation efforts to both make the sport look safer and present the image of a caring corporate enterprise. It is notable that among the NFL’s corporate philanthropy and social responsibility activities are investments that definitely do deflect attention from the relationships between institutionalized American football, injury, and race. One of these areas of investment is the league’s “Crucial Catch” campaign, where it donates money to, and spotlights, the issue of breast cancer, including using strategies of pinkwashing to canvass stadiums and player uniforms with pink during certain parts of the season. The league now also massively invests in African American education funds and has partnered with members of the hip-hop community to seemingly ally the league with concepts of racial and cultural identity. There are also youth education initiatives, domestic violence awareness and prevention programs, and, of course, the very public rhetoric about heightened levels of concern about brain trauma. A robust prevention approach might also enlist substantive societal and structural changes to dismantle the racial regime that makes stories about young Black men making it big in the NFL sentimental and meaningful from the start.37 Football concussions are not simply a public health issue but also a social justice issue, given that African Americans, Daniel S. Goldberg writes, “are more likely to suffer the effects of traumatic brain injury,” what he calls “football prevalence.”38 Big Football, like boxing and the military, depends on the exploitation of racialized labor. The most effective public health approaches in these domains might have little to do with the activities themselves, but rather the conditions that drive recruitment and enlistment. Whereas much public health policy focuses on educating consumers and audiences, such as innovating products and promoting awareness campaigns, it might be interesting to consider improved living and working conditions for and  Levy, Jessica Ann. (2017, October 8). “Good corporate citizenship won’t end racism. The NFL must do more.” Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/10/08/ good-corporate-citizenship-wont-end-racism-the-nfl-must-do-more/ 37  Sexton, Jared. (2017).  Derelictum ex nihilo: Origins and beginnings in The Blind Side. In Leonard, David J., Kimberley B. George, & Wade Davis (Eds.), Football, culture, and power (pp. 59–85). London: Routledge. 38  Goldberg, Daniel S. (2013). Mild traumatic brain injury, the National Football League, and the manufacture of doubt: An ethical, legal, and historical analysis. Journal of Legal Medicine 34(2): 157–191. 36

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government investments in impoverished communities, as well as more affordable, available, and high-quality educational systems. These supply-side policies would increase the cost of athlete production, create educational and economic opportunities, and undermine the interests of sports capital. Redistributive policies and reinvestment projects would undercut the ability of Big Football, which funds youth leagues in “underserved communities,” to take advantage of “precarious life,”39 as a labor resource. Although football-­ specific prohibitions and regulations would certainly help to address the concussion problem, it is also likely that ending the drug war,40 building alternative social pathways, and investing in housing and economic and educational opportunities for poor and marginalized communities would undermine the football machine’s exploitative power and, well, reduce harm.

 Butler, Judith. (2006). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. London: Verso.  King, Samantha. (2014). Beyond the war on drugs? Notes on prescription opioids and the NFL. Journal of Sport & Social Issues 38: 184–193. 39 40

Part III Sporting Females, Sexuality, and the Politics of Injury

Injury at the Extreme: Alison Hargreaves, Mountaineering and Motherhood Carol A. Osborne

On 13 August 1995 professional climber Alison Hargreaves lost her life in a ferocious storm as she descended from the summit of K2, the second highest peak in the world situated on the China-Pakistan border. Her initial disappearance and the subsequent confirmation of her death elicited much—some might say disproportionate—media attention as compared to others who had lost their lives in pursuit of the same or similar ascents. Indeed, it is worth noting that five other climbers died alongside Hargreaves in the same storm that day—Spanish compatriots Javier Olivar, Javier Escartin and Lorenzo Ortiz, American Rob Slater and New Zealander Bruce Grant. That the British media did not pay much attention to the loss of these overseas climbers is not particularly surprising; however, just one week earlier (6 August) two other British climbers had also died on Haramosh II: Paul Nunn and Geoff Tier. At the time Nunn was President of the British Mountaineering Council (BMC), a position that placed him at the very heart of the British climbing establishment. He and Tier were duly commemorated in that quarter, as was Hargreaves (Alpine Journal, 1996). However, unlike Hargreaves, Nunn and Tier’s passing received relatively little attention by way of mainstream news reports, even though their expedition had pursued a challenging first ascent. Like Hargreaves they were victims of what climbers often refer to as ‘conditions’, in their case hit by a column of glacial ice, known as a serac fall. One of three surviving expedition members recalled:

C. A. Osborne (*) Bradford, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_9

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When the noise died away, the silence was ominous. … the slope was covered in a mass of car-sized blocks of ice, with a line of footsteps above and below. Their fate was clear. The light faded as we stood in dumb witness to this icy grave of our friends. If mountaineers must die in action, this wild spot would be a fitting place for burial. (Wilkinson, 1996, pp. 305–306)

Again, like Hargreaves, they knew that the risks of mountaineering went well beyond typical understandings of physical injury sustained in the name of sport, but did not think them significant enough to thwart their climbing aspirations. Lost ‘in action’ Nunn and Tier joined the long list of mountaineers who had died in the high peak arena since the British first turned attention there in the late nineteenth century (Bonington, 1992). Reflecting on the outline of these events 25 years on at a time in which girls and women are encouraged to become involved in all forms of sport and physical activity, it would be reasonable to assume that the greater media attention to Hargreaves’ death was based not so much on her acknowledged position as one of the best climbing practitioners in Britain, but rather that she was unusual because she was a woman in the throes of consolidating her professional profile in what was then—and still is—an unequivocally male-­ dominated adventure sport. When Hargreaves died her star was rising: in May 1995 she had officially become the first woman to climb Mount Everest ‘solo’ (independently) and without supplementary oxygen; K2 was the second in a proposed trilogy of ascents which she determined to complete within a calendar year—all in the same purity of style (Horrell, 2019). Had she returned successfully from K2 and then succeeded on Kanchenjunga (her third objective) she would have been celebrated for not only achieving a rare mountaineering feat, but an incredible athletic ‘first’ for a woman mountaineer. Amid the excitement about her ascent of Mount Everest, something else set Hargreaves apart: she had developed a frank relationship with the British press wherein she levelled her unusual status as not only a woman who climbed to make a living, but one who made no apologies for doing so as a mother of two children—six year old Tom and four year old Kate, both looked after by their father when she needed to be away on expeditions. Thus, Hargreaves had left for K2 with a strong media backstory in hand, but it was one which laid the ground for future controversy. Whilst the majority of press articles celebrated Hargreaves’ Everest ascent, comment pieces were already scratching at her achievement precisely because she was a mother of two young children. One sarcastically pitched item, entitled ‘Woman We Hate’, observed Hargreaves’ style of ascent as ‘plain gimmickry’ and her choice to climb as ‘one way to avoid the school run’ (Night &

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Day, 1995). Writing in The Times (1995, p. 14), journalist Nigella Lawson— who later became a household name as a food writer and television cook— was notoriously unreserved in her condemnation of ‘me-first’ elite mountaineering, stating ‘I have no time for people who risk their life in a vainglorious attempt to be praised for courage’. Of mixing motherhood with the pursuit, Lawson didn’t find it ‘any more culpable to be a mother and risk your children’s happiness and security unnecessarily than it is to be a father who does the same thing’. When Hargreaves was reported as ‘lost’ and then confirmed dead on K2, the floodgates of debate opened around the ‘rights and wrongs’ of the ‘mother mountaineer’. One of the strongest lines of defence to emerge in her favour was that, across decades of reporting British mountaineering successes and tragedies, men and fathers had risked and lost their lives too but without any backlash, so why was she being treated differently to them? Columnist and self-avowed ‘old feminist’ Polly Toynbee admitted she had been put ‘on the spot’ by Hargreaves: she was a heroine, sculpted in the mould of all those Girl’s Own comics I was bought up on—brave, dauntless, a natural leader. But in those girls’ comics, they were valiant young women, not mothers. Mothers must stay at home. (Toynbee, 1996, p. 14)

In addition to providing a detailed analysis of the contemporary press reports, Gilchrist (2007) has argued that the depth of publicity around Hargreaves was, in part, a product of New Right political ideology, articulated via policy initiatives which endorsed the traditional heterosexual family form as essential to social stability. Predicated upon the presence of two parents, stereotypical assumptions of women as primary caregivers thereby broadly remained intact in British society. As a figure with neither a typical family lifestyle nor a mainstream career, Alison Hargreaves became a sounding board in a debate generated by journalists and expert commentators over what was and what was not considered acceptable for mothers to do in sport. This chapter situates the event of Hargreaves’ death within a wider consideration of climbing as an inherently dangerous sport. It also suggests that fatality—as injury in the extreme—should be considered beyond the physical loss of life to the athlete, that is to also take account of the harm it can do to significant others. Finally, although there now appears to be an acceptance within contemporary society of women who combine demanding athletic careers with motherhood, it is suggested that the conditions of this acceptance have yet to be sufficiently tested, namely, as they pertained to Alison Hargreaves who combined motherhood with participation in an adventure sport which can be credibly described as life-threatening.

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Climbing: A Perceptibly Dangerous Sport? Climbing is a sport comprised of many sub-disciplines. Nevertheless, whether choosing to climb on an indoor climbing wall, low-lying boulder, outdoor crag, sheer rock ‘wall’ or a high mountain, the sporting challenge for any participant essentially resides in mastering a range of appropriate techniques to ensure completion of a nominated route, whether it be graded easy or extreme, one climbed previously or never climbed at all. At maximum efficiency, this essentially means finishing a route by not ‘coming off’, whether this be before a climb has barely begun, or not taking a fall whilst progressing through an ascent. Typically, through judicious use of equipment and embodied know-­ how, climbing practitioners manage what to non-climbers present as the obvious hazards of vertical ascents, thereby reducing what might otherwise be fairly considered a dangerous activity to one of calculated risk. Whatever the discipline, this bringing of danger into a constructive relationship between climber and environment is arguably the essence of the various sub-disciplines recognised as making up the sport. Combining fieldwork and theory, Bunn (2017, p. 595) concludes that becoming a climber (and essentially managing the danger it entails) is a ‘gradual and imperceptible process of gaining an understanding of the specific logics of the vertical world through the doxic1 principle of environmental mastery that governs many outdoor sports’. Thus, a climber’s ability to discern their own competence develops progressively, hand in hand with their confidence. It is this which mediates the decisions they make in relation to the limits of their ‘edgework’, as well as the steps they might take towards improvement with a view to extending the difficulty of what they do. For an elite climber this necessarily entails meeting and then looking towards exceeding the known standards of the day. Year on year many climbers are injured or die practising their sport and it is relatively easy to find online media reports about outdoor rock climbing or mountaineering accidents. Since 1948 the American Alpine Club (AAC) has itself published an annual report ‘to aid the prevention of climbing and mountaineering accidents’. The AAC’s commitment to ‘tracking’ rates and types of injury indicates that they take the welfare of participants seriously; in addition an annual roll call ‘Climbers We Have Lost’ serves as a mark of respect to kindred spirits, as well as a salutary reminder of those who die whilst participating. The report form used by the AAC provides a stark insight into the range and types of physical and physiological injury a climber could sustain across  Of common belief or popular opinion.

1

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the terrains of rock, snow, ice and water. Top of the list is fatality, followed by abrasion; laceration; concussion; head trauma; sprain; fracture; dislocation; spinal; cardiac arrest; hypothermia; frostbite; heat exhaustion or stroke; acute mountain sickness; high altitude cerebral edema; high altitude pulmonary edema; and infection. The form also allows for the identification of ‘psychological’ injury. As the list indicates, injuries range from the more obviously treatable, through to life-changing and life-threatening—conditional on the level of severity and the ability of those involved to act and/or secure medical help. The 22 primary causes of accident and 19 contributory causes listed on the form at the time of writing fall into the broad categories of human error, equipment failure and environmental conditions. In contrast to the AAC initiative, no equivalent exercise is undertaken by the sport’s representative body in England and Wales, the British Mountaineering Council (BMC). Rather, it issues the following ‘Participation Statement’: The BMC recognises that climbing, hill walking, and mountaineering are activities with a danger of personal injury or death. Participants in these activities should be aware of and accept these risks and be responsible for their own actions and involvement.

Thus, the BMC’s position leaves no room for doubt: an expectation falls upon the individual to participate with maximum care to avoid harm to themself. By implication, this care extends to others because much climbing activity is done in pairs or parties. It therefore follows that to endanger oneself necessarily involves others through their need to respond should an accident occur. Whereas the non-climbing public might accept that climbers are acting responsibly when the use of ropes and equipment is visible, they are likely to take a different view of climbs undertaken with minimal dependency on equipment, especially when it is only deployed as a last resort to prevent a serious injury or death through a fall. While his type of ‘free’ climbing is not especially unusual, the media sensationalise it when perceptibly remarkable feats of ascent occur—such as in the case of Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson. After years of practice and preparation, these two professional rock climbers found fame during their first ‘free’ ascent of the Dawn Wall on El Captain, located in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California’s Yosemite National Park. They did so by effectively living on the vast 3000 ft. face over a period of 19 days. Writing in the National Geographic alongside photographs conveying the boldness of their ascent, Andrew Bisharat (2015) observed that ‘a much broader, global audience became captivated by the images of two men clinging to the most improbable–looking surface of rock by the very tips

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of their fingers, thousands of feet above the ground’. As if this type of climbing does not convey itself as daring enough, there are also a few who climb ‘free solo’ to extreme standard—that is, entirely self-sufficiently without any protective ‘gear’ whatsoever. Through extensive preparation, practitioners working in this style become supremely confident in their abilities to navigate their chosen routes, trusting only in chalked hands and slippered feet as points of contact, coupled with their strength and stamina to ascend. However, for those who watch the danger of a fall is palpable, as the film Free Solo (2019) which charts Alex Honnold’s quest to climb El Capitan, demonstrates. Speaking in 2018, Honnold revealed that the ascent had been a decade-long dream and explained ‘It didn’t feel scary at all. It felt as comfortable and natural as a walk in the park, which is what most folks were doing in Yosemite that day’ (Honnold, 2018). When recently interviewed (Levy, 2020), kindred spirit and renowned French free soloist Catherine Destivelle observed that she found aided climbing ‘boring’, but in free soloing she kept ‘a big safety margin. I’m not struggling. You feel quite powerful and calm. If I ever felt afraid, I wouldn’t go. I don’t like to bet. That goes for everything. I don’t run after luck.’ This is an interesting statement coming from a climber of Destivelle’s versatility—superb alpinist, world champion sport climber and high peak mountaineer—because it implies that the climber has viable control over what would appear to most reasonable thinking people as a thoroughly life-threatening encounter with the natural environment. It is unlikely that Destivelle’s view would be so clear cut if she were asked to comment on the internal-external dynamics of what Thomas Kublak (2019) defines as ‘very high altitude’ mountains (such as those which comprise the glaciated European Alps upwards of 2500 metres), or ‘extremely high altitude mountains’ (as exceeding 5000 metres in height). In both scenarios a climber must possess or be properly guided in a range of mountaineering skills necessary to navigate snow, ice and rock. In high mountains, regardless of measures taken to mitigate subjective dangers (those over which the climber has control, as Destivelle claims for free soloing) and objective dangers (those emanating from the environment itself ) elimination of them can never be guaranteed, only managed. Thus, in addition to taking care of technical skills to facilitate ascent, an ability to ‘read’ variable conditions, of the air in terms of weather and on the ground to ensure safe passage (e.g., knowing how to judge the condition of snow and ice features) comes into play. The majority who climb/mountaineer above c.3000 metres are also likely to experience symptoms of acute altitude sickness as ‘dependent on elevation, the rate of ascent, and individual susceptibility’ (Curtis, 1995, p. 3). Depletion of oxygen at altitude routinely accounts for headache, dizziness, shortness of

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breath, loss of appetite, nausea, fatigue and disturbed sleep in climbers. All of these symptoms can be alleviated by remaining at the existing elevation to ‘acclimatise’ or, if symptoms worsen, through descent and re-ascent. It is, however, at greater elevations that the public typically hears about the further serious consequences of these baseline symptoms—symptoms which are, moreover, often compounded by severe weather conditions which leave climbers compromised on descent, or simply stranded without the option to do so.

Mountaineering in the Death Zone The fourteen highest mountains in the world, those which rise above 8000 metres, can present profound physiological and psychological challenges to anyone who chooses to try them. Professional mountaineer Alan Hinkes, the first Briton to ascend them all, observes: The region above 8000m (realistically above 7500m) is the most inhospitable on the planet. It is impossible for human beings to survive there for more than a few days at the most, no matter how well-acclimatised they are. Life expectancy can be measured in hours. The oxygen-depleted air is too thin, the atmospheric pressure too low. It is known as the death zone. (Hinkes, 2013, p. 79)

In recent years, public awareness of the deleterious effects of climbing above this height has been raised via media coverage of near-death experiences and fatalities, particularly on Mount Everest. Most recent and notable in this respect were reports that 320 people had successfully summited the mountain on a single day in May 2019—a statistic powerfully captured in a widely distributed photograph of a ‘queue’ of people waiting to make their summit bid. The image testifies to the rise in client/tourist ‘mountaineers’ determined to achieve their dream of standing on top of the highest mountain in the world— that is, by buying a place on a commercial expedition serviced by the local Sherpa population and led by professional guides. On that particular day three deaths were reported as ‘linked’ to the human ‘traffic jam’. However, this is unlikely to be an accurate reflection of the injuries suffered because climbers queued at high altitude in freezing temperatures for several hours (Rawlinson, 2019). More shockingly, Westaway (2019) headlined the spring death toll as ‘11 climbers dead in 16 days’. He used his online platform, firstly, to call for more dignified treatment of those who die and are left in situ on Mount Everest and, secondly, to implore the International Climbing and

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Mountaineering Federation (UIAA) to mobilise all stakeholders to ‘assist the Nepalese state in tightening regulation and implementing proficiency tests for prospective climbers to tackle the overcrowding that will otherwise risk further deaths next season’. Although legitimate to flag the enhanced risks to inexperienced climbers on high peaks, regardless of whether any climber has acclimatised to make a summit bid, oxygen depletion at or above c.8000 metres has repeatedly seen individuals succumb to advanced acute mountain sickness—ataxia (loss of co-ordination), pulmonary oedema (fluid accumulation in the lungs impeding or preventing breathing), cerebral oedema (accumulation of fluid on the brain causing swelling) and, with ongoing exposure to cold and windchill, severe frostbite (threatening gangrene and loss of digits) (Basnyat & Murdoch, 2003). Evacuation by helicopter is unavailable at such height, and rescue by other climbers virtually impossible because the exertion and time spent in doing so endangers their own lives. On this basis, many have been caught out by the vagaries of weather alone, or through a lethal combination of weather and high altitude. For example, a raft of books published since the 1950s testify to K2—Alison Hargreaves’ last mountain—as one of the most notorious in this respect (see Houston & Bates, 1955; Curran, 1987; Bowley, 2010). Mick Conefrey (2015, p. xii) confirms it as the ‘mountaineer’s mountain’. He notes that ‘in the fifty years after the first ascent, [1954] 247 men and women reached the summit and 54 died trying’. Whilst Schöffl et al. (2010) confirm that injury rate, severity and fatality are higher due to the objective and external dangers within alpine and ice climbing, their findings corroborate a tendency to evaluate fatalities in high peak mountaineering by mountain rather than by the pursuit as a whole. They concede that a lack of standardised reporting systems between climbing disciplines (let alone any to enable comparison with other sports) means that definitively evaluating injury risk and the seriousness of injuries sustained is ‘difficult’. Similarly, in focusing on the Nepalese Himalayas, Weinbruch and Nordby (2013) acknowledge the complexity of evaluating risk in this context, stating that ‘risk estimates are confounded by human and environmental factors’. Indeed, they can never be reliably predicted, either between climbers (given that age and gender are not found to be significant in fatalities), or from one unique ascent event to the next. Although Cheng (2013) identifies American high-altitude mountaineer Ed Viesturs as strongly opposed to this view because he believes that individuals improve with successive climbing experiences, but, critically for this discussion, Weinbruch and Nordby (2013, p. 346) conclude that ‘prior high—altitude mountaineering experience in Nepal has no protective effect’.

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Capitalising Life and Death in Climbing There are no better sources to corroborate Weinbruch and Nordby’s (2013) claim than the writings of climbers themselves. Elite mountaineers—those with a track record in making first ascents, first winter ascents and frequent climbs of high difficulty (Toni Hiebler, Lexikon der Alpen, 2007 cited in Weinbruch & Nordby, 2010)—have proven to be prolific authors, speakers and contributors to documentary films. In doing so, the climber-protagonist is rarely able to exclude the supporting characters from their narratives, even less so if their work recounts an ‘epic’ expedition whereby the author (and/or another) has survived a life-threatening situation, either through death defying resilience (such as recounted by Joe Simpson in Touching the Void, 1997 and 2003), or a rescue accomplished against seemingly impossible odds (as described by fellow English climber Doug Scott in The Ogre, 2017). Such titles entice the public with a taste of the content to come, but also provide much more texture around the culture of the sport and insights into the rewards climbers seek, as opposed to simply focusing on the risks they take. John Porter’s less sinister sounding One Day As A Tiger (2014) is a case in point, albeit a book also framed through the life and death of Alex MacIntyre— killed by a falling stone whilst setting up a new route on Annapurna’s South Face. Porter provides a sense of the values and exuberance that characterised the coterie of male climbers clustered within the climbing scene as it evolved out of the north of England during the 1970s and into the 1980s. As with any elite athlete intent on achieving a personal best or setting new records, these climbers aspired to push out the boundaries of their sport—this meant cracking what were generally referred to (somewhat inaccurately) as the ‘last’ great climbing problems in the form of routes which had either been failed previously, or had never been tried. The group was contemporary with other masters of the game, notably, a hard core of Polish mountaineers who, like them, focused their efforts on the Himalayan and Karakorum peaks (McDonald, 2012). Included in their number was Jerzy Kukuczka, rated as one of the greatest Himalayan climbers of all time, although he too would die whilst attempting a first ascent of the South Face of Lhotse2 in 1989 (Doubrawa– Cochlin, 1990). Making new ascents of the highest mountains and risking life to do so was not, therefore, just a British sporting eccentricity; it was an international one too. Such activity spurred on the ambitions of individual climbers, but also supported cross-fertilisation of know-how between them.  The world’s fourth highest mountain, situated on the border between China and Nepal.

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Stephen Venables, the first Briton to climb Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen in 1988, notes that the period ‘From 1977–1982 … really was a golden age of Himalayan mountaineering when the whole notion of what was possible changed radically’ (Foreword in Porter, 2014, p. x). What Venables implies here is a shift from heavy, ‘siege’ style expeditionary mountaineering which involved big climbing parties, including Sherpas to carry the weight of equipment and provision, to climbing ‘lightweight’, whereby ascents were not so heavily provisioned, locally hired support was kept to a minimum and, critically, climbers were supremely self-sufficient and well-versed in the protocols of making rapid ascent and descent. Especially influential during this period was Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner who, with Peter Habeler, broke physiological and athletic barriers by not only climbing Mount Everest in 1978 without supplementary oxygen (something believed to be beyond human capability at that time), but as if to show his mettle ascended it again, solo, in 1980. By 1986 Messner had become the first to summit all fourteen 8000m ‘death zone’ peaks, mostly in his trademark ‘alpine style’ and without supplementary oxygen. He was already a celebrity in his native Italy, but this feat secured his status as yet another ‘possibly’ greatest mountaineer of all time (Oelz, 1987). A year later Kukuczka achieved the same, having boldly made all but one of his ascents (Lhotse) if not by a new route, then in winter (Doubrawa–Cochlin, 1990). Messner’s and Kukuczka’s activities straddled what Venables goes on to concede was a period in mountaineering history ‘tarnished with a tragic roll call of names of the fallen, including Peter Boardman, Joe Tasker, Roger Baxter-Jones, Georges Bettembourg, and, of course, Alex MacIntyre’. The list is by no means exhaustive; relatively little trawling of mountaineering literature and obituaries in The Alpine Journal is needed to establish that within this discipline there existed a connectedness between the men who populated expeditions, shared close shaves with death and, as exemplified, counted fatalities among friends. It is small comfort that several named by Venables were ‘caught out’ by unpredictable objective dangers—ranging from stone fall, through serac fall, to avalanche. This explains why in the context of death in the high mountains, seasoned mountaineers often identify luck as an important contributory factor in their own survival and associated success. It was in the footsteps of this exclusively male elite that Alison Hargreaves followed a decade later, by taking on the high peaks in what remained a challenging style of ascent—lightweight, solo and without supplementary oxygen. With a book already published about her solo ascents of the six great North Faces in the Western Alps (Hargreaves, 1994), and the 1995 ascent of Mount

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Everest well-publicised, her future as a professional climber looked bright, albeit challenging, when she headed off for K2.

 lison Hargreaves: A Climbing Life A and Death Revisited Gender, Parenting and Climbing Alison Hargreaves was not the first ‘mother-mountaineer’ associated with Mount Everest (see Tabei & Rolfe, 2017), nor with K2 for that matter (Tullis, 2017) but she was without doubt the first in Britain to find such overt and persistent framing as such by the media. This cannot, however, be understood as an entirely cynical use of her as a human-interest story, simply because she projected herself as completely at ease with the co-existence of her identities as a climber and mother. Her passion for climbing began in her teens, she jettisoned the prospect of going to university in favour of living with Jim Ballard and working a climbing equipment business with him. This not only guaranteed her freedom to climb, but enabled her to improve and gain recognition within the sport’s subculture (Rose & Douglas, 1999). Thus, Hargreaves made a lifestyle choice years before her children arrived on the scene and when they did arrive, they were duly socialised into the world of the outdoors. Photographs of Hargreaves with her children were widely published across the British press around the time of her Everest success (May 1995); the same images were routinely reproduced when the news broke of her being ‘lost’ on K2 and, subsequently confirmed dead (August 1995). They serve as genuine representations of her belief that her identities of a climber and mother— underpinned by her love for them both—were not incompatible. Indeed, her first book A Hard Day’s Summer (1994) was as much an account about the logistics and fun of an extended family camping holiday as it was about the serious work of climbing the six classic North faces of the Alps (the Eiger, Matterhorn, Grandes Jorasses, Piz Badile, Petit Dru and Cima Grande di Lavaredo). Thus, the photographs and book proved to the world that mountaineering and motherhood could mix. Stephen Venables believed she managed ‘the almost impossible feat of combining motherhood with high-standard mountaineering’ (Venables, 1995). As a father-mountaineer dependent on his wife’s willingness to keep domestic routines ticking over whilst he was away on expeditions, Venables was well placed to make the evaluation. In doing so, he revealed himself as sensitive to the challenges Hargreaves had encountered

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in thriving as a woman who played an ‘overwhelmingly’ man’s game—not to mention a sometimes-critical British climbing establishment uncomfortable with her ‘overt professionalism’ (Venables, 1995, p. 341). The untypical combination of mountaineering and mothering young children certainly marked Hargreaves out as a figure worthy of attention, even before she headed off for her second (and ultimately successful) attempt on Mount Everest. For example, during an interview designed to promote her book with the BBC radio programme Woman’s Hour, she was smartly quizzed about the advisability of her decision to climb. Noting the distress Hargreaves had described when she found a dead body on her descent of the Eiger, the interviewer levered the uncomfortable experience with her imminent return to Mount Everest, asking ‘when you’ve got those two little ones at the bottom and you come across something like that, someone who’s dead on a face, doesn’t it make you think twice about these risks?’ The tone of Hargreaves’ response was both measured and impassive: No, I don’t think so, not in that respect because, I mean, if I felt what I was doing was so dangerous, erm, was that risky, then I would actually stop doing it, I mean obviously everybody has accidents but we have accidents doing everything all day, erm, you know, there can be all sorts of things in our daily lives that can be fairly risky and you never know when those risks are going to be, so I mean hopefully I do tend to minimise the risks involved in climbing and that’s why I carry on. (Woman’s Hour, 1994)

It seems Hargreaves had no choice but to get used to answering such lines of questioning; Frohlick (2006) observes how the atmosphere at the Banff Mountain Festival (1994) presented as more condemnatory in tone than that she had encountered with the uninitiated interviewer at the BBC. Participating on a panel discussing women and adventure, her female peers apparently struggled to reconcile Hargreaves’ decision to combine extreme mountaineering with motherhood due to the dangers it entailed. Again, she countered the implied critique, asserting that ‘99% of objective dangers you can be in control of … there’s a slight chance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time but generally it was [sic] your decision to be there’ (cited in Frohlick, 2006, p. 483). That Hargreaves was later revealed as ‘torn’ between the respective roles of mother and of mountaineer—articulated in her diary shortly before she died as ‘wanting K2 and wanting the children’—highlights the invidious predicament she found herself in. But it does not necessarily signify a change in her belief that, if expertly navigated, the danger everyone else perceived as existing in mountaineering was, in her own mind at least, manageable and therefore

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marginal. Moreover, the fact remained that what Hargreaves did was little different from her elite male counterparts, to a man publicly left unquestioned about the compatibility of professional mountaineering with the fathering of their children. As a comparative example Alan Hinkes is pertinent because he had travelled with Alison Hargreaves in June 1995 to join the same American-led expedition party on K2. Interviewed for a magazine feature soon after her death, he recalled their intention to partner on the mountain for the purposes of making their respective ascents. Because they climbed at different rates, they agreed to go separate ways. It was a decision which sealed their very different fates that summer as Hinkes managed to summit solo on 18 July— almost a full month before Hargreaves lost her life on descent (Lambert, 1995). On the summit of K2, Hinkes marked his success by taking a photograph of himself holding a picture of his young daughter, Fiona. This became something of a ritual during the 17 years and 27 attempts it took him to complete his ‘Challenge 8000’ (Hinkes, 2013). Obviously cognisant of the dangers associated with climbing in the death zone, during an interview in 2018 the seasoned professional acknowledged ‘I’m lucky to be alive, most people who’ve done what I’ve done, erm, well sadly they don’t make it, they get killed or they stop with nine or ten and live happily ever after’. His ‘luck’ extended to ‘a really serious near-death experience’ on Kanchenjunga—the mountain which saw him become the first Briton to climb all 14 ‘eight-thousanders’. In a short video shot on the summit, the photograph he raised now showed an adult Fiona holding her young son. As he breathlessly filmed, the self-confessed realist remarked ‘Could die on the descent and I’m not joking’ (Renwick/Hinkes, 2018). Given the coincidence of their situations in 1995 and the controversy attaching to Hargreaves’ maternal status, it is a little surprising that Hinkes’ decision to pursue dangerous peaks alongside being a father was passed over by the media that summer. Or perhaps it is not because, as argued elsewhere, the historical framing of mountaineering as an eminently masculine sport, coupled with the essentialist logic that because children are born of women they are best cared for by them, worked against an easy acceptance of Alison Hargreaves’ being a mountaineer, that is, as archetypally understood (Frohlick, 2006; Gilchrist, 2007). In the context of participating in a dangerous sport, the idea that someone must stay at home to care for dependent children and that someone is presumed to be the biological mother is perhaps less worrying than the routine acceptance that fathers do not seem to have such a high premium placed on their lives or the social value they can add to the process of childrearing.

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Mountaineering and Harm With hindsight, the reactions of those journalists who expressed opposition to Hargreaves’ decision to combine motherhood with mountaineering can be seen as emotively driven, not because she was a mother per se, but because she was the mother of two young children. In 1986 professional mountaineer and filmmaker Julie Tullis died on K2, during what became known as the ‘Black Summer’ because between June and August of that year 13 climbers died on the peak (Curran, 1987). That she was a mother struck no chord with the media in the way the death of Hargreaves did; the most likely explanation is that her son and daughter were both in their twenties when they lost their mother. Thus, they were deemed as of an age and ability to make their own ways in life (Tullis, 2017). The opinions of Alison Hargreaves most often cited critics—Nigella Lawson and Polly Toynbee—can therefore be identified with the notion of ‘rights’ not as a singular concept, but a binary one, because rights associated with living in a ‘free’ society are generally understood to come with responsibilities. Lawson and Toynbee were not concerned so much with the fact that mountaineers (man or woman) risked life and limb on high peaks. Rather they were alarmed by the potential harm this would do to children left behind. They therefore regarded Hargreaves’ decision as a neglect of her duty of care to Tom and Kate (Toynbee, 1996; Lawson, 1999). At the time and ever since, those opposed to the criticism of Hargreaves’ have not shifted much beyond an interpretation of her treatment by naysayers as either grounded in political ideology and socio-cultural expectations (which associate with heterosexual family arrangements and the burdens of care being on women) or, as aligned to a quite literal application of ‘rights’, that is, as understood through a lens of equal opportunities (a he can/she can mentality). Asserting the social rights of Alison Hargreaves to mountaineer on the same terms as men was/is logical in itself, if the needs and wants of all human persons are to be respected equally in society. However, the debate typically falls short: this is because analyses which focus specifically on her case hardly consider the broader—gender neutral—context of ethical decision making through a rounded discussion of autonomy (see Olivier, 2006). In short, even though individual freedom and self-fulfilment are held in high regard within British society, the social responsibility of parenting can be observed as necessarily compromising the choices such freedom entails; that is, when potential harm to those who cannot answer for themselves is at stake—in the case of Hargreaves, her children.

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From this perspective, the question to be addressed is whether anyone with responsibility for children should climb at extremes, given that premature death of a parent—whether it be mother or father—is known to constitute injury to children due to loss of parental nurturance. The latter entails everything which associates with the physical, cognitive and emotional support a parent can provide through infancy, early childhood and adolescence (Worden, 1996; Ellis et al., 2013). Evidence from within the world of mountaineering suggests that doing grief work becomes integral to the evolving characters of children left behind and can continue to have a profound impact in adulthood. For example, as a means of achieving closure John Harlin III climbed the north face of the Eiger a full 40 years after his father had fallen from the same face and died (Harlin, 2009). Remarkably, he did so in spite of the fact that he had a nine year old daughter himself. Placing Alison Hargreaves—or any other professional mountaineer for that matter—on the ‘wrong’ side of decision making due to the potential distress that can be caused to significant others is to recognise the broader impact of injury; not necessarily to condemn but to acknowledge that where death has become a not infrequently reported outcome, harm can extend well beyond the loss of the athlete’s own physical life in the mountains. Maria Coffey exemplified the protracted pain associated with such loss by writing about her boyfriend, Joe Tasker, who had died with fellow elite mountaineer Peter Boardman in 1982 high on Mount Everest (Coffey, 1989). In undertaking further research on the impact of accidents and fatalities with living ‘cuttingedge climbers’, partners, parents and children, Coffey claimed to open a dialogue about a topic she considered to have been ‘taboo’ within the subculture (Coffey, 2003, pp. xix–xxi). It is, however, fair to say that elite climbers and perhaps more so those who turn their passion into profession as Hargreaves did are highly attuned to the possibility of injury and do not make ascents with any intention to do harm, either to themselves or to others. For Hargreaves securing success on K2 would have contributed to improving her own life, as well as the material life of her children. The many commentators who expressed admiration for her around the time of her death did so because she was an exceptional athlete by conventional sporting and social standards. In an interview recorded on K2 shortly before she died, Hargreaves observed ‘I think that women in general have to work harder in a man’s world to achieve recognition’ (Boggan, 1995). This goes some way to explaining why she intermittently re-surfaces as a touchstone figure within academic analyses of socio-cultural ‘issues’ in sport (e.g., Hargreaves, 2000; Beames et al., 2019). She also remains an enduring human-interest story in the public domain; for example, in recent years

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endorsed as a positive role model for the project of encouraging girls and women into those sports historically defined through the values of hegemonic masculinity (Schiot, 2016; Salam, 2018; Ignotofsky, 2018). The stamina, strength and focus she exuded through her athletic performances certainly exposed the appropriation and cultural understanding of mountaineering as such. The admiration which now associates with Hargreaves also coincides with the increasingly positive media representations of those who, like her, choose to combine professional athletic careers with motherhood (Jackson, 2019). It would, however, generally be difficult for anyone to take issue with these athletes because their disciplines cannot be construed as threatening the maternal bond or duty of care as Hargreaves’ decision to mountaineer did. With hindsight Hargreaves cuts a sympathetic figure not just because she tragically died on K2, but because of the obviously unequal treatment she received in the hands of the media as compared to her male counterparts. This does not, however, make it a foregone conclusion that a mother-mountaineer of her ilk would receive a more even-handed reaction today or in the future. Rather, the case of Alison Hargreaves could easily be resurrected as a lens through which to deter those who may seek to combine mothering with mountaineering on high peaks. Research suggests that those who combine motherhood and sport identities in contemporary society enter a complex process of ‘juggling’ the respective activities each entails, both in keeping with individual circumstances and overarching socio-cultural expectations which still place women, who in turn place themselves, under pressure to be ‘good’ mothers (McGannon et al., 2018).

Conclusion The life and death of Alison Hargreaves and the circumstances which animate discussion around her as a figure do not alter the fact that climbing is an inherently dangerous sport. It is one equally capable of claiming the life of a professional/elite climber, a dedicated amateur keen to develop their mastery of techniques or a client/tourist mountaineer hoping to fulfil a lifetime ambition of ‘standing on the roof of the world’. Many climbers, professional or otherwise, who died before Hargreaves, as well as those who are bound to die in the future, harbour no death wish, but they do knowingly enter into a contract with an environment that doesn’t discriminate when it comes to the wreaking of bodily harm.

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That climbers can choose to risk their lives in pursuit of excellence and personal fulfilment can be understood as the ultimate symbol of individual freedom within a society that exalts such freedoms. However, public understandings of sport and physical activity are now informed by the politics of health and wellbeing as it pertains to all (Downward et al., 2018). Thus, the overarching value associated with ‘sport’ and the myriad activities it includes are generally promoted as life enhancing—not life-threatening. As such, sport contributes to our sense of continuity within social life and social relationships, even though committed or professional participation might place significant strain on the latter. Sport, then, is supposed to be ‘good’ for us; as grounded in this narrative the fact that participation can perceptibly carry the risk of serious injury, but more critically a proclivity towards fatality especially as climbing in the death zone does, is bound to raise critical questions in the public domain.

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Weinbruch, S., & Nordby, K.-C. (2010). Fatal accidents among elite mountaineers: A historical perspective from the European Alps. High Altitude Medicine & Biology, 11(2), 147–151. Weinbruch, S., & Nordby, K.-C. (2013). Fatalities in high altitude mountaineering: A review of quantitative risk estimates. High Altitude Medicine & Biology, 14(4), 346–359. Westaway, J. (2019, June 10). Everest: 11 climbers dead in 16 days—How should we deal with the bodies on the mountain?. The Conversation. https://theconversation. com/everest-­11-­climbers-­dead-­in-­16-­days-­how-­should-­we-­deal-­with-­the-­bodies-­ on-­the-­mountain-­118374 Wilkinson, D. (1996). Haramosh II, First Ascent and Tragedy. American Alpine Journal, 305–306. Woman’s Hour. (1994, November 28). Interview: Jenni Murray with Alison Hargreaves. BBC Radio 4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01lfjgq Worden, J. W. (1996). Children and grief: When a parent dies. Guilford Press.

Gendered Bodies, Gendered Injuries Kath Woodward

Boxing offers a particularly useful example of the connections between embodied selves, flesh, culture and the body practices which constitute a sport which is strongly associated with violence and with broken as well as beautiful bodies. The excess and the violence of boxing are powerfully embedded in its representations and images (Nead, 2011). Boxing is also one of the sports in which traditional, hegemonic masculinities that are strongly associated with aggression and physical force (Hargreaves, 1997; McBee, 2017; Woodward, 2007, 2014b), as well as particular heroic narratives of honourable persistence and endeavour, continue to endure (Boddy, 2008; Wacquant, 2004; Woodward, 2007). Things are changing, however, with women’s boxing playing an increasingly important role in the sport (Nicola Adams, 2019; Women’s Boxing, 2019) and since the 2012 London Olympics (Woodward, 2014a, 2014b) when women’s boxing was permitted at the Olympics, at last ‘put into discourse’ (to use Michel Foucault’s expression from the History of Sexuality (1981)), and taken seriously. The extent of the transformation of the women’s game was manifest in media coverage which shifted from the trivialisation of women by focusing on their appearance and clothing, to an engagement with the actual body practices and skill in the ring (Woodward, 2014b). Boxing, whether the traditional sport of the global north and many African countries, or growing forms of pugilism, such as Mixed Martial Arts or

K. Woodward (*) The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_10

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Ultimate Fighting, does appear to be distinctive, however, in that the intention of its practitioners is to inflict damage upon opponents, whilst as far as possible, avoiding injury themselves. Boxing is a sport that has been characterised and often stereotyped as one which is particularly violent. Not only are bodies central to boxing, but also damaged bodies and pain are integral to the sport. This chapter explores some of the interrelationships between bodies and flesh and the injuries they incur and the cultural, social situations in which damage is inflicted upon boxing bodies. The particular focus of the chapter is upon the gendered identities, which are implicated in the social context of the culture of boxing. Bodies and body practices are always situated in some social context, but bodies and embodied selves are also themselves situations, which are categorised by sex and gender, as I shall argue, by drawing upon feminist phenomenological explanations. Differently sexed bodies may have different capacities for injury, but social expectations and cultural practices, including ways of seeing and understanding gender and situating embodied selves in particular gendered categories also shape experience. For example, black eyes and swollen lips are not only seen differently when they are experienced by those who identify as female from those who identify as male, but also they may impact differently upon the embodied self who carries the outward manifestations as well as the inner feelings of those injuries. Women may feel differently about these injuries. Evidence, especially on your face, of having been in a fight can be supportive of dominant discourses of masculinity, which celebrate pugilism and aggression, whereas comparable injuries for a woman are more likely to signify victimhood and are certainly, predominantly not a component of femininity or worthy of celebration. Boxing injuries are also subject to current classificatory systems of gendered selfhood and it is often difficult to disentangle the apparent objectivity of the damage, which has been inflicted in the ring or when sparring, from the social meanings, which are given to those injuries and to the ways in which they are categorised, for example as serious or relatively trivial.

Boxing Injuries Pain and injury and the resulting disruptions of everyday, as well as athletic life, are both widespread and routine in sport; in all sports, not just those seen as dangerous or particularly risky. Not only are pain and physical damage common, they are normalised and perceived as integral parts of sporting participation, even those which are not usually classified as high risk or

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particularly dangerous, such as running, which is the empirical focus of some of Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson’s work (Allen-Collinson & Hockey, 2008; Allen-­ Collinson, 2017), in which she draws attention to the multi-faceted nature of injury in physical cultures. There are shared experiences in the context of different sports, even those as seemingly different as running and boxing (Allen-­ Collinson & Owton, 2015), because of the personal investment in the bodily practices and the ubiquity of pain and damage to the flesh, even if injuries are not deemed serious or life threatening. Most routine boxing injuries occur to the hands, whereas running may impact upon the feet and legs, especially the knees. Damage to the body can generate emotional as well as physical distress (Petrie, 1993; Van Ingen, 2011). Whichever way you look at it, however, boxing is categorised as a high risk, contact, combat sport, in a view that is reflected in and endorsed by the attitudes of medical practitioners and many in the wider public. This anxiety is however, particularly gendered, with more concern expressed about the risk to women’s bodies than to men’s in the culture of the sport and more widely in popular discourse (The Sun, 2019). Sport can damage bodies, in myriad ways, but injury is mostly accidental or the result of inappropriate or inadequate training regimes, bad practice or lack of medical support, albeit with the caveat that on occasion participants can be identified as deliberately inflicting harm on competitors in the hope of gaining unfair advantage, but such practices are deemed unacceptable and punished or subjected to penalties, if observed. Those watching are unlikely to cheer at injuries and hurt, and more likely to inveigh against those in the other team, who inflict damage and pain, even if it is done accidentally. In football, for example, fans might be more likely to claim that any player in the opposing team who falls down injured is feigning injury, especially if the injured player’s team is losing. Nonetheless, the main point of boxing, especially in competition, is to render your opponent unconscious, or at least to inflict as much damage as possible so that they cannot keep going. Spectators and fans expect violence as well as artistry and competence (Woodward, 2007, 2014a). Boxing may be the ‘sweet science’, but it is also a contradictory sport in which the risks and dangers of the ring are what make it so exciting to watch. Fans are caught up in the fantasy of ‘what if ’ in the raw, one-on-one combat of the sport (Woodward, 2007). Concussion is never trivial or superficial, yet this is what happens when someone is knocked out and a Knock Out (KO) is often the main aim of the boxer. It is not just the matter of intending to injure your opponent; boxing fans also appear to enjoy the punches, which land on the battered loser, especially if their man or woman is the winner and their opponent is actually rendered unconscious. These distinctive and often ambivalent aspects of boxing are what make it a particularly

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useful sport for an exploration of violence and injury. Boxing may not be the sport at the top of the league table of violent sports (Rules of Sport, 2019), but the culture of pugilism remains embedded in the infliction of injury, albeit along with the avoidance of injury, but nonetheless, boxing can be brutal and injuries and damage haunt the sport. There have been deaths, of women, the first of which, in recent times, was Becky Zerlentes in 20051 (Telegraph, 2005) as well as men (Ranker, 2019), in the ring and brain damage remains a major concern. There may be more injuries in other sports, such as mountaineering, rugby, horse riding and Australian Rules football. Sources report some variations, but boxing does not figure in most top tens (Rules of Sport, 2019). The main point to note, however, is that, in boxing, injury is not accidental; it is deliberate, or at least built into the regulatory framework of the sport. Individual pugilists have particular styles and strategies but, it is the sport itself which generates capacities for damage and pain. Injury is permissible and even encouraged. Of course, most of what takes place when sparring in the gym and, at its best in the ring, is the highly skilled, athletic body practices of moving around so that you avoid getting hit, albeit, whilst hitting your opponent’s body to the greatest effect, within the rules of the game. In the gym, the sport provides the opportunity to develop skills and agility and confidence in your own body. The promise of gaining self-respect and feelings of control over your own body is one of the main attractions of the sport, especially, increasingly, to women, as well, of course as to those who have experienced and continue to experience, the deprivations and disadvantages of migration, racism and social exclusion. What actually happens to boxing bodies is inflected by cultural norms and the enduring inequalities of sexual politics. Boxing bodies are situated within particular social and cultural systems, but the sport does have specific properties, one of which is its association with violence (Parry, 1998.) Concussion plays a key role in boxing injuries and it is only recently that much attention has been given to the impact of head injury in sport (Manley et al., 2017). This research demonstrates that multiple concussions constitute a significant risk factor for cognitive impairment, mental health problems and sometimes dementia for athletes in later life. For example heading the ball in football is now recognised as exceedingly damaging and likely (as in the case of West Bromwich Albion star goal scorer of the 1967–1968 season, Jeff Astle, whose family set up the Jeff Astle Foundation, JFA, 2020).  Zerlentes, a Professor of Geography, boxed as an amateur. She died after competing in the Colorado State Boxing Senior Female Championships. The coroner’s verdict was that her death was the result of blunt force trauma to the head. 1

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Injury and danger are par for the course in boxing, even if the sport is not at the top of the table of sporting morbidity and mortality. It is still perceived by many, including medical practitioners, as a very risky activity. By contrast, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and Ultimate Fighting UFC fighters tend to receive more cuts and relatively superficial injuries (Andreasson, 2019). Boxing has always been characterised by the tensions between beautiful and broken bodies and physical damage. ‘Floating like a butterfly’ to paraphrase the great heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, (Marqusee, 1999) may be the aim, but often in practice, even the greatest proponents of boxing, have suffered terrible injuries, for example as in the case of super welterweight Michael Watson, who became more famous for his survival from the terrible injuries he suffered in his fight with Chris Eubank, than his boxing success (Watson, 2005). Even survival against the odds, albeit with extensive, highly skilled neurosurgical interventions, fuels a heroic masculinity. Boxing culture and the body practices, which make up the sport, are also strongly associated with particular versions of traditional masculinity, which has been invoked to prevent ‘fragile’ women from participating in the sport and to render their involvement invisible. Exclusion from the heroic narratives of triumph over adversity and tragedy is one of the characteristics of this invisibility historically, although this is definitely one aspect of pugilism which is beginning to change with women gaining a higher profile in boxing and wider participation in MMA.

Women’s Boxing Although there was an exhibition at the 1904 Olympics, women boxers were excluded from participating until the London Games in 2012 (Women’s Boxing, 2019). Women’s boxing seems to have been absent from the Ancient World, but women fought in fairground booths through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The memory of this practice may further endorse associations of women’s boxing with unregulated voyeurism and suggest the sexualisation of women’s participation which has been difficult to challenge, although contemporary practitioners have been very successful in promoting women as highly competent pugilists who have to be taken just as seriously as their male counterparts. In the twentieth century, in a climate of the ever increasing importance of visibility, women’s engagement was largely invisible in the public arena in spite of the careers of boxers like ‘Battling Barbara’ Buttick, who did have one fight screened on television in 1954, a piece of information, which was revealed more publicly in 2012 at the time of the

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London Olympics (WBAN, 2019). The rediscovery of Battling Barbara has done something to reinstate and make visible women’s contribution, although she is still seen as the exception rather than the rule, and deemed particularly fortunate as a woman to have escaped serious injury. Her history does, however, reveal the history and legacy of attitudes towards women in boxing and the stereotypical definitions of femininity as frail and too fragile to engage in pugilism. The implication was that women could not endure pain and would be too weak to fight, a view which was allied to moral notions of impropriety. Boxing has long been a well-known, often highly esteemed path out of poverty and the ghetto for men, especially migrant men, whereas women boxing has not largely been framed by such heroic narratives and honourable discourses. The debate that preceded the recent inclusion of women in the Olympics is instructive in exploring the sexual politics of injury in a sport (Woodward, 2014a). Women were seen as intruders in a predominantly masculine field, not only with masculinity being understood as a cultural identity, but with masculinity being a field reserved for those classified as men. Sport is highly dependent upon a binary logic of sex, which is based upon an empirical classification of competitors and competition into men and women, male and female. Women’s events would thus mean fewer for men (Dixon, 2010). As Katharina Lindner argues, in the context of women’s arrival at the Olympics in 2012, boxing, as the ‘last bastion of masculinity’, is not deemed ‘acceptable’ for women, who were perceived as too fragile and weak to engage in pugilism (Lindner, 2012). Lindner supports her argument by quoting the British boxer, Amir Khan’s expression of this perception of women’s frailties Deep down I think women shouldn’t fight. That’s my opinion. …When you get hit it’s very painful. Women can get knocked out. (Khan, 2009 in Lindner, 2014, p. 464)

Khan later changed his views and became much more enthusiastic and positive after the successful and very exciting women’s competitions at the Olympics in 2012, which generated considerable interest in boxing, because of the skill and artistry of women like Nicola Adams, Katie Taylor and Mary Kom. Khan’s initial hesitancy, however, is underpinned by many of the widely circulating prejudices about women’s boxing and women’s bodies. There is a long history of the exclusion of women from sport on grounds of their physical fragility and the sensitivity of their reproductive organs. Without any regard for experience outside sport in women’s lives such as the labour of working class women, childbirth in much of the world and the heavy

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agricultural work undertaken by impoverished women across the globe, women have, somewhat ironically, been seen as incapable of bearing the pain of injury and lacking competitive spirit which would enable them to succeed at the highest levels. The gendering of boxing bodies applies to the injuries boxers can incur and the threat of damage, not least to their reproductive capacities that have been used to further exclude women (Hargreaves, 1994, 1997, 2005; Boddy, 2008; Woodward, 2009, 2015). The challenge by women’s boxing to the aggression of hegemonic masculinity is being reconfigured and reinforced, especially since the inclusion of the sport in the 2012 Olympics. Women are fighting back. Groups such as Love Fighting Hate Violence (LFHV, 2019) have developed to promote more democratic participation and challenge the aggression of hegemonic masculinity and importantly, take women’s participation in boxing and MMA and the injuries they might incur, whether routinely when training or more dramatically in competitive combat, seriously. This chapter now explores and applies approaches to narratives that gender both boxing bodies and boxing injuries in order to explore socio-cultural transformations in boxing, which have repercussions and implications for the broader cultural terrain as well as for the bodies of boxers.

Bodies and Culture: Explaining Gendered Injuries I have suggested that body practices are widely enmeshed with cultural and social practices. Bodies are sexed and gendered and so are the societies in which those embodied selves live and engage in sport. Phenomenological approaches have been useful and relevant in offering a theoretical framework and an empirical, methodological approach, for making sense of bodies in boxing and the debates about the relationships between mind and body and between bodies and culture (Wacquant, 2004). It is the flesh which experiences pain and thus, it is necessary to have an understanding of the importance of how lived bodies operate in the world, as well as medical and clinical concepts and practices, in order to address some of the socio-cultural as well as medical dimensions of pain and injury. Toril Moi, following the French feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, argues that the body is a ‘situation’ incorporating the physical facts of its materiality, such as size, age, health, reproductive capacity, musculature, skin and hair, and the social context is not reducible to its corporeal parts; it is subject only to general laws of physiology and divided into two categories of sex gender. She argues that

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The body is always part of culture, inculcated with habits, acting according to social and cultural rules: To consider the body as a situation … is to consider both the fact of being a specific kind of body and the meaning that concrete body has for the situated individual. This is not the equivalent of either sex or gender. The same is true of “lived experience” which encompasses our experience of all kinds of situations (race, class, nationality, etc.) and is a far more wide-ranging concept than the highly psychologizing concept of gender identity. (Moi, 2001, p. 81)

The idea of the lived body means bodies are always situated in a particular social context. Thus, the lived body includes the lives of those who have been marginalised or excluded, not the least because of its focus upon experience. However, as Iris Marion Young (2005) points out, although the lived body avoids the binary logic of sex/gender and even nature/culture, it may pay insufficient attention to the structural constraints which shape experience. Boxing is certainly marked by socio-economic and cultural constraints and the desperation of some boxers for some return on their investment of physical capital. For boxers who have very little financial or cultural capital, or indeed any other kind of capital, their bodies are the only capital they have to invest. Young uses the phenomenological idea of embodiment to argue that embodied difference is a constituent of subjectivity and the making and remaking of the self and part of the explanatory framework through which gendered identities can be understood. The idea of embodiment opens up another possibility for avoiding the binary logic of mind and body whilst including the idea of agency and of intentionality. Even in situations where the body seems to ‘take over’, as often happens in boxing when protagonists seem to keep going however bad their injuries seem, the notion of embodiment permits an understanding of what constitutes conscious agency. Sport remains strongly embedded in a binary logic of gendered identities, but the recent challenges of trans and previously of intersex have posed questions about the relationship and sometimes discontinuity between the body you have and how you are seen by others. Boxing offers one of the most interesting, thoughtful and productive cases of the challenge of queer thinking, which can subvert masculinity and patriarchy as well as femininity. Thomas Page McBee’s experience as a trans man is unusual in sport because the sexual politics of sport has featured far more cases of trans women who were classified male at birth and have had careers in sport as a man before transitioning and competing as female, which is now possible to do on the basis of testosterone level as the sole criterion following International Association of Athletic

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Federations (IAAF) and International Olympic committee (IOC) rulings, with no regard for body size, strength or previous experience. McBee suffered at the hands of violent masculinity as a young woman, but knew that he was a man himself with what he felt should be a male body and wanted to box as a man, which he succeeded in doing at Madison Square Garden in 2015 (Hicklin, 2018). His work is a powerful, nuanced and moving critique of violent masculinity. He experienced pain and injury as a woman at men’s hands but still wanted to be a man. This story presents a much more complex, fluid approach to bodies and identities and to the interrelationship between minds and bodies. Injury still hurts whatever gender identity or identities you have, but by focusing upon lived experience in its complexity it is possible to offer some understanding of the ways in which physical experience, including injury, is interconnected with social relations. It may take some time, however, before the regulatory bodies of sport and even medical practitioners catch up with this diversity of experience. Sport remains largely divided into men’s and women’s competitions, with the agenda mainly being set by the yardstick of men’s sport and men’s bodies. Boxing does have the advantage of being categorised by body size which means that competitions are fairer in that they do not involve inequalities based on body mass. Given that on the whole women tend to be smaller than men, although this is not universally the case, especially with improved and more egalitarian standards of nutrition in many parts of the world, but in practice, within dominant discursive regimes in sport, a smaller size conflates with muscle weakness, timidity and even incompetence. As Iris Marion Young says, ‘throwing like a girl’, is what girls repeatedly practise in their daily lives in participating in sport; girls and women engage in the iterative body practices and comportment of femininity from walking like a girl to punching like a girl and crying like a girl, so that these ways of being in the world become lived experience of who you are. The exclusion of women from sport has often been based on the claim that women’s bodies are smaller and weaker which might be translated as being less capable of tackling assertively in football or rugby, or less competitive in contact sports like boxing—which has recently been challenged by the success of boxers like Nicola Adams in the 2012 Olympics (Woodward, 2014b). More recently, gendered body size and strength have been minimised as relevant in distinguishing women from men as in the argument of trans women athletes. Young argues that young girls experience ‘bodily timidity that increases with age. In assuming herself to be a girl, she takes herself to be fragile’ (Young, 2005, p. 43). Femininity is taken here by Young, following de Beauvoir, as a

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typical situation of being a woman in a particular society and is thus not fixed, or inherent, or in any sense biological. This approach draws further attention to the social and cultural aspects of bodily sensation, such as the experience of pain, when physical feelings are enmeshed with emotion and social and cultural expectations. Adrenalin can surge and counter the sensation of pain but fear can enhance the distress. Whilst psychology plays a key role in training athletes, for example in preparing the boxer for the fight and psyching them up for the weigh-in as well as the event itself, medical science when dealing with injury, is more constrained by anatomical and biochemical models. Post hoc, once the injury has been inflicted, the emphasis is upon a more mechanical model of the body, with a view to clinical treatment.

Medical Reactions The relationship between the medical profession and boxing has not always been amicable, even though those who incur injuries, especially those of considerable severity, rely heavily on medical support and expertise. Michael Watson attributes his survival to the neurosurgeon who treated him and they remain friends. Both the American Medical Association and the British Medical Association, however, have called for a ban on boxing because of the high risk of brain damage in the sport, whether for men or women. The medical profession has frequently responded negatively to the endurance of boxing as a sport. MMA is still struggling to achieve full recognition by emphasising the skills and discipline of the sport rather than its violence and routine injuries (Scott, 2008). Most of the injuries of boxing and martial arts are routine, but nonetheless the high incidence of brain damage makes the sports, like their practitioners, vulnerable to criticism and attack as anachronistic activities in the contemporary world, when health and safety precautions are paramount in so much of everyday life, especially the workplace. In the post-industrial, technoscientific twenty-first century, pugilism might seem to be a primitive, primordial throwback to earlier times when disputes were resolved through physical combat, but it is the one-on-one combat which makes the sport so exciting and however primitive it is, medical science, especially neuroscience means more combatants do survive and we know more about how to avoid injury. Boxing, like all sports, necessarily involves physical damage and pain, which is not accidental however; it is intentional. Boxing injuries are specific. When you step into the ring the whole point of the exercise is to inflict damage.

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Most boxers receive facial injuries, such as black eyes, detached retinas, broken noses and swollen lips as well as broken bones-jaws, hands, ribs and cheekbones. The majority of boxing injuries, whether in the men’s or women’s sports, are to the hands, but boxing is distinctive in some ways, for example, in the intentionality of the infliction of pain and the particularity of both facial injury and brain damage. Boxing culture is however, consistent with social and cultural gendered traditions in other ways, in that reactions to men’s injury are very different from the public response to women’s. The scars of past fights generate respect for a traditional, heroic masculinity (Woodward, 2007, 2014b) but there is no parallel for femininity. Women’s boxing could make an important contribution to the management of damage by further interrogating strategies for avoiding injury. The desire to avoid injury can be underestimated. The Physio Company, which offers physiotherapy and rehabilitation by experienced physiotherapists, categorises the most common boxing injuries under the headings of boxer’s fracture, cuts and bruises and dislocated shoulder, all of which could be reduced if not eliminated by adequate education about the risks and preparation which includes warming up, deployment of the correct techniques and playing by the rules (Physio Company, 2019). This approach acknowledges the importance of lived experience and both collective action and the individual agency that might result in a reduction in routine injury. Similarly, there are meta-level policies, such as the imposition of good practice and safety strategies such as helmets although the culture of boxing has resisted such interference on a variety of grounds from reducing excitement and risk to interfering with pugilists’ capacity to react immediately to attack. Injuries are also gender specific, with arguments that women boxers are more prone to some injuries than men or that women suffer greater pain and damage than their male counterparts. For example, following Kate Taylor’s world title defence against Jessica McCaskill, there have been claims that women boxers are more at risk from the effects of concussion than men (Costello & Oldroyd, 2017; ICHIRF, 2016). The International Concussion and Head Injury Research Foundation (ICHIRF) report suggested that women might be more prone to concussion than men, which might have implications for moves towards greater equality in boxing. For example, successful boxers like Katie Taylor and Nicola Adams have called for an increase in women’s rounds from two to three minutes in line with men’s, which evidence such as that from the ICHIRF challenges on grounds of health and safety (Costello & Oldroyd, 2017). There are some problems with the research, though, since there are few boxers involved and it is based upon retired sportsmen and women between 50 and 80 in a range of sports. All that can be safely

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deduced is that women have a slightly higher rate of concussion than men, but women’s boxing is relatively recent as is women’s full participation at elite levels in other sports with high incidence of head injury. What has also changed is the amount of financial and commercial interests in women’s sport, including boxing as is evident in Nicola Adams being promoted by leading London boxing entrepreneur Frank Warren when she first went professional, not very long before her retirement from the sport in 2019. Debates about women’s vulnerability in boxing may involve specious arguments, which purport to be about safety and the protection of women, as if women did not know the risks of the sport and need to be protected from their own ignorance as well as supposed physical frailty. As Nicola Adams and other champion women have argued, however, that if you are a boxer you fight by the rules of the game and take the risks. On the other hand, Julie Morgan argues that social attitudes in play more widely in patriarchal, often misogynist cultures, suggest that ‘women’s boxing has no place in a society that should be coming to grips with issues of violence against women. They would protect misguided members of the “gentler sex” from injuring ourselves while attempting to follow the men’s lead in a violent sport. … It’s all right for men to batter each other in public competition, but that there is something intrinsically wrong if women do the same thing’ (Morgan, 2019). The arguments like the social forces in play are complex and often contradictory. On the one hand there is the sexual politics of equality and on the other sexual and gendered difference, which on occasion can have material effects, as for example has been manifest in recent debates about concussion with the suggestion that there needs to be more research undertaken to ascertain if women are more prone to the effects of brain trauma (G.B.I.R.G., 2020). The tension between equality and difference, which is resonant of earlier feminist politics which sought to achieve equality for women, for example in employment, whilst acknowledging areas of difference, such as childbirth, highlights embodied differences and the problem of adequately understanding gender.

Bodies and Embodiment: Evidence of Hurt Social attitudes matter, but pain and injury and the intensity of feeling in response to damage to the body, as, for example, can be sustained in a sport like boxing, provide redress to any excessive emphasis on the social construction of embodied selves. The concept of embodiment, however, presents a useful means of exploring the interrelationship and widely imbricated dynamic between the inner worlds of feeling and physicality and the outer world of

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social norms and cultural systems and processes through which bodies are classified and understood. Women boxers give testimony to the intensities of corporeal damage and concomitant pain: “I have had a bleeding brain, broken ribs, hands and nose, black eyes, split lips and a torn calf muscle,” says Cathy Brown. “I’ve been injured quite badly—but you expect it as a boxer, don’t you?” Indeed, boxing is often considered a bloodthirsty and dangerous sport and there have been several attempts to ban it. Women’s boxing divides opinion more than most other sports. Yet more and more women are taking it up. (in Dixon, 2010)

This boxer is making the point that women, like men, are attracted to boxing as an exciting, exhilarating and demanding sport, which increases self-­ esteem and makes you feel good about your own body. The sport is highly disciplined. Women may do it for different reasons from men, especially as they have largely been denied access to pugilism as an honourable route out of poverty and discrimination. What matters to the discussion in this chapter is the extent to which diverse and, in some instances, contradictory forces are implicated in understanding pain and injury in women’s boxing and what might differentiate between the lived experiences of different genders. Boxing is distinctive in that the rules have largely been written for men’s boxing and boxing culture reiterates boxing’s gendered, embodied practices and it may not be surprising that responses to injury in women’s boxing is framed by patriarchal sexual politics which position women as weak and vulnerable.

Conclusion Injury and pain are part of sport, especially a sport like boxing, but injuries vary and the experience of damage covers an extensive range, from the minor to the major and from those which can be avoided through good practice, especially in training and preparation, and those which are unavoidable and integral to the sport itself. In boxing, like all sports, athletes endanger their health and wellbeing as well as promoting them through the routine practices of training and sporting practices. Such risks are enhanced at elite levels suggesting commonalities in experience, although each sport has its own particularities and boxing is specific and distinctive for the reasons I have suggested, in relation to the aims of the sport to inflict pain and even loss of consciousness and the deliberate nature of violence in boxing. This is not to say that all

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injuries and pain in boxing are the result of violence. The vast majority are more everyday, especially hand injuries and not as dramatic as the concussion which does feature in boxing. Practitioners can experience injuries differently and gender is one of the factors in play when comparing and contrasting experience. Gender, however, is not as clear cut as the binary logic of sport might suggest and it is only being attentive to the complexities of lived experience and the specificities of embodied selves whose practice is spatially and temporally contingent (Van Ingen, 2011) and situated within particular cultures at particular times. Bodies really matter and flesh and bone are the material location of injury but bodies, flesh, feeling, emotion, culture and social factors intersect and connect within particular economic and political situations to shape and influence experience.

References Allen-Collinson, J. (2017). Injured, pained and disrupted bodies. In M.  L. Silk, D. L. Andrews, & H. Thorpe (Eds.), Routledge handbook of physical cultural studies (pp. 267–276). Routledge. Allen-Collinson, J., & Hockey, J. (2008). Autoethnography as ‘valid’ methodology’? A study of disrupted identity narratives. The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, 3(6), 209–217. Allen-Collinson, J., & Owton, H. (2015). Intense embodiment: Senses of heat in women’s running and boxing. Body and Society, 21(2), 245–268. Andreasson, J. (2019). Negotiating violence. Mixed martial arts as a spectacle and sport. Sport in Society: Culture, Commerce, Media, Politics, 22(7), 1183–1197. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17430437.2018.1505868 Boddy, K. (2008). Boxing a cultural history. Reakton. Costello, M., & Oldroyd, E. (2017). Retrieved December 30, 2019, from https:// www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05r4sqp Dixon, R. (2010). The rise of women’s boxing. https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/nov/12/women-­boxing-­live-­tv-­olympics Foucault, M. (1981). The history of sexuality: An introduction, volume 1 (R. Hurley, Trans.). Penguin. G.B.I.R.G. (2020). The Glasgow Brain Injury Research Group. Retrieved January 9, 2020, from https://gbirg.inp.gla.ac.uk/ Hargreaves, J. (1994). Sporting females: Critical issues in the history and sociology of women’s sport. Routledge. Hargreaves, J. (1997). Women’s boxing and related activities. Introducing Images and Meanings body and Society, 3(4), 33–49.

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Hargreaves, J. (2005). Heroines of Sport: the Politics of Difference and Identity. London, Routledge. Hicklin, A. (2018, August 5). My fight to be a man: The story of a life-changing boxing match in The Guardian. Retrieved January 9, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/aug/05/my-­fight-­to-­be-­a-­man ICHIRF. (2016). Retrieved December 28, 2019, from https://www.ichirf.org/ international-­research-­project-­launched-­in-­ireland-­examining-­the-­long-­term-­ effects-­of-­concussion-­in-­sport/ JFA. (2020). The Jeff Astle Foundation. Retrieved January 1, 2020, from http://www. thejeffastlefoundation.co.uk/jeff-­astle Khan, A. (2009). In Lindner, 2012, Womens boxing at the 2012 Olympics: Gender trouble? p. 464. Lindner, K. (2012). Women’s boxing at the 2012 Olympics: Gender trouble? Feminist Media Studies, 12(3), 464–467 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108 0/14680777.2012.698092?journalCode=rfms20 Love Fighting Hate Violence. (2019). Retrieved January 4, 2020, from https://www. brighton.ac.uk/research-­a nd-­e nterprise/groups/stl/research-­p rojects/love-­ fighting-­hate-­violence.aspx Manley, G., Gardner, A., Schneider, K., Guskiewicz, K., Bailles, J., Cantu, R. C., Castellani, R., Turner, M., Jordan, B.  D., Randolph, C., Dvorak, J., Hayden, A. K., Tator, C. T., McCrory, P., & Iverson, G. L. (2017). A Systematic review of potential long-term effects of sport-related concussion. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 51(12), 969–977. Marqusee, M. (1999). Redemption song Muhammad Ali and the spirit of the sixties (2nd ed.). Verso. McBee, T. P. (2017). Man alive: A true story of violence, forgiveness and becoming a man. Canongate. Moi, T. (2001). What is a woman? And other essays. Oxford University Press. Morgan, J. (2019). Retrieved January 9, 2020, from https://fscclub.com/thoughts/ injuries-­e.shtml Nead, L. (2011). https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=boxing+and+violence&hl=e n&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart Nicola Adams. (2019). Retrieved December 3, 2019, from https://metro.co. uk/2019/11/06/nicola-­a dams-­f orced-­retire-­b oxing-­d ue-­e ye-­i njury-­g round-­ breaking-­career-­11049107/amp/ Parry, S. J. (1998). Violence and aggression in sport. In M. J. McNamee & S. J. Parry (Eds.), Ethics and sport (pp. 205–224). Routledge. Petrie, T. A. (1993). Coping skills, competitive trait anxiety, and playing states: Moderating effects on the life stress-injury relationship. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 15(3), 261–274. Physio Company. (2019). Retrieved December 16, 2019, from https://www.thephysiocompany.com/blog/most-­common-­boxing-­injuries

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Ranker. (2019). Retrieved December 16, 2019, from https://m.ranker.com/list/ famous-­people-­who-­died-­of-­boxing/reference Rules of Sport. (2019). Retrieved December 18, 2019, from https://www.rulesofsport.com/faq/what-­is-­the-­world-­s-­most-­dangerous-­sport.html Scott, D. H. (2008). The art and aesthetics of boxing. University of Nebraska Press. Telegraph. (2005). Retrieved January 5, 2020, from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/1487149/First-­female-­boxing-­death.html The Sun. (2019). Retrieved December 3, 2019, from https://www.thesun.co.uk/ sport/10371340/amateur-­f emale-­k ickboxer-­d ies-­m ma-­s outhampton-­ exile-­gym/amp/ Van Ingen, C. (2011). Spatialities of anger: Emotional geographies in a boxing program for survivors of violence. Sociology of Sport Journal, 28(2), 171–188. Wacquant, L. (2004). Body & soul: Notebooks of an apprentice boxer. Oxford University Press. Watson, M. (2005). The biggest fight. Michael Watson’s story. Sphere. WBAN. (2019). Retrieved December 30, 2019, from https://www.womenboxing. com/NEWS2017/news072617history-­of-­womens-­boxing.htm Women in Boxing. (2019). Retrieved December 30, 2019, from https://www.britannica.com/sports/boxing/Women-­in-­boxing Woodward, K. (2007). Boxing, masculinity and identity: The ‘I’ of the Tiger. Routledge. Woodward, K. (2009). Embodied sporting practices: Regulating and regulatory practices. Palgrave Macmillan. Woodward, K. (2014a). Globalizing boxing. Bloomsbury. Woodward, K. (2014b). Legacies of 2012: Putting women’s boxing into discourse. Contemporary Social Science. Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences, 9(2), 242–252. Woodward, K. (2015). The Politics of In/visibility: Being There Basingstoke, Palgrave. Young, I. M. (2005). ‘On female body experience: Throwing like a girl’ and other essays. Oxford University Press.

The Not So Glamorous World of Women’s Wrestling Karen Corteen

Introduction: Putting the Spotlight on Women’s Professional Wrestling In 2003, ex-professional wrestler Jim Wilson wrote: As a onetime wrestler insider … my objective is to show that pro wrestling industry has more appalling abuses than its predetermined outcomes and more seriously harmed victims than its unsuspecting young fans. Pro wrestling’s most contemptible secret is not its bad acting or predetermined outcomes, but its abuse of the performers.1

He was subsequently blackballed by the sport. Bateman suggests that it is time to consider how the sport of professional wrestling works.2 There is a second generation of scholars on professional wrestling and sports entertainment (hereafter professional wrestling) that have been doing this. They have shifted the focus from professional wrestling’s fakery to various other trajectories of exploration.3 These include rigorously  Wilson and Johnson, Chokehold: Pro Wrestling’s Real Mayhem Outside the Ring, 16.  Bateman, ‘Wrestling, Politics, and the Violent Realities of 2016’. 3  Mazer, Professional Wrestling; Sport and Spectacle; Wilson and Johnson, Ibid; Sammond, ‘Introduction: A Brief and Unnecessary Defense of Professional Wrestling’; Corteen and Corteen, ‘Dying to Entertain?

1

2

K. Corteen (*) Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_11

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applying different analytical lenses to the work-related harms of professional wrestling—for example, the lenses of victimology,4 state-corporate crime,5 critical criminology6 and regulation.7 This chapter intends to further such insights by putting the spotlight on women’s professional wrestling in the US and on the abuse of women performers. For reasons outlined below the discussion is limited to the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) though it is acknowledged that women wrestlers exist in independent8 promotions within and without the US.9 The present form of WWE can be traced back to 1963. However, in 1982, Vince McMahon (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer) purchased the business, and it grew from a regional operation to a global phenomenon; its programmes are broadcast in 30 different languages and in approximately 150 countries.10 More than 21 million people subscribe to the WWE’s YouTube channel, which is nearly three times higher than any other sports league; the WWE claims to have had a ‘whopping 20 billion views on social and digital platforms in 2017’.11 The WWE is focused on here due to its public visibility, the dominance of the corporation and the availability of information on the deaths and injuries of high-profile professional wrestlers who worked for the WWE (or the World’s Wrestling Federation WWF). It is also possibly the most accountable professional wrestling corporation in the US.  Therefore, potentially there is the exclusion of the premature deaths, injuries and harms of those male and female wrestlers who toil in obscurity. If such a public and powerful entity as the WWE can act with impunity regarding its work-related violences and harm and its unequal owner-worker relation, what might be occurring in less visible and less accountable wrestling worlds is worth future consideration.

The Victimisation of Professional Wrestlers in the USA’; Chow et  al., ‘Performance and Professional Wrestling’; Corteen, ‘In Plain Sight—Examining the Harms of Professional Wrestling as a State-corporate Crime’; Corteen, ‘A Critical Criminology of Professional Wrestling and Sports Entertainment’. 4  Young, ‘Violence in the Workplace of Professional Sport From Victimological and Cultural Perspectives’; Young, Sport, Violence and Society; Corteen and Corteen, Ibid. 5  Corteen, ‘In Plain Sight’. 6  Corteen, ‘A Critical Criminology of Professional Wrestling and Sports Entertainment’. 7  Corteen, ‘Regulating the Harmful, Injurious and Risky Business of Professional Wrestling’. 8  This term describes unknown, low paid wrestlers who work in small, untelevised local shows/events. They are independent from major, well known, televised wrestling promotions. They are usually referred to as ‘indie promotions’ or ‘indies’. 9  The WWE was the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) until 2002. 10  Forbes, “♯691 Vince McMahon’. 11  Meyersohn, Ibid.

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Women’s professional wrestling in the WWE is not as glamorous as it initially appears. Behind the glitz and glamour is a dark underside and this is not a new phenomenon, as wrestling ‘has always been a dangerous and harmful business and occupation’.12 This can be seen from an analysis of the tragic events that occurred in women’s professional wrestling in 1951. That year Janet Boyer Wolfe (Jeanette Wolfe) died in the ring; she was six months into her career and 18 years old.13 She died of a brain haemorrhage and traumatic rupture of the stomach, which was attributed to the match she had performed in before the one in which she died. In the same year, one of her opponents, Ella Waldek lost her capacity to have children and was thrown into an early menopause in her early twenties. This was the consequence of a catastrophic kick that resulted in severe damage to her ovaries, stomach and Fallopian Tubes.14 Sadly, at the time of writing, Ashley Massaro, a former wrestler of WWE died young as a result of suicide at age 39. Professional wrestlers and former professional wrestlers dying young is not uncommon,15 nor is the excessive rate of injury, their commercial exploitation and their lack of economic compensation. This is not simply an unfortunate state of affairs. Work-­ related harms connected to this industry and the WWE corporation are being publically raised as matters for concern.16 For example, on the popular TV talk show Last Week Tonight that aired on 31 March 2019, host and comedian, John Oliver described the negative corporate practices of the WWE and Vince McMahon in particular. Deregulation of the industry post 1989 is often blamed and whilst in part this may be true, this is not the whole picture.17 This is an extraordinarily taxing profession in which the hegemony of the WWE and the power imbalance between this corporation and its workers mean that the rate of harm, exploitation, injury and death continue with startling regularity. As will be demonstrated, at this point in the history of women’s wrestling this is concerning for the women in WWE. Not only have women endured the harms of their misrepresentation and treatment on the grounds of gender; they also endure the  Ibid., 168.  Leen, ‘Ella Waldek: A Life of Triumphs and Tragedy’; Laprade and Murphy, Sisterhood of the Squired Circle: The History and Rise of Women’s Wrestling; WhatCulture, ‘10 Tragic Wrestler Deaths Blamed on Pro Wrestling’. 14  Leen, Ibid; Laprade and Murphy, Ibid. 15  Corteen and Corteen, Ibid; Morris, ‘Comparing the WWE’s Death Rate to the NFL and other Pro Leagues’; Corteen, ‘Professional Wrestling, “Sports Entertainment”, Harm and Victimisation’; Schilling, ‘Deaths Such as Chyna’s are Worryingly Common in the World of WWE’; Corteen, ‘In Plain Sight’. 16  Blaustein, ‘Beyond the Mat’; Wilson and Johnson, Ibid; Bateman, Ibid; O’Sullivan, ‘Money in the Bank’; Konuwa, ‘Backstage Heat on Lio Rush Demonstrated WWE’s Culture of Brainwashing’. 17  Corteen, ‘Regulating the Harmful, Injurious and Risky Business of Professional Wrestling’. 12 13

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breadth and depth of the harms of the more general occupational culture and corporate practices of the WWE that have been identified elsewhere.18 The chapter will begin with a discussion of the harmful and injurious nature of professional wrestling. Then, in order to turn the attention to women’s professional wrestling, a concise contemporary history of women’s professional wrestling will be provided. The penultimate section entails a discussion of the harmful business of women’s professional wrestling due to gendered occupational cultures and corporate practices and the occupational culture and corporate practices of this business that have previously been critically discussed. The final section will comprise a conclusion.

 he Harmful Business of Professional Wrestling: T Shattered Bodies, Shattered Careers If you can’t work there [WWE], your options are to make very little from regional, independent promotions or go overseas, if you are lucky. Even if you do make it to WWE, there’s no guarantee that you will survive in the business.19 It is very rare for any wrestler to end their career without suffering a major injury at one point in their career.20

Many WWE Superstars do make a comfortable living, but this can come at a high personal and professional cost. This includes excessive actuarial expectations and instances of professional wrestlers dying prematurely.21 As I have noted ‘[i]t is difficult to access official data on the deaths of those whose careers have been spent in the wrestling ring, as no official body collects ­statistics on such deaths’.22 Therefore, this chapter, in keeping with previous desk-based research, mainly relies on Internet sites and other sources that are dedicated to collecting data on this issue.23 In 2019, I also used evidence provided in lawsuits containing Class Actions and individual cases instigated by

 Corteen, ‘In Plain Sight—Examining the Harms of Professional Wrestling as a State-corporate Crime’.  Schilling, Ibid. 20  Cohen, ‘Wrestling Secrets Exposed’. 21  For example see Morris, Ibid. 22  Corteen, ‘In Plain Sight’, 47. 23  Corteen and Corteen, Ibid; Corteen, ‘In Plain Sight’; Corteen, ‘A Critical Criminology of Professional Wrestling and Sports Entertainment’; Corteen, ‘Regulating the Harmful, Injurious and Risky Business of Professional Wrestling’. 18 19

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former wrestlers/plaintiffs aimed at the WWE.24 The premature deaths (before 65 years of age, the age of retirement) that are collated and published on the Internet (and elsewhere) are predominantly if not exclusively limited to those that are established and well known professional wrestlers. In addition, previous research focuses on the WWE—the most popular and powerful wrestling corporation. This is because of its global popularity and visibility. Meyersohn describes the WWE as ‘a media powerhouse’ comprising a mix of ‘live sports and reality TV’.25 To date the WWE is the wealthiest, most dominant and most influential global social and cultural sport phenomenon. Furthermore, the significance of the WWE can be seen in that it ‘is the trailblazer for all other wrestling promotions in the world’ and ‘the company’s influence on every promotion is undeniable’.26 It is a publicly traded company that is also privately owned; its monopoly keeps other wrestling promotions alive. This is because the global presence of the WWE ensures ordinary people remain familiar with professional wrestling. Also many business practices such as those of the New Japan Pro Wrestling promotions are inspired by the business practices of the WWE. The corporations economic success is predicated on it sports participants—the professional wrestlers (men and women) via live shows, pay-per-­ view events, home entertainment (DVDs), a WWE digital network channel and WWE shop merchandise such as WWE paraphernalia including trading on particular wrestlers images. As I have stated elsewhere, ‘[i]t is the company that most, if not all, ambitious wrestlers strive to work for, and beyond this, alternative career options are very limited’.27 The WWE is a world of spoken and unspoken rules, and there is an occupational culture of fear, silence and the suppression of any form of resistance to this toxic situation. Konuwa asserts ‘WWE has thrived financially in part due to its fear-based political structure that allows the monolithic conglomerate to rule with an iron fist and retaliate against the slightest insubordination at will’.28 He also comments on the WWE disciplinary regime noting that, ‘[t]he ghosts of discipline haunt the WWE locker rooms on a year-round basis’ and that professional wrestlers are aware that they could be terminated without representation for minor behaviours that the WWE disapprove of such as forgetting to shake a former wrestler’s hand or sending an ill-timed tweet. This is known as ‘backstage  McCullough v World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., 2017; Laurinaitis et  al., v World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. and Vincent K. McMahon, 2017; WWE Concussion Lawsuit, 2018. 25  Meyersohn, ‘Why WWE is a Media Juggernaut’. 26  Howard, ‘A Beginner’s Guide to WWE Business’. 27  Corteen, ‘Regulating the Harmful, Injurious and Risky Business of Professional Wrestling’, 165. 28  Konuwa, ‘WWE Superstars Would be Insane Not to Unionize following $2 Billion Dollar TV Deals’. 24

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heat’. Pressure on professional wrestlers to adhere to unwritten rules and backstage etiquette is contended to be a distraction away from the more serious issues that make the WWE the harmful business that it is.29 I have established that the premature deaths and other harms integral to professional wrestling are a state and state-facilitated corporate crime.30 In 2019, I concluded, whether regulated or not, professional wrestling is a painful, risky and injurious business; it is a business in which the economic health and wellbeing of the WWE corporation and the location in which events take place, take precedence over the health and wellbeing of sports participants.31 The work-related harms include: Premature deaths because of enlarged hearts, heart attacks and accidental and intended fatal drug and alcohol overdoses. They also include non-fatal drug overdoses; short-term and long-term or permanent injuries including deadly concussions; serious neck and spine injuries; chronic physical ill-health and poor mental and emotional wellbeing especially in relation to depression and ‘burn out’; individual and familial breakdown; addiction to painkillers, alcohol and other drugs including, heroin, anabolic steroids and human growth hormones.32, 33

Other injuries and harms that I gleaned from shared narratives on the part of former/retired professional wrestlers/plaintiffs in lawsuits against the WWE include: traumatic brain injuries, broken bones such as broken, jaw, neck, ribs and arms, fractured vertebrae, orbital bone fracture in the skull, herniated discs in the neck and back, serious shoulder injuries, crushed pelvis and detached triceps in need of 450 stiches.34 There was a lack of medical care at the time of injury and in the aftermath of it. Other identified shared harms include: no time off, working in a different city night after night, inadequate rest, working up to 300 matches a year and thousands of matches during their career with little or no respite. The plaintiffs also documented the WWE’s ironclad culture regarding wrestler’s employment together with a cohesive and fearful  Konuwa, Ibid.; Konuwa, ‘Backstage Heat on Lio Rush Demonstrates WWE Culture of Brainwashing’.  Corteen, ‘In Plain Sight’. 31  Corteen, ‘Regulating the Harmful. Injurious and Risky Business of Professional Wrestling’. 32  Corteen, ‘In Plain Sight, 48. 33  See Hamilton, Gone Too Soon: Deaths That Changed Wrestling and Corteen, ‘Regulating the Harmful, Injurious and Risky Business of Professional Wrestling’ for a list of professional wrestlers who have died prematurely from the causes in this list. In addition, for an assessment of ten wrestler deaths that are blamed on the professional wrestling business, see WhatCulture in which seven of the deaths are attributed to this industry. 34  Corteen, ‘Regulating the Harmful. Injurious and Risky Business of Professional Wrestling’. 29 30

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occupational culture that resulted in a code of silence due to fears regarding their loss of livelihoods. These narratives also exist in professional wrestlers’ biographies and sports journalists’ accounts. An example of this can be seen in O’Sullivan (cited in Bateman) when he describes professional wrestling history as one of ‘worker exploitation, hostile corporate practices, and crippling injuries’ wherein the dazzling spectacle of ‘flashy personalities and memorable feuds’ ‘were nothing more than a smokescreen obscuring the somatic toll of an unregulated sport played by uninsured athletes’.35 In addition, there are also the stresses and strains of the daily performance of high risk manoeuvres. This can lead to accidents, some of which are career-­ threatening, injuries which can be debilitating, and addiction as a coping strategy that can lead to health issues such as heart, liver and kidney problems and intentional and accidental overdoses. In order to sustain WWE’s popularity through entertaining fans around the world, professional wrestlers continue to perform whilst in pain due to a current or former injury or injuries. This situation is very unlikely to change—except perhaps to get worse, this is especially so for women wrestlers at this point in time. As noted from the premature death of two women wrestlers in 1951, women’s wrestling has a tradition of being a harmful, dangerous and even fatal business. However, the concern here is due to the contemporary increased popularity of and demand for women’s wrestling, women’s wrestling has the potential to become more harmful and harmful in a somewhat different way to that of 2000s. In order to understand this concern a concise contemporary history of women’s wrestling will now be conveyed.

 Concise Contemporary History of Women’s A Wrestling: It’s Good for Business The girls are now given the chance to prove that their matches aren’t blink-and-­ you’ll-miss-it bathroom breaks, they are unmissable events.36

Since the 1980s, women have featured in the WWF and WWE in various roles. Up to 3 April 2016 female talent were referred to as Divas. When the new Women’s Championship was introduced at WrestleMania 32 in 2016, in keeping with their male counterparts, women wrestlers went from being  Bateman, Ibid.  Jack White, TV reviewer and reporter in Wagner, ‘From “Divas” to “Superstars”: WWE Embraces Women’s Sports Revolution’. 35 36

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‘Divas’ to being ‘Superstars’.37 However, women wrestlers have not always been treated or represented as Superstars, as can be seen in the WWE 24: Women’s Evolution documentary that contains a highly critical account of the representation and treatment of women wrestler’s in the past.38 This is especially so from the late 1990s and during the 2000s wherein a rise in women’s wrestling can be witnessed. As can be seen below this is also the period in which the industry became an even more harmful place for women wrestlers both in terms of their sexist representation and treatment and in terms of their injuries—when they actually did ‘perform’ in dangerous athletic matches. During this period women wrestlers were not Superstars but decorations for the men’s matches and their presence was for the male gaze.39 With regard to the representation and treatment of women wrestlers the WWE have a long history of sexism and misogyny to overcome. Malhotra and Jaggi conclude from their research of ten WWE diva matches between 2000 and 2014 that such matches comprised ‘female fetishization and pornographization’.40 In other words, women were commodified for the purpose of fetish consumption and they fought with each other ‘in ways to evoke erotic pleasure for the pre-dominantly male audience’.41 While they performed their moves women wrestlers engaged in ‘the act of touching each other’s semi-naked bodies’, and ‘moaning and groaning’—‘the act of wrestling bears resemblances to the spectacle of pornography’.42 Their research revealed that commentary and conversation during such matches put great emphasis on the women’s beauty and less emphasis on their athleticism. Women’s fights were designed for ‘man’s fantasy of watching women crashing and burning on top of each other’.43 This is encapsulated in Wood and Litherland’s contention that, ‘[w]hen performing in their own matches, these were often contests that were built around gimmicks that foregrounded sexy bodies, including a range of bikini contests, wet t-shirt contests, mud wrestling, and other similar themes’.44 Women’s matches were positioned as ‘“popcorn matches”—the filler or break before the “real business” of the men’s titles’.45 From 1999 until late in 2000, fans, taking  Wagner, Ibid; Villanueva and Villegas, ‘WWE: The Evolution of Women Wrestler’s from Divas to Superstars’. 38  WWE 24, Women’s Evolution. 39  Malhotra and Jaggi, ‘Performance of Gender and Fetishization of Women in WWE Matches—A Case Study Using the Mixed Methods Framework’. 40  Malhotra and Jaggi, 78. 41  Ibid. 42  Ibid. 43  Ibid., 76. 44  Wood and Litherland, ‘Critical Feminist Hope: The Encounter of Neoliberalism and Popular Feminism in WWE 24: Women’s Evolution’, 909. 45  Dunn, ‘“Sexy, Smart and Powerful”: Examining Gender and Reality in the WWE Diva’s Division’, 1. 37

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the lead from announcer Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler would chant ‘we want puppies’—a reference to women’s breasts.46 Women wrestlers have been sexualised in their appearance, characterisation and storylines including smoking cigars in a suggestive manner at ringside during matches, posing suggestively in provocative clothing or semi-nude in WWF’S RAW Magazine. Whilst men’s matches were serious, women’s matches were ‘sexy’ with women wrestlers ripping each other’s clothes off in Bra and Pantie matches and School Girl matches. Even though women’s involvement in and coverage of matches increased during this time their representation and treatment was problematic. Not surprisingly, the WWE Divas division, which began in 2001, diminished in 2012 as six of the ‘best and brightest’ Divas left the company.47 The WWE seized upon this as ‘a new era of opportunity for the remaining Divas … a chance at a fresh start, and an opportunity to redefine the very definition of WWE Diva’.48 The WWE announced that, ‘[t]he Divas division remains, as it always has, one of WWE’s premier attractions, only now it’s new and improved’. They continued, ‘[t]he women who compete here are strong, proud, and they pack a punch as well, with no desire to sit on the sidelines as a pretty face’.49 Such proclamations resulted in the Total Diva era (2013–2015); however, women wrestlers were not just moved from the sidelines, they were predominantly removed from the ring. In 2013, the WWE launched a new scripted reality TV series titled Total Divas (2013–2015). While the reality TV setting of the E! programme Total Divas secured additional mainstream media attention for WWE, it actually took women ­wrestlers away from the ring and from the ‘unfeminine’ behaviour of fighting and competition.50 Simultaneously the slogan for the women wrestlers on the Diva’s roster—‘sexy, smart and powerful’ encapsulated the expectations to be embodied by women wrestlers. ‘Sexy’— demure, meek, compliant and heterosexually attractive; ‘smart’—colluding and obeying the WWE in what is expected of them—the ‘quiet, smiling Diva’ who will ‘keep her job … get some time on camera, and will be presented as an aspirational figure’.51 ‘Powerful’, for example Stephanie McMahon wields some power as the real-­life executive vice-president of WWE Creative, but with the requirement of ‘a degree of sexualisation and firm positioning within a  Brian Girard James—‘Road Dogg’ in the 19 April 1999 edition of Raw, started the phrase ‘Puppies’. However, ‘Puppies’ became a catchphrase of Lawler’s. He would repeatedly shout it when a ‘hot’ woman was present at the ringside or in the ring. 47  WWE, ‘The Evolution of the Divas Division’. 48  Ibid. 49  Ibid. 50  Dunn, Ibid. 51  Ibid., 9. 46

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patriarchal family’.52 Women’s power in WWE is to be gained from their celebrity status, which is exacerbated by the blurring of wrestler and celebrity since the launch of the scripted reality TV series for E! Total Divas. For Dunn this development signified the WWE’s continued discomfort with representations of ‘women fighting’ and women’s risk of participating in physical confrontation with men due its PG classification and desire to be family-friendly. But as can be seen below with the Women’s Evolution (2016–present) all that was about to change.53 The Total Divas era ended in 2015 and was followed by the development of the Divas Revolution (2015–2016). This was prompted by extensive criticism of the company’s treatment of the women’s division facilitated by #GiveDivasAChance—a professional wrestling fans social media movement. This was a pivotal moment for the corporation; it prompted Vince McMahon to respond in a tweet with the words ‘[w]e hear you. Keep watching’.54 Stephanie McMahon was especially criticised; she responded by declaring a revolution in the women’s division and the introduction of new women wrestlers to the main roster. However, this failed to really evolve as women’s matches remained short and the fans found them and their storylines to be unsatisfactory. The Divas Revolution which turned out to be more of a marketing tactic, evolved into the Women’s Revolution. The birth of the Women’s Revolution (2016–present) marked the beginning of a new era in that women wrestlers could now be violently hurt and injured and the WWE could glorify this. Witness for example, the SmackDown women’s roster invasion of Raw in 2018 when Becky Lynch took a vicious punch to the face from Nia Jax. What was described as Lynch’s ‘broken face’ comprised Lynch’s broken nose and a concussion. This resulted in Lynch’s removal from the WWE Survivor Series—the most-hyped match on pay-per-­ view in which she was due to compete with Raw’s women’s champion Ronda Rousey. Having won the SmackDown championship from her rival, Lynch with her face covered in blood, turned to the crowd and stated, ‘[a]re you not entertained’.55 It appears that the WWE Four Horsewomen comrades, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks and Bayley are making women’s wrestling cool, popular and more athletic. Robles comments, ‘[w]ith the arrival of female wrestlers such as Becky Linch (sic), Sasha Banks or Charlotte the focus has shifted, with the emphasis now on the technical skills possessed by  Ibid., 10.  See for example WWE 24, Ibid. 54  Wood and Litherland, Ibid., 912. 55  Harris, ‘No Apologies: A Conversation with Becky Lynch’. 52 53

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the female wrestlers’.56 However, Robles acknowledges that, ‘[d]espite these changes, however, not everything is perfect and egalitarian and, as such, demonstrations of sexism continue to creep in from time to time’.57 Robles provides the example of the WWE official website continued publication of photos of female wrestlers wearing bikinis or lingerie—the same does not apply to the men of the WWE. In July 2015, riding on the back of women’s successes in sport, WWE executive Stephanie McMahon advocated for better and more important roles for female talent; she declared, ‘there is a revolution in women sports happening right now. … I want this revolution here in WWE.’58 After this announcement, new female characters were revealed with the promise of better storylines and more camera time for women Superstars. Almost eight months later there was another step in the WWE revolution in the renaming of the ‘divas championship’ as the ‘women’s championship’. The intention behind the revolution ‘is to put less focus on women’s bodies and more focus on their abilities, character storylines and charisma’.59 So, to date the representation of women wrestlers has come a long way and women in the WWE are able to take part in major events such as Hell in a Cell, Money in the Bank, Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber. Support from key figures such as Stephanie McMahon has resulted in ‘a new era where women are the main event’ and this has created a new WWE landscape wherein future women Superstars can ‘ascend to new heights of equality in wrestling’.60 But what might be the cost of the new heights of equality for women in the WWE.

 he Not So Glamorous and Harmful World T of Women’s Wrestling: It Hurts WWE’s decision to add more female performers to its roster and strike ‘diva’ from its vernacular helps put male and female WWE performers on more equal footing, but it’s also good for business.61

 Robles ‘Women’s Wrestling: A Fight for the Transformation of Cultural Schemas in Relation to Gender’, 2. 57  Ibid. 58  Wagner, Ibid. 59  Ibid. 60  Villanueva and Villegas, Ibid. 61  Wagner, Ibid. 56

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I have no words. Ashley was my tag partner at Wrestlemania. My sometimes road wife. … It seems like yesterday Ashley was a major part of my life and then our worlds changed and now she is gone. Im heartbroken for her family.62

Sadly, as this chapter was being written, a very popular and significant former WWE woman wrestler died prematurely. On the 16 May 2019, Ashley Massaro died at only 39 years old; she took her own life and she leaves behind an 18-year-old daughter. Massaro is not the only women wrestler to have died young; tragically in keeping with their male counterparts there are further examples of former women wrestlers dying prematurely: Rhonda Ann Sing— ‘Bertha Faye’, 2001, aged 40, heart attack (WWF); Elizabeth Ann Hulette— ‘Miss Elizabeth’, 2003, aged 42, drugs overdose—coroner ruled cause of death toxicity due to combination of pain pills and vodka (WWF); Sherri Schrull— ‘Sherri Martel’, 2007, aged 49, drug overdose—numerous drugs including an excessive amount of the narcotic pain reliever oxycodone (WWF); Gertrude Elizabeth Wilkinson—‘Luna Vachon’, 2010, aged 48, drug overdose (benzodiazepine and narcotic painkiller oxycodone) (WWF); Joan Mari Laurer— ‘Chyna’ 2016, aged 46, drug overdose—a mix of alcohol and prescription medications for pain, anxiety, muscle relaxation and for sleeping. In particular, the drugs were oxycodone, oxymorphone, valium nordiazepam and temazepam (WWE); Juanita Wright—‘Sapphire’ 2016, aged 61, heart attack (WWF); Nicole Bass, 2017, aged 52, stroke (WWE). Also, as with the men’s experience of harm in professional wrestling, women have endured a range of suffering and harm as a result of their craft. Thus, as well as the underutilisation and sexualisation of women wrestlers, when they were given the opportunity to ‘perform’ during the late 1990s and 2000s they were subjected to injury and subsequent physical, emotional and mental suffering and harm. As well as premature deaths, these harms include short, long-term and permanent injuries (such as spinal injuries, broken bones and concussions); accidental and non-accidental fatal and non-fatal overdoses; demanding schedules, manoeuvres and athleticism; poor physical, emotional and mental wellbeing and worker exploitation. According to Beaston the rise of women’s wrestling early in the 2000s resulted in women wrestlers being subjected to a style of wrestling that was more dangerous, higher impact and harder-hitting than ever before. Some of these injuries were career-­threatening and some even ended the careers of women wrestlers.63 Beaston describes ten  Maria Kanellis tweet after the unexpected death of former wrestler Ashley Massaro.  Beaston, ‘10 Devastating Injuries Suffered by WWE Divas: Being “Sexy, Smart and powerful” has a Price’. 62 63

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devastating injuries experienced by WWE Divas. These include Sable, 2004 a burst breast implant64 resulted in matches being limited and adjusted to accommodate Sable’s injury; the dislocation of Trish Stratus’ shoulder in 2006, which contributed to her retirement sometime after the injury. Beth Phoenix’s jaw was broken in 2006, but she continued with the match. In 2007, Candice Michelle broke her clavicle, she was unable to wrestle for months and when she returned to the ring, she suffered numerous other injuries and she was released by the WWE in 2009. In 2013, Nikki Bella seriously injured her shin, which required months of rehabilitation. In addition to the injuries identified by Beaston, a quick search of the Internet for more recent information on the injuries sustained by women in the WWE revealed the following: Tegan Nox suffered a serious knee injury in 2018. In the same year, Tamina Snuka who has suffered various injuries over the past few years underwent surgery to repair her torn rotator cuff immediately following a match. Alex Bliss who has suffered recurring concussions also suffered a serious arm injury in 2018. Paige was forced to retire after a neck injury—she was kicked in the back on 17 December 2018, and she did not wrestle after that. Similarly in March 2019, Nikki Bella announced her retirement from WWE; she stated that she had a similar neck injury to the one that forced Paige’s exit from the WWE the year before. To date Sasha Banks has also encountered regular injuries and in February  2019 she re-­ aggravated a previous shoulder injury; also, in October 2019 during a Hell in the Cell match Sasha Banks seriously injured her tail bone. In September 2020 in a Friday’s SmackDown event, Sasha Banks endured a severe bone bruise in her knee and a compressed nerve injury in her neck and in May 2021 she suffered a back injury. As discussed above Ashley Massaro took her own life; Massaro wrestled for the WWE from 2005 until 2008. Massaro claimed to have left the WWE due to injuries sustained and subsequent mental health and addiction problems and she has requested that her brain be donated to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) research. CTE is the product of repeated or sub-concussive blows to the head and it results in symptoms similar to those of Alzheimer’s such as mood swings, memory loss, rage and suicidal ideation. In 2016, Massaro took part in a class lawsuit against the WWE.  Over 50 wrestlers alleged that the WWE failed to protect its wrestlers from repeated head trauma  Sable is not the only woman wrestler to have breast enhancement surgery and to have their enhanced breast rupture in the ring. Due to pressures to look a certain way (real or imagined), many women wrestlers undergo surgical procedures such as Botox injections, dermal fillers, chest enhancement and facial surgery. Joan Mari Laurer—‘Chyna’ is often forwarded as an example of a woman wrestler who dramatically changed her appearance through various surgical procedures. 64

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and concussions, which led to long-term brain damage.65 Ashley’s affidavit documented a lack of wrestling training, a gruelling work schedule, constant injuries including severe back injuries, multiple concussions, a fracture to her leg that went around her leg bone twice, surgery and revisionary surgery, a lack of and inappropriate treatment and being forced to perform whilst still injured.66 She also claimed that in 2007 whilst on tour in Kuwait that she was sexually assaulted and that Vince McMahon pressured her to be quiet about it. This controversy together with her affidavit has been widely publicised. In Massaro’s affidavit she stated: Vince approached my rape in the same manner he approached all wrestler injuries. He did not want to damage the reputation of the WWE by making them public knowledge, so he exerted extreme pressure on us to stay silent, to perform whether or not it was safe to do so, and had almost no regard for our well-being. We were treated as replaceable commodities. WWE’s top priorities seemed to be generating profits and avoiding liabilities, regardless of how this affected its workers.67

Massaro also disclosed that she was addicted to medication due her depression, migraine headaches and severe short-term memory loss. She stated, ‘I attribute these issues to my work-related injuries sustained while working for the WWE, and specifically to the routine repetitive blows to the head, I received in the ring over the course of my care (sic) which were not properly diagnosed or treated’.68 The WWE denied the allegations made in Massaro’s affidavit and the WWE claim that one month after the Court’s dismissal of all the claims against the WWE, Massaro apologised to the company for her involvement in the lawsuit. While the lawsuit was dismissed, there is a vast amount of evidence in this and other lawsuits, on the Internet and elsewhere of the injurious, painful and harmful nature of professional wrestling for both male and female workers. This is evidenced in a very recent WWE documentary dedicated to women wrestlers in the WWE.69 In the documentary WWE 24: Women’s Evolution, women’s wrestling is reassessed and the past representation and treatment of women’s wrestlers are portrayed as, ‘exploitative, unsatisfactory, and harmful to female performers and  Trock and Walters, ‘Ashley Massaro Died of Apparent Suicide After Claiming Years of Depression, Injuries Suffered from WWE Career’. 66  Massaro, Aff. 67  Massaro, Aff. 10. 68  Massaro, Aff. 14. 69  WWE 24, Ibid. 65

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fans’.70 In this retelling of history, there is the uncomfortable recognition of the underutilisation and exploitation of women in the WWE for the last 20 years. Wood and Litherland comment on how, ‘space and legitimacy’ is afforded to acknowledge the ‘damage inflicted on the emotional wellbeing and career trajectories of female wrestlers’.71 The stifling of talented athletes in the pursuit of exploitative sex appeal is documented, as is the attempt on the part of the WWE to attribute this to past failings that no longer have a place in the industry. This is signified by the equal recognition of women wrestlers as Superstars on a par with their male counterparts. Together with this rebranding of women wrestlers, the WWE have introduced more and new women talent, who offer more than sexiness—they can headline matches, participate in special events and they can perform like men and for the same duration as  men, and purportedly women wrestlers’ pay is nearer to that of male wrestlers. The transformation of women’s wrestling is represented in the documentary as a response to fans’ demands for the better representation and treatment of women wrestlers and to wider socio-cultural changes with regard to women and gender equality including in the area of sport and athletics. The documentary conveys the wrongdoing on the part of the WWE with regard to its mistreatment and abuse of women wrestlers whilst simultaneously stressing the current transformation of women’s wrestling. Yet, the transformation of women’s wrestling leaves the WWE intact and it reflects its past and current corporate priorities—the expansion of the conglomeration and the pursuit of profit. Wood and Litherland acknowledge the on-going improvements in the representations of women wrestling. However, they are doubtful as to the extent that the changes promised in the documentary have been achieved as there are still fewer women’s wrestling matches than men’s and questions regarding corporate cultures and managerial decisions that permitted this situation for so long are unanswered.72 This includes the role of key individuals such as Stephanie McMahon and Triple H.73 Given the problems that have been documented in this chapter and elsewhere this is worrying.74 Previously I have documented the economic health and wellbeing of the WWE corporation and event locations as being prioritised over the health and wellbeing of its workers;75 the same priorities can be evidenced in the increased utilisation  Wood and Litherland, Ibid., 906.  Ibid., 911. 72  Ibid. 73  Triple H whose real name is Paul Levesque is the Executive President of Talent, Live Events and Creative for WWE since 2013. He is also the husband of Stephanie McMahon. 74  Corteen, ‘In Plain Sight’; Corteen, ‘Regulating the Harmful, Injurious and Risky Business of Professional Wrestling’. 75  Ibid. 70 71

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and potential exploitation of women wrestlers in the equalisation agenda of the WWE. This is encapsulated in Wood and Litherland’s observation that: Indeed, the WWE’s aim to inspire and empower a generation of female fans should be understood first and foremost at an attempt to secure a new market who will be loyal consumers of WWE content and merchandise, and can be framed within the corporation’s wider project of consumer and market diversification.76

The WWE reported an increase in merchandise related to the women’s division, and this has not gone unnoticed. According to Oestriecher in March 2019, WWE has a new number one merchandise seller—Becky Lynch—the new ‘merchandise queen’. Also, the aforementioned documentary is not shy in its acknowledgement that gender equality is good for business but as Wood and Litherland suggest such an acknowledgement, ‘implicitly suggests that the equal treatment of women is contingent on economic viability, a privilege that could be revoked if women’s wrestling doesn’t fulfil the hopes for profitability’.77

Conclusion: Good for Women Wrestlers? Pro wrestling is a form of labor—and extremely hazardous labor, at that—in an industry where the prospects for a lengthy career are dubious at best.78 we asked for it, and now we’re getting it, and we have to deliver.79

As very few premature deaths of professional wrestlers, men or women, happened to wrestlers who were actively under contract to one of the major promotions (WWE especially), it is easy to disassociate them from the industry.80 However, questions are being raised about the extent to which the professional wrestling industry and the WWE principally have some responsibility in this respect. As Cohen rightly states about his list of significant people in the professional wrestling industry who have died prematurely, ‘[v]ery few of the deaths on the list could be blamed 100% on the wrestling business and  Wood and Litherland, Ibid., 914–915.  Ibid., 915. 78  Bateman, Ibid. 79  WWE woman wrestler Naomi in Wood and Litherland, Ibid., 915. 80  Hamilton, Ibid. 76 77

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very few have 0% to blame’.81 This is difficult to demonstrate. However, what is clear is that many of the deceased professional wrestlers previously worked for the WWF or the WWE or that was the last promotion they worked for.82 In addition to professional wrestlers dying prematurely, there are the further harms that continue to be committed in plain sight: the unprecedented rate of injury, pain, suffering and addiction; the relentless and gruelling work schedules; routinely dangerous and risky manoeuvres; the culture of fear and silence; the lack of a union and worker’s rights, and the misclassification of professional wrestlers worker status. These on-going concerns have been raised here together with the previous underutilisation and sexualisation of women wrestler’s. Audience expectations of female wrestlers is changing; fans want women wrestlers with an assertive and outspoken presence and importantly they want them to be equal fighting Superstars in unmissable matches. This is a desire that is shared by women wrestlers. Such desires warrant respect, encouragement and support. However, women wrestlers also deserve rights and protections as workers; given the change in women’s wrestling at this point in time this is especially important and it necessitates attention now. Women’s wrestling has an increased presence and it occupies major events. Women’s wrestling has shifted from being positioned as undesirable and secondary to men’s, to being desirable and important events. In this shift there has been a more valued and positive representation of women wrestlers. On the one hand, this is good for women wrestlers, the WWE and its fans, but on the other hand, such achievements and advancements have to be contextualised in relation to not only the harmful gendered occupational culture and corporate practices but also the occupational culture and corporate practices of the WWE more generally. Women wrestlers do not enter the ring with the intention of getting injured—however the physical nature of their work and the pressures to go to the edge means that this is virtually inevitable. If the WWE are to continue to transform with regard to women wrestling and women wrestlers, they also have to acknowledge, address and transform their moral, ethical and corporate responsibilities to its workers (and socially). Only then will the gendered and generally harmful occupational cultures and corporate practices change for the better with regard to the workers’ health and wellbeing in this profession. The WWE’s championing and pursuit of gender equality not only signifies their modern sensibility to the broader changing representation and 81 82

 Cohen, ‘The Death Secret is Exposed’.  Cohen, ‘Wrestling’s High Death Rate’.

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treatment of women (in sport, athleticism and beyond), it also signifies ‘their savvy commercial strategy’.83 I agree. Furthermore, gender equality and the utilisation of professional wrestlers both men and women, should not be predicated solely on profitability. The rebranding, transformation and equalisation of women’s wrestling will undoubtedly mean that the women in the WWE are in danger of being harmed due to the increased pressure of celebrification and the expected over-the-edge, risky, dangerous and at times violent athletic manoeuvres and performances. On the one hand, women wrestlers more than ever before are becoming equal with male wrestlers and this is to be encouraged and applauded. On the other hand, is this at the cost of the harmful, injurious and economic exploitation of women wrestlers working for the WWE? The WWE not only has an obligation to its fans to entertain it also has a moral responsibility to ensure that such entertainment is not at the harmful cost of its workers, certainly not to the extent to which it is presently. It is important to keep highlighting gendered and general harmful occupational cultures and corporate practices of the WWE; but what is more important and urgent is that the individuals employed within this industry are taken care of. The possibility for women in the WWE to ‘be anything’ in an occupational culture and corporation that prioritises its worker safety, health and wellbeing awaits. Like its workers, the corporation too can ‘be anything’; it is down to the corporation as to what ‘anything’ it strives to be.

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Pride, Prejudice and Death: The Emile Griffith Story In memory of John Jonah Finklestein Ruby Finklestein

MY FATHER AND I had little in common bar mutual, unconditional, undying love, but what else there was will never leave me either: • Jewness (none of that “ish” codswallop) • Glaswegian blood • A rose-blinded view of my mother • The Three Ms: Music, Movies and Master Sgt Ernest Bilko • Kissing—sexlessly—on the lips • Unbridled enthusiasm • Boxing, the only so-called ‘sport’ wherein intended violence is the surname of the game.

‘You’ll write about me one day.’ So said John Jonah Finklestein shortly after he had read the only boxing book that will ever bear his only son’s name. It had only just dawned on him, a decade after half his heirs had begun earning half a crust at journalism, that that was the only way he was ever going to earn a living. Had he lived long enough, nothing would have done more to boost

This chapter draws on two personal sources in particular: ‘The Grass Ceiling: Sport and Sexuality,’ a chapter in Floodlights and Touchlines: A History of Spectator Sport (Bloomsbury 2014) and Sonny Boy: The Life and Strife of Sonny Liston (Kingswood 1994; reprinted as The Phantom Punch by Robson Books in 2008).

R. Finklestein (*) University of Brighton, Brighton, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_12

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his long-shattered self-esteem than to read this chapter. Except, perhaps, to see the joint credit at the top of this page. I owe him that. MY FIRST MEMORY OF BOXING, at the age of eight, was the front page of the Sunday Times in 1966, the day after a ball-free ‘game’ at stuffy old Arsenal FC’s Highbury Stadium in North London—symbol, then and now, in the prawn-sandwich Emirates era, of the conservatism that continues to blight the home of the planet’s modern sporting cradle (Arsène Wenger, a non-Englishman, being the lone persistent exception). The protagonistantagonists that Saturday evening were a whippersnapper of a world heavyweight champion by the twin names of Cassius ‘The Louisville Lip’ Clay and Muhammad ‘The Louisville Lip’ Ali, and Henry ‘Our Enery’ Cooper, aka ‘The Hammer,’ England’s Europe-conquering if ageing champion, a kindly bulldog who lived 10 minutes’ drive from my front door and would, three decades later, grant me the most pleasant interview I have ever conducted with a person entitled to a substantial ego, beating the likes of Lenny Henry, Van Morrison and Nick Faldo by far too far to mention. As the crowd bayed for their ’Enery, and the cognoscenti, aesthetes and realists relished Ali’s beauty, tactics, style, movement and athletic magnificence, youth soon prevailed, easily, thanks to a few useful advantages the winner firmly believed he alone possessed, convincing many non-racists to nod in hearty agreement: the footwork of a Nureyev; the brains of an Einstein; the self-assurance and wit of a Chaplin without the under-age scandals. Yet for all that, what has stayed with me longest from that ‘sporting’ exhibition was the image chosen by the newspaper to demonstrate the extent of Cooper’s suffering: a pair of eyebrows that had seemingly been sliced open as if by a pair of pliers with a PhD. DISGUSTED AS I WAS by this image, my father tried to persuade me that boxing was as thrilling and uplifting as any activity not involving female flesh, attending the Royal Festival Hall, watching anything featuring Phil ‘Bilko’ Silvers/Ursula Andress/James Cagney, or directed by Billy Wilder. Thus did boxing take root in my heart. The knowledge rushed in, uncheckable: the pre-Jackie Robinson,1 pre-Civil Rights courage of Jack Johnson and Joe Louis; the invincibility of Rocky Marciano and Sugar Ray Robinson; the world-changing rebel cries of Clay/ Ali, the original rap artist; the impetus championship belts and global recognition gave to the Civil Rights movement; the rampant, ceaseless corruption; the stranglehold exerted by Godfathers, East End gangsters and Bad Jews. All of the male half of human life was here.  The first African American to play major league baseball in the twentieth century.

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My maternal grandfather also played a part in my introduction to sporting violence. An East London GP, he turned down an offer to referee fights at Bethnal Green’s legendary York Hall. Much as he got a very big kick indeed watching men fight (every Saturday he would sit the pre-teen me down in front of the TV to watch the ludicrous circus show otherwise known as professional wrestling), lending credibility to boxing was beyond even his slim grasp of what constitutes humane behaviour (before long, he would have the suicides of his wife and younger daughter on his CV). As my barmitzvah approached, came and went, I came to live boxing as enthusiastically as I lived cricket and football (the proper, associated code). I watched the few fights shown live on TV, listened to bouts on my father’s transistor radio beneath the bedclothes and read every syllable of every report in the Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, Observer and Sunday Times. The late Hugh McIlvanney,2 boxing wordsmith nonpareil, became one of my earliest literary and journalistic icons. That we would become friends and colleagues remains one of the more remarkably positive transformations of my life. Well, I did become his personal sub-editor and he did sign my copy of McIlvanney on Boxing (McIlvanney, 2002) with such unbecoming modesty that he dedicated it to ‘a fellow toiler in this grubby vineyard.’ Those imperishable memories are unpolluted—and only mildly guiltily—by my adult attitude towards what A.J. Liebling so famously—and so wrongly—dubbed ‘The Sweet Science’ (Liebling, 2018). From an early age, hypocrisy came easy. Then, in 1974, came the fight that gave us not only the first indisputably great sporting documentary, Leon Gast’s socio-political When We Were Kings (Gast, 1996), but Norman Mailer’s crowning glory, The Fight (Mailer, 2009), quite the aptest of titles for a man who adored boxing way beyond reason and stabbed his wife. The match-up that steamy African night felt as unfair as any two-horse race could ever be: George Foreman (demonic champ, Sonny Liston squared) v Ali (ageing, slowing and scared ex-champ). Reversing virtually every odd, just as he had done when he’d stolen Liston’s crown 10 years earlier, Ali won. And, just as the world had gaped in incredulity after he’d outsmarted and defanged Liston in Las Vegas in 1965, I didn’t believe in a single punch that was thrown in Zaire. Yes, having watched When We Were Kings a dozen times alone, not to mention hundreds of times with my students, I now humbly admit that my conspiracy addiction and growing hatred of boxing has lifted sufficiently to accept that Ali won the greatest victory of his career fair and square. Love affairs, nevertheless, have a habit of ending quicker than they start.  Sports writer for The Observer 1962–1993 and The Sunday Times 1993–2016.

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SPOOL FORWARD nearly 20 years and the impending birth of my firstborn. Pregnancy affects women in innumerable ways that we mere menfolk can never hope to comprehend; my response, underpinned by that ignorance, never mind the never-ending impotence, jealousy and guilt, compelled me to try and put the world to rights in the only way I knew how. In 1993, while my wife was busy preparing for motherhood, I was busy launching a career as a rebel author armed with, and propelled by, what I believed to be A Very Big Cause Indeed: extending newspaper work by exposing and shaming and ridiculing and skewering the killjoys (and especially racists) who justify Jean-Marie Brohm’s joyless assertion that sport is nothing more than a prison of measured time (Brohm, 1978). Anne produced three children in five years; I was no less prolific with my cardboard offspring: a biography of the Barbadian cricketer Desmond Haynes (Steen, 1993a); a personal memoir about the maverick footballers who lit up my youth (Steen, 2020 [1994]); and a biography of the biggest, baddest, most feared, most misunderstood, most unfortunate sportsman I knew anything about: Sonny Liston. Those initial forays into authorship focused on nine successful, not unreasonably arrogant men: two of them black, the remainder equality seekers of a different hue. Of these, Liston was the most fascinating by the length of the Great Wall of China. Even now, the circumstances behind Sonny Boy: The Life and Strife of Sonny Liston (Steen, 1993b) amaze me. In 1989, thanks to a friend’s introduction and the remarkable faith of Tony Pocock, the kindliest of editors, and his noble assistant, Neil Tunnicliffe, I had received my first book commission. Tony and Neil worked for Kingswood, a not-at-all-well-heeled publisher renowned for backing original thought, hence Spring, Summer, Autumn: Three Cricketers, One Season (Steen, 1991), allegedly the first sporting diary to feature three subjects, or so I understand they assured the Berlin Book Fair. An homage to the wonders of my favourite brand of sporting conflict, the book was also a double-barrelled shotgun aimed at everything and everyone that I was convinced, in my not-terribly-humble view, was harming my less-than discreet object of desire. Happily, it led to something much meatier. This was due entirely to critical if not sales success— Short form of Spring, Summer, Autumn: Three Cricketers, One Season (SSA) was runner-up for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, pipped by (and I really do blush as I type the rest of this sentence) the book almost unanimously agreed to be the greatest ever written about the greatest of all sportsmen: Thomas Hauser’s somewhat more bankable, not to say worthwhile, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times (Hauser, 2016).

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When it comes to Ali, my own choice remains Mike Marqusee’s Redemption Song (Marqusee, 1999). Indeed, when it comes to my favourite boxing books, the same heartfelt melange of vowels and consonants narrowly pips Jeffrey Sammons’ Beyond the Ring (Sammons, 1987), Benny Green’s Shaw’s Champions (Green, 1978), Gene Tunney’s A Man Must Fight (Tunney, 1932), Roger Kahn’s A Flame of Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring ’20s (Kahn, 1999) and Geoffrey C. Ward’s Unforgivable Blackness of Being: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (Ward, 2015). This, I freely confess, is due in unhealthy and wholly un-disinterested part to the fact that Mike was—he passed away in 2015—not only the journalist I most admired but a close friend. But nobody I know who has read Redemption Song seems to differ, which is comforting. On the other hand, being a proudly unreconstructable truth junkie, the book most commonly cited as pugilism’s finest, Liebling’s aforementioned homage, left me cold. Advised to inspect it by no fewer than three respected fellow hacks who knew of my weakness for hypnotic writing, regardless of subject, I read as far as page 3 then gave up after reading the following (though ‘revomiting’ would be the more accurate verb in this context): A fighter’s hostilities are not turned inward, like a Sunday tennis player’s or a lady M.P’s. They come out naturally with his sweat, and when his job is done, he feels good because he has expressed himself. Chain-of-command types, to whom this is intolerable, try to rationalise their envy by proclaiming solicitude for the fighter’s health. If a boxer, for example, ever went as batty as Nijinsky, all the wowsers in the world would be screaming “Punch-drunk.” Well, who hit Nijinsky? And why isn’t there a campaign against ballet? It gives girls thick legs. (Liebling, 1987: 3)

‘Liebling was not your average fight fan,’ points out Kevin Mitchell, boxing correspondent of The Guardian and as even-handed, philosophical and knowledgeable a fistic commentator as Britain has produced since McIlvanney first interviewed Ali. ‘He graduated from Dartmouth, found journalism at Columbia and, helped by a generous father, made a gilded climb via Paris to star in the fevered world of New York newspapers and magazines. His fascination with fisticuffs came from an intellectual standpoint. But, like others in the cheap seats, he fell in love with the cigar smoke, the skulduggery and, let us not shy away from it, the violence.’ ‘That remains the eternal dilemma—for fighters, money-makers and fans. They are seduced by something unsavoury but elemental. There is no escape from it, because it is so deeply rooted in the DNA of all of us.’

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‘Irony always lurked in that description of boxing as the Sweet Science, coined famously by the sport’s most lyrical chronicler, A J Liebling, who came to the fight game sideways from the arts and higher pursuits. It is worth noting the full title of his famous book was, ‘The Sweet Science: Boxing and Boxiana—A Ringside View.’3 The last thing I want to do is denigrate the undeserving dead, so let’s keep this short and sweetish. Liebling, an accomplished and highly respected reporter of front-page-worthy news before he began side-lining in fisticuffs, omitted to mention some minor points, such as that: 1. The people he valorised, and perhaps even worshipped, can, in the course of their noble work, maim, cripple or kill, more often with intent than he or they would ever admit; 2. There is no ‘ban ballet’ campaign just as there is no ‘ban bad writing’ campaign: neither ballet nor even the worst excesses of conscience-free journalists involve the intention of causing someone else discomfort, much less pain (unless, of course, they are too unworthily, filthily rich). 3. Liebling saw Jake La Motta fight; the same fearless, mindless, tormented, corrupted and guilt-ridden world middleweight champion who admitted with nary half a hint of regret that he had thrown fights for money (and, even more importantly, in order to secure a tilt at that title), treated his brother/manager like a slab of bubble-gum once the sugar had run out— and his wife infinitely worse. Even if Liebling wasn’t aware of this context (and to some extent he surely must have been, by very dint of agreeing to paint as full a portrait of his love affair as he clearly intended), how could he write what he did above about the sport responsible for the almost wholly unadmirable life of the man whose tale was told, with his own extensive assistance, in what is almost universally agreed to be the best and most realistic boxing film ever made? Namely Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese’s 1980 monochrome epic of perverted manhood, black blood and non-­stop brutality, the last self-directed as much as inflicted (Scorsese, 1980). Ban professional boxing? If foxhunting, bear-baiting, dog-fighting, beheading, hanging and hung-drawn-and-quartering can be de-legalised, on the rock-hard ground of cruelty, what grounds are there for sparing a public entertainment as odious as boxing? Just one, albeit an eminently acceptable and desperately sad one: boxing is the only sport that creates, in theory, an even playing field for those who are poor and/or the wrong colour.  Mitchell, Kevin (2020) Email to author, 27 May.

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The only qualifier? Meet ‘Teflon Don,’ Don King, the promoter-tax-evader-­ murderer and, according to one of his braver clients/victims, two-time world heavyweight champion Tim Witherspoon, the inventor and unchallenged master of ‘black-on-black crime.’ I once covered one of King’s trials for tax evasion and bumped into him and his understandably obsequious entourage in the canteen. The instructions were brief and direct: everyone had to pay for their own sandwiches. He would have been dubbed the Al Capone of the 1990s had he not managed to wriggle free of each and every significant charge. His violence, spiritual at first but ultimately physical, was as low as boxing has ever sunk. Battered as a consequence of the agonies he has heaped on his boxers, how many women have suffered like Jake La Motta’s wife, or indeed lost their lives? All in all, therefore, to suggest that I was ill-prepared for what came next would be stretching even an Englishman’s capacity for understatement.

Sonny Boy THE UPSHOT OF HAUSER’S richly deserved William Hill triumph was an unexpected volte face: for my next book, Tony and Neil decided that I should write about boxing. Gulping, and in no financial position to quibble or stamp my foot, I agreed. I explained my reluctance, telling them that there was only one book I could imagine writing about a sport I abhorred (and wouldn’t even classify as a sport, for the simple reason that, unlike all the others under that umbrella, nobody has ever played it outside a fairground). The subject would be a 1920s maverick par excellence, Gene Tunney. I made a list spanning ten alibis, only one of which was the generous advance: • • • •

Tunney was a boxer not a fighter—an artist, not a slugger. He read Shakespeare avidly. George Bernard Shaw adored him as both boxer and friend. He fought in the most casualty-strewn, least excusable war ever fought up to that juncture, but despised needless violence and was never over-fond of settling a dispute with his fists. • Had he lived today, even though it was never explicitly suggested that he was gay, he would have had the wherewithal to combat, and protect himself from, the homophobia that would inevitably have dogged his every punch, thus giving every closeted gay boxer a role model. • He remains the only man ever to become the most respected and best-­ remunerated member of the sporting race to decide—coldly, intellectually,

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matter-of-factly—to become world champion because of his love for a woman. • He met the wealthy damsel in question aboard a ship returning home from that wholly unjustifiable war, a poor marine on his way back to pre-­ gentrified Greenwich Village. Having beaten all-comers as a military light-­ heavyweight, he knew he had the tools to make his fortune in the ring (even if his target was a cool million dollars). • He achieved everything he set out to do: beating the ferocious champion Jack Dempsey, not once but twice; defending his belt once, then retiring to … get married to the girl of his dreams. • No sporting story, for someone with my unquashable romantic sensibilities, appealed more. A book contract was signed, but not long afterwards, a stumbling-block arose: another, better-known writer was two-thirds through writing a biography of Tunney. Still, Tony persisted: did I have any other boxing ideas? Well, I began, there was one from the opposite end of the extreme: the tragic tale of Sonny Liston, the man without whose ragged reputation, constant mismanagement, scruple-free backers and status as the most famous-yet-reviled representative of his race was a source of shame from Alabama and Chicago to Detroit and Philadelphia. The sharecropper’s son who spent his life running from the police. The 24th of 25 children who was ‘the last man on earth America wanted to see coming down its chimney’ (Esquire, December 1963). Again I assented, but for rather different reasons: • Even more than the shamelessly political machinations that led to the exclusion of Basil D’Oliveira from the 1968–1969 England cricket tour to South Africa, a still-mysterious landmark in the anti-apartheid struggle, my favourite sporting conspiracy theory revolves around Sonny’s two fights against the man he might otherwise have prevented the world from knowing as Muhammad Ali. • I also wanted to solve the then 30-year mystery of Sonny’s death. Purportedly and reportedly the upshot of a heroin overdose, I was far from alone in believing his Mob puppeteers had delivered it.4

 In 2012, happily if not entirely satisfactorily, I discovered, from the alleged hitman’s son, that Liston had been ‘bumped off’ by a Mob hireling using the axe best beloved by his bosses: the self-inflicted heroin overdose. Al Braverman, one of his ex-managers, told me, the only thing in the world that frightened Sonny, aside from his wife Geraldine and the possibility of harm befalling his secretly adopted son, was needles. See Steen, 2013. 4

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• I also wanted to know why such a formidable champion had fallen on such times so rapidly that his life ended while he was alone at Christmas, less than six years after he had been the most instantly recognisable black man on the planet who hadn’t earned his aura from politics or similarly indefensible forms of violence to their fellow humans. In 1962, Sonny won the heavyweight crown by beating Floyd Patterson inside two minutes, then repeated the dose a year later; his disciples and acolytes would include Mike Tyson and George Foreman, neither famed for being a slouch in the ring. Yet Sonny died almost totally un-mourned, relatively poor: a scar to be removed as soon as possible. My research extended to New York, but so paranoid did I become about those ruthless, heartless puppeteers—two of whom had been pals of Al Capone and spent far too few years behind bars and/or eluding the electric chair—I spent most of the trip wearing sunglasses in the middle of a frigid Manhattan spring. Who knew how far word had spread that a Limey was on the trail of The Truth? Who knew what gun-toting mobsters might be lurking around the next corner? When I lost my flight ticket to Las Vegas to meet Angelo Dundee, Ali’s right-hand man for the Liston and Foreman fights, I didn’t look that hard to relocate it. Naturally, while I had the satisfaction of writing the first full-length biography of Liston, I unearthed nothing new whatsoever. A few months after the result hit the shelves, aided by one or two kind reviews (Tony and Neil, let alone myself, were astonished and quite chuffed that it was long-listed for the William Hill), Sonny saved my life. Or so I tell my children. Desperate for journalistic commissions (i.e. bread-and-butter work), I rang up Nick Pitt, sports editor of The Sunday Times (ST), a renowned boxing writer and former colleague at the London Daily News (LDN), one of Robert Maxwell’s more successful assaults on the socialism he professed to live by (the paper lasted barely five months before being exterminated with the extremities of prejudice only those with sufficient ego and money not to care could muster). It was while working for the LDN that I covered my first fight. The venue was a tent in Basildon, Essex, the focus of attention the world welterweight champion, local hero Terry Marsh, ‘The Fighting Fireman,’ a troubled soul whose manager took such advantage of his naivety, good nature and poor mental health that an endless, endlessly bitter, court case ensued. ‘Ah, you’re the man who wrote a very fine book on Sonny Liston,’ was Nick’s instant matey response. Four years at the ST followed, during the course of which

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Nick, who had read the ban-boxing-now introduction to Sonny Boy and knew exactly where my heart lay, sent me to cover just one fight. This time the venue was a bit smarter: The Albert Hall. Topping the bill was ‘Prince’ Naseem Hamed, about whom Nick himself had recently written a glowing, excellent book, The Prince and The Paddy (Pitt, 1998). That prolonged, stage-managed, leopard-skinned entrance to the ring would have made even Ali squirm with embarrassment; Liberace should have been so florid and obnoxious. Then I glanced up towards the posh seats and spotted a familiar fur-coated figure. It was Bob Geldof, the man, heart and soul behind perhaps the most economically and socially important consciousness-raising event yet staged, Live Aid; a survivor of the war the English passed off as ‘The Troubles’; a man of peace, justice and equality (and assuredly not one who favoured the skinning of defenceless animals). Admire him as I did, there was no way he was going to commit such rank hypocrisy without my reader(s) knowing. Then came the fight, which proved to be nothing of the sort, being devoid of surprise, suspense and drama. Naseem won, everyone went home happy, including Geldof and his fur coat, except me and the losing camp. Every word I dictated to the copytaker was published, but then came the phone call from Nick: ‘Remind me,’ he said in that sweet-natured, respectful-but-firm way of his, ‘never to let you near another fight.’ Never since have I ventured within a thousand miles of a squared circle. My only reason to return to it since, even as a subject, came in 2011, when I was commissioned to write Floodlights and Touchlines: A History of Spectator Sport (Steen, 2014), an unending tome that ultimately focused less on goals, home runs and sixes than prejudice, corruption and social class. While I still counted boxing as a non-sport, how could I possibly tackle such a monumental, rainforest-ravaging task without any reference to men in thick gloves? So Muhammad and Sonny returned to my life, ditto Johnson, Louis and Tyson. And, above all, Emile Griffith.

The Fatal Insult WHEN, IN OCTOBER 2012, Orlando Cruz, a 31-year-old Puerto Rican featherweight, outed himself as a ‘proud gay man,’ the cheers for the first male professional boxer to admit his homosexuality rang loud and long. That said, broadly speaking, he had actually been beaten to it by Charles Jones, the London architect and so-called White Collar fighter whose bout with Igor the Pianist at London’s Real Fight Club had been the subject of an ITV

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documentary broadcast in 2005. ‘I’m not a gay man who happens to box,’ Jones had said. ‘I’m a boxer who happens to be gay and doesn’t give a toss who knows it’ (Steen, 2014: 482). Amid the richly warranted paeans to Cruz, references abounded to the most tragic episode in the extensive composite annals of sport, death and sexual orientation. One was reminded of it once more in May 2013, when the Nottingham fighter Carl Froch, owner of one of vastly too many versions of the world super-middleweight title, launched a splenetic, wholly atypical tirade three days prior to his fight against Mikkel Kessler, owner of another version of the same crown, whom he counted as a friend but whose attitude he had found somewhat less than suitably deferential. ‘On Saturday night, if I have to,’ spat Froch, ‘I will kill this f***er. I will kill him. It sounds brutal, it sounds horrible, but that is what this means to me.’ Nor did Froch stop there: ‘If I have to nut him, I will. I have never really felt like this before. I have wanted to win before, but … I don’t know what it is … but there is something about this guy that winds me up. It is anger and I have got to channel it. I am in there not just to win this fight but to put him out of the game. I am sick of him, I am sick of the fact that he has beaten me and I want to put the record straight and if that means I have to do him some serious damage, then I will do.’5 It was entirely possible, of course, to permit revulsion to be tempered; not only by the knowledge that professional boxers and their accomplices will do anything to sell tickets, but also by the knowledge that boxers are a law unto themselves when it comes to rousing the forces that enable them to fight for a living. Knowing the ropes inside out could still never have prepared the heart for the ballad of Benny and Emile. Rewind to 24 March 1962, to the duel for the world welterweight crown (undisputed version): Benny ‘Kid’ Paret v Emile ‘The Milliner’ Griffith at that modern Coliseum, Madison Square Gardens. ‘The Kid was illiterate in two languages,’ Dan Klores, the playwright, filmmaker and director of Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story (Berger & Klores, 2005), recalled on the fight’s 50th anniversary. ‘He had arrived from Cuba a few years before Fidel Castro took over. His family stayed behind, so he was left trusting his older, wiser and charismatic manager, Manuel Alfaro, a successful entrepreneur and nightclub owner. They had a plan. After he beat Griffith, Benny would have a few additional title [defences], then he could own a butcher shop on the Grand Concourse. It would mean success.’ Griffith grew up ‘a man-child’ at a boys’  See BBC Sport website ‘Carl Froch threat to kill Mikkel Kessler investigated by Board’. https://www. bbc.co.uk/sport/boxing/22640687. Posted 23rd May 2013; access 27th May 2020. 5

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detention home in the Virgin Islands. ‘With a body by David, 28-inch waist, 46-inch chest, 146 pounds, he spent his adolescence and early teenage years standing in brutal heat, barefoot on rocks, forced to hold water buckets in each arm, punished for whatever sadistic thoughts entered the minds of authority figures, thirsty for escape. At night, the men or bigger boys came to him. They took’ (Klores, 2012). Griffith’s mother moved to New York but left her eight children behind. Emile, the oldest, was the first to be summoned north, where he played baseball, swam and ‘defended the weak on the Harlem streets.’ A grade-school dropout, with ‘a high, delightful, innocent singsong voice’ (Klores, 2012), he was working in a hat factory in the garment district when his shirtless torso attracted the attention of both Gil Clancy, an Irish trainer and Second World War veteran with a Master’s in Education, and Howie Albert, an ex-pug working in the garment industry. ‘It was the only partnership in history,’ attested Clancy with the arch-confidence of one who had honed the joke over decades, ‘where the Irishman and Jew teamed up, and the mick had the brains’ (Klores, 2012). Storming through the Golden Gloves,6 Griffith made an equally short work of his professional foes. ‘The myths and narratives,’ noted Klores, ‘created a clean biography: he was a hat designer, creative, and he loved blonde Scandinavian beauties. Two facts were straight, though. He was a vicious counterpuncher, and after each victory, he honoured Mommy’s dream by moving up one of his siblings. Soon, he bought a house in the Hollis section of Queens, for the entire clan’ (Klores, 2012). Unlike Sonny Liston’s early managers and those entrusted by Don Jordan, whom Paret had relieved of his welterweight title in 1960, Clancy kept Al Capone’s pals Blinky Palermo and Frankie Carbo at bay. Griffith soon dethroned Paret, but Paret then reversed the result, setting up the rubber match. As the decider drew nearer, Griffith sought distractions, and usually, according to Klores, wound up in gay bars around Times Square, ‘private places of peace, affection and sex.’ ‘Where does he go?’ Clancy would ask. Neither his brother nor Albert would so much as reply. ‘Has anyone seen my Junior?’ wondered Griffith mere, repeatedly. ‘One friend was shot, crippled for life. Emile cried and cried. The pain made worse with no one to tell’ (Klores, 2012). Come 24 March, Griffith was wary of what Paret might do at the weigh-in. The previous year, prior to their last encounter, the barbed banter on the scales had seen Paret win the mental skirmishing, whispering in his opponent’s ear  Annual amateur boxing competitions in the United States.

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‘maricón, maricón’—a homophobic Spanish slur. ‘If he says anything to me before the fight, I’ll knock him out,’ Griffith assured Clancy, then mounted the scales. ‘Watch out,’ warned the trainer, but not quickly enough. Paret ‘had already slipped behind him,’ Gary Smith would write in Sports Illustrated, ‘wriggling his body, thrusting his pelvis, grabbing Emile’s ass. ‘“Hey, maricón,” Paret coos, “I’m going to get you and your husband.” Emile blinks, in his underwear, at a room full of boxing aficionados, reporters and photographers. If he doesn’t respond, that means he’s afraid, means he’s weak … means he may be just what Paret says he is. Clancy steps between them. “Save it for tonight,” he begs Emile’ (Klores, 2012). March 1962 was a time when a clutch of renowned writers—Allen Ginsberg, James Baldwin and Gore Vidal—were just about the only Americans commonly known to be gay; when homosexual actors such as Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift hid beneath the skirts of their press agents and studio bosses and celluloid lovers and fake-lovers-of-convenience; when, fearing the impact on his career, the flagrantly, proudly, defiantly camp pianist Liberace filed a lawsuit against those casting aspersions about his sexuality. At first, Paret had reason to believe his ruse had worked again, flooring Griffith in round six. He was soon disabused, sustaining a brutal pounding for the next six rounds. The final moments, beamed to the nation’s hearths, found the referee, Ruby Goldstein, hesitating to intercede as Griffith battered his way towards victory. After his previous such appointment, Goldstein had been berated in front of tens of millions of his armchair-bound fellow Americans watching the must-see Ed Sullivan Show, for halting the fight too quickly. At length, Griffith trapped Paret on the ropes with, as Klores graphically described it, ‘one arm draped over, the other doing anything to stop the blows: 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, maybe more, all to the head. Benny’s arms stopped moving. So did Goldstein’s legs. Finally, Manuel jumped into the ring. Emile had reclaimed his title’ (Klores, 2012). Doubtless drawn to boxing as a literary subject by its endless supply of metaphorical inspiration as well as his own macho excesses, Mailer likened the force and relentlessness of Griffith’s right fist during that final merciless, unanswerable battering to ‘a baseball bat demolishing a pumpkin’ (Lennon, 2014). Paret was taken to an ambulance on a stretcher, unconscious. Griffith tried in vain for several hours to reach his hospital bedside, then dashed through the streets, running the gauntlet of pedestrians spewing insults. Paret’s supporters fired off hate mail, convinced Emile had intended to kill their man. For nine days Benny lingered in a coma; on the 10th he died.

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‘There’s smoke hanging over his death,’ wrote Smith, referring to half a dozen possible catalysts, including the desire of Paret’s manager ‘to squeeze one more payday from a shot fighter who told his wife the day before the bout that he didn’t feel right and didn’t want to fight.’ None of the conjecture, though, would stop Griffith going down in sporting lore as ‘the man who killed Paret for calling him a faggot.’ But what befalls a child, wondered Smith, ‘when he kills a man?’ (Smith, 2005).

All Agony, No Ecstasy When Emile met Benny’s son in 2005, he wept as they hugged. ‘I didn’t mean to kill him,’ he assured Matthew Syed in 2007, in an interview The Times agreed, at Griffith’s request, not to publish until after his death, which came six years later (Syed, 27 July 2013, p.12). ‘I am so sorry it happened. I wake up at night. I have nightmares about it.’ The nightmares never let up. Dreams of Benny walking down the street and calling out greetings, extending his hand, only for it to prove colder than year-­ old frozen flounder. Emile awakes in a bath of his own sweat. Dreams of one empty seat at a fight. ‘May I sit there?’ asks Emile. A voice says yes, but as he takes the seat it dawns on him that the voice belongs unmistakably, to Benny. Every night, Emile replays the events of 24 March 1962. Emile never lost his fear of sleep, of silence, of being alone. Not that he lacked communication from the outside world. There was hate mail from Latinos prepared to swear on their mother’s life that he had ended Paret’s life on purpose. Every interviewer from now till kingdom come will ask the same questions, always. In the wake of Paret’s demise, ‘ban boxing’ broadsides gained in intensity and volume. A seven-man commission was appointed by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller to investigate the death and even—glory be—boxing itself. Having televised that grisly tableau, ABC ended its fistic broadcasts, a shift soon emulated by other US networks; not until the following decade would boxing return to free television. Never again would Goldstein referee a professional fight. When journalist Howard Tuckner attempted to explain to New York Times readers, with all due delicacy, the meaning of maricón, a pitiful excuse for an editor changed ‘homosexual’ to ‘anti-man.’ (Tuckner, 1962) Norman Cousins, editor of The Saturday Review, blamed the episode on ‘the prevailing mores that regard prize fighting as a perfectly proper enterprise and vehicle of entertainment’ (The Saturday Review, Vol. 45, No. 2). Commonweal, a Catholic

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weekly, was no less passionate in its denunciation: ‘The gospel law of love does not permit brethren to exchange wanton violence for mere renown or profit. There is no charity in a licensed assault that unleashes the beast in the boxer and the sadist in the spectator’ (Vol. 103, p. 122). Hate mail continued to pour in from Cuba. Fighting on, on several fronts, Griffith continued frequenting gay bars, married briefly and continued to pick up world titles for fun. ‘We certainly raised our eyebrows,’ wrote the veteran British sportswriter Alan Hubbard, recalling a bout between Griffith and the Welshman Brian Curvis at Wembley two years later. ‘When we went to his dressing room afterwards he was passionately kissing one of his cornerman’ (Hubbard, 2012). In 1992, Emile came close to death and spent months in hospital after—as he claimed to friends—being badly beaten up outside a gay bar. In 2005, when Smith interviewed him at a nursing home in upstate New York, he said he had no memory of it whatsoever. ‘I’m not gay! It’s craziness,’ he told Smith. Later in the same conversation came a variation: ‘I will dance with anybody. I’ve chased men and women. I like men and women both. But I don’t like that word: homosexual, gay or faggot. I don’t know what I am’ (Smith, 2005). ‘Promoters wouldn’t touch him,’ Jose Torres, the former world light-­ heavyweight champion and author of another acclaimed biography of Ali, informed Sports Illustrated in 2005. ‘It wouldn’t bother me, but most fighters would hate him,’ he added, referring—had he but known it—to the prospects for an Orlando Cruz to emerge. ‘And then, if someone loses to him? “You lost to this gay guy? Get out of town!”’ In the estimation of Steve Farhood, a boxing analyst on the cable channel Showtime, a gay boxer would be ‘ostracised.’ Jimmy O’Pharrow, a trainer, proffered a solution: ‘Better kick everybody’s ass first, then tell ’em you’re gay’ (Smith, 2005). ‘Five times world champion. That’s sufficient ass kicked,’ decided Smith. ‘And still not enough, not nearly enough, for Emile to have been a Jackie Robinson, nor even to look back a quarter century after retiring and tell us what it was like for him, so the sports world can learn and begin to move forward. But it’s not even fair to compare. Because Jackie and everyone else could see the barrier he was facing—it was right there on his skin—while Emile couldn’t even go near his wall, the wall that hides the scariest thing. No, not homosexuality, not exactly, but something that’s all tangled up with it. It’s the thing, when two men fight, that’s more frightening than the punishment meted out by the one who dominates: the weakness of the one who submits. That’s every boxer’s, every athlete’s, deepest fear. That’s what must be kept locked in the closet. That’s why Pete Williams, who was “outed” by a magazine, could be the Pentagon’s TV spokesman in the first [G]ulf war, the face of

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America’s war machine … but a gay man can’t be a boxer. That’s why it’s still 1962, when it comes to sports and male sexuality, while the rest of the country moves ahead’ (Smith, 2005). Then came Cruz.

A Burden Shed GRIFFITH WAS 75 when he died at a New York care facility in 2013, having fallen prey to pugilistic dementia. For his last two years he had been in a vegetative state. Only now did Syed feel morally and ethically able to relate the circumstances of their first encounter. Accompanying Griffith had been Ron Ross, his staunch friend and biographer, and Luis Rodrigo, his adopted son, now his companion and carer. ‘As the interview progressed,’ Syed would recall, ‘and I watched the interplay between Rodrigo and Griffith, it slowly dawned on me that the deepest secret of all remained intact. This was not a father-son relationship, as both men publicly claimed. It was a romantic one.’ Rodrigo confirmed this but requested, in order to protect his lover’s image, that it remains a secret; so did Griffith and Ross. ‘It’s OK to write about it now,’ Ross told Syed in a phone call shortly after Emile’s unimaginable suffering was finally over. ‘It’s time’ (Syed, 2013). Griffith himself summed up the perversity of it all: ‘I kill a man and most people forgive me. However, I love a man and many say this is unforgivable and this makes me an evil person.’ Those perverse, contradictory, endlessly damning sentiments adorn the cover of Donald McRae’s heart-wrenching biography (McRae, 2015).

The Hardest Facts GROUCHO MARX, the most insightful comic genius BWA (Before Woody Allen), often joked, winkingly channelling another smart semite, Sigmund Freud, that he would never join a club that would have him as a member (as, for that matter, did Allen in Annie Hall). Maybe that’s why any affection Groucho may have had for boxing has, to my almost certain knowledge, gone unrecorded. Yet the roots of his success—antisemitism, anger and anarchy— certainly suggest he would have regarded beating people up for a living as insulting to his intelligence; almost as insulting to his intelligence, even, as the most frequent butt of his funniest and most memorable lines, Margaret Dumont.

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The figures reinforce this likelihood. Professional boxing has claimed the lives of 68 practitioners, making it the most dangerous contact ‘sport’ in current legal currency. Unlike the Isle of Man TT or the Grand National, to cite the two most prolific sporting killers, boxing fatalities are not accidents. ‘To characterise boxing as anything but violent is to ignore the serial evidence, the periodic tragedies and the blood and death that have stalked the undertaking since Georgian times,’ affirms Mitchell. ‘Violence sustains prizefighting as a spectacle, a sport and a business. If it were absent, there would be little point to it. However, there are two obvious complications. Firstly, boxing does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in a controlled environment, which separates it from random actors of violence, albeit not to the satisfaction of abolitionists. Second, there is a level of skill involved—built up over many years—that elevates boxing to what its defenders and supporters regard as the Sweet Science. Third, it has a tenuous link to credibility through regulations that lend it some legal legitimacy. Boxing, in short, is not a crime—yet, as the late trainer and humanitarian, Brendan Ingle, liked to remind us, it is the only sport where it is legal to kill someone.’ Benny Paret was professional boxing’s 11th ring fatality. The 12th, almost exactly a year later, was Davey Moore, about whom Bob Dylan wrote one of his most impassioned songs.7 Since then, according to the not-always-­100%reliable Wikipedia, 56 more pugilists have joined sport’s least desirable club, including 28 (as I write) in this young if scarcely tender century. To see that as a cause for celebration—it could, after all, have been so many more, given the sloth in engaging medical support—is to belong to precisely the sort of club Groucho would have recoiled at. The same club far too many otherwise wise women, lured by an entirely just desire for equality, are now far too willing to join. Is there any greater proof that sport is violent even when the violent aren’t spurred by violence?

References Berger, R., & Klores, D., (Directors). (2005). Ring of fire: The Emile Griffith story. Anchor Bay Entertainment. Brohm, J.-M. (1978). Sport: A prison of measured time. Ink Links. Gast, L., (Director). (1996). When we were kings. Polygram Filmed Entertainment.  Bob Dylan ‘Who Killed Davey Moore?’ released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 New York: Sony Music Entertainment 2004.

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Green, B. (1978). Shaw’s champions: The noble art from Cashel Byron to Gene Tunney. Elm Tree Books. Hauser, T. (2016). Muhammad Ali: His life and times. Simon and Schuster. (First published 1991). Hubbard, A. (2012). The phrase “come out fighting” has been given a completely new meaning. Posted 8th October. Retrieved May 31, 2020, from https://www. insidethegames.biz/articles/1011210/alan-­h ubbard-­t he-­p hrase-­q come-­o ut­fightingq-­has-­been-­given-­a-­completely-­new-­meaning Kahn, R. (1999). A flame of pure fire: Jack Dempsey and the roaring ‘20s. Harcourt Brace International. Klores, D. (2012). Junior, the kid, the fight. New York Times, 31 March. https://www. nytimes.com/2012/04/01/sports/emile-­g riffith-­b enny-­p aret-­a nd-­t he-­ fatal-­fight.html Lennon, J. M. (2014). Norman Mailer: A double life. Simon and Schuster. Liebling, A. J. (1987). The sweet science: Boxing and boxiana – A ringside view. Sportspages Reprints. (First published 1949). Mailer, N. (2009). The fight. Penguin. (First published 1975). Marqusee, M. (1999). Redemption song: Muhammad Ali and the spirit of the sixties. Verso. McIlvanney, H. (2002). McIlvanney on boxing. Mainstream. (First published 1982). McRae, D. (2015). A man’s world: The double life of Emile Griffith. Simon and Schuster. Pitt, N. (1998). The paddy and the prince: Making of Naseem Hamed. Yellow Jersey Press. Sammons, J. T. (1987). Beyond the ring: The role of boxing in American Society. University of Illinois Press. Scorsese, M., (Director). (1980). Raging bull. United Artists. Smith, G. (2005). The shadow boxer. Sports Illustrated, 18 April. Retrieved May 31, 2020, from https://vault.si.com/vault/2005/04/18/the-­shadow-­boxer Steen, R. (2013). Boxing: Sonny Liston was murdered by Mob, claims hitman’s son. The Independent, 8 September. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/others/boxing-­sonny-­liston-­was-­murdered-­by-­mob-­ claims-­hitmans-­son-­8803558.html Steen, R. (1991). Spring, summer, autumn: Three cricketers, one season: Nadeem Shahid, Adrian Jones, David Hughes. Kingswood Press. Steen, R. (1993a). Desmond Haynes: Lion of Barbados. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Steen, R. (1993b). Sonny Boy: The life and strife of Sonny Liston. Kingswood Press. Steen, R. (2014). Floodlights and touchlines: A history of spectator sport. Bloomsbury. Steen, R. (2020). The Mavericks: English football when flair wore flares. Bloomsbury. (First published 1994).

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Syed, M. (2013). Now fight is over, boxer Emile Griffith’s last secret comes out. The Times, 27 July. Retrieved May 31, 2020, from https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ now-­fight-­is-­over-­boxer-­emile-­griffiths-­last-­secret-­comes-­out-­kc0ckf25wzg Tuckner, H. M. (1962). Fear stills the power of a champion. New York Times, 8 May. Retrieved May 31, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/1962/05/08/archives/ fear-­stills-­the-­power-­of-­a-­champion-­memories-­of-­paret-­haunt.html Tunney, G. (1932). A man must fight. Houghton Mifflin. Ward, G. C. (2015). Unforgiveable blackness: The rise and fall of Jack Johnson. Yellow Jersey Press.

Part IV Sport as Transport: Horse, Cycle, and Motor Racing and the Politics of Safety

Runners, Riders and Risk: Safety Issues in the History of Horseracing Patrick Sharman

Introduction On 2 November 2019, thoroughbred racehorse Mongolian Groom was euthanised after breaking a leg in the feature race of the Breeders’ Cup World Championships, broadcast live to an international audience. He was the 37th equine fatality at Santa Anita Park, a racetrack located in Arcadia, California, in under a year (Armytage, 2019). Recent deaths at the track have alarmed the general public, racegoers and politicians alike and have received almost daily coverage in local, national and international press. Horse welfare in the sport has been raised in the United States Congress (Horseracing Integrity Act of 2019, 2019) and the very future of horseracing in America has been called into question (Drape, 2019b; Ross, 2019). American racing does not face this criticism alone. In 2018, the UK Parliament discussed racehorse welfare (Hansard HC Deb 15 October, 2018), following a petition led by an animal rights group campaigning to see an end to the sport (Petitions—UK Government and Parliament, 2018). Australian horseracing is facing a crisis of its own, following a recent undercover investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) into the large-scale slaughter and abuse of racehorses after retirement from the track (McManus,

P. Sharman (*) University of Exeter, Exeter, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_13

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2019). Welfare concerns are not limited to horses. For instance, the continued use of child jockeys in some parts of the world has received condemnation by human rights groups (Dean, 2019; Menarndt & Bayartsogt, 2019). This chapter seeks to put these recent events into context by examining historical opposition to the sport based on horse and jockey welfare concerns. Far from being a recent phenomenon, such criticism can be traced to racing’s early days of commercialisation in late eighteenth-century Great Britain. By looking primarily at circumstances in Britain, and drawing on case studies from the United States and Australia, this chapter gives an overview of the way in which the sport’s inherent risks, and the safety concerns relating to both horse and jockey, have evolved as racing has itself changed since its establishment as an equestrian performance sport. It shows that horseracing has developed into a multi-billion-pound global industry despite opposition on welfare grounds; that the wider public’s concern has typically focused on the welfare of horses as opposed to jockeys; and that, despite efforts by racing administrators to reduce risk, the sport is currently facing a reputational threat as it tries to stay ahead of both public and political opinion. What follows pretends in no way to be exhaustive. The specific examples discussed below nevertheless highlight the challenges faced by the racing industry more generally, as it tries to strike a balance between promoting a sport in which some level of risk is inevitable, and responding to public and political calls to reduce such risks to an absolute minimum. To what extent this is possible remains to be seen and, as will be argued below, racing’s continued social licence may depend not only on the continual introduction of new safety measures, but also in convincing the wider public to accept risk as part of the sport.

 lobal Establishment of Horseracing, Despite G Animal Welfare Concerns Horseracing is known as the ‘sport of kings’—for instance, Charles II of England (1660–1685) was a great enthusiast and kept stables at the Suffolk town of Newmarket, historically the headquarters of English horseracing. Whilst interest from royalty and aristocracy has endured, from late eighteenth-­ century Britain the sport became increasingly commercialised in the wake of rising capitalism, attracting professional trainers and jockeys, commercial breeders, punters and bookmakers (Huggins, 2000, pp. 20,160–164). Development and growth of racing during this period coincided with an

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increased societal interest in animal welfare. Blood sports were common at the time. Dog fighting, bear-baiting, cock-fighting, hunting and hare coursing were all popular pastimes, not least because, in many cases, they provided a conduit for that most popular entertainment, gambling (Garner, 2004, p. 83). However, in a shift from earlier centuries, when these activities were considered acceptable, there was significant objection to the treatment of animals in sport by the end of the eighteenth century (Thomas, 1984, p. 149). This movement gained momentum and by 1835, legislation criminalising sports including dog fighting and bear-baiting was in place, followed shortly thereafter by a ban on cock-fighting in 1849 (Collins, 2013, p. 19). The treatment of racehorses was not exempt from criticism by the animal rights movement. John Lawrence, a leading writer on animal welfare who was consulted about early legislation, was critical about some jockeys’ treatment of racehorses, highlighting the misuse of the whip (Lawrence, 1802, pp. 145–148). John Wesley, the widely influential preacher and founder of the Methodist church, included in his journal an anonymous letter in which horseracing was grouped with blood sports such as bull-baiting, cock-fighting and hunting (Wesley, 1826, p. 349). However, horseracing was popular across all classes of society in Britain, and its patronage by the middle and upper classes helped it avoid attention when it came to legislation (Westgarth, 2014, pp. 12–13). Racing’s cause was further aided by the Jockey Club, a group of ‘gentlemen’ from aristocratic and political backgrounds with a shared interest in racing horses, which was gradually taking responsibility for regulating the sport in Britain (Huggins, 2000, pp. 174–203). Whilst their initial formation in the early 1750s was primarily for the purpose of keeping the sport free of ‘undesirable members of society’ (Tyrrel, 1997, p. 13), and thus out of the attention of the more puritanical members of Parliament, their very establishment was to give racing a regulator independent from government, and crucially, the eminence of their membership gave them significant influence in Parliament (Huggins, 2000, pp. 195–196). Hence, racing avoided legislation, which was limited to pastimes which attracted predominantly urban, working-class spectators (Collins, 2013, p. 19). The historian Richard Holt has argued that the Puritan critique of animal sports was in large part an attack on popular hedonism, as distinct from a concern for animal welfare. As the Whig politician Thomas Babington Macaulay once famously observed: ‘The puritan hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators’ (Holt, 1992, p. 29). Attendances at race meetings increased throughout the nineteenth century. Ironically, the animal rights movement and the establishment of the Society

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for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), in 1824,1 may have played a role. With sports such as dog fighting and bear-baiting now banned, the general public looked for alternative sports for spectatorship and gambling, and racing proved an attractive substitute (Westgarth, 2014, pp. 11–12). The popularity in betting on horses was further boosted by the establishment of the sporting press, which provided punters with information to make betting decisions, and the electric telegraph, which enabled results to be rapidly disseminated, whilst attendance at race meetings benefitted from the growing rail network (Huggins, 2000, p. 25). Thus, horseracing not only survived but flourished in Britain during the nineteenth century. Likewise, in Ireland (Rouse, 2015), where UK legislation was effective. Moreover, the sport was thriving globally. Early animal welfare legislation in the Australia was based on UK regulation (White, 2016), allowing the sport to become similarly established during the nineteenth century. In America, legislation passed in 1867 criminalised ‘sports’ such as cock-fighting (New York Revised Statutes, 1867, Chapter 375: Sections 1–10) but stopped short of preventing horseracing, and racing likewise developed into an increasingly commercialised industry after the American Civil War (Howland, 2004), in spite of the establishment of animal welfare groups, such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (founded 1866) and the American Humane Society (founded 1877).

 he Foundations of Steeplechasing T and the Grand National Racing under the Jockey Club’s regulation took place on the flat, but there was soon a growing interest in an alternative form of racing, known as steeplechasing, which took place over jumps. Although originating in Ireland, St Albans led the way in establishing an annual steeplechase meeting (Munting, 1987, p. 7). However, by the end of the 1830s, and aided by the expansion of the railways, Liverpool had taken over the mantle, headlining with a race across the countryside of Aintree (Pinfold, 1999). The race was to become known as the Grand National, and from its conception proved hazardous for both horses and jockeys, attracting both fascination and criticism. The 1839 edition was marred by the death of at least one horse (Pinfold, 1999, pp. 117–118) and the 1840 race witnessed a pile-up at the purpose-built  It became the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in 1840, by permission of Queen Victoria. 1

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stone wall, situated in front of the grandstand (Bell’s New Weekly Messenger, 1840). One horse died in the 1845 renewal, followed by three in 1848 and another three in 1849 (Blew, 1901, pp. 95, 102, 108). Despite the hazardous nature of the race, no jockey was killed until 1862, when Irishman Joe Wynne become the first, and to date only, jockey to be killed in the race: a horse fell on him in a three-horse collision (Blew, 1901, p. 126). Liverpool was not lacking its own animal rights movement (Pinfold, 1999, pp. 117–118). A prominent local dissenter of the race was Egerton Smith, owner of the Liverpool Mercury, which did not hold back following the 1839 race: ‘in these steeple chases, the most formidable obstacles are artificially placed in the course which the horse must necessarily take, and the almost certain result is the death of some of the noble animals thus wantonly urged on to their own destruction’ (Liverpool Mercury, 1839). Similarly, the London press presented a grisly picture after the 1849 race: ‘When the races were over, Equinox was found lying in a pool of his own blood. At the next fence, scarcely a hundred yards beyond, lay The Curate, in exactly the same situation, and at the next, Kilfane, the knife having put an end to the sufferings of each’ (Illustrated London News, 1849). The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) likewise took a very dim view of the new sport of steeplechasing, going so far as to run a competition in 1851, with a prize donated by a professor of the Royal Veterinary College, for the best essay entitled ‘Evils of Steeple Chasing’, which ‘may, the Committee earnestly hope, lead many who now engage in or encourage Steeple Chasing, to reflect on the needless suffering they are the means of inflicting, and to the relinquishment and reprobation of the cruel recreation’ (Harrison, 1851). Despite its critics, steeplechasing escaped political intervention, because, like flat racing, it was a country sport whose attendees included the upper classes (Munting, 1987, p. 17). However, unlike flat racing, which was regulated by the Jockey Club, the new sport of steeplechasing was under no formal control. It therefore attracted unscrupulous behaviour, by both competitors and spectators alike, leading by necessity to the establishment, in the 1866, of the Grand National Hunt Steeplechase committee (later renamed the National Hunt Committee) to regulate and bring some order to the sport (Munting, 1987, pp. 22–23). Under their governance, steeplechasing (now known as National Hunt racing) continued its expansion, led by the creation of an annual festival which eventually settled at Cheltenham. Criticism of the Grand National did not abate (The Times, 1922; Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 1926; Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 1931), yet the sport continued to develop, and by the mid-1950s National Hunt racing had grown into a successful and respectable sport, attracting elite attendees such as HM Queen

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Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Like flat racing, it too had become an international sport, although on a significantly smaller scale (McManus et al., 2014, pp. 188–189). The Grand National remained its standard-bearer and continued to flirt with controversy. In 1954, four of the twenty-nine starters died in the race, and only nine finished. International criticism quickly followed, and the matter was brought to the attention of the House of Lords by Lord Ammon: ‘I, with those whom I represent, am concerned wholly, at the moment, with urging as strongly as I can that steps should be taken to avoid the unnecessary cruelty that takes place in steeplechasing, with special reference to the Grand National’ (Hansard HL Deb 6 April, 1954) and the matter was also discussed in the House of Commons (Hansard HC Deb 15 April, 1954). There was, however, little appetite for Parliament to get involved and the race continued much as before. In 1960, the Grand National was televised live for the first time. An estimated 15 million people tuned in to watch it (The Times, 1960) despite the danger (or perhaps, in part, because of it).

The Welfare of Jockeys: ‘Making Weight’ Racing on the flat, in the meantime, was facing an altogether different problem. Historically, flat races had been for mature horses, but in its expansion of the sport, the Jockey Club opened races to younger horses, and the practice of racing horses from two-years-old soon became well established. Given their immaturity, younger horses required lighter jockeys, and weight allocations quickly dropped to absurdly low levels. In the 1840 Wokingham Stakes at Ascot, a filly was set to carry a measly 3st 12 lb. (24.5 kg), saddle included (The Racing Calendar 1840, 1841, p. 67). Such weights could only be achieved by young boys, in this case by ‘Little’ Sam Kitchener, aged ten (Lambie, 2010, p. 83). Since attending school was not a legal requirement of children in Britain until the late 1800s, the chance to work at racing stables and to ride horses allotted light weights in races might well have been an attractive alternative to other Dickensian childhood occupations. However, with increasing age, dieting became a necessity for such jockeys if they were going to remain employable, and, when dieting almost to starvation proved insufficient, many resorted to even more unappealing means. Turkish baths and exercising in layers of clothing to sweat out any excess weight on race-days left riders severely dehydrated (Vamplew, 2016, p. 163). If necessary, and hardly uncommon, jockeys would resort to purging (Vamplew, 2016, pp. 163–164). The relentless need to keep weights to a minimum left jockeys physically and mentally vulnerable. Regardless, it was a sought-after

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profession for people from working-class backgrounds where opportunities were minimal, as were wages. Successful jockeys could rapidly earn very sizeable incomes and they were often given celebrity status (Vamplew, 2016, pp. 145–151). The issue of low weight was highlighted in January 1860 by a newly established sports newspaper, The Sporting Life (The Sporting Life, 1860). The following month, Lord Redesdale proposed a Light Weight Racing Bill in the House of Lords (Hansard HL Deb 16 Feb, 1860a), which called for a minimum weight of 7 stone (44.5 kg). The primary reason behind this proposal, however, was not to combat child exploitation or the excessive fasting demanded of jockeys. In fact, jockeys were not even mentioned until the second reading of the bill (Hansard HL Deb 12 June, 1860b), with attention focusing instead on the popularisation of racing poor-quality horses, which Lord Redesdale believed were only running to support gambling. The Jockey Club, in reply, argued that the bill would prejudice the ‘poor man’ who could not afford a better horse. Furthermore, they saw this as a clear challenge to their role as independent regulators of the sport, opposing the bill on the grounds ‘that all regulations respecting racing are better entrusted to the authority which has hitherto made rules for the encouragement of this great national amusement, and that the proposed Bill, should it become law, would have a prejudicial effect’ (The Racing Calendar, 1860, Li). Little credence was given to the issue of child jockeys by Lord Derby in opposition to the proposed bill: ‘I assure your Lordships that many boys can ride as well as any men, and would be perfect masters of their horses under circumstances where my noble Friend would find himself in a considerable “fix.”’ (Hansard HL Deb 12 June, 1860b). The Bill was finally removed on the condition that the Jockey Club would themselves take appropriate measures. For the 1861 season, minimum weights were set at 5st 7lb (35kg) (The Racing Calendar, 1860, p. Xxxvi) and the Jockey Club, though making some concessions, maintained its role as independent regulator. The limited ground conceded by the Jockey Club reflects the significant political influence it had at the time (Huggins, 2000, p. 196). The weight situation was similar in America, and likewise it was the press, in the form of the Spirit of the Times, which raised the issue (Riess, 2011). As was the case in Britain, however, opposition was not based explicitly on the grounds of jockey safety or child exploitation, but rather that the lack of control of horses by boys ‘so small and so deficient in strength’ was ruining the spectacle (Riess, 2011). 5st 7 lb. (35 kg) is hardly an enviable target weight for any adult. It continued therefore to play to the advantage of children, and the dieting, purging and sweating remained a necessity. In an age before antibiotics, when diseases such as tuberculosis were common, compromising one’s immune system

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could be perilous, and the 1860s and early 1870s saw a number of jockeys lose their lives. It was again The Sporting Life which highlighted the issue, calling for the Jockey Club to ‘raise the weights in all races so that our best jockeys should not be immolated. … Every jockey in the kingdom should join in a petition to the Jockey Club for an alteration, when they glance over the melancholy list of horsemen whose lives have been sacrificed through the unnatural process of “wasting”’ (The Sporting Life, 1873). Nothing changed, and the tally of deaths associated with excessive fasting grew tremendously on both sides of the Atlantic. The list of fatalities included former British champion jockey, John Wells, as well as Isaac Burns Murphy, who dominated American racing for almost two decades before dying of heart failure associated with years of fasting. Most famous of all though was the legendary Fred Archer. Archer started race riding aged 12 in 1869 and was initially used for his ability to ride at weights less than 5 stone (32 kg) (Welcome, 1967, pp. 21–22). He was a talented horseman, fiercely competitive, and, supported by a leading stable, soon made a name for himself. By 1874, he was British flat racing champion jockey, a title he was to hold for 13 consecutive years. He rapidly accrued wealth and was widely recognised outside the sphere of the sport. However, Archer suffered the misfortune of many an aspiring jockey—he grew. By the age of 17 he was 5 ft. 8 ½ inches tall, yet was still attempting to ride at under 6 stone (38 kg) (Welcome, 1967, p. 33). Along with the usual fasting and sweating, Archer had his own purgative made up, ‘Archer’s Mixture’, the recipe of which, perhaps for the best, remains a mystery (T. Cox, Thoroughbred Historian, personal communication, 12 August 2019). The extreme stress, both mental and physical, took its toll, and was compounded by trauma in his personal life, with Archer losing his brother, new-born son, and wife all within the space of seven years. His obsession with riding winners became fanatical, notching up a then record 246 winners during the season following his wife’s death. His fasting became extreme, and following a week in which he managed to lose almost a stone (6 kg) for a ride, only to be beaten, Archer fell seriously ill. He was diagnosed with typhoid and confined to his bedroom. On 8 November 1886, pushed to breaking point and in a state of delirium, he put a revolver to his head and pulled the trigger. He was 29 years old (Welcome, 1967).

The Welfare of Jockeys: The Risks of Race Riding The use of child labour in Britain declined with the introduction of the Education Act 1870 and its subsequent extensions, which were to make school attendance compulsory, and, by the end of century, minimum weights

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were finally on the rise. However, low weights were not the only concern for jockeys. Safety equipment on Victorian racecourses was virtually non-­existent, and aggressive riding was the norm. Steeplechase jockeys were particularly at risk of harm, and with racing over the jumps becoming increasingly popular in the early part of the twentieth century, fatalities became common. Once again it was The Sporting Life that led the campaign for better care and safety of jump jockeys, this time with an article, published February 1924, titled: ‘Hurdle & Steeplechase Accidents/How They Happen And How To Avert Them: Suggestions To N(ational).H(unt). Committee’ (Lambie, 2010, p. 339). Amongst other suggestions was that the wearing of helmets by jockeys be made compulsory, a policy already enforced on Australian and New Zealand racetracks (Lambie, 2010, p. 340). The death of Grand National winning jockey, Captain ‘Tuppy’ Bennet, 17 days after being kicked in the head after falling at Wolverhampton, finally led the National Hunt Committee to make helmets, albeit ones made of cork and sporting no chinstrap, compulsory for National Hunt races. It took until 1956 before the Jockey Club followed suit and made helmets mandatory on the flat, with chinstraps not being fitted until 1962 (Lambie, 2010, p. 340). On the track itself, concrete posts had historically been used along the length of courses, and even as far back as the late 1700s, these were noted as a significant hazard: ‘In consequence of the many fatal Accidents, which have happened by Horses running too near the Posts, the Stewards of Newmarket Races have caused the large and fixed Posts, on the Heath, to be surrounded with Turf-­ Banks’ (The Racing Calendar, 1786). Many jockeys met their end following impact with a concrete post, and whilst they have now been replaced with plastic equivalents, remarkably the concrete posts could still to be found on British racecourses in the 1980s (Moscrop, 1990). Today, race meetings in most parts of the world are attended by a doctor, while ambulances follow close behind races, and body protection, in the form of polystyrene that covers the back and chest, is mandatory (Vamplew & Kay, 2005, p. 270). That races are monitored by stewards and filmed from multiple angles helps limit dangerous riding. Despite increased safety, risk remains, and the industry has progressively taken responsibility for the care of injured jockeys. Various fund-raising schemes have been in place for jockeys and their families since the 1840s, including those set up by a member of the Jockey Club (the Bentinck Benevolent Fund) and the National Hunt Committee (the Rendlesham Benevolent Fund), which were aided by numerous fund-­ raising pushes by The Sporting Life. An altogether more concerted drive to support jockeys took place following the paralysis of two National Hunt jockeys during the 1963/1964 season. Paddy Farrell broke his back in a fall in the

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1964 Grand National and was to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair (Magee, 2013, p. 8). The incident followed just months after jockey Stanley ‘Tim’ Brookshaw was likewise paralysed in a fall, also at Aintree2 (Magee, 2013, p. 3). A letter on the front page of The Sporting Life, a week after Farrell’s injury, highlighted the dangers faced by National Hunt jockeys and made the racing public aware of the existence of a new fund. Fans, bookmakers, punters and pony clubs responded generously, and before long the new fund was looking beyond just supporting Farrell and Brookshaw financially (Magee, 2013, pp. 12–19). An enthusiastic committee, coupled with the generosity of donors, led to the creation of the Injured Jockeys Fund (IJF), which, in 1973, received patronage from one of National Hunt racing’s greatest supporters, HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. The IJF has continued to grow due to public support and large donations from racing individuals. To date, the IJF has made payments totalling over £18 m in assisting over 1000 jockeys and their families (Injured Jockeys Fund, n.d.). On the whole, the risk faced by jockeys has rarely been of significant interest outside the sport, possibly reflecting the fact that race riding is a select activity with no associated large-scale amateur contingent. Drives to improve jockey welfare and decrease risk continue to come from within the industry. The 8th International Conference for Health, Safety and Welfare of Jockeys took place in 2019, where topics for discussion included injury prevention, concussion, mental health, nutrition and the difficulties of making minimum weight. Significant progress has undoubtably been made, but ‘making weight’ remains a substantial challenge for many jockeys. In the United States, races sometimes still take place in the absence of paramedics and there is no protocol for dealing with concussion (Velazquez et al., 2018). However, these issues are seemingly of little public concern. One exception is the continued use of child jockeys in some parts of the world, which has gained increased attention from human rights groups and international media. On the Indonesian island of Sumba, jockeys, often the children of poorer families, can start competing as young as four (Henschke, 2013). The children ride bareback, and helmets are not compulsory. The official minimum age for jockeys in Mongolia is seven, and, until recently, racing took place through the freezing winter months. Two children died in 2017. Following pressure from human rights groups, the Mongolian Government has now banned racing from October to May (Menarndt & Bayartsogt, 2019).

 Brookshaw managed to return to the saddle despite his (severe) injury. He died following a further fall from a horse in 1981. 2

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Continued Opposition to National Hunt Racing Unlike jockeys, risk to horses has remained a public concern, and jockeys’ complicity in this may be partly responsible for a lack of outside interest in jockey risk. Concern for horses tends to focus on equine fatalities, injuries and the use of the whip. The Grand National, racing’s most high-profile and arguably most dangerous race, has continued to be a focal point. By the 1980s, protests by groups of ‘antis’ had become a common feature at the race. These became more radical after two equine deaths in the 1989 race and a further two in 1990. A campaign group called Action to Abolish the Grand National (AAGN) lobbied the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to stop covering the race and the public to stop betting on horses. In 1993, a number of AAGN members gained access to the course, occupied an area in front of the first fence, and in the process delayed the start (Jones, 1993; Nottingham Free Information Network, 1993). Two false starts followed, but the somewhat basic re-call system failed the second time. Many of the participants continued to race, with jockeys reporting afterwards that they believed the flag bearing officials may in fact have been part of the activist group. Scenes, broadcast live to a global audience of 300 million, descended into farce and the race was voided. The activists had their day. However, while it was hugely embarrassing and costly at the time, the 1993 ‘race that never was’ has since become another chapter in the Grand National’s rich history, with the protests doing little in the long run to dampen enthusiasm for the race. After all, it is the unpredictable and eventful nature of the race that annually attracts millions of viewers, many of whom would not normally watch a horse race. Events of the late 1980s and early 1990s did, however, make Aintree racecourse recognise a need for the course to be made safer, and large-scale changes to the race and the course have been implemented over the last 30 years (Pinfold, 1999, p. 261). Campaigning against the Grand National in recent decades has been led by the animal rights group, Animal Aid, who are not just calling for an end to the race, but to the sport as a whole. In a change of approach from the protests of the 1980s and 1990s, their focus has been on increasing public awareness of the risk to horses. This includes listing on their website all those horses who die on a British racecourse (Animal Aid, 2019b), and running an advertising campaign on the sides of London buses, calling for a ban on the use of the whip in racing (Animal Aid, 2019a). The group also regularly lobby politicians, work with the press and use social media to spread their message (D. Stansall, Horseracing consultant, Animal Aid, personal communication, 17

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September 2019), thereby giving them more respectability than the protestors of the 1980s. In 2018, Animal Aid collected over 100,000 petition signatures (Petitions—UK Government and Parliament, 2018) to initiate a debate in Parliament as to whether the government should create a new welfare body, independent of the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), to ‘protect horses from abuse and death’. The conclusion of the debate was that the BHA, who now oversees both flat and National Hunt racing in Britain, would continue to regulate racehorse welfare. However, several politicians spoke passionately about their concerns, and it was made clear to the BHA that further change will be required if they are to maintain that role (Hansard HC Deb 15 October, 2018). Despite improved safety measures, the 2019 Grand National witnessed its first race-related horse fatality since 2012. Yet again, the matter was raised by a Member of Parliament (UK Parliament, 2019), and many members of the general public with little previous awareness of Grand National fatalities became aware of the issue via social media. Aintree is not alone in facing criticism. Cheltenham racecourse hosts the most prestigious National Hunt meeting of the year. According to BHA figures, 38 horses were killed at the annual four-day meeting between 2007 and 2018 (British Horseracing Authority, 2018). Like Aintree, improvements have been made to Cheltenham over recent years, but future fatalities are all but inevitable.

The Risks of Flat Racing Whilst the likelihood of equine death may be far greater in National Hunt racing (Boden et al., 2010), racing on the flat is certainly not without risk, an issue highlighted by the deaths of two of America’s leading racehorses, Barbaro and Eight Belles, in the early twenty-first century. Barbaro won the 2006 edition of America’s most famous race, the Kentucky Derby, in impressive style. In his next race, two weeks later, his right hind leg shattered under a quarter of a mile from the starting gate. He was immediately pulled up and dismounted in front of the grandstand as spectators and television cameras looked on. Horses rarely survive such a bone fracture. Although the initial break is not necessarily fatal, secondary complications inevitably arise. The decision was taken to try and save Barbaro. Over the following months, his surgeries, recovery, progress and regress were closely monitored by the national press, gaining the horse a cult following well outside the scope of the racing world. Eight months after sustaining his injury, Barbaro was euthanised after succumbing to laminitis (Clancy, 2007). In 2008, Eight Belles attempted to

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become just the fourth filly to win the Kentucky Derby. She finished a gallant 2nd, but she stumbled and fell just 200 yards past the winning post, and had to be euthanised where she lay. She had suffered fractures in both front legs (Finley, 2008). The interest in Barbaro and subsequent death of Eight Belles shone a spotlight on the risks of flat racing in America, where the likelihood of equine fatality has been estimated to be between two-and-a-half to five times greater than in other major racing jurisdictions (Drape, 2019a). Most prestigious races in America are run on dirt tracks. According to the (then) chairman of the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB), more than 240 horses died on California’s dirt tracks between 2003 and 2005 (Shinar, 2006). The switch from dirt to a synthetic racing surface at Turfway racetrack in Kentucky, United States, in 2005 resulted in a dramatic reduction in fatalities (Arthur, 2010), prompting the CHRB to vote in 2006 to make such changes across their state (Shinar, 2006). In all, nine tracks converted to synthetic surfaces in the mid-2000s, four of which, Santa Anita, Del Mar, Hollywood and Golden Gate, are overseen by the CHRB. Fatality numbers at the California tracks dropped markedly (Arthur, 2010). However, some racing professionals claimed the reduction in fatalities was due to other improvements in safety, and trainers reported increased numbers of non-fatal injuries on synthetic surfaces (Vienna, 2010). Moreover, drainage issues led to a number of days lost racing at Santa Anita racetrack (Marquardt, 2014). Despite the dramatic drop in casualties, disquiet from inside the industry meant that the so-called synthetic experiment would be short lived: Santa Anita’s synthetic track was ripped up in 2010 to be replaced by dirt. Fatalities at the track rose sharply (Equine Injury Database, 2019). The return to dirt racing coincided with the filming of ‘Luck’, a new television drama about the sport. Two horses died at the track during the filming of the first series, and the death of a third in 2012 resulted in production being pulled (Zarembo, 2012). The three fatalities further increased scrutiny on American racing, particularly at Santa Anita. Despite promises from the industry to improve safety following Eight Belles’ death, in 2012, the New York Times argued that the sport had become more dangerous: ‘an industry still mired in a culture of drugs and lax regulation and a fatal breakdown rate that remains far worse than in most of the world’ (Bogdanich et al., 2012). The animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which has been lobbying to make racing safer for horses, stepped up their presence at the following year’s Kentucky Derby (Dicker, 2013). There has been a watching brief over Santa Anita since, and a spike in equine fatalities at the track towards the start of 2019 was quick to hit the headlines. Coverage of the fatalities was no longer restricted to the local press.

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CNN and The New York Times covered the story, prompting the international press to follow suit. As each equine death was reported on, so did public awareness increase. Between 26 December 2018 and 5 March 2019, 21 horses died at the track, forcing the Stronach Group, the track owner, to announce a temporary closure (Cherwa & Sondheimer, 2019). A bill ‘To improve the integrity and safety of horseracing by requiring a uniform anti-doping and medication control program’ was introduced in United States Congress (Horseracing Integrity Act of 2019, 2019).3 Following a review, the Stronach Group published an open letter (Stronach, 2019) in which it put forward several proposals to improve safety, including allowing jockeys to use the whip only ‘as a corrective safety measure’. To the surprise of many in the industry, the letter included a statement of support by PETA. Many of the suggestions were ambitious and long term. However, racing at the track recommenced later that month with some stricter safety reforms in place, but the death count was soon on the rise again. The story continued to run in the national and international press, with PETA continuing to demonstrate outside the track. In June 2019, the Governor of California, Democrat Gavin Newsom, called for further veterinary examinations of horses before racing (State of California BCSH, 2019), while United States Senator Dianne Feinstein went further, calling for a suspension of racing at the track (Feinstein, 2019). When, on 2 November 2019, Mongolian Groom became the 37th equine fatality at Santa Anita racetrack since Christmas 2018, calls for racing to be made safer, suspended or banned were reiterated by PETA, journalists and politicians. The sport in America is under significant pressure to address the situation. It is unclear exactly why American racing should see such a high level of fatalities, but any explanation is likely to be multifactorial. Aside from the obvious concerns regarding track surface, one accusation frequently levelled at racing is that the thoroughbred is becoming more susceptible to injury as a result of breeding for speed, and statistics on American racehorses appear to back this argument up (Mitchell, 2008). This is worrisome on the grounds of both equine and jockey welfare. The racehorse Love Rules fractured a shoulder in a race at Parx racecourse (United States) in March 2018. The horse fell at speed, catapulting Peruvian jockey Jose Luis Flores into the ground. Love Rules was euthanised. Jose Luis Flores died after 3 days on life support (Paulick Report, 2018). Even excluding Flores, the Jockeys Guild records 12 jockey deaths on American racetracks since 2000 (Jockeys’ Guild, n.d.). Notably, in  The bill was very similar to the Horseracing Integrity Act of 2017.

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California, at least, the most common cause of jockey falls between 2007 and 2011 was death or injury of a horse (Hitchens et al., 2013). It has been well documented in other livestock breeding programmes that breeding for a single trait can result in undesired consequences. For example, intensive selection of broiler chickens for rapid weight gain has seen increased incidence of leg deformities (Knowles et al., 2008) and heart failure (Rauw et al., 1998). Breeding dairy cattle for milk yield has been associated with an increase in mastitis (Oltenacu & Broom, 2010). Racehorse breeders already need to account for health traits when making breeding decisions, driven by purchasers carrying out visual and veterinary checks prior to acquisition of young horses. However, it is also the case that racehorses with known weaknesses are often used for breeding, and a number of health traits have been identified as being heritable (Ibi et al., 2003; Oki et al., 2005; Oki et al., 2008; Welsh et al., 2013; Norton et al., 2016), meaning that some of these weaknesses are at least partly determined by genes. Compounding the problem on American racetracks is the use of race-day painkillers, anti-inflammatories and performance enhancing drugs such as Lasix, which is administered to over 90% of horses before racing in the United States (Ross, 2014). In effect, these medications allow horses to run faster than they would otherwise, either by masking pain or by boosting horses’ abilities. This in turn adds extra strain to their musculoskeletal system. Lasix prevents bleeding in the lungs at high speed, known as exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage (EIPH). Use of Lasix enables EIPH-prone horses to compete, increasing their chances of being used for breeding. Given recent evidence suggesting EIPH is heritable (Velie et al., 2014), the advantage Lasix gives may increase the incidence of EIPH in the racehorse population over generations. In 1997, in order to protect the thoroughbred from genetic weakening, the German racing authority ruled that horses sired by stallions who had ever raced on artificial medication would not qualify for German breeders’ premiums, significantly reducing the use of American-raced stallions (Conolly-Smith, 2015). Stallions based in Germany are required to pass a physical examination for their offspring to qualify for the premiums. Germany is unusual in this regard, but their thoroughbreds now have a reputation for durability. Along with selection being too focussed on speed, the thoroughbred is also often talked about as being particularly inbred. Whilst it is a relatively new breed, and its origins particularly diverse, the increase in stallion book sizes (the number of mares covered) in recent decades has seen the rate of inbreeding increase (Binns et al., 2012). However, this does not necessarily equate to increased injury risk. It is unclear whether the thoroughbred is becoming

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weaker, as little scientific research has been completed that sheds light on this. Research tools to understand genetic change are available from other livestock breeding programmes, but implementation requires a concerted effort from industry stakeholders, and efforts in the past have fallen short.

Can the Racing Industry Respond? The increase in public awareness of the risk horses are exposed to on American racetracks has brought the very future of the sport in the country into doubt. This has not come without warning. Animal welfare concerns surrounding the sport have been on the rise for a number of years, and the industry has failed to take suitable measures. With no single governing body in American racing, it remains to be seen whether they can reach any kind of agreement on matters such as race-day medications, performance enhancing drugs, whip policy or breeding strategy. In Britain, the BHA list horse and jockey welfare among their priorities (British Horseracing Authority, 2019a), and they have succeeded in reducing equine deaths (as a percentage of runners) on British racecourses over the last 20 years (British Horseracing Authority, 2019d). However, the BHA, mandated with regulating independently, do so on behalf of the racings’ stakeholders, and the industry as a whole needs to find common consensus. One issue becoming increasingly heated within racing circles is the use of the whip. Significant changes have been made in Britain over the last 30 years to reduce any harm caused by the whip, and opinion amongst most racing professionals is that the modern whip, designed in consultation with the RSPCA (British Horseracing Authority, 2019b), causes no pain. However, its use continues to be a concern outside the sport (Graham & McManus, 2016; McGreevy & Fawcett, 2018), and there is debate amongst industry stakeholders as to whether racing, in order to satisfy organisations such as Animal Aid who ultimately want an end to the sport, should take steps to ban the use of the whip for anything but safety purposes. Equally, it could be argued that a failure to stay ahead of public perception in an increasingly populist political environment could see racing’s independent regulation threatened. Labour’s recently published Animal Welfare Manifesto called for an independent review of the whip (The Labour Party, 2019), whilst the Liberal Democrats’ 2019 election manifesto proposed independent regulation of racehorse welfare ‘to prevent the abuse and avoidable deaths of racehorses’ (Liberal Democrats Manifesto, 2019, p. 49). At the recent debate in Parliament, Chris Williamson, then Labour MP for Derby North

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and a member of the League Against Cruel Sports, told the Commons: ‘Other hon. Members have made glowing references to the British Horseracing Authority, but in my opinion it has proved itself to be singularly useless on animal welfare since it was founded in 2007. Why do I say that? Since that time 2,000 horses have died in horse-racing. On the barbaric use of the whip, in the order of 500 abuses are recorded every year, and there is no sign of a reduction in that number’ (Hansard HC Deb 15 October, 2018). Politicians’ words are beginning to echo those of animal rights groups. Perhaps most pertinent was a matter raised by Luke Pollard, Labour and Co-operative MP for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport: ‘Although we have seen improvements in the number of deaths, down from 0.3% to less than 0.2% of runners in 2017, the question at the heart of this debate is: where next? If we are to legitimise the BHA continuing to govern the regulatory approach, when will that figure be halved? When will we get to 0.1%— by what date? What steps will be taken to get there? What happens if we do not get there? When will the target be zero?’ (Hansard HC Deb 15 October, 2018). Risk in horseracing will never be zero, and if the sport is to endure, the industry needs to convince politicians, and the wider public, that a certain level of risk is acceptable. Australian racing experienced significant political intervention in the 1990s. Like in Britain, jump racing in Australia became more widespread in the nineteenth century, although it never excelled in quite the same way, dying out in a number of states due to a lack of commerciality. In 1983, the Australian Senate set up a committee for the purpose of looking into animal welfare in the country. Animal rights groups lobbied the committee to recommend a ban on jump racing (Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare, 1990), and following an investigation in 1990/1991, the committee concluded that jump racing should be phased out on welfare grounds (Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare, 1991). Although neither Queensland nor Racing New South Wales had organised an official jumps race for a number of decades, they had both made jump racing illegal by the end of the century. The sport has persevered in Victoria and Southern Australia, albeit on a relatively small scale, but it remains to be seen how much longer this is sustainable in the face of continued opposition from animal rights groups such as the RSPCA Australia. In Norway, legislation introduced by the government in 1982 banned the use of the whip for anything but safety (McGreevy & Fawcett, 2018). Increasingly, questions are being raised as to what happens to horses after retirement from racing. The global spread of horseracing as a commercial industry has led to larger numbers of thoroughbreds produced and an increase in the commodification of racehorses. Around 100,000 thoroughbred

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racehorses are born worldwide each year. It is thought that about half make it to the racetrack. On retirement, many go into breeding and some are successfully rehomed or retrained, though the capacity for this is limited. The destiny of the remainder is of increasing concern. Early in 2019, the BHA instituted a Horse Welfare Board, responsible for looking at racehorse welfare in Britain, not just during their racing careers, but throughout their lifetime (British Horseracing Authority, 2019c). This proved timely, as a documentary in October 2019 by ABC revealed cruelty and slaughter of racehorses after retirement in Australia on a scale that has shocked the nation and led to significant soul-searching by racing professionals (McManus, 2019). The Queensland government has since announced its plans to investigate the treatment of retired racehorses. Public concern over the welfare of racehorses is no longer limited to their racing careers, and reconciling public concerns with welfare in the wider industry may prove horseracing’s greatest challenge going forward.

Conclusion There has been opposition to horseracing on horse and jockey welfare grounds since the early days of its commercialisation. Over the course of global expansion, racing authorities around the world have taken measures to limit the risks, and increase the care of equine and human participants, in an effort to stay on the right side of acceptability. Safety improvements aside, the expansion of the sport has been enabled by political influence and a lack of significant credible opposition. Today, it is increasingly losing those advantages, and whilst the sport’s stakeholders can point to the progress in welfare that has been achieved, the politicking against the sport has arguably never been greater. Injuries and deaths are witnessed on television screens and reported by animal rights groups and increasingly appear in the press. Meanwhile, social media is taking news of fatalities to a new audience. Animal welfare is a growing movement, one that political parties and individual politicians are keen to recognise. Racing’s administrators are constantly looking at how they can adapt the sport further. However, it is unclear whether there is either the will or the capacity, let alone a common consensus, to change quickly enough to stay ahead of mounting pressure. Regardless, with calls by some for risk to be reduced to zero, a patently unachievable target, the sport urgently needs to take a broader view. Aiming for a target of zero risk is necessary but ultimately unrealistic, and if racing is going to extend its social licence, convincing the public to accept some degree of risk is going to be equally important.

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Acknowledgements  Thanks to Timothy Cox, Thoroughbred Historian, for his suggestions, discussion, use of the Cox Library and searching out useful manuscripts; to Nick Rust, Chief Executive of the British Horseracing Authority, Dene Stansall, Horse Racing Consultant for Animal Aid, and Bob Butchers, former jockey and racing tipster for the Daily Mirror for their time and discussion; and to Stephen Wagg, Alastair J Wilson, Richard Allen and Katie Pierce for comments on earlier drafts.

References Animal Aid. (2019a). Ban the whip! Animal Aid’s new London bus adverts take to the streets. Retrieved October 11, 2019, from https://www.animalaid.org.uk/ animal-­aids-­new-­london-­bus-­adverts/ Animal Aid. (2019b). Race horse death watch. Retrieved October 11, 2019, from https://www.horsedeathwatch.com/ Armytage, M. (2019, November 3). Disaster strikes to mar Vino Rosso’s Classic victory at Breeders’ Cup. The Telegraph. 3 Nov. Retrieved November 8, 2019, from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/racing/2019/11/03/ disaster-­strikes-­mar-­vino-­rossos-­classic-­victory-­atbreeders/ Arthur, R. (2010). Comparison of racing fatality rates on dirt, synthetic, and turf at four California racetracks. American Association of Equine Practitioners Proceedings, 56, pp.405–8. Retrieved September 12, 2019, from https://aaep.org/sites/default/ files/issues/proceedings-­10proceedings-­z9100110000405.pdf Bell’s New Weekly Messenger. (1840, March 8). Grand National Steeple Chase, p. 5. Binns, M. M., Boehler, D. A., Bailey, E., Lear, T. L., Cardwell, J. M., & Lambert, D. H. (2012). Inbreeding in the thoroughbred horse. Animal Genetics, 43(3), 340–342. Blew, W. C. A. (1901). A history of steeple-chasing. John. C. Nimmo. Boden, L. A., Anderson, G. A., Charles, J. A., Morgan, K. L., Morton, J. M., Parkin, T. D. H., Slocombe, R. F., & Clarke, A. F. (2010). Risk of fatality and causes of death of thoroughbred horses associated with racing in Victoria, Australia: 1989–2004. Equine Veterinary Journal, 38(4), 312–318. Bogdanich, W., Drape, J., Miles, D.L., & Griffin, P. (2012, March 24). Mangled Horses, Maimed Jockeys. The New York Times. Retrieved September 10, 2019, from http://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/us/death-­and-­ disarray-­at-­americas-­racetracks.html British Horseracing Authority. (2018). Cheltenham Festival Review 2018. https:// www.britishhorseracing.com/wp-­c ontent/uploads/2018/12/Cheltenham-­ Festival-­Review-­2018.pdf British Horseracing Authority. (2019a). Annual Report and Accounts 2018. https:// www.bri tishho r se r a c i n g . c om /wp -­c on t e n t / u pl o ad s / 2 0 1 9 / 0 9 / BHA _ AnnualReport_2018_Annual_Report.pdf

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British Horseracing Authority. (2019b). Equine welfare in British horseracing. http:// media.britishhorseracing.com/bha/welfare/British_Racing_Fact_Sheet.pdf British Horseracing Authority. (2019c). Horse Welfare Board. https://www.britishhorseracing.com/regulation/horse-­welfare-­board/ British Horseracing Authority. (2019d). Making horseracing safer. https://www.britishhorseracing.com/regulation/making-­horseracing-­safer/ Cherwa, J., & Sondheimer, E. (2019). Santa Anita cancels racing indefinitely after 21st horse dies at track since Dec. 26. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 8, 2019, from https://www.latimes.com/sports/more/la-­sp-­santa-­anita-­21-­horses-­ died-­20190305-­story.html Clancy, S. (2007). Barbaro: The horse who captured America’s heart. Eclipse Press. Collins, T. (2013). Sport in capitalist society: A short history. Routledge. Conolly-Smith, D. (2015). The country where stallions who have ever had Lasix are disqualified for breeding. Thoroughbred Racing Commentary. Retrieved November 12, 2019, from https://www.thoroughbredracing.com/articles/ country-­where-­stallions-­who-­have-­ever-­had-­lasix-­are-­disqualified-­breeding/ Dean, A. (2019, August 24). For Indonesia’s child jockeys, time to retire at 10, after 5 years of racing. The New York Times. Retrieved October 16, 2019, from https:// www.nytimes.com/2019/08/24/world/asia/indonesia-­sumbawa-­child-­jockeys-­ horse-­racing.html Dicker, R. (2013). PETA Kentucky Derby billboard protests horse racing drug use, draws attention at Churchill downs. HuffPost. Retrieved September 16, 2019, from https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/peta-­kentucky-­derby­billboard-­horse-­churchill-­downs_n_3204231 Drape, J. (2019a, June 6). 30 Racehorses have died at this track since Dec. 26. The New York Times. Retrieved September 16, 2019, from https://www.nytimes. com/2019/06/06/sports/santa-­anita-­horse-­deaths.html Drape, J. (2019b, October 13). Horse deaths are threatening the racing industry. Is the sport obsolete? The New York Times. Retrieved November 8, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/sports/horse-­deaths-­kentucky-­derby.html Equine Injury Database. (2019) Equine fatality summary. Retrieved November 1, 2019, from http://jockeyclub.com/pdfs/eid/SantaAnita.pdf Feinstein, D. (2019). Feinstein to Santa Anita owners: ‘Suspend racing immediately.’ Retrieved October 12, 2019, from https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index. cfm/press-­releases?ID=E24A9C6E-­6A77-­4DA5-­87D4-­77CDDC42C096 Finley, B. (2008, May 4). Triumph, and then tears, at the derby. The New York Times. Retrieved October 10, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/sports/ othersports/04churchill.html Garner, R. (2004). Animals, politics and morality. Manchester University Press. Graham, R., & McManus, P. (2016). Changing human-animal relationships in sport: An analysis of the UK and Australian horse racing whips debates. Animals, 6(5), 32.

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Hansard HC Deb. (1954, April 15). Vol. 526, col. 1321–3. Retrieved November 15, 2018, from https://api.parliament.uk/historic-­hansard/commons/1954/apr/15/ steeplechasing-­cruelty Hansard HC Deb. (2018, October 15). Vol. 647. col. 195–228. Retrieved November 15, 2018, from https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-­10-­15/debates/8 5DEF768-­1145-­4E15-­96A8-­9663815EF93F/RacehorseProtection?highlight=rac ehorse%20welfare#contribution-­FFF5A774-­771A-­4F36-­93DA-­8BA7A063A87F Hansard HL Deb. (1860a, February 16). Vol. 156, col. 1103. Retrieved November 15, 2018, from https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/1860-­02-­16/debates/21ac9 0b1-­4537-­44df-­80df-­97650c21946a/BillPresentedFirstReading Hansard HL Deb. (1860b, June 12). Vol. 159, col. 295–314. Retrieved November 15, 2018, from https://api.parliament.uk/historic-­hansard/lords/1860/jun/12/ second-­reading Hansard HL Deb. (1954, April 6). Vol. 186 col. 1041–1054. Retrieved November 15, 2018, from https://api.parliament.uk/historic-­hansard/lords/1954/apr/06/ the-­grand-­national Harrison, J. (1851). An essay on the evils of steeple chasing. Royal Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Animals. Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail. (1931, January 30). A Cruel Race, p. 10. Henschke, R. (2013, September, 23). Indonesia’s child jockeys labor away. Deutsche Welle. Retrieved October 15, 2019, from https://www.dw.com/en/ indonesias-­child-­jockeys-­labor-­away/a-­17056618 Hitchens, P. L., Hill, A. E., & Stover, S. M. (2013). Jockey falls, injuries, and fatalities associated with thoroughbred and quarter horse racing in California, 2007–2011. Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, 1(1). Holt, R. (1992). Sport and the British : A modern history. Clarendon Press. Horseracing Integrity Act of 2019. (2019). House of representatives. Bill no. 1754. Retrieved October 13, 2019, from https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-­congress/ house-­bill/1754 Howland, J. S. (2004). Let’s not “spit the bit” in defense of “the law of the horse”: The historical and legal development of American thoroughbred racing. Marquette Sports Law Review, 14(2), 473–508. Retrieved November 5, 2019, from https:// scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1302&conte xt=sportslaw Huggins, M. (2000). Flat racing and British society, 1790–1914: A social and economic history. Frank Cass. Ibi, T., Miyake, T., Hobo, S., Oki, H., Ishida, N., & Sasaki, Y. (2003). Estimation of heritability of laryngeal hemiplegia in the thoroughbred horse by Gibbs sampling. Journal of Equine Science, 14(3), 81–86. Illustrated London News. (1849, March 10). Liverpool Grand National Steeple Chase, p. 156. Injured Jockeys Fund. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2019, from https://www. injuredjockeys.co.uk/

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Norton, E. M., Mickelson, J. R., Binns, M. M., Blott, S. C., Caputo, P., Isgren, C. M., McCoy, A. M., Moore, A., Piercy, R. J., Swinburne, J. E., Vaudin, M., & McCue, M. E. (2016). Heritability of recurrent exertional rhabdomyolysis in Standardbred and thoroughbred racehorses derived from SNP genotyping data. Journal of Heredity, 107(6), 537–543. Nottingham Free Information Network. (1993). Retrieved October 11, 2019, from http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public_archive/6409.pdf Oki, H., Miyake, T., Hasegawa, T., & Sasaki, Y. (2005). Estimation of heritability for tying-up syndrome in the thoroughbred racehorse by Gibbs sampling. Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics, 122(5), 289–293. Oki, H., Miyake, T., Kasashima, Y., & Sasaki, Y. (2008). Estimation of heritability for superficial digital flexor tendon injury by Gibbs sampling in the thoroughbred racehorse. Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics, 125(6), 413–416. Oltenacu, P. A., & Broom, D. M. (2010). The impact of genetic selection for increased milk yield on the welfare of dairy cows. Animal Welfare, 19, 39–49. Paulick Report. (2018). ‘Mentor’ and ‘gentleman’ Jockey Jose Luis Flores dies after being removed from life support. Retrieved October 11, 2019, from https://www.paulickreport.com/news/people/mentor-­g entleman-­j ockey-­ jose-­luis-­flores-­dies-­removed-­life-­support-­2/ Petitions—UK Government and Parliament. (2018). Create a new independent welfare body to protect racehorses from abuse and death. Retrieved March 3, 2019, from https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/211950 Pinfold, J. (1999). Gallant sport: The authentic history of Liverpool races and the grand national. Portway Press. Rauw, W.M., Kanis, E., Noordhuizen-Stassen, E.N., & Grommers, F.J. (1998). Undesirable side effects of selection for high production efficiency in farm animals: A review. Livestock Production Science, 56(1), 15–33. Retrieved May 15, 2019, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S030162269800147X Riess, S.A. (2011). The American Jockey, 1865–1910. Transatlantica, 2|2011. http:// journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/5480 Ross, D. (2014). Lasix: The drug debate which is bleeding US horse racing dry. The Guardian. Retrieved October 10, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/ sport/2014/aug/31/lasix-­drug-­debate-­bleeding-­horse-­racing Ross, D. (2019, August 2). “The sport is at a tipping point”: Inside US horse racing’s deadly crisis. The Guardian. Retrieved October 13, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/aug/02/the-­sport-­is-­at-­a-­tipping­point-­inside-­us-­horse-­racings-­deadly-­crisis Rouse, P. (2015). Sport and Ireland—A history. Oxford University Press. Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare. (1990). Interim report on the racing industry. The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare. (1991). Aspects of animal welfare in the racing industry. The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. https://par-

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‘Dishing Out the Pain’ in Professional Cycling Peter Bramham

The health benefits of regular recreational cycling have been known for some time. Robust empirical evidence from various studies has been well documented in diverse cycling, sports science and medical journals. There are many interested parties in the commercial, public and voluntary sectors that celebrate cycling as an important lifestyle choice for securing long-term health and well-being amongst all age groups. However, as with any physical recreation or exercise, individuals can and frequently do injure themselves. All cyclists run the risk of sustained damage to feet, knees, lower backs, hands and wrists. Death and accidents are caused by road potholes, gravelly and slippery surfaces in addition to unavoidable collisions with vehicles, other road users and pedestrians. Damage to the head and neck generates real concerns about avoiding concussion, memory loss and paraplegia. In the UK, Europe and further afield there have been and remain fiercely contested safety debates about national legislation to enforce the compulsory wearing of helmets, protective and reflective clothing and equipment as well as appropriate day- and night-time lights when individuals and groups are out cycling on public roads. This chapter argues that the equation between risk and health is substantially altered for elite professional cyclists. The minimal risks to mental health and physical well-being for everyday cyclists far outweigh the benefits of exercise. However, it should come as no surprise that individuals who live at the

P. Bramham (*) Leeds, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_14

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zenith of any sports pyramid inevitably face greater risks of injury than lower-­ level participants and performers. It should be added that the physical and mental damage experienced by elite professional cyclists throughout their sporting careers are of a different order and character from those that may be experienced in other sporting arenas.

Liminality and ‘Crossing the Line’ For professional elite cyclists la vie quotidienne is shaped by the rigours of the sporting calendar. The road racing calendar bears no relation to the normal calendar. … October is the month for any holidays, November and December are the months for winter training and conditioning; serious racing now starts in January, rather than the month of March as used to occur in earlier decades. Shane Sutton, the lead coach and performance director for GB cycling from 2014 to 2018, has suggested that cyclists cannot ‘over train’, but only ‘under rest’; however, emotional pain lasts longer than physical depletion, especially when you are expected to perform or win in competitions. In post-war years success for road race cyclists demanded living in Europe, gaining a professional contract by joining a continental team and acquiring familiarity and acceptance when riding within a French-speaking peloton.1 France, Italy and Belgium are the three European countries with the longest history of road-racing pedigree. However, since the mid-1970s there has been an increase in English-speaking, Scandinavian and South American riders (Watson, 1989, p.  7). Biographies2 of iconic, uniquely successful British cyclists such as Tommy Simpson, Robert Millar and David Millar are replete with tensions: the struggle to assimilate and be fully accepted in ‘foreign’ teams and by team sports directeurs, with their distinctive and disparate attitudes towards diet, training, cycling etiquette and drug use. Many UK cyclists have attempted this career move and consequent relocation and failed. Once abroad, the rigorous daily regimes of diet, training and recovery shape the cyclist. Like professional jockeys, professional cyclists worry constantly about their weight, as well as their fitness levels, routines, training programmes and the somatic challenge of transforming their body weight and shape to meet

 Pack of riders.  See, for example Fotheringham, William (2002) put me back on my bike In search of TOM SIMPSON. London: Yellow Jersey Press. Millar David (in collaboration with Jeremy Whittle) (2011) Racing Through the Dark. London: Orion Books. Moore, Richard (2007) In Search of Robert Miller. London: Harper Sport. 1 2

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the different and recurring demands of track cycling, road racing and time trialling. The regimen for elite professional cycling comes spiked with significant costs, not simply the psychological and physical damage which professional cycle racing may involve but also the ethical dilemmas embedded in the ever-­ shifting morality of the peloton. Those involved in the world of professional cycling are well versed in the moral dilemmas of liminality, the constant pressure to rub against and challenge the regulative boundaries of ensuring ‘a level playing field’ in the competition. The most wealthy and successful team in cycling in the past decade, Team Sky under the leadership of Sir David Brailsford, constantly sought ‘marginal gains’. Driven by hard data collected daily by sports scientists, innovations in cycle and clothing designs, psychological counselling, programmed training regimes and diets were introduced tested and tested again. Professional cyclists are constantly working at the margins, pushing or being pushed against ethical boundaries to ensure success. For sports journalists, such existential dilemmas are simply reduced to the question of whether the cyclist chooses to be ‘clean’, that is, free from drugs or not. In the 1990s the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs by professional cyclists, endorsed, organised and funded by cycling teams, was accepted as the reliable means to stay competitive in races. EPO3 was such a ubiquitous drug because cycling authorities had yet to develop a reliable test to determine its presence in blood samples. Teams could legitimately point to the evidence that their cyclists had never failed blood tests and neutralised suspicions by claiming that they ‘never cross the line’. This appeal to legitimacy is never far away, and the furore that engulfed Team Sky (that had branded itself as a team that was fiercely ‘drug free’) with its controversial use of therapeutic use exemption certificates (TUEs) highlights the grey areas of what is acceptable in medical ethics. Physical damage is a sine qua non in the lives of elite professionals. The palmares of all cycling celebrities are peppered with life-threatening crashes, long-term surgery for injuries, chequered medical histories of drug use and injustices metered out by race directors, trainers and coaches and even fellow team members … sprinters in particular have sharp elbows with no slight forgiven and no grudge forgotten. The subculture in the peloton of professional riders is an engaged discourse with hyper-masculinity, pain and its management and just distribution. According to Lance Armstrong ‘Because suffering is what bike racing is really about’ (Armstrong & Kreutz, 2009,  Blood doping involving erythropoietin (EPO), a hormone produced by the kidney that promotes the formation of red blood cells by the bone marrow. 3

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introduction). Needless to say professional elite women cyclists experience both the corrosive hyper-masculinity of the sport and everyday taken-for-­ granted patriarchy of male institutions in their cycling and everyday lives. Many elite women cyclists are questioning and challenging the status quo, such as Jess Varnish with her recent, although unsuccessful, tribunal against British Cycling for her elimination from the Olympics squad and funding.4 Elite women cyclists such as Laura Trott and Lizzie Deighton voice the insecurities in both their private and public lives in returning to racing after the birth of children and the domestic concerns of child care.

Painful Choices This chapter has as its focus elite road racing but of course some journalists and most critics are keen to stress that individuals freely choose cycling as a sport; moreover they choose which particular cycling disciplines and challenges to which they dedicate their lives and future lifestyles. In short, they opt for which kind of pain and suffering they are prepared to endure whether on the road, cyclo-cross, mountain biking, on the track or the gratuitously extreme challenge of ultra-events such as transatlantic competitions or world records at various distances. Individuals select the distinctive pain thresholds they wish to endure. Sir Chris Hoy, when he stepped away from his successful youth career in BMX racing (after a brief struggle with mountain biking), chose to race on the track in velodromes because he could endure the pain of training and racing but also unsurprisingly because he was good at it. The opening sentence of Tyler Hamilton’s book The Secret Race is ‘I am good at pain’. Indeed, he built up his reputation in cycling as a rider who is good at ‘digging in’, ‘an expression used when you watch a rider keep going long after they’ve hit the wall of exhaustion, of pain’ (O’Reilly, 2015, p. 26). Tyler Hamilton’s career with the ill-fated US Postal Team, led by Lance Armstrong, provides the perfect case study of the physical and mental damage that may confront an elite rider with a moral compass. Whereas the team leader was prepared to ‘cheat and cheat all the way’ for Tyler Hamilton the dialectic between winning and cheating was personally corrosive. Initially he was given testosterone in a red pill for ‘health reasons’ by his team doctor Pedro Celaya. Later he rationalised ‘crossing the line’ into cheating. At the time, he  The tribunal in January 2019 ruled that Varnish had not been an employee of British Cycling at the time of her exclusion in 2016. It ruled instead that she had been the recipient of a grant—£25,000 a year tax-­ free, without benefits such as holidays, sick pay or pensions. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/ cycling/46890146 Posted 17th January 2019; access 15th November 2019. 4

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acknowledged that he felt that drug taking was a ‘badge of honour’ from his cycling team and team sponsors as it signified that he was deemed good enough to win. But later, tormented by his childhood family demands for honesty at all costs and chastened after complicated blood transfusions administered in Spain, he was ‘more worried about getting caught than winning’.5 He proved eventually to be cast as a key witness during the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) investigation into Armstrong’s drug use but prior to that he himself was suspended for two years in 2004 for a failed blood test. Someone else’s blood was in his sample tested. He suffered economic bankruptcy, health problems with blood transfusions, two divorces, alcohol dependency and problems with depression and self-hatred. The biographies of cycling legends are replete with the strategies they devised to cope with pain and its management and mismanagement. Pain and suffering are the sine qua non of the individual time trial, of racing ‘contre la montre’ or of the ‘race of truth’. In 2015 the Australian ex-professional road racer and Olympic track medallist Jack Bobridge attempted to set a new world record for distance cycled in one-hour races and finished 500 metres short in total exhaustion. Afterwards he said it felt like ‘the closest you could come to death without actually dying’6. He retired from cycling aged 27  years with rheumatoid arthritis. Jens Voigt previously broke the world hour record in September 2014, riding 51.110 km. He was notorious for riding aggressively, frequently on the attack in breakaways and dealing in pain to put and leave others ‘in the red’. His survival strategy was to put mind over body by dividing the race into 20 minute sections with his moniker instruction (learnt from a tough childhood in communist East Germany) … for his legs to shut up and carry on cycling and suffering. The key to successful racing, whether on the velodrome track, in city-centre criterium races, during the classics (one day ‘Monuments’) or Grand Tours in France, Italy and Spain, is to take risks, to ride ‘at limit’ or ‘on the rivet’ so as to inflict damage or to ‘hammer’ other teams and individual riders in order to leave them ‘popped’. It is essential to avoid ‘The Suck’, a term in cycling argot to describe the ignominy suffered by the weak and exhausted who find themselves forced to drop out of the back of the peloton and left to ride to end of the race alone, without the protection of the peloton and safety of ‘catching a wheel’ and so draft behind others out of the wind. The taken-for-granted bedrock assumption in elite cycling is that all riders must and will push their  See Tyler Hamilton. The truth about Doping in Cycling. Talk to the Oxford Union October 2016. YouTube accessed, 30 October 2019. 6  See Patrick Jennings Cycling & suffering—a special relationship. BBC Sport 20 February 2019 https:// www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/47278392, accessed 20 September 2019. 5

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bodies towards the edge of exhaustion until some ‘crack’ or ‘their legs have gone’ and ignominiously they ‘start going backwards’. Because of the division of labour within cycling teams, this may happen to riders at any time during the race, leaving the exhausted to struggle to finish and avoid losing precious time and thereby avoid the misery of time elimination or not of finishing the stage. Certainly at the end of any racing format, particularly time trialling, media commentators, usually ex-professionals themselves, talk about riders ‘emptying the tank’ and leaving it ‘all out there’. The immediate recovery from physical and mental exhaustion of hours of competitive riding is further compromised in the invasive media scrum of TV cameras, photographers and reporters at the finish.

Coping with Tragedy and Injury The unremitting physical pain and damage to elite professional cyclists are hardly newsworthy for the media. However, sudden deaths in races, such as Belgian cyclist Bjorg Lambrecht dying at the age of 22 following a crash during stage 3 of the Tour de Pologne,7 are headline stories as are the several substantial life-changing injuries to celebrities. Tom Simpson who collapsed and died on Mont Ventoux in the 1967 Tour de France (TdF) is one of the enduring legends of cycling as it signifies the compulsive suffering and total exhaustion of elite cyclists as well as carrying the mandatory injunction against consuming amphetamines (which were widespread use in the TdF peloton at the time). As William Fotheringham (2002, pp.  180–190) points out, Simpson’s death was caused by hypothermia or heat stroke rather than down to the simple explanation of drug abuse. The more recent death of Kelly Catlin carries all the typical ingredients of cycling news: a young track star, three times world champion and Olympic silver medallist; a graduate in mathematics and Chinese and was at Stanford University studying computational and mathematical engineering, who took her own life in March 2019. The psychological and physical damage of elite cycling career was readily acknowledged by her family and not least by herself. Writing a fortnight earlier, she emphasised the stress of being a pro road racer, track cyclist and graduate student at university as similar to ‘juggling knives’.8 She attempted  See Bjorg Lambrecht: Belgian cyclist has died following a crash during stage three of the Tour de Pologne. BBC Sport 05 August 2019. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/49243277, accessed 30 September 2019. 8  Kelly Catlin: Three-time world track champion dies aged 23, BBC Sport website, https://www.bbc.co.uk/ sport/cycling/47518643, accessed 20 September 2019. 7

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to kill herself in January before her death in March. Talking to the Washington Post her father Mark Catlin blamed two cycling accidents: in October she broke her arm and in December she crashed and suffered concussion: For her, she could no longer concentrate on her studies or train as hard. She couldn’t fulfil what she felt were her obligations to herself, she couldn’t live up to her own standards.9

Many cyclists rail against the ‘demons in their heads’ when in training and competitions. Geraint Thomas (2015, p. 278) states clearly that: cycling is about hard work and pain. You push yourself to dark corners of the mind, where, in the words of Muhammad Ali, crocodiles roam.

Victoria Pendleton bravely examines her youthful capacity to self-­harm when training in Aigle Switzerland at the ICU’s sprint academy led by Frédéric Magné … her cutting was concealed by long sleeved lycra whilst at the camp and was achieved secretly and perversely with a Swiss army knife blade. The physical damage in the lives of professional cyclists is manifest in track cycling in an indoor velodrome which acts as a goldfish bowl in which the moral, physical and mental pressures on individuals can be played out. Increasingly popular media coverage and online streaming result in total exposure as horrendous crashes, injuries and misdemeanours become cathartic public spectacles. Some tracks are more dangerous than others and open air/outdoor tracks such as Meadowbank in Glasgow have witnessed substantial and life-threatening injuries as happened to the Englishman Jason Queally, later a gold medallist in the Sydney Olympics of 2000, when completing the Meadowbank Mile in 1996. A large splinter of wooden track (18″ long and 1½″ wide) entered his back when coming off the bike requiring 72 stitches.10 A similar catastrophe which was broadcast live on BBC and later social media befell the Malaysian cyclist, Azizul Hasni Awang, as a 20 cm wooden splinter skewered his calf as he went on to complete the kierin in the World Cup Championship in Manchester 2011. Accidents can happen but they can sometimes be made to happen by individual cyclists who build fearsome reputations on their prowess for physical intimidation, premeditated bullying and inflicting damage on opponents. Specialists in Classic road races tend to  Kelly Catlin dies aged 23: ‘She was not the Kelly we knew’ says father. BBC Sport website, https://www. bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/47531602, accessed 20 September 2019 10  See Sir Chris Hoy’s account of the incident in Richard Moore Heroes, Villains & Velodromes, 2008, pp. 77–79. London: Harper Sport. 9

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be aggressive riders whereas individuals contesting General Classification success focus upon damage limitation. People get careless with the tension of racing and become, in David Millar’s (2015, p. 27) argot, ‘crashtastic’.This is most visible in velodromes in one-on-one sprint competitions. On occasion Australian Anna Meares left fellow competitors, especially Victoria Pendleton, to crash. There is a moral question here as Pendleton accused Meares of cheating to win sprints as ‘she pushes the rules’ (Pendleton, 2012, p. 294) whereas Meares sometimes apologised after a race incident such as an elbow, the barge, the twitch of a wheel, straying from the line claiming that were all innocent and unintentional. Physical harm to road race cyclists is more likely given the lengthy duration of races, different and challenging terrains and changing climatic challenges. Professional cyclists, particularly sprinters, have their own ideas about who and what causes crashes in the sprinting for the finish line. David Millar (2015, pp.  87–91) draws on ten years’ experience to outline his theory of crashes. He lists six main factors: mechanical malfunctions; slippery surfaces; contact with other riders leading to loss of control; an individual rider taking risks and losing control or grip; loss of concentration, leading to distraction and loss of control; and close proximity to anyone going through the above five. Although slippery road surfaces are the main cause, Millar points out (2015, p. 82): One of the strangest things about crashing with professionals is the fact that they never scream or shout. All we hear are the machinations of the crash; the racers don’t make any noise until they know it’s over. Total silence.

The physical and mental trauma of serious ‘race incidents’ are obvious and lasting. After crashing, professional cyclists experience and acknowledge the fear of cycling under similar circumstances, specific races and particular race conditions. Psychologically it is hard to regain and recover former confidence in taken-for-granted technical skills when descending, braking and cornering. Racing a bike is no easy task: 0.75 kilos of person, 4/5 foot off the ground on 3 square inches of rubber at speeds of up to 70 kilometres an hour. What could possibly go wrong? When accidents happen there can be substantial damage to the body. A myriad of seemingly chance factors come together un-fortuitously. Chris Froome hit a wall at 54 km/h, fracturing femur, elbow and ribs, resulting in a punctured lung when his Team Ineos were reconnoitring stage 4 of the

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Criterium du Dauphine in June 2019.11 Froome had already been warned by a team member ‘not to take risks’ in the very windy conditions prior to the crash when he had both hands off the bike while putting on his rain jacket. He did again later to blow his nose … just bad luck? … however, time trial bikes are not known for stability because of their full carbon wheel discs catching the wind. His team mate in the successful Team Sky, Geraint Thomas (2015, p. 233), ruptured his spleen in 2005, broke his nose and scaphoid12 in 2009 going over a ravine in the Tirreno-Adriatico and then started and amazingly completed the Tour de France in 2013, whilst suffering from a pelvic fracture after a serious crash. The best sort of crashes are when you are down quickly, although you may be travelling very fast; the worst sort of crashes are when you do not slide … the skeleton crumbles and internal organs crash against muscle and cartilage. But sliding is bad too with the telling and vibrant stigma of road rash, the lurid slight of torn lycra, blood and shredded skin. The intensity of cycling is such that injuries are miraculously treated by medics hanging out the windows of speeding team cars. Unlike in other sports there is no injury time awarded or ‘time outs’ to permit the treatment of injured athletes. The only concession is for the injured cyclists to spend some limited time with the shelter of team cars in their attempt to rejoin the peloton ahead. Fatigued riders can and do hang on to speeding cars or feign technical adjustments (referred as the ‘magic spanner’13) or domestiques taking more than 1–2 seconds when collecting bidons (referred to as ‘sticky bottles’) from team cars. But the peloton often suffers collectively when the weather is bad, especially in very windy conditions as the pelotons has stretch out in echelon formation in order to draft in along the line to avoid the head wind. But accidents do happen sometimes which are caused by race organisers, team cars, motor cyclists carrying photographers or, not least, by crowds of spectators. For example, in the Liège-Bastogne-Liège race in 1988, bad communication meant that a local race commissaire failed to position a roadside marshal on the descent into Houffalize … the entire 200-man bunch, speeding at 70kph … ploughed into a stretch of road under repair by workmen More than fifty riders fell, many suffering serious leg injuries. Watson (1989, pp. 55–56)

Dani King has just retired from competitive cycling but not before sustaining serious injuries in 2014 when she suffered five broken ribs and a collapsed 11  https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jun/12/chris-froome-doubt-tour-de-france-crash-­ criterium-­hospital-injured?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other, accessed 21 September 2019. 12  Small bone in the wrist. 13  See Carlton Kirby with Robbie Broughton (2019) Magic Spanner. London: Bloomsbury Sport.

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lung after a crash on a training ride caused by a hidden pothole.14 It has taken three years for Victoria Williamson to return to the GB team of track cycling. Three years ago, there were fears that British cyclist Williamson might never walk again after she broke her neck, back and pelvis in a horror crash. She was racing at the 2016 Rotterdam Six Day event, but she remembers nothing of the omnium final, where she collided—in dramatic fashion—with home-­ favourite Elis Ligtlee. Williamson had numerous fractures and dislocations, with skin torn open and suffering a deep cut that exposed her spine; one injury was 2 mm from her spinal cord itself. She was dosed up on Fentanyl, a drug 100 times stronger than morphine; her first question after regaining consciousness in hospital was ‘Did I win?’15 The list of damaged cyclist-athletes is endless as there are few professional cycling careers that are injury-free; only a handful can claim not to have experienced a dislocated or fractured collar bone, or collateral damage to their wrists, arms, ankles or feet. There have been many urban myths and moral panics surrounding possible damage to male genitalia, including the onset of cancer. Manufacturers of saddles produce a myriad of products which claim efficacy in dissolving the pressure on the sternum. However, more recently, the sport has shown some concern with short- and long-term physical damage inflicted on women’s genitalia by inappropriate masculine saddle designs. The Para-Olympic cyclist Hannah Dines assumed that ‘vulva pain and swelling was the sacrifice one had to endure as an elite cyclist’.16 After five years of pain, surgery has improved matters but she has demanded more research be done. On the plus side, the very high levels of fitness of elite athletes shorten recovery time from substantial injuries; cyclists are back out on their bikes much earlier than predicted by medical practitioners such as surgeons, consultants, physiotherapists and doctors.

 https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/dani-king-injured-pothole-crash-wales143462#MjRxzWJtBQc6pQjB.9, accessed 21 September 2019. 15  Nick Hope Track Cycling World Championships: Victoria Williamson set to return after a crash. BBC sport website, 26 February 2019, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/47359093, accessed 21 September 2019. 16  Paralympic cycling: Hannah Dines on surgery after saddle injury. BBC Disability Sport web page, https:// www.bbc.co.uk/sport/disability-sport/47718629 14

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‘Magic Spanners’ and Soigneurs17 If successful male and female cyclists are those that can suffer, who are drawn to pain in order to inflict damage on competitors, then they are surrounded by a myriad of others who help to normalise the mental and physical pain which is the bedrock of this endurance sport. There is a strict hierarchy of roles and expertise which is there to provide coping strategies to manage pain and avoid injuries. There are pinch points in racing that heighten the possibility of crashes and injury. Left to their own devices, most riders are capable of riding themselves to exhaustion. As in politics, cycling is grounded in power. Whereas politicians may seek to hold onto power at all costs, cyclists must consume all their own power in order to deplete the potential of others and make them ‘enter into the red’. When writing about the causes of juvenile delinquency, American sociologist David Matza (1964) challenged traditional criminological theories that held that criminal activity was produced and determined by biological, psychological or social causes. Matza argued that young people drift into delinquency because they develop ‘techniques of neutralisation’ which dilute the normal ties of morality and legality. Similarly, during their cycling careers, individuals develop different techniques and coping strategies to neutralise the pain of racing, suffering and self-harm. The morality and culture of teams in the peloton mediate the individual’s exposure to risk, injury and exhaustion. There is a code of silence (or omerta) among elite cyclists about doping and other misdemeanours which neutralise deviance from rules and regulations. Cyclist usually do as they are told by directeurs sportifs, soigneurs, physiotherapists, sports psychologists and team doctors. Some are more vulnerable than others. The division of labour in cycling teams, dictated by the directeurs sportifs and team road captains, demand that ‘domestiques’18 take on all the hard work to protect leading general classification riders and sprinters. It is beyond the scope of this chapter but one prevalent pain relief strategy in cycling is the use and abuse of drugs. In the 1990s few professional cyclists were racing ‘clean’ and David Millar’s (2011) personal testimony has documented how individuals were encouraged to use drugs, blood transfusions and the like if they intended to be competitive or ‘race properly’. Cyclists who were clean were acknowledged in the peloton as being on ‘bread and water’ or

17 18

 Trainers, masseurs/masseuses and similar assistants.  Riders who ride for the benefit of the team, rather than to try to win the race.

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in Spanish ‘pan y aqua’. We have argued elsewhere19 about the pressures on and by Lance Armstrong on others to use drugs. The peloton developed a repertoire of ‘vocabularies of motive’20 offering techniques of neutralisation to permit persistent drug use. Indeed the notorious Michele Ferrari, as a medical doctor, claimed that his ‘total’ training regimes, including the incessant monitoring of data related to cycling output, blood transfusions and drug use, were developed with the sole purpose of enabling athletes cope with pain and suffering in cycling.

Personal Troubles and Public Issues The politics of professional cycling and ‘the duty of care’ incumbent upon commercially funded teams are problematic and under scrutiny by government, international and national governing bodies and, last but not least, by various mass and social media outlets. Global corporations, sponsoring cycling teams, want value for money and media exposure and consequently invest heavily in employing cyclists, trainers and sports scientists to secure success. The complexity and lack of transparency about cycling and normalised ‘medicalised’ drug use has been recently highlighted in moral panics around Team Sky, Great Britain Cycling and the use of TUEs (therapeutic use exemption certificates) in relation to Sir Bradley Wiggins in 2011 and 2012. The ongoing investigation into Dr Richard Freedman and his alleged ordering of 30 doses of testosterone (Testogel) for the National Cycling Centre in Manchester highlights the complicated networks of pressure and lackadaisical procedures surrounding the care of athletes. Reputations and livelihoods can be shredded in media witch hunts by government committees and legal court cases. Drug use in cycling has a long history but the long-term physical and psychological damage to individuals and their families cannot be underestimated when subject to media exposure. Most people have heard of Tommy Simpson, Marco Pantani, Lance Armstrong, Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis but less of the damage to their partners, families and soigneurs. As the term signifies, cycling teams are heavily dependent on these people to cater for their physical needs when racing. It is also abundantly clear from cycling biographies of successful riders such as Victoria Pendleton, Geraint Thomas, Mark Cavendish  Bramham, Peter and Wagg, Stephen. (2021) Beautiful Lies and Ugly Truths: The Sports Press and the Public Disgrace of Lance Armstrong. In Rob Steen, Jed Novick and Huw Richards (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Sports Journalism. Forthcoming in 2020. 20  See C. Wright Mills ‘Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive’ American Sociological Review Vol. 5, No. 6 December, 1940 pp. 904–913. 19

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and David Millar that soigneurs provide immense psychological support as well as organising every detail of travel, accommodation and dietary needs during race events. Emma O’Reilly was the soigneur for US Postal in the late 1990s and subsequently provided significant evidence to help the Irish journalist David Walsh to expose Lance Armstrong’s drug use in his several Tour de France wins. Her book testifies to the untold damage to herself, her partner and her family during the media controversy of claims and counterclaims.21 She was an isolated female whistle-blower in a world of male cyclists and male soigneurs, mechanics and business sponsors. Unsurprisingly, given the masculine ‘hierarchies of credibility’ her truthful testimony was devalued and dismissed by Lance Armstrong as that of an ‘alcoholic whore’. Despite this hurtful treatment in person and sustained trolling through social media of financial and legal persecution, she eventually chose to be reconciled in a public meeting with Armstrong and she forgave him. It was a media event. The hyper-masculinity embedded in cycling’s subculture has initially blocked and subsequently shaped the emergence of professional women’s cycling, its development, tour itineraries and media exposure. Women’s cycling has only recently become fully professional, and there has been a lack of sponsorship and high-profile races and media coverage. Women cyclists have to deal with the same pain and career threatening injuries as their male counterparts. Indeed, the most glaring and recent tragedy befell Kristina Vogel in June 2018 when crashing into a Dutch junior cyclist practising standing starts when training in Cottbus velodrome in Germany. She is now paralysed and confined to a wheel chair and entering politics. Despite being the most successful female sprinter in the world her economic future was, at that time, completely insecure leaving a fellow German cyclist, Maximilian Levy, to set up a trust on social media to secure her recovery. In the UK Victoria Pendleton had to negotiate a feminised identity and legitimate space in a male-dominated training culture with the double burden of misogynist coaching styles. Her later career was nearly compromised by developing a relationship with one of the sports scientist in the Manchester Velodrome, whom she later married and divorced. The central argument of this chapter has focused predominantly on the pain and suffering that male professional riders must confront in their everyday routines of training and racing. Female athletes suffer a double burden when working in the misogynist and toxic hyper-masculine world of professional endurance road cycling. The life blood of the sport is the capacity to  See O’Reilly, Emma with Shannon Kyle, 2015 The Race to the Truth. Blowing the whistle on Lance Armstrong and cycling’s doping culture. London: Corgi Books. 21

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endure pain. There are fragile networks of support to mediate the mental and physical damage that may ensue. Such immanent challenges are immense throughout cycling careers and all riders must live within what some sociologists designate as a ‘risk society’.22 Of course there are various support networks built into cycling regimes that help individuals cope with the distinctive and corrosive risks involved. For professional cyclists, a watershed came in 1998 when risk was profoundly individualised. Cycling teams and soigneurs, whose primary function was to support and care for riders, suddenly had one of their major palliatives outlawed. The onus then fell on the individual riders to manage their own salvation. At the start of the 1998 Tour de France (named ‘The Tour of Shame’), Willy Voet, a well-respected head soigneur for Festina and for their lead rider Richard Virenque, was ‘found with 234 doses of EPO, 82 vials of human growth hormones and 160 capsules of testosterone whilst crossing the border between Belgium and France near Lille’ (O’Reilly 2015, p. 84). From that day on individual riders had to make their own arrangements for access to drugs for competition whereas previously team sponsors and their organisation had provided the white musettes which were allocated to riders who were not clean. In future the individual rider no longer had the rock-­ solid assurance that the team was funding and taking care of this aspect of professional racing. Traditional collective ‘techniques of neutralisation’ were dissolved. Individuals had to confront the morality of ‘crossing the line’ and cheating alone. Many were abandoned by their support networks and simply ‘hung out to dry’.

References Armstrong, L., & Kreutz, E. (2009). My comeback: Up close and personal. Yellow Jersey Press. Beck, U. (1992). Risk Society. Sage. Bramham, P., & Wagg, S. (2021). Beautiful lies and ugly truths: The sports press and the public disgrace of lance Armstrong. In R. Steen, J. Novick, & H. Richards (Eds.), Routledge handbook of sports journalism. Routledge. Fotheringham, W. (2002). Put me back on my bike in search of Tommy Simpson. Yellow Jersey Press. Hamilton, T. (2016, December 18). The truth about doping in cycling. Talk to the Oxford UnionR. Retrieved October 30, 2019, from YouTube.

 See Beck, Ulrich. (1992) Risk Society. London: Sage.

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Jennings, P. (2019, February 20). Cycling & suffering—A special relationship. BBC Sport. Retrieved September 20, 2019, from https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/ cycling/47278392 Kirby, Carlton with Robbie Broughton. (2019). Magic spanner. Bloomsbury Sport. Matza, D. (1964). Delinquency and drift. John Willey & Sons. Millar, D. (2015). The racer. Life on the road as a pro cyclist. Yellow Jersey Press. Millar David (in collaboration with Jeremy Whittle). (2011). Racing through the dark. Orion Books. Moore, R. (2007). In search of Robert miller. Harper Sport. Moore, R. (2008). Heroes, Villains & Velodromes. Harper Sport. Nick Hope Track Cycling World Championships: Victoria Williamson set to return after a crash. (2019, February 26). BBC sport website. Retrieved September 20, 2019, from https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/47359093 O’Reilly, Emma with Shannon Kyle. (2015). The race to the truth. Blowing the whistle on lance Armstrong and cycling’s doping culture. Corgi Books. Paralympic cycling: Hannah Dines on surgery after saddle injury. (2019, March 27). BBC Disability Sport web page. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/disabilitysport/47718629 Pendleton, Victoria with Donald McRae. (2012). Between the lines. The autobiography. Harper Sport. Thomas, Geraint (with Tom Fordyce). (2015). The world of cycling according to G. Quercus. Watson, G. (1989). Visions of cycling. Springfield Books.

It Was Ironic that He Should Die in Bed: Injury, Death and the Politics of Safety in the History of Motor Racing Stephen Wagg

F ive Minutes After the Second Car Was Built: Danger and Early Motor Racing Motor car manufacturer Henry Ford is reputed to have said that motor racing began ‘five minutes after the second car was built’.1 This, of course, is hyperbole, but it’s true nevertheless that the early decades of the motor car were characterised by the growth of (often lethal) competition. While much pioneering motor technology took place in Germany, most motor racing around the turn of the twentieth century was staged in France or Italy: France, it has been suggested, had many straight roads and Italy was the last country to restrict racing on public highways—it was banned, for example, in Germany and the United Kingdom.2 These races in the first instance were conducted on public roads and over long distances, usually between cities: the Paris Rouen race of 1894 was among the first. These races were fraught with danger and often resulted in numerous fatalities—the Paris-Madrid race of 1903, for instance, is widely described as the ‘Race of Death’: eight people (five racers  https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/463800461596553855/ Access: 1st October 2019.  See Richard Williams Enzo Ferrari: A Life London: Yellow Jersey Press 2002 pp. 38–39; Russell Hotten Formula One: The Business of Winning London: Orion Publishing 1998 p. 4.

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and three spectators) were killed.3 In Italy the Targa Floria, a race through the mountains of Sicily, was inaugurated in 1906 and the equally prestigious, thousand mile, Mille Miglia in 1927; it was eleven years later, following the deaths of ten people (including seven children) in the Mille Miglia, that the Italian government called a halt to open road racing.4 Meanwhile, purpose-­ built circuits began to appear, the first being Brooklands in Surrey (UK) in 1907. Drivers of the early motor racing cars were drawn heavily from the higher echelons of western European and American society and related in diverse ways to the prospect of danger and death. Many were European noblemen, such as the Florentine aristocrat Prince Scipione Borghese, an adventurer who won the first Beijing to Paris race in 1907,5 or Giulio Masetti, who dominated the Targa Floria in the early 1920s and died in the Targa Floria of 1927. Many such men were fascinated by speed and the possibilities of the motor car and had invested commercially in these possibilities: French nobleman Jules-­ Albert de Dion, for instance, won the first Paris to Rouen race in 1894 and later formed one of the pioneer automobile companies. English racing driver and car importer Charles Jarrott, who raced between 1900 and 1904, expressed the ethos and early dominance of the ‘gentleman racer’: ‘Obviously the competitive element existed between the various manufacturers of cars taking part; they entered a race in the hope that they would […] beat their rivals; but the general idea underlying the whole event was the desire to prove to the world that motor cars would go, and that they were capable of travelling long distances in a reliable and speedy manner. Dozens of [the drivers] were independent, racing their own cars [and] were so enamoured of the sport as a sport, as to make the mere question of money subservient to the keen desire to drive a racing-car and to race.’6 This keen desire combined with the fallibility of new, work-in-progress technology to enhance the likelihood of injury or death—to drivers and to curious watchers at the roadside. In time, however, the industrialisation of car production and the growth of motor racing as a showcase for different brands of vehicle widened the net of recruitment to the driving seats of racing cars. The biographies of the leading racing drivers of the 1920s and 1930s seem to reveal a growing number from working or lower middle-class families. Many—the Americans Barney  https://www.caotica.com/the-race-of-death-paris-madrid-road-race-1903/ Access 2nd October 2019.  Williams Enzo Ferrari p. 110. 5  See Luigi Barzini Peking To Paris: Across Two Continents in an Itala London: Penguin 1986. 6  Charles Jarrott Ten Years of Motors and Motor Racing London: E. Grant Richards 1906 p. 97. 3 4

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Oldfield (1878–1946) and Jimmy Murphy (1894–1924), Frenchman Robert Benoist (1895–1944), Swiss driver Christian Lautenschlager (1877–1954), Germany’s Christian Werner (1892–1932), August Momberger (1905–1969) and Hermann Lang (1909–1987), Italians Ugo Sivocci (1885–1923), Pietro Bordino (1887–1928) and Clemente Biondetti (1989–1955)—and others came to motor racing variously from comparatively humble beginnings via jobs as mechanics, engineers, test drivers or racing motor cyclists. They invariably drove what were effectively works cars, thus promoting particular models: in Italy, for instance, motor racing was established in the 1920s, supported notably by the leading car makers Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Bugatti.7 Such men were racing as a condition of their employment and sheered axles, failing gearboxes, skids and burst petrol tanks were the common coin of their working lives. Death and serious injury thus became occupational hazards for many drivers and they developed strategies for dealing with this. One, it seems, was fatalism. The Italian driver Alberto Ascari, for example, famously withheld affection from his children: ‘I prefer to treat them the hard way. I don’t want them to love me too much. Because they will suffer less if one of these days I am killed.’8 (Both Alberto Ascari and his father Antonio, also a racing driver, died in race crashes—Antonio in the French Grand Prix of 1925 and Alberto doing some practice laps at Monza in 1955.) Another acclaimed Italian racer Tazio Nuvolari showed similar sangfroid in, reputedly, never booking return tickets when travelling abroad to race.9 Accounts of the career of Nuvolari, who raced cars between 1930 and 1950, provide important insights into the ways in which the prospect of death or serious injury was handled in the culture of motor racing between the world wars. Nuvolari himself was among the first celebrities thrown up by this culture. As such he was marketed as a daredevil. However, New Zealand driver Thomas Cholmondeley-Tapper, who raced against Nuvolari, argued that this sort of publicity belied Nuvolari’s professionalism: ‘Nuvolari […] was often called in his own country the ‘Son of the Devil’—fearless—but from my acquaintance with him I found this catchphrase inaccurate. He would make no secret of his dislike of a particularly dangerous section of a course and, in spite of what appeared to be extremely abandoned driving, he did in fact know exactly what he was doing and possessed sound judgment and knowledge of his capabilities.’10 This professionalism, in the cases of Italy and  Williams Enzo Ferrari… p. 26.  Gerald Donaldson ‘Alberto Ascari’ https://www.formula1.com/en/drivers/hall-of-fame/Alberto_Ascari. html Access 3rd October 2019. 9  Christopher Hilton Nuvolari Derby, UK: Breedon Books 2003 p. 14. 10  Hilton Nuvolari p. 219. 7 8

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Germany, was often allied to a strident nationalism, blended in the 1930s with fascism. In both countries success at motor racing betokened a thriving automobile industry which in turn heightened international prestige. Of Nuvolari it was said: ‘it was only natural and human for Nuvolari to render a machine useless when assailed by a mass of rivals, and when it was a question of defending the national flag and prestige. If he risked his life with inferior means against the German’s massive offensive, he did it for these reasons. […] Again and again he had smashed his car or himself, in one race after another, because of his unflagging determination to overcome the tremendous advantage in power of the German machines’.11 When professionalism trumped patriotism and Nuvolari accepted an offer of better financial terms from the German team Auto Union, Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini interceded with Ferrari, Nuvolari’s previous Italian employers, to bring him back.12 Nuvolari incurred many injuries during his racing career and his biographers remark that it was ironic that he should die in his bed;13 his death, in 1953, seems nevertheless to have been occupationally related—he died of emphysema, brought on by the inhalation of petrol fumes.14 In Nazi Germany great political stress was laid upon the notion of death as an honourable outcome while racing for the fatherland. The Third Reich gave much financial support to the principal German car firms—Mercedes Benz, Auto Union and Porsche—and encouraged competition between them.15 They also saw the German motor racing teams, such as the Silver Arrows (which raced between 1934 and 1939), as important flagships for national regeneration. When leading German racing driver Bernd Rosemeyer, a member of Hitler’s paramilitary SS organisation, was killed attempting a land speed record in 1938, Hitler said: ‘For all of us it is painful to know that one of the very best and most courageous of those pioneers in the international recognition of German engines and vehicle manufacturing, Bernd Rosemeyer, had to lose his life so young [he was 29]. But he, and all the men who, in those tough races, sit at the wheel of our cars or ride our motorcycles, are fighting with us to give bread, wages and reward to the German working man.’16  Count Giovanni Lurani and Luigi Marinatto Nuvolari London: Cassell 1959 p. 153.  Ivan Rendall The Chequered Flag London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson p. 140. Nuvolari drove once for auto Union in the Swiss Grand Prix of 1938. 13  Lurani and Marinatto Nuvolari p. 201. 14  Adriano Cimarosti The Complete History of Grand Prix Motor Racing Croydon: Motor Racing Publications 1990 p. 137; Williams Enzo Ferrari p. 135. 15  Eberhard Reuss Hitler’s Motor Racing Battles: The Silver Arrows Under the Swastika Yeovil, UK: Haynes Publishing 2008 p. 67. 16  Reuss Hitler’s Motor Racing… p. 320. 11 12

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It seems fair to say that, while there was disquiet about the deaths caused by motor racing in the 1920s and 1930s, this disquiet was, first, on the whole not expressed by the drivers and, second, it was more likely to follow the deaths of spectators than of competitors. A section of the world’s third purpose-­built racing circuit at Monza, north of Milan, was abandoned after the death there of driver Emilio Materassi and 28 spectators in 1928 and, as we’ve seen, deaths of spectators provoked the banning of open road racing by the Italian government in 1938.

 oing What They Enjoyed? Body Count D and the Beginnings of a Safety Debate in Motor Racing in the 1950s and 1960s Formula 1 was inaugurated in 1950 and, for motor racing, the two decades that followed the Second World War are sometimes recalled as a golden age, a time ‘when sex was safe and racing was dangerous’.17 A picture is often painted of a social milieu in which daring young males defied death at the wheel and, if they survived, mostly spent their non-racing time as ‘playboys’ in the company of glamorous young females. As the headline of a recent article argued ‘Formula One drivers accepted the risks. This was the life they loved’,18 a rationalisation often heard at race meets in the post-1945 era. In other typical retrospections, David Hobbs, an ex-racing driver who had made his Formula 1 debut in 1969 is reputed to have talked in 2009 of how in his day ‘real men’19 raced at Spa, venue for the Belgian Grand Prix, at which fifteen drivers were killed between 1957 and 1969, and in 2013 Ferrari historian and writer John Lamm, reflected thus on the death of Count Wolfgang von Trips at Monza in 1961, in a crash that killed twelve spectators: ‘you have to understand that death in motor racing was not uncommon then. At the time,

 Blake Z. Rong ‘The Golden Age of F1 Was Also Its Deadliest’ https://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/news/a29613/the-golden-age-of-f1-was-also-its-deadliest/ Posted 18th June 2016; access 7th October 2019. 18  Colin Drury “Formula One drivers accepted the risks. This was the life they loved’: Italy, 1957’ The Guardian 3rd November 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/nov/03/1957-mille-miglia-­ ferrari-louise-king-peter-collins Access 7th October 2019. 19  Quoted in Thomas Macaulay Millar ‘When Men Were Men, And Burned To Death’ https:// yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/when-men-were-men-and-burned-to-death/ Posted 21st December 2009; access 7th October 2019. 17

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people were still used to people dying around Formula One, even spectators. Sounds weird, doesn’t it?’20 Accounts, however, suggest that politically the situation as regards death and injury in motor racing during the 1950s and 1960s was far more complex than this. Several factors were in play. First, while some drivers were live-for-the-day bon viveurs, others now embraced the same sober professionalism that had been perceptible before the war. For example, leading tyre technician David ‘Dunlop Mac’ MacDonald wrote of British driver Dick Seaman, who had died in the Belgian Grand Prix of 1939, ‘Seaman had more in common, probably, with our serious young post-war stars who have made Britain pre-eminent in racing than with the devil-may-care fellows of my early days at Brooklands’, citing Seaman’s ‘brilliant ability and close attention to detailed preparation for races’.21 (Seaman’s professionalism derived in part from his admiration for Nazi Germany and it extended to conceding, on his deathbed, that, at the time of his soon-to-be-­ fatal accident, he had been driving too fast for the conditions.22) Tony Brooks, who made his Formula 1 debut in 1956, spoke in similar terms of Stirling Moss: ‘Stirling was probably the first really professional driver. Behind the wheel I took it just as seriously as he did, but out of the car I wasn’t trying to be commercial, whereas Stirling was.’23 That would not, of course, mean that Moss and a rising generation of professionally minded racing drivers would lobby for greater safety—indeed Moss himself stated baldly in 1963 that the risks that drivers and spectators took were simply ‘their affair’ and, as with a number of his contemporaries, he opposed the use of safety belts24—but Moss, like other upcoming drivers, would nonetheless now be likely to have a thought-out position on the safety aspects of his work. Now drivers might see it as a test of their professionalism to deal with the prevailing hazards; equally, perhaps, they could see the hazards as an unacceptable barrier to the exercising of this professionalism. In a book of 1961, the Scottish driver Innes Ireland expressed himself broadly opposed to increased safety measures—‘I don’t go for the business of improving the safety of the track—the  ‘Back in Time: The Tragic Tale of ‘Count Crash’ (unattributed) https://flagsandwhistles.wordpress. com/2013/11/01/back-in-time-the-tragic-tale-of-count-crash/ Posted 1st November 2013; access 7th October 2019. 21  David MacDonald (‘Dunlop Mac’) and Adrian Ball Fifty Years with the Speed Kings London: Stanley Paul 1961 pp. 49–50. 22  See Jonathan Glancy ‘The master race’ Observer Sport Monthly 1st September 2002 https://www.theguardian.com/observer/osm/story/0,6903,782811,00.html Access 8th October 2019. 23  Bruce Jones Formula One: The Illustrated History London: Carlton Books 2015 p. 16. 24  Stirling Moss, face to face with Ken Purdy All But My Life London: Pan Books 1965 [First published London: William Kimber 1963] pp. 145. 20

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circuit—itself. If a circuit is there to be raced on, it’s there to be raced on, and, if it includes something a driver doesn’t like, such as a brick wall or a house, then he must learn to drive around it. I think one must put up with whatever a circuit presents and drive accordingly. In any case danger is part of the game.’ In the next breath however, Ireland admits that the circuits in the French city of Rheims and Cordoba, Argentina, have hazards that must be removed.25 It would, naturally, be more difficult for drivers concerned about safety to publish their concerns: this could damage their public image and their employability. These concerns were nevertheless expressed privately. The American Phil Hill, who began driving for Ferrari in 1959, was one who developed a more cautious philosophy: years later he recalled his inner conflict, on the one hand wanting ‘to race, to excel’ and, on the other, ‘wishing to stay alive and in one piece’.26 In the end, he had not, he reflected, been ‘gungho enough’, or prepared to die, for his ruthless employer Enzo Ferrari.27 Hill’s sensitivities were scorned by other drivers, such as the Briton Mike Hawthorn, who called him ‘Auntie’,28 masculinity being the predictable subtext to many of these discussions. Nevertheless, feeling about safety sometimes ran high enough for a particular track to be shunned: for example, in 1961, British racing teams boycotted Monza, known in Italy as the ‘Death Circuit’, because of its notorious high bank, over which cars had often careered, endangering spectators.29 But, in the late 1960s, drivers who questioned safety at race tracks could still get short shrift. Max Mosley, who began as a Formula 2 driver in 1966, recalled ‘When I suggested to any of the officials I encountered that the racing was unnecessarily dangerous, the response was always: “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, it’s entirely voluntary. And, if you think a corner is dangerous, slow down.”’30 The second factor which was now promising to change the politics of safety in motor racing was the labour market position of the drivers. This, historically, had been weak. As Moss pointed out, back in 1954, when bravery was thought to be the key ingredient to a successful driving career, Mercedes Benz had received 4000 applications to join their racing team.31 In these circumstances team bosses such as Alfred Neubauer (Mercedes Benz, 1926–1955)  Innes Ireland Motor Racing Today London: Arthur Barker 1961 pp. 124–126.  Michael Cannell The Limit: Life and Death in Formula One’s Most Dangerous Era London: Atlantic Books 2011 p. 144. 27  Williams Enzo Ferrari pp. 225–226. 28  Cannell The Limit pp. 143 and 130. 29  Cannell The Limit p. xiii. 30  Max Mosley Formula One and Beyond: The Autobiography London: Simon and Schuster 2015 p. 36. 31  Moss and Purdy All My Life p. 103. 25 26

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and Enzo Ferrari, who had founded the Scuderia team in 1929, had been hard taskmasters, largely because they controlled access to some of the best cars: indeed in 2004 of Ferrari his former mistress recalled ‘He never betrayed his cars. Other things, perhaps.’32 Increasingly, though, skill and professionalism—scarcer resources—were required. As Mike Hawthorn implied in 1964, an elite corps of drivers had become established on the Grand Prix circuit: there were now ‘only about twenty jobs going with the leading continental teams and nobody bothered to advertise them in the Situations Vacant columns’.33 Hawthorn, who had become Formula One World Champion in 1958, also declared himself to have been ‘caught out by the speed with which I had become an international celebrity’.34 Provenly successful celebrity drivers would, in time, be better able to dictate terms, on safety and other matters, to the racing teams and to the circuit proprietors, as the next few years would show. A third factor was body count, which was growing. Here there were some fatalities that could not escape the political attention of bodies outside of the sport. The most influential of these incidents was at the Le Mans 24 Hour race in 1955. A collision involving three cars resulted in the death of one driver and, according to recent estimates, around 130 spectators.35 The race was not stopped; indeed, during this period it was not customary to stop races in the event of fatalities. Universally recognised as the worst accident in motor racing history, the carnage at Le Mans in 1955 resulted in the banning of motor racing in several countries; in one—Switzerland—the ban still stands. The crash that marked the end of the Mille Miglia in 1957 featured a driver who embodied many of the early, devil-may-care myths that had surrounded motor racing. Alfonso de Portago was a Spanish aristocrat, athlete and playboy who had once said that racers lived in ‘a world that only a few understand’.36 In a typically flamboyant gesture, he had stopped his Ferrari during the race to kiss one of his current girlfriends, the Hollywood actress Linda Christian,  Richard Williams ‘Mistress of the maestro of Maranello’ The Guardian 23rd January 2004 https://www. theguardian.com/sport/2004/jan/23/formulaone.comment Access 7th October 2019. 33  Mike Hawthorn Challenge Me the Race London: Motoraces Book Club/William Kimber 1964. 34  Challenge Me… p. 104. 35  For accounts of the disaster, see Christopher Hilton Le Mans ’55: The Crash That Changed the Face of Motor Racing Derby: Breedon Books 2004; Mark Kahn Death Race: Le Mans 1955 London: Barrie and Jenkins 1976; Raphael Orlove ‘Just How Horrifying Was The Worst Crash In Motorsports, Le Mans ‘55?’ https://jalopnik.com/just-how-horrifying-was-the-worst-crash-in-motorsports-1589382023 Posted 14th June 2014; access 7th October 2019; David Greenhalgh ‘Le Mans 1955, A Lawyer’s View’ http://www. dailysportscar.com/2013/04/27/le-mans-1955-a-lawyers-view.html Posted 27th April 2013; access 7th October 2019. 36  Cannell The Limit p. 203. 32

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and had refused a tyre change. When the tyre in question subsequently burst, Portago’s vehicle had left the road, killing eleven people—nine onlookers (five of them children), Portago (whose body was cut in two) and his navigator, Edmund Nelson.37 Besides bringing the Mille Miglia to an end, the incident drew stern criticism from the Vatican38 and Enzo Ferrari was charged with manslaughter, a charge not dismissed until four years later.39 While these incidents did not necessarily lead to many structural changes to motor racing circuits, where safety concerns were still often being rebutted, they did heighten political concerns about the safety of the motor car as a means of transport. After all, a key raison d’etre of motor racing was to showcase motor cars for sale to the public and the implications of the catastrophe at Le Mans were clear. With over seventy people already confirmed dead the defiant headline on Autosport magazine’s principal report of the crash read ‘JAGUAR VICTORY AT LE MANS: British Cars Take 13 out of 21 Places’.40 The following week correspondents wrote to castigate Labour politician Jennie Lee for calling motor racing a ‘blood sport’41 and the week after that a further letter commiserated with Jaguar for ‘losing a great deal of publicity from a really great performance’.42 Mercedes Benz, who had ordered the immediate withdrawal of their drivers, removed their cars from Le Mans and questioned the continuation of the race, pulled out of motor racing and did not return until 1989. The greatest public concern over the motor car, however, was in the United States, where a political debate over the safety of the automobile itself took place in the mid-1960s. The writer A.J. Baime describes how Ford sales executive Lee Iacocca attended the Indianapolis 500 race of 1964 and grimaced at the sight of two drivers (Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald) being killed in cars with ‘Powered by Ford’ emblazoned on the side: the cars had ‘turned in to blazing coffins in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators’.43 The following year the campaigner Ralph Nader published a book called Unsafe at

 The best account of the incident is Cannell The Limit pp. 152–157.  See Hotten Formula One… p. 8. 39  See ‘One of the toughest moments in Enzo Ferrari’s life’ https://formula1.ferrari.com/en/happened-­ today-­07-27/ Access 8th October 2019. 40  Autosport 17th June 1955 p. 747. Mike Hawthorn, one of the drivers involved in the accident, had won the race in a Jaguar. 41  Autosport 24th June 1955 p. 802. The castigation came from Mr and Mrs Holden of Pinner, Middlesex. 42  Autosport 8th July 1955 p. 15 43  A.J. Baime Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans London: Bantam Books 2010 p. 153. 37 38

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Any Speed,44 condemning the automobile, and President Johnson declared a crisis on American highways. This brought anxious responses from Ford and Enzo Ferrari, who blamed accidents on careless driving, along with Senate hearings and an FBI investigation of Nader. With car sales falling in 1966 the US passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, compelling safety features in cars.45 Iacocca argued that such measures were a breach of Americans’ civil rights46 and is reputed to have told President Nixon in 1971 that ‘safety has really killed all of our business’.47 A fourth factor was technology. Gung-ho masculine codes and philosophies built around the proximity of death notwithstanding, progressive motor engineers were developing safer racing cars and administrators were overseeing the admission of important, if piecemeal, safety innovations into Grand Prix racing. As veteran motor racing commentator Murray Walker reflected, in 1949, the year he began broadcasting, ‘drivers were of no consequence. The cars had their engines at the front and the drivers wore thin cotton trousers, short-sleeved T-shirts and linen helmets. They had no safety belts and their cars were flimsy death traps.’48 Cars in the 1950s were fast but unreliable. Driver reminiscences bear this out. Stirling Moss, for example, remembered driving a Maserati at Monza in 1958 at 160 mph when the steering wheel sheared off.49 Such mishaps were still common. Innovations made in the 1950s were few, but significant: crash helmets (affording minimal protection by modern standards) became compulsory in 1952; disc brakes began to replace drum brakes in 1955 and, the same year, Australian driver-engineer Jack Brabham became the first person to enter a Grand Prix (the British) in a mid-engined car; he was also the first person to win in one, in 1959. Rear-engined cars were introduced in 1957 and adopted by all teams by 1961.50 Tony Brooks commented years later that this ‘makes sense when you’re trying to put the power down through the back wheels. Design never looked back after that.’51 In 1962 the British Lotus team introduced a car with an aluminium monocoque52 chassis, a major significance of  Ralph Nader Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the American Automobile New  York: Grossman Publishers 1965. 45  See Baime Go Like Hell… pp. 282–298 for a full account. 46  Lee Iacocca, with William Novak Iacocca: An Autobiography New York: Bantam Books 1986 p. 309. 47  Peter Wyden The Unknown Iacocca London: Sidgwick and Jackson 1988 p. 189. 48  Murray Walker Unless I’m Very Much Mistaken: My Autobiography London: Collins Willow 2002 p. 231. 49  Moss, Purdy All But My Life p. 105. 50  Martin Williamson ‘A brief history of Formula One’ http://en.espn.co.uk/f1/motorsport/story/3831. html Undated; access 8th October 2019. 51  Jones Formula One… p. 15. 52  A vehicle structure in which the chassis is integral with the body. 44

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which was that the car was less likely to catch fire; earlier models were made of highly flammable, magnesium-based materials and many drivers had burned to death. The design of this new chassis was credited to engineer Colin Chapman, founder of the Lotus team. Chapman was pro-safety measures and opposed the gung-ho arguments of drivers like Ireland,53 but he also ran a racing team and innovations such as this were made not solely to improve safety but to enhance the possibility of winning races. The 1960s saw a number of further important reforms. By the end of the decade Formula 1 cars had roll bars (introduced in 1961), double-braking systems and protected fuel tanks and their drivers were obliged to wear harnesses, fire-­resistant clothing and shatterproof visors.54 Straw bales, long a vestigial protective feature of the motor racing tracks, were finally banned in 1967. But driver death still stalked the motor racing circuit and the devil-may-­ care ethic still thrived in parts of the racing fraternity: sometime in the 1960s Piers Courage, a driver from a wealthy brewing family who would die in the Dutch Grand Prix of 1970, was asked by his (disapproving) father why he enjoyed motor racing so much. He replied ‘Well, Dad, you had the war’.55 In the late 1960s the campaign for greater safety driver safety had barely begun.

 hicken Noises: Jackie Stewart and the Rise C of Driver Militancy Jackie Stewart, who made his Formula 1 debut in 1965, is often rendered as ‘the man who transformed motor racing’56 and it is certainly the case that no driver campaigned harder for safety measures in motor racing than Stewart. But social change is never the work of one individual alone and it’s important to consider the circumstances in which Stewart’s initiatives were taken. A number of things are crucial to note about Stewart’s campaign. He rejected the longstanding buccaneer/gladiator notion of the racing driver and embraced instead the growing professionalism—professionalism which, for Stewart, was embodied in the Argentine Juan Manual Fangio who had won  Ireland Motor Racing Today p. 125; for a brief biography of Chapman, see http://www.grandprixhistory. org/chap_bio.htm (undated); access 8th October 2019. 54  See https://www.f1technical.net/articles/24 Access 8th October 2019. 55  Adam Cooper Piers Courage: Last of the Gentlemen Racers Yeovil: Haynes Publishing 2010 p. 17. 56  ‘Jackie Stewart: The man who transformed motorsport’. The Scotsman 26th May 2017 https://www. scotsman.com/news/jackie-stewartman-who-transformed-motorsport-3096630 Access: 8th August 2021. 53

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24 Grand Prix and been five times World Champion in the 1950s. Fangio had been able to choose the best cars, had avoided serious injury and had provided for his future by setting up a business (a filling station and a Mercedes Benz dealership) in Buenos Aires.57 Second, as observed earlier, the market position of top drivers was stronger than in the past; they were now heavily in demand and better able to dictate terms. Teams needed them as much as they needed the teams. Stewart, for example, at one point turned down Enzo Ferrari; Ferrari, confident always that any driver would want to drive one of his cars, was not used to such negotiation and is said to have retorted ‘What does he want? The factory?’.58 Third, drivers continued to die in large numbers: in his memoirs, Stewart cited an 11-year window (1963–1973) during which he had seen 57 friends and colleagues killed in motor racing, including four established drivers during four months in 1968.59 Furthermore, Stewart readily recognised both the commercialisation of popular culture of the time and of his own business prospects within that: ‘There was much to do in the 1960s. Britain was emerging from post-war austerity and bursting out in a colourful blaze of music, fashion and social freedom. Everything seemed so new and, as an F1 driver with a growing profile, I was swept along in all the excitement.’60 He recalls: ‘If there was a corporate function where I knew there would be interesting people to meet, or a business relationship where I thought I could make a worthwhile contribution, I found it […] almost impossible to say “no”’.61 Stewart insisted: ‘I wanted a life after driving a car’.62 Such a future orientation was wholly incompatible with the live-for-the-­ moment ethos to which some drivers still subscribed. (Stewart frequently stressed the importance of family life—by contrast, Stirling Moss, first president of the Grand Prix Drivers Association (GPDA) at its inauguration in 1961, had said that being married to a racing driver was like being married to a soldier. Moss had insisted that the GPDA was not a trade union and talked of modified circuits only in the interests of greater safety for spectators.63) Stewart became a client of talent management company IMG (International  Richard Rae ‘Heroes’ heroes: Sir Jackie Stewart, former Formula 1 world champion, on Juan Manuel Fangio’ The Sunday Times 17th October 2004 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/heroes-heroes-sir-­ jackie-stewart-former-formula-one-world-champion-on-juan-manuel-fangio-fq0whrstnbt Access 10th October 2019; see also Gerald Donaldson Fangio: The Life Behind the Legend London: Virgin Books 2009 pp. 14, 37. 58  Williams Enzo Ferrari p. 272. 59  See Jackie Stewart Winning is Not Enough: The Autobiography London: Headline 2007 pp. 146–151. 60  Stewart Winning… p. 209. 61  Stewart winning… p. 207. 62  Jones Formula One… p. 112. 63  Moss, Purdy All But My Life pp. 129–131. 57

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Management Group) in 1968 and the same year arranged to live in tax exile in Switzerland. Stewart used a serious accident which he suffered at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa in 1966 as a catalyst for his initiative. Spa had always been regarded as one of the more hazardous circuits in the motor racing calendar and water on the track had heightened the dangers to drivers on this occasion.64 The largely inactive GPDA was revived under Stewart’s leadership and called for: inspections of Grand Prix circuits; the removal of trees and telegraph poles and the installation of Armco (safety) barriers; and the compulsory providing to drivers of flameproof apparel, certified helmets and safety belts.65 Spa was boycotted by drivers in 1969 and the following year the GPDA committee voted 7 to 2 (with two abstentions) to boycott the German track Nurburgring unless certain safety measures were taken.66 That same year, one of the seven, the Austrian driver Jochen Rindt, who had also gone into tax exile in Switzerland, became Formula 1’s first (and only) posthumous champion, having been killed in practice prior to Italian Grand Prix at Monza. In assessing the Stewart campaign, two things should be added. First, Stewarts initiatives were resented and resisted in some quarters: track managers were concerned about the expense of upgrading their circuits and there were moves against the GPDA.67 The authorities had their supporters in the motor racing press: Motor Sport writer Denis Jenkinson condemned Stewart for his ‘his pious whinings [which] have brain-washed and undermined the natural instincts of some young and inexperienced newcomers to Grand Prix racing and removed the Belgian Grand Prix from Spa-­ Francorchamps’. […] Can you really ask me in all honesty to admire, or even tolerate, our current reigning World Champion Driver?’68 Once his campaign was underway Stewart himself recalls Innes Ireland making chicken noises at him at a Grand Prix. Second, Stewart felt moved to make his own medical provision, hiring medical specialists to be on hand when and where he was racing.69 This seems to have represented a recognition of the continuing dangers of motor racing

 Stewart Winning… pp. 134–138.  Stewart Winning… pp. 154–155. 66  Stewart Winning… pp. 162–163. 67  Stewart Winning… pp. 172–173. 68  Quoted in Damien Smith ‘Stewart vs Jenkinson: safety in motor sport’ https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/history/f1/stewart-vs-jenkinson-safety-motor-sport Posted 25th July 2012; access 11th October 2019. 69  Stewart Winning… pp. 153–154. 64 65

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and an acknowledgement that thoroughgoing safety policies in motor racing were yet to come. The final section of this chapter explores the reasons for this.

 ead Drivers Are Bad for Business: Sponsorship, D Safety and Motor Racing After the Death of Ayrton Senna Three principal factors—the growth of sponsorship in motor racing, allied to the sports growing global profile; the political struggle during the 1980s and 1990s to control the commercial future of Formula 1; and the concern to make motor racing bodies safe from prosecution—combined to produce a culture of safety in motor racing in the twenty-first century. Although its promotion was contested (and criticisms of it are still heard) this culture has led to minimal loss of life or serious injury in elite motor racing. As regards safety, the 1970s and 1980s saw a continuation of the pattern of periodic protest and piecemeal reform. There was also some sporadic, safety-­ related militancy. In 1975 the GPDA threatened a boycott of the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona claiming that track safety rails were not bolted properly.70 The race eventually took place, amid rumours that the cars would otherwise be confiscated by police, and five spectators were killed when the car of German driver Rolf Stommelen went into the crowd. The following year the Dutch driver Niki Lauda suffered severe burns in a crash during the German Grand Prix at Nurburgring, a track of which he had been a vocal critic.71 Later that year Lauda and other drivers drove only a token lap in the Japanese Grand Prix at Fuji, having deemed the circuit unsafe because of heavy rain.72 There were dissenters: James Hunt, for example, carried on driving when the others withdrew and won the race. Later the same year, prior to the Canadian Grand Prix there, drivers raised doubts about the safety of the venue, the Mosport International Raceway in Ontario and a GPDA meeting was called; James

 James Allen ‘Analysis: What happens when F1 drivers become unified’ https://www.motorsport.com/ f1/news/f1-gpda-drivers-union-association-988401/1383354/ Posted 13th December 2017; access 12th October 2019. 71  See Niki Lauda (with Herbert Volker) For the Record: My Years with Ferrari London: William Kimber 1979 p. 47. 72  See Tony Dodgins ‘The day Lauda wouldn’t risk his life—and there was no stopping Hunt’ The Guardian 29th September 2007 https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2007/sep/29/motorsports.sport2 Access 12th October 2019. 70

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Hunt, although, bizarrely, member of the association’s Safety Committee, refused to attend, saying ‘To hell with safety. All I want to do is race.’73 However, ten Formula 1 drivers died in races during the 1970s and this seems to have triggered an acknowledgement at the level of Formula 1 governance (now in the hands of British entrepreneur Bernie Ecclestone) that something further must be done. In 1978 Ecclestone appointed Prof. Sid Watkins, a neurosurgeon, to be the official Formula 1 doctor, the initial emphasis being placed on measures to treat, rather than to prevent, injury. As Ecclestone recalled in 2012, ‘we discussed many aspects of safety and medical issues. We agreed that we needed a proper hospital at the track in the form of a fully equipped medical centre to stabilise injured drivers with immediate treatment, and a helicopter to transport them subsequently to specialist facilities, and that the helicopter pad had to be as close to that trackside hospital as possible.’74 Helicopter cover, on-site medical centres and designated receiving hospitals were all established over the next few years. If a circuit refused to cooperate, Ecclestone threatened to send the drivers home.75 Only two drivers—the Italian Riccardo Paletti and Canada’s Gilles Villeneuve—died in Grand Prix in the 1980s, although two others (Patrick Depailler of France and Elio de Angelis of Italy) died testing. This was not all down to altruism. In 1978 Ecclestone had become chief executive of the Formula One Constructors’ Association (FOCA) and he drove a hard bargain in his dealings with the race organisers. Patrick Duffeler, executive in charge of sport sponsorship at tobacco corporation Philip Morris (now heavily invested in motor racing), suggested that Ecclestone liked to use safety as a pretext in these negotiations: organisers would have to pay more or risk losing the race because of ‘unsatisfactory safety arrangements’.76 Moreover, FOCA soon came into a long running dispute with the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the world governing body for motor sport. FIA was quartered in Paris and held by Ecclestone and FOCA counsel Max Mosley to favour the continental works teams over the British teams quartered in Motor Sport Valley (see the chapter by Jenkins, Henry and Angus in this book), by proposing vehicle specifications that British teams could not afford and/or did not have the time to meet. Here, once again, the vocabulary

 Gerald Donaldson James Hunt: The Biography London: Virgin Books 2003 p. 211.  ESPN Staff ‘Ecclestone pays tribute to Watkins’ http://en.espn.co.uk/f1/motorsport/story/88903.html Posted 14th September 2012; access 12th October 2019. 75  Professor Sid Watkins Life at the Limit: Triumph and Tragedy in Formula One London: Pan Books 1997 pp. 24–26. 76  Tom Bower No Angel: The Secret Life of Bernie Ecclestone London: Faber & Faber 2012 p. 84. 73 74

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of motive77 in the various exchanges was one of safety. For instance, in 1980 the FIA banned skirts—aerodynamic devices adopted by British teams such as Lotus which made cars go faster. The ban was to take immediate effect (instead of after the regulation two-year period) because it was introduced on safety grounds, immediately putting British teams at a disadvantage. Mosley judged that virtually any reform could be given a safety rationale and responded with counter proposals, couched, similarly, in the language of safety—a language likely to prevail if matters came to court in a French court. This culminated in the so-called Concorde Agreement between FOCA and FIA in 1981.78 If Ecclestone himself is any guide to the prevailing attitudes to death and injury in Formula 1 at this time, it appears that the historically masculine and breezy obliviousness to risk was till in play. In 1982, following the two aforementioned driver deaths in quick succession, Ecclestone repeated the rationalisation he would likely first have heard at motor races in the 1950s: ‘When a driver dies, he goes out doing what he wants to do. I don’t find that depressing at all.’79 In 1990 he told journalists that driver deaths were ‘a form of natural culling’.80 But whatever the currency of these sentiments in the social world of motor racing, they became unutterable at an official level in 1994, following the deaths of Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger in practice for the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola and, the following day, of three times World Champion Ayrton Senna in the race itself. Two weeks later another Austrian, Karl Wendlinger, crashed in practice for the Monaco Grand Prix and, although he survived, was in a coma for several weeks. Reaction to these events showed that motor racing had moved on. It was now a widely televised event with a global audience: each race was seen by around half a billion people in over 180 countries.81 Senna himself represented the consummation of a process, begun in the 1930s, by which the racing driver had become a national icon: on his death the Brazilian government declared three days of national mourning and Senna was given a state funeral, at which Ecclestone, though he had come to Brazil, was told he would not be welcome. Senna’s brother Leonardo told a press conference: ‘The motor

 A concept originated by the American sociologist C.  Wright Mills. See C.  Wright Mills ‘Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive’. American Sociological Review Vol. 5; No. 6 (December 1940) pp. 904–913. 78  Mosley Formula One and Beyond… pp. 139–151. 79  Quoted in Bower No Angel… p. 123. 80  Quoted in Bower No Angel… p. 164. 81  Susan Watkins Bernie: The Biography of Bernie Ecclestone Yeovil: Haynes Publishing 2011 p. 290. 77

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sport authorities are only interested in money’.82 More importantly for Ecclestone and Mosley, the latter having just assumed the presidency of the FIA, racing was now heavily dependent on its sponsors, who were understandably very anxious about the torrent of adverse global publicity that followed Senna’s death. The roots of this situation went back to 1968 when on-car advertising had been approved. The first companies to have their logos on Formula 1 racing cars were predominantly the tobacco companies and brands, including Gold Leaf, John Player and Marlboro. The last thing that these companies, who were trying to counter widely accepted medical findings that smoking was injurious to health, wanted was to have their products associated with violent death. The writer Russell Hotten put it bluntly: ‘Dead drivers are bad for business’.83 Senna’s death crash had taken place at 200 mph, had been witnessed by a huge television audience and his car had borne a huge logo for Rothmans cigarettes. Mosley recalled ‘a full-blown crisis. Commentators were asking what was wrong with Formula One; the big car manufacturers and sponsors were talking openly about pulling out; and there were even suggestions from politicians that Formula One should be banned. I found myself having crisis meetings with senior car industry executives.’84 Mosley responded, importantly, with a two-pronged strategy. An FIA Expert Advisory Safety Committee was immediately set up under the chairmanship of Prof. Watkins. Watkins was tasked (a) to investigate ways of making racing safer. This would embrace not only the better response to accidents (more helicopters; safety cars; extrication teams and so on85) but ways of mitigating serious injury (head-and-neck protection; collapsible steering columns; and, crucially, the reduction of speed)86 and (b) to extend his research to cover occupant safety in road, as well as racing, cars.87 Mosley himself announced restrictions on aerodynamics and engine power; if the teams did not agree to these then the championship for 1995 would be cancelled. As motor sport writer Alan Henry recalled ‘the teams blatantly told Max to his face that he was nuts’.88 But Mosley had his eye firmly on the broader picture. Motor racing, he argued, would suffer commercially and politically if fatal accidents continued. He had noted that, in theory, FIA was responsible for all  See Richard Williams The Death of Ayrton Senna London: Bloomsbury 1999 pp. 8 and 16.  Hotten Formula One… p. 39. 84  Mosley Formula One and Beyond… p. 250. 85  See Professor Sid Watkins Beyond the Limit London: Macmillan 2001 pp. 30, 41 and 47. 86  Watkins Beyond… pp. 6, 31 and 167. 87  Mosley Formula One and Beyond p. 254. 88  Alan Henry The Power Brokers: The Battle For F1’s Billions Minneapolis: Motorbooks International 2003 p. 158. 82 83

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motoring. A safety campaign that embraced the ordinary motorist would be seen as an intrinsically good thing, but it would also put motor racing morally in credit in the political sphere—particularly the European Union (EU). Mosley found out that there had been no new legislation in the European parliament to protect car occupants since 1974 and, noting that the EU now had stronger powers under the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 and against motor industry opposition, he led a delegation of experts to the European parliament to ­discuss sweeping new safety measures. Astutely, he argued to the EU that, as things stood, it was safer to crash in an Formula 1 car than on a typical road. The new measures became effective in 1998 and Mosley claimed subsequently that road deaths across the EU had fallen by 50%.89 But Mosley made his ulterior motive plain. He had told the FIA Senate ‘that if there were ever another major accident like the one at Le Mans in 1955, we would need friends in politics if we were to protect motor sport. It would be too late to start wooing politicians after the event; we would need them onside immediately, already briefed about the lives that were being saved because of what motor sport was doing for the ordinary road user. If we had a big accident without all this in place, we would risk politicians banning motor sport.’90

Conclusion Since 1994 Formula 1 has seen only one driver fatality—that of the Frenchman Jules Bianchi, who died in 2015, nine months after crashing in the Japanese Grand Prix of the previous year. The reforms initiated by Mosley and Watkins appear to have done their work, reducing not crashes, but the fatal consequences of crashes, and thus protecting the Formula 1 brand. People still die racing motor cars—in 2013 Spanish racing driver María de Villota Comba died as a result of injuries sustained in a crash while she was test-driving at Duxford aerodrome in England the previous year and British driver Sean Edwards perished when his Porsche crashed at the Queensland Raceway in Australia; he was giving a lesson and not in the passenger seat. But there is seemingly wide acceptance of the comparative safety of high velocity cars now: indeed, in 2013 British driver Anthony Davidson felt able to tell the motor sport press that motor racing had lost its ‘fear factor’: ‘I feel a driver should be challenged and should be punished for mistakes. It’s what makes people follow the sport in quite a gruesome way—it’s the danger, racing  See Mosley Formula One and Beyond pp. 357–359 and 363.  Mosley Formula One and Beyond p. 360.

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drivers should be heroes.’ He fell short, though, of calling for a return to the hazards and carnage of earlier decades: ‘We don’t want to see fans get injured or drivers get injured or killed but the drivers should get punished. On some modern circuits it’s pathetic when you see drivers going off the track and nothing happens.’91 And the following year American motoring writer Jordan Golson detailed how Formula 1 cars were now ‘so amazingly safe’ that drivers could hit a concrete wall nose-first at 150 mph and walk away with only minor injuries.92 If a case is nowadays to be made against motor racing it will be made on environmental grounds and not those of the safety of the participants.93 One final irony is that, in 2017 with driver safety now virtually assured, membership of the GPDA among Formula 1 drivers stood at an unprecedented 100%, with many drivers feeling that new owners Liberty Media were unclear as to where they ‘wanted to take the sport’. Drivers’ grievances were now often concerned with motor racing as a spectacle and included ‘the rise of pay TV and fewer viewers/followers as a result’; ‘negative press spirals due to political fights via the media’; ‘badly thought-out television camera angles that do not portray the speed and drama of the cars’.94

 Giles Richards ‘Anthony Davidson says motor sport has lost the ‘fear factor’ to safety’ The Guardian 20th October 2013 https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2013/oct/20/anthony-davidson-motor-­ sport-safety Access 13th October 2019. 92  Jordan Golson ‘How Today’s F1 Cars Are So Amazingly Safe (And Horribly Uncomfortable)’ https:// www.wired.com/2014/07/formula-one-car-safety-comfort/ Posted 7th July 2014; access 13th October 2019. 93  See, for example, the editorial ‘Motorsport should be banned’ in the Scottish newspaper The Herald 4th June 2007 https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12777625.motorsport-should-be-banned/ Access 13th October 2019. 94  Andrew Benson ‘Formula 1 drivers’ union gets ‘100%’ membership due to concerns over future’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/42314309 Posted 13th December 2017; access 13th October 2019. 91

Part V Sport, Injury, and the Culture of Late Capitalism

The Death of Jordan McNair: The Inevitability of the Avoidable Life-­ Threatening Injury Ryan King-White and David L. Andrews

May 29, 2018, was a sunny afternoon (81 degrees Fahrenheit) in College Park, Maryland. At 4.41 pm, a group of linemen for the University of Maryland football team began running a 10 × 110′ conditioning drill to test off-season “fitness.” Less than 20 minutes later, at 4.58 pm, Jordan McNair, a 6′4″ 341 lb. athlete, needed teammates “to run with him and encourage him to complete the (final) repetition” (Walters Inc., 2018, p. 27). Following completion of the evaluation McNair was cared for by certified athletic trainers working for the University. Though he was treated using a variety of methods McNair never had his temperature or vitals checked. At 5.55 pm he suffered a seizure as a result of exertional heat illness (Walters Inc., 2018) and was transported to a local hospital where his internal temperature was recorded at 106 degrees (Maese &  Stubbs, 2018). McNair became comatose and was “airlifted to R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore,” (Markus, 2018, para. 2) where, nine days later, he died. Following McNair’s untimely passing there arose a political firestorm affecting the University, the University System of Maryland Board of Regents

R. King-White Towson University, Towson, MD, USA D. L. Andrews (*) University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_16

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(USM BOR), as well as the Maryland state legislature (e.g. Meehan, 2018) centered around who was ultimately responsible. Head Football Coach, D.J.  Durkin, would be placed on paid leave, reinstated, then fired; several athletic trainers were also placed on leave, retired, or were dismissed. Finally, University President, Wallace Loh, who had stated that he would step down following the 2018–2019 academic year,1 made the proclamation that the University would take “legal and moral responsibility” (Richman, 2018, para. 1) for the medical handling of McNair’s death, much to the consternation of the attorney general’s office (Richman, 2018), and many in the USM BOR— particularly then-Chairman James Brady and Chancellor Robert Caret (Broadwater et al., 2018). While, for selfish reasons, the political fallout and results matter to us as faculty members in the USM, this project aims to critically interrogate Loh’s notion of legal and moral responsibility regarding the health and well-being of student-athletes: college football players in particular. Rather than simply provide a straightforward critical history regarding Jordan McNair’s death we want to investigate this tragedy as a window onto a broader critique of progress in sport science. To do so, we read McNair’s body in and through a number of critical theoretical lenses: it is not “normal” for a 6′4″ 20 year-old to weigh 341 lbs., nor is it “normal” for a body of that size to be a competitive Division I athlete unable to complete ten 110′ sprints without suffering a serious medical setback that, in this case, resulted in death. We seek therefore to understand this tragic occurrence as the corollary of a neoliberalized sporting Taylorism, that treats sporting bodies as “mortal engines” (Hoberman, 1992), and rationally dehumanizes (Ritzer, 1993) contemporary college athlete by pushing the human form to its limits.

The Neoliberal “High Performance” Body The term neoliberalism refers to the theories driving political economic practices that since the 1980s have come to dominate the social, political, and economic landscape of the United States. David Harvey argues that the central tenet of neoliberal ideology is that “human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills,” by re-­organizing institutions to value “contractual relations in the marketplace” above all other ethical values and beliefs. As Harvey states, neoliberalism “holds that the social good will be maximized by maximizing the reach and frequency of  He ultimately did not step down, but rather chose to retire in June 2020.

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market transactions, and it seeks to bring all human action into the domain of the market” (2005, pp. 2–3). Although neoliberalism is a political ideology in the first instance, it is simultaneously a series of political economic practices that propose the reduction of the state apparatus, intervention, and investment in increasingly expanding realms of existence (from the economy, through education, health, to citizens welfare, and the environment) in favor of privatized responses to what where previously perceived as public issues (Andrews & Silk, 2018). The advent of the neoliberal age has provided the conditions for the normalization of corporately sponsored sporting mega-events (Andrews & Silk, 2018), spectacularized children’s games (White et  al., 2008a, 2008b) and commercially rationalized, marketed, and managed physical cultural experiences (Newman, 2014). The neoliberal organization of sport and physical activity has become so pervasive that it has long been standard operating procedure in the United States, and, yet, following George Monbiot (2016), few can identify this reality as being underpinned by neoliberal ideology. Neoliberal leaders’ deception by design has developed to the point that it seems as if there exist no alternatives to the radically individual life defined by raging competition in the hopes of fiscal gain (read: freedom in/under neoliberalism). Thus, since it has no name in the popular consciousness and there appears to be no viable ideological challenge on the horizon, neoliberalism can be understood as a natural orthodoxy or simply: the way things are. At the collegiate level the pervasive vestiges of neoliberalism can be discerned in the method(s) through which athletes are being educated on and off the field (e.g. Giroux, 2014; King-White, 2018; King-White & Beissel, 2018), whereby the relentless search for higher truths has been cast aside in favor of brand equity, managerial foci on the “bottom line,” and a move to frame the student as customer rather than learner (Schneider, 1997). At the University of Maryland, as with many other institutions, immense cathedrals of physical training have been erected to assist the development of young revenue-­ generating athletes, despite the questionable role and value of such fiscally draining facilities to institutions of higher learning (DeLuca & Maddox, 2018). In this context, the value of Division I FBS football athletes, such as Jordan McNair, to the University is quite literally bound to what their bodies can do to entertain fans on game day. Importantly, for this project, this highly competitive rationalization, marketing, and management mentality has also trickled down to the ways that young men are prepared to participate in American football. Not only are they supposed to push their bodies to the limits in the name of radical individualism and competition, but they are doing so under the watchful eyes of those who are participating in their own

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form of neoliberal competition off the field. Namely, coaches, sport scientists, and athletic trainers who themselves are in perpetual struggles to legitimate their positions, by developing best (read: most efficient) practices in pushing others to the outer reaches of human capabilities.

Sporting Taylorism Though Frederick Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management (1911) predates neoliberalism by more than half-a-century, its lasting imprint, or what John Loy (2015) would describe as its long residuals, within an ideology focused on surveillance, efficiency, and the bottom line cannot be ignored. To wit, Taylor’s research on how to improve worker productivity centered on science, harmony, cooperation, and maximum output achieved through the four-point belief that managers should: First. They develop a science for each element of a man’s work, which replaces the old rule-of-thumb method. Second. They scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the workman, whereas in the past he chose his own work and trained himself as best he could. Third. They heartily cooperate with the men so as to insure all of the work being done in accordance with the principles of the science which has been developed. Fourth. There is an almost equal division of the work and the responsibility between management and the workmen. The management take over all work for which they are better fitted than the workmen, while in the past almost all of the work and the greater part of the responsibility were thrown upon the men. (Taylor, 1911, p. 36–37) Taylor’s scientific management of workers was, and often remains, successful in short-term bursts, but the top-down leadership style has long garnered criticism for removing any semblance of autonomy for laborers as they are considered little more than automatons programmed to execute their manager’s vision (Vertinsky, 2003). Despite existent critiques of a Taylorist approach toward sport, research indicates that baseball took up the scientific management cause almost immediately (e.g. Millington & Millington, 2015), and football was soon to follow (e.g. Eaves, 2015). Walter Camp, a legendary collegiate coach at Yale between 1888 and 1895, was greatly influenced by Taylor’s early writings in

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developing his approach to football coaching. Michael Oriard (1993) characterized Camp’s leadership methodology as closely paralleling Taylorism through: the devising of plays; the training of players for the positions that suit them; the cooperation of coach, captain, and quarter-back with the rest of the players so as to assure common purpose; and the distribution of responsibilities according to position and ability. Taylor made a Science of organizing physical labor; so did Camp. Taylor distinguished the needs for brain and brawn, and assigned them accordingly; so did Camp. (p. 45)

Thus, very early on in the evolution of American collegiate football, it became normalized for young men to enter into a somewhat alienating and dehumanizing relationship with their coach(es) as managers who created exercises, practices, and game plans for them to execute. Given Camp’s success as Head Coach at Yale others soon followed, and eventually a Taylorist approach to college football became the norm. Indeed, George Sage (1973), a foundational influence on the sociology of sport, noted that “most coaches believe in strong discipline, rigidity of rules, extrinsic motivation, and an impersonal attitude towards their athletes, and they characterize most coaches as being hard-nosed or authoritarian … bear(ing) a strong resemblance to that employed by the so-called Scientific Management movement” (p.  35). In more recent times, collegiate football teams have employed between 12 and 20 coaches, numerous trainers, and academic support staffs to help their teams. The era of hyper-specialization, and indeed hyper-Taylorism is upon us. The Taylorist specialization of tasks has also radically altered the rosters for collegiate football teams. Early games of football featured limited substitutions, and players who played on offense and defense, but, by 1964, all substitution rules were abolished and further specialization soon followed. Allen Barra wrote of the effects of this development using the 1961 and 2012 Alabama University national championship teams as examples. He stated that the “1961 team usually took 50 to 55 players on road games. Last year’s Crimson Tide national champs suited up almost twice as many” (2012, para. 7). Such widespread specialization spawned developments like: the “pass rush specialist” who enters games simply to try to sack (e.g. i.e. tackle) the quarterback, “run-stopping” defensive linemen who attempt to take up as much space as possible to make life difficult for opposing offenses, “3rd down backs” who are typically skilled at catching passes out of the running back position, “slot receivers” meant to run short routes in the heavily trafficked middle of

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the field, and “speed receivers” who simply try to outrun defenders along the sidelines. Since these players can be on the field only for a short amount of time, they are able, and, indeed, encouraged to maximize the specific skill they are supposed to bring (catching the ball, running even faster, taking up more space, and so on). For an offensive lineman, like Jordan McNair, increased positional specialization has required having a larger body to be able to compete against similarly specialized bodies. As stated previously, minutes prior to the catastrophic events that led to his death McNair weighed in at 341 lbs. This is abnormally large for a human who is attempting to participate in an athletic contest, but not abnormal for the way football is constituted today. For example, Barra (2012) compared Southern California’s 1962 team to 2012, and found that: only two players on the 1962 team were listed at more than 225 pounds. The team that faced Stanford two Saturdays ago featured an offensive line that averaged 305 pounds a man. At 230 pounds, USC’s quarterback Matt Barkley … would have been the second-biggest player on the ’62 team. (para. 11)

Thus, in the names of efficiency and heightened specialization, football bodies have grown exponentially, with sport science playing a significant role in normalizing this rather exaggerated embodied reality.

Mortal Engines Following Millington and Millington (2015), within a world increasingly defined by data analytics, sport science practice is prefigured on the assumption that human movement and sport performance can be measured and improved through the “datafication of everything” (p. 140). One look at a contemporary college football game would reveal this development, in that television spectacles regularly display “scientific” graphics (often sponsored by some private “independent” agency) determining how long a field goal kick would have been good from, how fast a running back or wide receiver was running in miles-per-hour, the launch angle, speed, and arm swing of a quarterback’s pass, the amount of time in hundredths of a second it takes for a defensive lineman to “beat” an offensive lineman’s block, and so on; the National Science Foundation has a 10-part video series entitled “The Science of NFL Football” to break down the game in scientific terms (https://www. nsf.gov/news/special_reports/football/index.jsp); and companies like the Sports Science Lab advertise that they can improve sport performance through

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the assessment of bodily movement (https://nysportssciencelab.com/) in such a way that it feels like all this measurement could be used to push bodies further than ever before. Moreover, the celebration of this science punctuated by oft-awestruck announcers serves to remind the football fan that this is progress (Millington & Millington, 2015) with no need for critical examination. John Hoberman (1992) details this development as part of the “modern fixation on performance and productivity that has come to supersede the ideal of fair play. In fact, the performance principle has virtually supplanted the ideal of “sportsmanlike” self-restraint in the prevailing ethos of elite sport” (p. 21). Following this line of thinking a combination of cultural, social, and economic forces have created a context whereby problematic concerns around athletes “playing the right way” (in the typical vision of white, upper-class, masculinity) have given precedence to pushing human bodies to limits heretofore unimagined. Interestingly, the genetic makeup of the human body has not changed dramatically over the course of the past 70 years. By contrast, David Epstein, author of the provocative book The Sports Gene (2013), argues that advances in science, technology, nutrition, doping, training, and psychology coupled with evermore specialization within sport have underpinned the seeming rapid change in the physiological development and structure of sporting bodies. More to the point, at the 2019 NFL Draft Combine (an event designed to measure, and showcase, the physical attributes of college players aspiring to be drafted by an NFL team), it was hardly surprising that offensive line draft prospects, each of whom weighed over 300 lbs., were timed running the 40-yard dash in around 5 seconds (note: elite runners often clock in at 4.3–4.6 seconds), with vertical leaps ranging from 25″ to 35″, and possessing the ability to bench press 225 lbs. 25–40 times. In short, these young men have bodies akin to those of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) stars (e.g. Herman et al., 2014; Rhodes, 2015; see Karen Corteen’s chapter in this book), but that are used to play football at high levels. Pushing the human body to its limits in this way can result, and has resulted, in memorable and enduring sport performances across all sports (e.g. the ability for top athletes like Tom Brady, Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal, and others to perform at a world class level well beyond the age when it is normal to see a precipitous drop off in competitiveness). However, when Epstein’s assertions are taken in concert with Hoberman’s characterization of sporting bodies as mortal engines, it is unsurprising that the incessant push for bigger, larger, and more spectacular bodies built on comparatively unchanging genetic frameworks has resulted in catastrophic injury, and, in Jordan McNair’s case, in death. Or, as Parissa Safai might have

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it, “the all-encompassing imperative to perform and to excel acts as the furnace in which contemporary athletic bodies, as well as the ‘boundaries of health and health care are being pushed, pulled, and reshaped’” (2017, p.  194). Thus, there exists an inherent danger in the scientized hyper-­ rationalization of the sporting body, but with significant contracts on the line (or the hopes for such a contract to come) many are willing to enroll their bodies on carefully planned bodily development programs at the behest of their coaches, and in order to produce a physique able to perform at the level demanded by modern American football.

McDonaldization The coaches and administrators that have overseen this rapid growth in the rationalization, and scientization of both college football and the bodies that play it over the course of the past 50 years, are still bound by the eligibility requirements that mean college athletes are only allowed to play for a relatively short period of time (generally 4 years maximum). Given the rapid turnover of those who are integral to the execution of the college football spectacle, these leaders have looked for the best way(s) to replicate on- and off-field efforts to improve consistent performances over time. Thus, coaches and trainers have attempted to simplify and streamline the way(s) young men can get bigger, stronger, and faster so that they can perform at the highest levels, expend their eligibility, and then be replaced by the next generation of suitably prepared football bodies. Following George Ritzer (1993), football administrators have effectively “McDonaldized” the training, practice, and playing experience for the young men who play for them. The McDonaldization of sporting bodies is allied to forms of increased embodied rationality and efficiency, leading to faster, stronger, and more performatively efficient/effective bodies. However, the corollary of this development is that the sporting body is (wrongly) treated as if it were purely mechanistic with, sometimes, little deference to the very real finite limits of embodied performance (the athletic body is perceived as a mortal engine, as Hoberman rightly pointed out). Invoking Weber’s notion of the irrationality of (hyper)rationality (Ritzer, 1993), developments in sport science and performance have led to increased rates of injury in numerous sports, and not just those involving high levels of physical contact. Yet, college football is unique in the sense that while other sport performers are asked to enhance their physique in their transition from high school, no other high impact

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sport demands for such spectacular growth in such a relatively short space of time. According to lists on numerous college recruiting websites the average size of an FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision: The highest level of college football in the U.S.), offensive lineman is 6′4″, and between 295 and 305 lbs. (ncsasports.org). Importantly: these are the average sizes of current college football players—they don’t represent how big athletes were when they first entered college. In other words, recruits don’t necessarily need to be this size right now, but they do need to have the frame to put on more weight and fill out enough to be competitive at the college level. (ncsasports.org)

Given this conventional line of thinking, it is rare for young men to enter college from high school ready to compete. In Jordan McNair’s case he was listed at 6′4″ 276 lbs. out of McDonough High School (Owings Mills, MD) on the Rivals recruiting website when he signed his letter of intent to attend the University of Maryland. By the time he began his freshman year at Maryland other recruiting sites (247 Sports, ESPN, and Testudo Times) listed the ESPN top-300 recruit variously as between 297 and 330 lbs. In short, McNair was able to compete at the BCS level by committing himself to the disciplinary regimes and strictures required to produce the McDonaldized football body. To do so, McNair, like so many other college athletes, was put on a diet and exercise plan that designed to develop larger and stronger bodies (Schonbrun, 2018). Such regimes are often adopted uncritically as they regularly result in enlarging bodies, but often without concern for what it means for the short- and long-term health of the athlete. Young men are simply grown, developed, and then let go when performance does not improve and/or eligibility for college sport participation is exhausted. Tellingly, in McNair’s case, on the day he suffered the heat stroke that precipitated to his death, he weighed in at 65 lbs. heavier than when he first emerged as a top recruited athlete just one year prior. Despite widespread concern over the conditions surrounding McNair’s death, the bodies of college footballers have not gotten smaller. The pressures of neoliberalized corporate sport (King-White, 2018) necessitate that major football programs continue to push the limits of body size and health toward a rationalized maximum, in order to exert the amount of brute and technical force necessary to move the also-growing bodies competing against them. Even at Maryland, where young men who were Jordan’s teammates watched him die as a result of heat-related illness, the football fraternity have (re)

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committed themselves to the McDonaldized bodily growth system. A case in point: 9 out of 10 offensive linemen on the 2019 UMD football team weigh in at 300–350 lbs. (2019 University of Maryland Football Roster, 2019). While there have been heartfelt emotional tributes and remembrances, practically speaking, very little systemically would appear to have changed: the McNair tragedy being reduced to yet another unfortunate football accident precipitated by the actions (or in this case medical inactions) of key individuals. This neatly reflects neoliberal ideology underpinning our contemporary culture: “within the privileging of performance at all costs, we see pain, injury and even death constructed as individual troubles or failings and not the consequence of the particular depoliticized, individualized and medicalized ways in which we produce athletic bodies” (Safai, 2017, p. 195).

 he Unhealthy High-Performance T Sport Experience For the better part of a hundred years, millions in the United States have celebrated the American football season. Families, friends, and acquaintances gather on patios for cookouts, lug tailgate tents to stadium parking lots, populate sports bars, consume ice cold beverages, and gawk at and cheer for legions of (mostly) young black men running into each other at dangerously high speeds. These neo-warriors entertain us in this endeavor, “protected” by minimal pads and helmets only to routinely suffer as their bodies give way to the crushing weight of furious (sometimes catastrophic) collisions, repeated blows to the head, and long-term injury often follows (Safai, 2017; Zirin, 2011, 2015). To physically and psychologically prepare their bodies for optimal performance in this sport many effectively operate in a hypermasculine world as hypermasculine men (e.g. Sabo, 1998): concealing pain and injury, pushing through exhaustion, by legal means or otherwise (Young et al., 1994). Such performative hypermasculine pragmatism requires a cognitive dissonance regarding the long-term health of one’s own body, in addition to that of one’s teammates and opponents. Further, to become efficient neo-warriors capable of both producing and absorbing maximum force that this sport requires, new, and ever more efficient, methods of training the body have become the norm (Hruby, 2018). Indeed, as mentioned above, when they enter college (if not before) many young men are introduced to specialized eating and training regimens designed to produce larger and faster bodies than ever before, thereby pushing

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the limits of the human body (Barra, 2012; Jonnalagadda et  al., 2001). Following David Epstein (2013), though we are seeing larger and faster bodies it is a complex mix of things that has led to this change, the least of which would be the rapid development of changing human genetics leading to increased sport performance. Rather, Epstein argues, it is the fact that sport science within a neoliberal late capitalist context has led to increasingly specialized, rationalized, psychologically trained bodies performing physical activities in, on, and through equipment that has undergone rapid technological innovation that has led to radical change in athletic performance. Understanding Jordan McNair’s death in such a system is rather simple then. His body was always going to fail for it happens to all football bodies eventually, though this bodily failure and death were no doubt accelerated through his practice regimen. Indeed, the need to push bodies beyond normative limits is an oft-celebrated aspect of football culture. For evidence of this one need to look no further than ESPN’s (2002) feature film The Junction Boys, based on Jim Dent’s (2001) book of the same title, which profiled college coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s disturbing 10-day practice combine at Texas A&M in the mid-1950s. In the book/film old players and coaches complain that contemporary football is “too soft” (Davenport, 2013) and requires more off-season “hitting”; and supervised practices have turned into year-round affairs (Demeril, 2017). Evin Demeril (2017) describes two-a-day practices, a common conditioning tradition inspired by Bryant’s “hellish training camp” (Johnson, 2017, para. 4), in high school, college, and professional football: Scorching sun. Vomit. The thud of plastic. Football training camps mean pain, which has long been held as a good thing for the guys sweating through this annual rite of passage in the weeks before the season kicks off. And here, in this particular culture, no suffering gets more love than that which comes at the end of brutal back-to-back practice sessions. For decades, college coaches believed so-called “two-a-days” were essential to whipping players into shape after long summer layoffs. They were, according to theory, crucibles from which the strongest of camaraderies emerged. Indeed, in the 20th century many coaches deemed three-a-days and even four-a-days—sometimes on consecutive days—as essential conditioning hacks. (para 1–2)

The prevailing notion in this type of training is that players get better through suffering in practice. Though the NFL removed two-a-day conditioning in 2011, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) did the same in 2017, the long residuals (Hardy et al., 2015; Loy, 2015) of extreme exertion in practice

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which lead to on-field success have remained, with Nick Saban’s current leadership style at the University of Alabama held as evidence: Nick Saban became the head coach at the University of Alabama in 2007. By 2009, he had turned the Crimson Tide into the most unstoppable force in college football. Alabama has played in five of the last eight national championship games, winning four. They’ve averaged an incredible 12.5 wins per season over that same span. The Crimson Tide’s secret? Excellent recruiting classes and elite facilities certainly help, but it’s their unrivaled practice intensity that really sets them apart. The combination of ridiculously good competition, Saban’s high standards and the constant expectation of an undefeated season make the practices punishing affairs. Former Alabama running back Trent Richardson once told reporters no team in the country practices harder. While some may believe these practices take a toll on Alabama’s players and jeopardize their NFL potential, there’s no arguing with the results. (Hall, 2017, para. 1–2)

A good example of this type of training can be seen in the 10 × 110′ sprints McNair was running as a “baseline conditioning test.” The actual drill required McNair, an offensive lineman, to run 110′ in 19 seconds with 60 seconds of rest in between each set (Crabtree-Hannigan & Kostka, 2018). Traditional training styles would view this as “practicing hard to make the game easy,” but when viewed through a lens of health as it pertains to playing football it makes no sense. It would likely take 2–3 games for an offensive lineman to sprint 110-yards competitively, 10 times, rather than 10 minutes. Even when a team is attempting to make a late-game comeback there is never a need for an offensive lineman to be able to run the entire length of a football field more than once. Yet in the name of training, and building the McDonaldized athlete, this is standard operating procedure. Complicating matters is the fact that many schools, Maryland included, have turned to artificial turf as a cost saving measure (FieldTurf.com, 2019). The idea here is that having game and practice facilities on this turf will eventually save the University money in upkeep, though some research has indicated that the artificial surface rarely holds up for the length of the contract, needs replacement or repairs, and rarely fulfills its cost saving promise (Safe Healthy Playing Fields Coalition, 2019). What it does do, though, is make things more dangerous for players, because grass “sweats” and field temperatures are often similar to air temperature (Serensits et al., 2011). Even Coach Bryant’s sadistic training routine, where players received salt tablets that made them sick rather than water (Schultz et al., 2014), was conducted on natural grass/dirt that did not retain heat to the same levels. Conversely, on a sunny

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day, turf fields, as Towson University head coach, Rob Ambrose states, “suck in the heat” (Klingman, 2018, para. 7) and can be anywhere from 20 to 70 degrees hotter than air temperatures (Serensits et al., 2011). Maryland’s artificial turf fields, with its notoriously hot and humid summers, are particularly susceptible to these dangerous heat conditions. Indeed, at Towson University (2013), Morgan State University (2017), and then the University of Maryland (2018) players suffered heat-related illness: the life of Townson player Gavin Class was saved by athletic trainers (although his football career ended), while the latter two incidents ended in the deaths of Morgan State freshman football player Marquese Meadow (in 2014) and Jordan McNair. Moreover, most catastrophic injury leading to death in intercollegiate football in training has come to be “four and a half times” (Hruby, 2018) more prevalent than during actual gameplay. With regard to catastrophic injury and death it would seem that the hard practice, easy game, mantra that is still espoused today is actually far more dangerous for humans than actually playing the sport. This is all exacerbated by the fact that the players themselves are far larger than ever before, and thereby more susceptible to the dangerous of extreme exertion in heat (Schultz et al., 2014).

Conclusion There is little denying that football, at all levels, has become ever more spectacularized as slickly produced televisual live sporting entertainment (Oates & Furness, 2014). However, aside from the rare few who get to participate in the professional ranks, most of those participating in the game place themselves voluntarily in the top-down organization of collegiate sport with little practical redress to the physical regimes imposed by coaches and trainers (most of whom are primarily focused on how well their players perform on the field, as opposed to their broader welfare). Despite the abdication of bodily autonomy by collegiate football players, the: unquestioned allegiance to the performance principle requires constant training and competition at the edges of human capacity and the staggering rates of sport- and even fitness-related injury, disability and even death demonstrate that there are limits to our bodily quests for ‘limitless performance’. (Safai, 2017, p. 195)

From a broader perspective it is difficult to come to terms with the conundrum that for many American football can be wildly entertaining to watch,

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participate in, manage, produce, and/or critically analyze. Indeed, without football, neither of our positions as faculty members in college focusing on physical culture in contemporary society would look quite the same. Recently ESPN radio and television personality Dan Le Batard spoke of the cognitive dissonance that must take place from many perspectives to make the football machine function. In his more than five-minute oration on the show Highly Questionable just prior to the beginning of the 2019 NFL season, Le Batard argued that “football players push their bodies beyond normal human limits sometimes making even giants like Gronk and Andrew Luck2 quit because of the feeling that returns tonight” (Bogage, 2019), but concluded by joining his co-hosts Gonzalo Le Batard (his father and Cuban exile) and Izzy Guiterriez (Latino and openly gay) by chanting their excitement that football was, indeed, back. For they, and to a lesser extent we, can recognize that “sports workplaces are simultaneously sites of medical mastery and extraordinary medical neglect” (Young, 1993, p. 376). Yet the reality is that “instead we paint our faces, celebrate it and televise it for more and more days on more and more networks because this drug may be unhealthy but it gets us so very high” (Le Batard, 2019). In response, we call for a turn toward a more humane physical culture. Following Safai (2017, p.  197) “humane physical culture does not see the ‘culture of risk’ as accidental or a product of individual failings, but recognizes it as an embedded structural element of contemporary sport and fitness production systems built on human labor pushed to the edge.” If football as entertainment is a given in contemporary society, then there is a real need to use tragic instances like Jordan McNair’s death to make meaningful, if realistically incremental, improvements to football’s systemic barbarity. Indeed, critical essays like Safai’s (2017), coupled with the observations of popular entertainers like Le Batard (2019), bring an alternative viewpoint to a part of culture that is oft-celebrated is needed. In sum, this is not a hopeless situation despite the fact that the contemporary context makes it difficult to alter the normative coaching and training behaviors that led to the death of Jordan McNair. As Schultz et al. (2014) indicate, there are rumblings of a shift in football culture, particularly in regard to coaching and training practices. Bettina Callary and Brian Gearity’s (2019) new edited book Coach Education and Development in Sport provides several cogent chapters that outline better practices in coaching for future professionals to take into account as they move forward into their careers.  A reference to retiring NFL players Rob Gronkowski of the New England Patriots and Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts. 2

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Beyond the critical reminders and reflections about what could happen, and why, when training football players in these ways, there is a real need to push forward with more aggressive and flexible policies that can prevent future heat-related deaths in football. Football needs to move beyond the current reality that heat-related deaths are individually avoidable, but contextually inevitable, if its participants are to engage in this dangerous sport in more humane ways.

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From Body Snatchers to Brain Banks: The Cadaver as Commodity and the Sports-Concussion “Crisis” Sean Brayton and Michelle T. Helstein

Our interest in the topic of organ donation and sports emerges at a rather peculiar intersection of popular culture and athletics. At one end, film and television streaming platforms have recently featured an array of historical fictions devoted to the dramatization of disembodiment and dissection, from Burke and Hare (2010) and Tales from the Old Bailey—The Grave Robber (2013) to The Frankenstein Chronicles (2015–2017), Secrets of the Dead: The Rise of the Body Snatchers (2015) and Lore (2017–2018). Each text is set in roughly the same historical period of the nineteenth century in either Scotland or England and details a series of actual events in which “grave robbery” and “body snatching”, which, as we will show, not only threatened the lives of paupers and the working poor but also subsidized anatomical science and medical discoveries. At the other end, popular news and sports media have widely reported the growing trend of former professional athletes pledging to donate their brains to science in hopes of improving the lives of future athletes at risk of brain injuries and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). This development marks the latest addition to an ongoing saga of concussion epidemics in “collision sports”, one that is increasingly defined by litigation and the legal liability of leagues like the National Football League (NFL) and National Hockey League (NHL). While athlete organ donations may seem

S. Brayton (*) • M. T. Helstein University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_17

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comically unrelated to “body snatching” films and television series and to describe vastly different historical contexts, the disparate phenomena converge on similar themes of death, dismemberment and discovery that drive our current inquiry. It is admittedly a circuitous route but one that is worth tracing in some detail. This chapter is part of a larger project concerning the underlying class politics of the so-called sports-concussion crisis, beginning in 2012 with the widely publicized suicides and accidental deaths of notable former athletes in the NFL and NHL. We initially explored how discussions of physical labor and expendability of the body in these sports leagues were conspicuously absent in popular press reports of athlete suicides and the burgeoning concussion crisis, which coincided with extended labor lockouts in the NHL and NFL (Brayton, Helstein, Ramsey & Rickards, 2019). We found popular press mostly, but not entirely, unsympathetic to conflicts between “millionaire” athletes and “billionaire” owners, thus depoliticizing labor, and holding athletes rather than owners solely responsible for knowingly partaking in dangerous physical activities. Our next objective was to examine how the suicides of former athletes— most of which were posthumously diagnosed with CTE—could be read as a “social text”, not unlike the wave of worker suicides in industries as far-­ reaching as electronics assembly, telecommunications and agriculture (Brayton & Helstein, 2019). What we found were several similarities between the protest suicides of “conventional” workers and political activists, on the one hand, and athletes as physical labor, on the other. Therefore, we argued that rather than allowing the suicides to be framed as “individual anomalies” or outcomes of “personal psychological problems”, as those now left behind tend to memorialize the act, we have an obligation to acknowledge and extend the expression of the act as collective, political and communicative. Indeed, the queue of corpses should necessarily heighten the importance of the corporeal critique of labor and masculinity that is athlete suicides. What distinguished several athletes from other protest suicides, however, was the final request to have their brains donated for future scientific study, and the resulting prevalence of their fellow athletes doing the same. This leads us to our present concern. If both concussions and athlete suicides are riven with class politics and power relations, can the practice of brain donations and the increasing regularity of athlete donor pledges (discussed below) be understood within a similar political-economic framework? If so, how? The story, we suspected, did not end with an athlete’s “altruism” and the “benevolence” of modern medicine, a suspicion later confirmed by engaging with critical historical studies of

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organ donation and dissection. While the present chapter is a companion piece to wider studies of class politics and sports concussions, it offers an entry-point into an interdisciplinary dialogue between sport sociology and a cultural studies of organ donation, one that we may find rather fruitful on its own. For instance, by drawing on a theoretical framework informed by more-­ or-­less Marxist approaches to medicine, we aim to show the complexity of the growing phenomenon of athlete organ donation that is currently couched in narratives of “altruism” in popular news and sports media. Despite the apparent acceptance, even celebration, of athletes pledging to donate their brains after dying, the history of organ procurement and cadaveric dissection is awash with class politics and resistance to the “surgeon’s scalpel”, both of which are missing from current discussions of brain injuries in professional sports. Alongside these narratives, however, we find a rhetoric of reciprocity in which athlete donors are presented as “giving back” to their respective sports and future teammates, a storyline that works to depoliticize athletic relations of production and a logic of expendability from which the concussion “crisis” unfolds. This chapter therefore explores this practice by positioning it alongside a more complicated social history of laboring bodies, public anatomy and class struggle to ask questions about “productivity” and the evisceration or extraction of value from working bodies, both dead and alive. Though this chapter is mostly philosophical, its objective is not to excoriate athlete donors or neurodegenerative disease research tout court; instead, it is to draw attention to how athlete brain donations and sports medicine writ large are depicted in somewhat myopic and ahistorical ways in popular media and sports reporting. In doing so, it draws from existing criticism of organ procurement and sports injuries to propose an alternative understanding of athlete brain donations, one that underscores the politics and economics of professional sports.

Athlete Brain Donations Brain donations among retired athletes have perhaps never been more prevalent than they are today. From hockey star Hayley Wickenheiser and soccer ace Brandi Chastain to Nascar virtuoso Dale Earnhardt, Jr., pledges for brain donations now extend well beyond “combat sports” and male athletes, though former NFLers continue to comprise the large percentage thereof (Hille, 2017). Since 2008, nearly 1500 former athletes and military veterans have pledged to donate their brains for studies of CTE and head injuries to the “Concussion Legacy Foundation”, including 30 NFLers during “pledge month” (February) in 2017 (Hille, 2017). These pledges add to the existing

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425 brains from deceased athletes already kept at Boston University, which is one site among many others devoted to researching sports and brain injuries. More recently, in May of 2018, four of Canada’s most acclaimed female athletes pledged to donate their brains to the Canadian Concussion Center (CCC) in Toronto. The group of donors included hockey sensation Cassie Campbell-Pascall, rugby star Jen Kish, downhill skiing legend Kerrin Lee-­ Gartner and current Ontario Women’s Hockey Association president Fran Rider. As Campbell-Pascall attested, “I loved playing sports and have no regrets, but having had some concussions, I would like to make sure that future generations are protected as much as possible” (Giorgi, 2018, par. 9). Unlike conventional practices of organ donation—like living tissue where donors typically remain anonymous to preserve emotional detachment—the personal identities of donors as athletes of certain sports is imperative to current and forthcoming research on CTE and brain injuries. Moreover, the celebrity status of many pledge donors draws increasingly important, though no longer minimized, attention to the systemic nature of brain injuries in specific sports. And yet the act of pledging a donation is rarely if ever depicted in the popular press as disruptive to the working conditions from which the concussion “crisis” arises. Instead, the athlete donor is presented as acting in the interests of scientific discovery and the presumed safety of future athletes in sporting industries. While this is the motivation for donor athletes, its celebratory framing alone obscures the labor politics and the logic of capital. Nevertheless, the increasing publicizing of donors suggests that the brains of athletes have become highly sought after by medical research centers for precisely the ways in which athletes made a living as physical labor in collision sports (and military conflict). In other words, research in brain injury, concussion and CTE is currently driven by the donated organs of “working-class” bodies, a trend that compels us to consider the possible political meanings of athlete brain donations that remain unacknowledged in popular press and sports reporting. What is increasingly common today, when athletes willingly submit their bodies and brains to the “surgeon’s scalpel”, was not always the case. Disciplined and dominated by medical institutions and the state, the working classes of different historical periods outrightly rejected the scientific appropriation of the corpse.

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 Brief History of Dissection A and Organ Procurement The struggle over dead laboring bodies was particularly prominent, for instance, in eighteenth-century England. As Peter Linebaugh explains, “the history of the London poor and the history of English science intersect” during the 1700s such that “a precondition of progress in anatomy depended upon the ability of the surgeons to snatch the bodies of those hanged at Tyburn” (1976, p. 69). At this time, the growing demand for corpses by surgeons and physicians, who desired new methods of pedagogy, resulted in a “dark, shoddy business” of purchasing the remains of hanged criminals that included the “laboring poor”—tailors, carpenters, sawyers, weavers, sailors (“deep-sea proletariat”) and coal-heavers, for instance (Linebaugh, 1976, p. 72). As Linebaugh argues, The formalized customs of bereavement, depending as they often did upon the integrity of the corpse and the respect shown to it, were brutally violated by the practice of dissection. To the surgeons, their spokesmen, and the lords and squires sitting in Parliament, not only was humiliation at the death of one of the “Scum of the People” a passing matter, but such further “Marks of Infamy” as public dissection became a part of the policy of class discipline. (1976, p. 117)

The working poor, however, often strove to reclaim bodies of their hanged friends and relatives from the “surgeon’s scalpel”, marking a rejection of the corpse’s commodification. In doing so, David McNally suggests, the working class “claimed a moral victory over the dismembering powers of capital” (2001, p. 23). It was, after all, an era in which the corpse became a commodity, a piece of property open to commercial exchange brokered by “body snatchers” and “grave robbers” (Linebaughh, 1976). To this end, “the corpse-­ economy … became a symbolic register for all that was objectionable about emergent capitalism, of its demonic drive to exploit human life and labor, of its propensity to humiliate and demean in both life and death” (McNally, 2001, pp. 58–59). Reclaiming the corpse, then, was a deliberate negation of capital’s demand for “productivity” and the evisceration or extraction of value from working bodies, dead and alive. It was, in short, reflective and constitutive of class conflict of a developing industrial capitalism. The underlying class politics of dissection and anatomy were compounded in Britain by the passing of the Anatomy Act in 1832, which prohibited grave robbery and public dissection of hanged criminals and instead provided medical schools with the unclaimed corpses of the laboring poor, mostly paupers

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in workhouses and hospitals. As McNally notes, “Once a punishment for murder, dissection now became a penalty for poverty and obscurity” (2001, p. 57). To be sure, the Anatomy Act was widely, though not effectively, condemned as an “illegitimate exercise of class privilege”; dissection served as a parable of capitalism in which the “poor were meat preyed upon and eaten by the upwardly aspiring professional elite” (Sappol, 2002, p. 131). Supporters of the controversial act—which threatened all of the poor—drew on a utilitarian view of the body in which the working poor “could posthumously repay their debt to society by acquiescing in the dissection of their bodies” to “improve medical science and the health and wellbeing of society at large” (Sappol, 2002, p. 4). In his widely circulated 1827 pamphlet “Use of the Dead to the Living”, Benthamite physician and Unitarian minister Thomas Southwood Smith argued that “No maxim can be more indisputable than that those who are supported by the public die in its debt” (p. 37). Similar acts were passed in the US, where dissection threatened not only paupers but also African Americans and Native Americans, lending the debates a racial dimension. As Michael Sappol explains, “With fewer economic, political and social resources of which to defend their dead, a disproportionate number of anatomical subjects were black, Indian or Irish” (2002, p. 5). Such communities rejected anatomy acts as “ghoulish”, “undemocratic” and a “vampirical form of seigneurial privilege” (Sappol, 2002, p. 4). In fact, from 1785 to 1855 there were at least 17 anatomy riots in the US where protestors reclaimed the corpses of their brethren, attacked body snatchers and physicians and ransacked medical schools (Sappol, 2002). While eventually and only relatively recently, public antipathy to dissection dissipated through various anatomical donation acts, the state paternalism of the National Health Service (NHS) in Britain, and a discourse of “informed consent” (see Richardson, 1996), serious questions remain concerning the origins of cadavers and human tissues, including the organ trafficking of so-­ called third-world bodies for “first-world” recipients and even the dubious means by which corpses were obtained for Gunther von Hagens’ wildly popular “Body Worlds” traveling exhibit1. Alongside problems of supply and demand, ongoing debates about organ donation and cadaveric procurement tend to focus on problems of dehumanization and commodification of the human body as property.

 See Stuart Jeffries ‘The naked and the dead’ The Guardian 19th March 2002 https://www.theguardian. com/education/2002/mar/19/arts.highereducation Access 30th November 2019 1

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The “Gift Economy” and Athlete Brain Donations Many of the debates arise from the “gift economy” of organ donation. As Ruth Richardson (1987/2000), Lesley Sharp (2000, 2007) and Andrew Kimbrell (1993) explain, pedagogies of “clinical detachment” and operational euphemisms—both enabled by a mechanistic view of the body intrinsic to western science, capitalism and, incidentally, sports (e.g. a theme explored in John Hoberman’s Mortal Engines2)—obfuscate the objectification underpinning the “gift economy” of donation. Evidently, organ transfer is only enabled once human beings are disassembled and reduced to fragments or “HBPs” (Human Body Parts) that are “harvested” and “procured” like any number of fetishized objects and commodities. (Observe the formation of “brain banks”, “organ farms” and “gene patents”.) Kimbrell writes that the body is now seen as an “engine of industry” where hearts become “tickers”, brains become “computers”, thoughts become “feedback” and digestive and sexual organs become “plumbing” (1993. P. 230). Such “machine” vernacular is rooted, of course, in the Enlightenment discourse shaped by the likes of Galileo, de La Mettrie and Descartes from which a larger narrative of “mechanicism” unfolds. Incidentally, this mechanistic view—or “machine model”—of the body at the center of organ transfer’s ethical problems abounds in the world of sports where an athlete’s legs become “wheels”, arms become “cannons”, “missiles” and “rockets” and moving bodies become “freight trains” and “trucks”. As Bero Rigauer notes in his class book Sport and Work (1981), both athletics and the capitalist workplace include the “scientification” of productivity and achievement whereby athletes and workers are reduced to numbers and records and are vulnerable to substitution and exchange. As such, the human being—the person, the subject—often appears to anatomists, team managers and especially capitalists in precisely the same terms: as “reified body parts and beings detached from the organic whole in which they inhere” (McNally, 2001, p. 97). In other words, both capitalist production and sport fragment the working body into discrete sections, processes and parts to optimize output (McNally, 2001). Both enterprises are “imbued with the ‘human motor’ myth” that, as Kimbrell reminds us, “ends by destroying the body (and nature)” (1993, p. 247). Part of the problem for critics of organ procurement practices arises from the anonymity and depersonalization of donors typically mandated by the medical establishment. Under such conditions, donors are reduced to organs  John Hoberman Mortal Engines: The Science of Performance and the Dehumanization of Sport New York: The Free Press, 1992 2

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or cadavers devoid of personhood, subjectivity, history or family. In her critique of “Body Worlds”, Uli Linke argues that “nameless figures” are “instrumentalized as objects of knowledge” and fetishized bodies that are rendered productive, even in death (2010, p. 93). Herein lies a certain violence of abstraction underwriting the logic of capital. Sharp adds that “the social acceptance of organ transfer mandates that an individual, named patient be relegated to the new anonymous and ultimately generic status of organ donor; known individuals with personal histories become bodies that harbor precious commodities” (2007, p. 61–2). In other words, the “donor becomes a thing, a nothing: a means rather than an end” (Richardson, 1996, p. 87). If policy and practices of anonymity are partly responsible for depersonalization and ultimately commodification, as critics insist, the increasingly visible origins of “legacy” projects and “pledge drives” in the world of sports raises some interesting questions. Whereas athletes are certainly reduced to body parts and fetishized objects on the playing field and potentially in death where concussed athletes “become the specific illness or dysfunctional organ from which they suffer and enter the medical marketplace accordingly”, the highly publicized pledges of retired athletes may alleviate the quandary of anonymity (Stern, 2003, p. 5). Alongside NFL legends like Warren Sapp and Junior Seau (who requested his brain be donated to science shortly before committing suicide in 2012), we find some of Canada’s “most decorated female athletes” like Campbell-Pascall, Wickenheiser and Gartner on a growing list of brain donors (Giorgi, 2018). In a sense, athletes’ identities and, moreover, their work histories are instrumental to understanding their explanted organs; personhood is not necessarily detached from the body and its parts, as it is in conventional donations. Indeed, former NFLers like Sapp, Sean Morey, Randy Cross and Eric Winston as well as retired soccer star Brandi Chastain speak of the individual contributions they themselves—as brain donors—can make to their respective sports and the care of future generations of athletes. In Rolling Stone magazine, Sapp explained his pledge to donate as an attempt to improve player safety (Rafferty, 2017). In the Sporting News, Morey suggested that brain donation is “one of the most profound actions I can take personally … to help ensure the safety and welfare of active, retired, and future athletes for decades to come” (Hille, 2017, par. 20). Cross went so far as to “urge everyone that’s every played [football] to donate” (Hille, 2017, par. 15). And both Winston and Chastain expressed their interests in donation as arising from deep concern for the wellbeing of future athletes. In the same article, athlete-pledge-­ donor Shawn Springs asked rhetorically, “Why wouldn’t I give my brain to

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help with the research?” while Dale Earnhardt, Jr., opined in similar terms, “What use is your brain [to you] when you’re dead” (Hille, 2017, pars. 8, 27)? Evidently, many of the comments from athlete donors seem to reflect a utilitarian view of the body, one that has a long and troubling history and lay behind anatomy acts in Britain and the US and the writings of its prominent supporters, like the aforementioned Southwood Smith and especially his mentor, Jeremy Bentham. The famous moral reformer donated his body to medical science, embalmed and displayed at University College London as the “auto-icon”, which is often described as “the sacred relic of a secular creed” (Gold, 1996, p. 22). In strident support of the Anatomy Act, Bentham’s “creed” was one of a utilitarianism that not only obligated the dead to serve a purpose to society but also marked a growing middle-class hegemony regarding both science and the state’s treatment of the poor. “In life, a drain on the public purse; in death, they would be made to serve the public good” (Sappol, 2002, p. 118). This notion of “doing one’s part”, as former Baltimore Raven and recent pledge donor Matt Birk calls it, coincides with a recurring storyline of reciprocity toward “the game” and its future participants redolent of the “secular creed” (Hille, 2017, par. 24). In some instances, the donation pledge is reportedly made in the interests of “giving back” to sports; a debt of gratitude emerges as if athletic labor and corporeal sacrifices were not already paramount to the economic enterprise of athletics. Retired athlete donors like Campbell-Pascall, for instance, declare their love of the game and claim to have “no regrets” about any damage to their brains as they insist on the importance of making organ donations. Such narratives, though intended to foreground the generosity of the athlete donor, actively obfuscate power relations of responsibility for brain injuries and the “expendable” athlete. According to pledge donors like Sapp, Morey and Cross, it is now the personal and moral responsibility of former athletes of select sports to donate injured organs to medical science in repayment of a debt of sorts to “the game” which, in the same press reports, is curiously depicted without owners and impresarios that ultimately benefit from athletic labor; instead, the donation is described rather vaguely to help future generations of athletes (workers!) without necessarily shifting control of the means of athletic production. The perceived “peonage” is paid with athletes’ bodily organs in a morbid metonym of capital’s extraction and exsanguination of living (and now dead) labor. From donation to dissection, however, the problematic politics of (dis)embodiment are hardly ameliorated. Of course, dissection was not only a threat to the laboring poor; it also broke myriad cultural taboos in deviating from religious beliefs about burying the bodies of the dead whole and intact

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as well as funerary rights of sepulcher. Through medical dissection, it was believed, the human body “was demoted to the status of slaughtered meat” (Sappol, 2002, p. 104). What arose, and remains with us today, however, is an understanding of the human body as “an aggregate of replaceable, exchangeable and exploitable parts: items that should not be allowed to go to waste”, a sentiment of thrift echoed by retired athletes like Springs and Earnhardt, Jr. (Zwart, 2016, p. 152). What arises is the “fetishization of life” in which “any possibility of a social ethic” is removed (Scheper-Hughes, cited in Parkhurst, 2011, p. 1). Moreover, as Dorothy Nelkin and Lori Andrews point out, “objectifying the body enables scientists to extract, use, and patent body tissue without reference to the person involved”, an acutely contentious “biocolonial” practice often directed at indigenous communities in South America (1998, p. 54). At the heart of utilitarian views of the body—bolstered by the machine model favored by anatomists, team managers and capitalists—is a “productive” use of the decedent whereby “some additional benefit”—dare we say “surplus value”—can be extracted from the bodies (Linke, 2010, p. 94). The questions then arise, what is this “greater good” of which the athletes speak and who ultimately benefits from such altruistic practices of donation?

Bourgeois Medicine, the Workplace and Sports To unpack these questions, we ventured into political economic and cultural critiques of western medicine (see Ehrenreich, 1978). Specifically, we enlisted the textual help of noted Marxist medical historian Vicente Navarro, whose work on bourgeois medicine is instrumental to a critique of the “greater good” and the alleged benevolence of modern healthcare. (On a lighter note, and perhaps to the enjoyment of our American colleagues, Navarro’s work influenced the development of the “HMO”—not the insurance group of privatized healthcare in the US but rather the “Health Marxist Organization”.) For Navarro, science and medicine are not apolitical or neutral but rather reflective of the mode of production from which they arise. He advises us to “guard against the instrumentalist perception of medicine … as a free-standing power that is only afterwards utilized by the dominant classes” (Navarro, 1983, p. 187). Instead, one of the objectives of modern medicine is to maintain a healthy and reliable workforce, which obviously benefits workers but may ultimately bolster capitalist economic interests. Navarro insists that “there is no medicine outside of classes”; “the working class is always in medicine and its struggle with the bourgeoisie always appears in medicine” so much so that

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“the primary determinant of medicine is class struggle” (Navarro, 1983, p. 189). As a result, Navarro suggests that diseases and illnesses are best understood within not only a physiological framework but within specific historical, political and economic formations. An understanding of Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis (CWP) or “black lung”, for instance, must emerge “from an understanding of how class power relations” between coal miners and mine owners, as well as occupational physicians, “shaped the scientific definition, recognition and knowledge of black lung … and the actual production and distribution of that disease” (Navarro, 1980, p. 542). In other words, we must not forget that black lung effected particular types of physical workers engaged in class struggle, perhaps not unlike brain injuries and CTE among retired athletes. Navarro is especially critical of the function and emergence of occupational medicine which, under bourgeois precepts, often accepts the “inevitability” of capitalist production as “progress”. He claims that “occupation doctors” or “company doctors” primarily reflect and reproduce the interests of owners and management in concealing or minimizing hazardous working conditions (Navarro, 1980). The struggle was, and, in the sports world, especially the NFL, continues to be “between labor, which demanded a higher compensation, and capital (helped by occupational doctors) which wanted to minimize that compensation, denying for as long as possible that there was any relationship between work, disease and death” (Navarro, 1980, p. 529). These are precisely the conditions within the NFL—dubbed the “league of denial”—as well as the CFL which, in 2016, denied any link between football and degenerative brain disease. Incidentally, two recent lawsuits in Canada have been filed by former players against not only the CFL but also the neuroscientists contracted by the alumni association for downplaying brain injuries in gridiron football (Westhead, 2015). As honorable and heroic as it may be, then, athlete brain donations may unwittingly work to support an institution of sports medicine that has historically privileged the interests of team owners rather than players. As Dasgupta and O’Connor (2013) point out, team physicians, for instance, are often torn between their ethical responsibilities to the health and safety of players, on the one hand, and contractual obligations to their employers or team owners, on the other hand. This is reflected by the findings of the NFL’s Head, Neck and Spine Committee in 2011 that essentially elided the significance of long-term head injuries in gridiron football (Keating, 2012). Our point here is that while team physicians and trainers are not synonymous with neuroscientists, particularly ones that are now critical of the NFL’s and NHL’s dealing with

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concussions, they belong to the same medical establishment and set of disciplinary practices that have historically overlooked player safety in the interests of capital. In response, retired players and their families are routinely engaged in legal disputes with sports leagues regarding the responsibility of team ownership in the safety of its employees. Cheryl Shepherd (mother of the late Jovan Belcher3), for example, is currently suing the Kansas City Chiefs claiming that coaches and team trainers pressured her son to play while concussed and injured. As David Zirin remarks, it is possible that trainers, physicians and coaches used their “‘class leverage’ to compel … Belcher to wreck his own brain” (2014, par. 9). Here it is difficult to fathom how such indiscretions would be eliminated through increased brain donations.

Conclusion This chapter has proposed an understanding of the concussion “crisis” and athlete brain donations informed by a critical cultural studies of organ procurement. In doing so, we find several contentious issues emerge: first, the popular narrative of athlete pledges and brain donations takes little if any account not only of the troublesome history of organ and cadaveric procurement—which might otherwise offer legitimate reasons for withholding donations—but also the overwhelming class struggle and predation of working-class bodies, themes that can be readily found throughout sports as a commercial endeavor. While there are obvious differences between the working poor of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England and modern-day athletes—not the least of which are disparities in pay—the relationships between laboring bodies and the logic of capital are noteworthy. Following Navarro (and Marx), our understanding of class is informed not by one’s education or income but rather by one’s relation to the means of production and control over the labor process. Much like the working class and paupers at workhouses, athletes and their bodies are fragmented in both life and death in the form of dissection and dismemberment. McNally reminds us that “The secret of capitalism resides in this fragmentation of the laboring self, in the way that wage-laborers turn over their bodies of value to capital in incremental bits over a lifetime” (2001, p. 147). In both cases, dissection and public anatomy were and continue to be performed for the purposes of modern scientific inquiry (which is

 Belcher, an African-American linebacker for the Chiefs, died in a murder-suicide, shooting dead his girlfriend and then himself, in 2012. 3

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typically presented as devoid of political import). The athlete is often valued as a physical specimen on the field and in the laboratory. What we find, then, is a rather intermittent narrative of “productivity”; the athlete passes from a stage of “value” on the playing field to a stage of retirement where the body is “decommissioned” as no longer “productive” for team owners. This is illustrated by the alleged inadequacies of players associations and leagues to monitor and support the health, wellbeing and life transition of recently retired athletes (Stubits, 2012). Following death and organ donation, however, the body returns to a stage of “productivity” in which damaged organs become the raw materials (the “means of production”) for the development of scientific knowledge, which is presumably used to protect other athletes. While it is difficult to dispute the recent findings of neuroscience in sports and the goodwill of former athletes offering their bodies to science, the donation of the concussed brain is still embedded within the “dismembering powers of capital”. This leads to our second concern. In popular reports of athlete brain donations, medical science is taken for granted as both apolitical and an unequivocal beacon of progress, despite its embeddedness in a capitalist social order explained by Navarro and vividly illustrated by studies and commentaries on the ethical dilemmas of team physicians or, as Navarro might say, “company doctors”. While the pledge may be beneficial to both athletes and leagues, embracing and supporting athletes’ brains as raw material allows leagues, who have now moved reluctantly beyond denial, to position and treat the “crisis” exclusively as a function of insufficient knowledge, equipment, education, or rules (Mahler, 2012)—things that can be overcome with knowledge and technology. However, the extent to which player safety automatically improves through brain donation is highly questionable. The “increased safety” made possible through scientific advancement enabled by brain banks continues to frame the problems in professional sports as a “concussion crisis” rather than attending to labor and its social conditions. Worker safety, for example, is typically understood and appreciated in a lexicon of “assets”, “investments” and “liabilities” favored by owners and managers whereby the player is simply a (compliant or obstinate) worker whose potential value rests in the present and immediate future, not during retirement when advanced symptoms of brain trauma routinely appear (see Arai, Ko & Ross, 2014; Carlson & Donavan, 2013; Kedar-Levy & Bar-Eli, 2008; Smith, 2013). To be clear, improving the lives of athletes/workers is unequivocally important; however, as Navarro would suggest, it must be accompanied by a fundamental questioning of the historical and lingering role of medicine in unwittingly maintaining professional sports as an exploitative (if slightly less dangerous) enterprise.

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Works Cited Arai, A., Ko, Y. J., & Ross, S. (2014). Branding athletes: Exploration and conceptualization of athlete brand image. Sport Management Review, 17(2), 97–106. Brayton, S., & Helstein, M. (2019). The athlete’s body and the social text of suicide. In M. Ventresca & M. McDonald (Eds.), Sociocultural examinations of sports concussions: Forces of Impact (pp. 131–150). Routledge. Brayton, S., Helstein, M., Ramsey, M., & Rickards, N. (2019). Exploring the missing link between the concussion “crisis” and labor politics in professional sports. Communication and Sport, 7(1), 110–131. Carlson, B. D., & Donovan, D. T. (2013). Human brands in sport: Athlete brand personality and identification. Journal of Sport Management, 27(3), 193–206. Dasgupta, I., & O’Connor, D. (2013). From sports ethics to labor relations. The American Journal of Bioethics, 13(10), 17–18. Ehrenreich, J. (1978). Introduction. In J. Ehrenreich (Ed.), The cultural crisis of modern medicine (pp. 1–35). Monthly Review Press. Giorgi, A. (2018). Four of Canada’s most decorated female athletes donate brains to Concussion Research Centre. University Health Network, May 10. Retrieved from https://www.uhn.ca/corporate/News/PressReleases/Pages/Four_Canada_most_ decorated_female_athletes_donate_brains_to_Canadian_Concussion_ Centre.aspx Gold, E. R. (1996). Body parts: Property rights and the ownership of human biological materials. Georgetown University Press. Hille, B. (2017). 30 former NFL players donate brains to CTE research, foundation says. Sporting News, 3 February. Retrieved from http://www.sportingnews.com/ nfl/news/30-­former-­nfl-­players-­donate-­brains-­to-­cte-­research-­foundation-­says/ dtinsms0ww6q1mo1pqlc7kujr Keating, P. (2012). After the aftermath. ESPN.com, May 17. Retrieved from https:// www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/7930585/nfl-­junior-­seau-­suicide-­raises-­more-­ questions-­nfl-­handling-­concussions-­espn-­magazine Kedar-Levy, H., & Bar-Eli, M. (2008). The valuation of athletes as risky. Journal of Sport Management, 22, 50–81. Kimbrell, A. (1993). The human body shop: The engineering and marketing of life. Harper Collins. Linebaugh, P. (1976). The Tyburn riot against the surgeons. In D. Hay, P. Linebaugh, J. Rule, E. P. Thompson, & C. Winslow (Eds.), Albion’s fatal tree: Crime and society in Eighteenth Century England (pp. 65–117). Pantheon. Linke, U. (2010). Body shock: The political aesthetics of death. Social Analysis, 54(2), 80–98. Mahler, Jonathan. 2012. “Why the NFL’s ‘Concussion Crisis’ isn’t Really a Concussion Crisis.” Deadspin , December 7. https://deadspin.com/5966319/why-­the-­nfls-­ concussion-­crisis-­isnt-­really-­a-­concussion-­crisis

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McNally, D. (2001). Bodies of meaning: Studies on language, labor, and liberation. State University of New York Press. Navarro, V. (1980). Work, ideology, and science: the case of medicine. International Journal of Health Services, 10(4), 523–550. Navarro, V. (1983). Radicalism, Marxism, and medicine. International Journal of Health Services, 13(2), 179–202. Nelkin, D., & Andrews, L. (1998). Homo economicus: Commercialization of body tissue in the age of biotechnology. Hastings Center Report, September/ October, 30-39. Parkhurst, A. (2011). The defetishization of the human body. Bioethics.. Retrieved from https://www.bioethics.ac.uk/news/the-­defetishization-­of-­the-­human-­ body.php Rafferty, S. (2017). NFL legend Warren Sapp: I’m donating my brain to science. Rolling Stone, June 21. Retrieved from https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/ culture-­s ports/nfl-­l egend-­w arren-­s app-­i m-­d onating-­m y-­b rain-­t o-­s cience-­ 195187/ Richardson, R. (1987/2000). Death, dissection and the destitute. University of Chicago Press. Richardson, R. (1996). Fearful symmetry: Corpses for anatomy, organs for transplantation? In S. Youngner, R. Fox, & L. O’Connell (Eds.), Organ transplantation: Meanings and realities (pp. 66–100). University of Wisconsin Press. Rigauer, B. (1981). Sport and work. Columbia University Press. Sappol, M. (2002). A traffic in dead bodies: Anatomy and embodied social identity in Nineteenth-Century America. Princeton University Press. Sharp, L. (2000). The commodification of the body and its parts. Annual Review of Anthropology, 29, 287–328. Sharp, L. (2007). Bodies, commodities, and biotechnologies: Death, mourning, and scientific desire in the realm of human organ transfer. Columbia University Press. Smith, R. (2013). Solving the concussion problem and saving professional football. Thomas Jefferson Law Review, 35(2), 127–191. Smith, T. S. (1827). Use of the dead to the living. Westminster Review. Websters and Skinners. Stern, M. (2003). Shiny, happy people: ‘Body Worlds’ and the commodification of health. Radical Philosophy, 118, 2–6. https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/commentary/shiny-­happy-­people Stubits. B. (2012). Derek Boogaard’s family files lawsuit against NHLPA, potentially opening doors for much more. CBS Sports, September 27. Retrieved from https://www.cbssports.com/nhl/news/derek-­b oogaards-­f amily-­f iles-­l awsuit-­ against-­nhlpa-­potentially-­opening-­doors-­for-­much-­more/ Westhead, R. (2015). Former players film $200 million lawsuit against CFL. TSN, June 5. Retrieved from https://www.tsn.ca/former-­players-­file-­200m-­lawsuit-­ against-­cfl-­1.300462

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Zirin, D. (2014). Jovan Belcher’s murder-suicide: Did the Kansas City Chiefs pull the trigger? The Nation, January 6. Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/ article/jovan-­belchers-­murder-­suicide-­did-­kansas-­city-­chiefs-­pull-­trigger/ Zwart, H. (2016). Transplantation medicine, organ-theft cinema and bodily integrity. Subjectivity, 9(2), 151–180.

On the Frontlines: Black Boys and Injury in Basketball Scott N. Brooks, Stacey Flores, and Anthony J. Weems

Introduction “They laugh and say ‘Quit bragging’ ‘bout the war you should never have been in. But my mind is so brain-washed I’d probably go back and do it again,” sang Steve Wonder in “Frontlines,” a song on his album of 1982 Original Musiquarium, “They had me standing on the front line, But now I stand at the back of the line when it comes to getting ahead.”1 Elite American boys’ basketball players play a year-round schedule, including an intense round of summer leagues and tournaments, where only the fittest survive. This is necessary to garnering the attention of the national scouting network and college coaches. With no active national regulator or enforcement agency boys play in pressure situations and are evaluated on a number of criteria, including their ability to play through pain and/or with an injury. One’s willingness to play through pain has become a positive attribute, a necessary ingredient to success. But, it also drives young people to do damage and play through pain risking more damage. What may look like a  Stevie Wonder Original Musiquarium Los Angeles: Tamla Records 1982.

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S. N. Brooks (*) • S. Flores Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. J. Weems Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_18

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meritocratic process is more of a war of attrition that serves a broader sports industry. Youth sport should not be seen in a vacuum. It is part of the bigger Sports Industrial Complex. At the risk of diluting the importance of the Prison Industrial Complex, we, as have others, use the phrase industrial complex deliberately. In doing so, we are illustrating how capitalism and racism are intertwined, that there is an industry of racism that exploits Blacks and other people of color for White gain. This doesn’t mean that agency is non-existent but rather that agency occurs within a broader structure, setting arrangements, prescribing norms and influencing the conditions in which people live and act. Not coincidentally, there are gross racial differences between who manages and owns sport and who plays American football and men’s basketball. Those who stand to benefit the most from this collegiate arms race are White economic and political elites. There are White billionaire team owners and business owners who benefit through direct use of Black athletes and by connection to the sports organizations who own/manage the Black athletes. Elite boys’ basketball [and American football] players stand on the frontlines of the American sport industrial complex. For elite boys’ basketball players, who are overwhelming Black, sport is not extracurricular, it is curricular, core to their identity, they are athletes and ballplayers, and they specialize in their sport, their craft, shooting for their hoop dream. Meanwhile, their making it or missing it contributes to the social and financial bottom line of schools, colleges, professional clubs, and multi-national corporations. Exploited by the myth of amateurism, boys contribute to an industrial complex that uses them up.2 To ascend the ranks elite players have to prove themselves over and over, against the best available talent, in front of watchful eyes, and with potential future opportunities in the balance. They live a life of constant evaluation and ranking based on evaluations of performances, comparisons with other players, and the opinions of some industry-designated people. The biggest differences between elites and non-elites are the contexts in which they play and the level of rewards and costs when they play. Elites play in games with possible social and economic impact. In short, they play under pressure. At the highest levels of competition, college, and professional ranks, they are told that their sports participation is a job. In an economic extension of ranking, they are valued in two ways: they are sought after and their impact can be assigned an economic  Huma, R., & Staurowsky, E. J. (2012). The $6 billion heist: Robbing college athletes under the guise of amateurism. A report collaboratively produced by the National College Players Association and Drexel University Sport Management. http://www.ncpanow.org. Retrieved on November 26, 2019. 2

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value. For young black males in particular, who play the cash sport of basketball, positive and negative evaluations can be life changing—they make or miss “it”—benefitting or costing them millions of dollars. These evaluations are something to monitor and manage closely. The valuation of Black bodies is a remnant of older American times and has gone on for centuries, beginning with slavery. Historically, when allowed to serve in the military, Black men wanted to be on the frontlines to prove their commitment to America while also treated as second class citizens. “We do so much in this country to celebrate and honor folks who risk their lives on the battlefield,” famed Black civil rights attorney, Bryan Stevenson has said. “But we don’t remember that black veterans were more likely to be attacked for their service than honored for it.”3 This chapter explores the disposability of Black male bodies in American youth basketball and the role of negative labeling in the age of global sports capitalism.

“Soft” Impacts: Labeling Theory Reconsidered Howard Becker theorized that deviance does not define the actions of some people, but rather the labeling of some people. “Social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance [Becker’s emphasis] and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders” (Becker, 1963, p.9).4 Becker’s message is important—being labeled is a social phenomenon that illuminates the social political—who creates the rules, for what purposes, for whose benefit, who follows the rules, who enforces the rules, and all of the variability within these questions, like when are the rules not followed, for whom do the rules apply, and the timing and salience of rules? Labeling theory is useful to understanding how aspiring young black male basketball players manage injury and the social and political aspects of physical labor. Youth athletes are judged beyond physical abilities and basketball  Bryan Stevenson quoted in The New Yorker. Baker, P.C. (2016).The Tragic, Forgotten History of Black Military Veterans. NewYorker.com. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-tragic-forgotten-­ history-of-black-military-veterans. Retrieved on December 18, 2019. 4  Becker, H.S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: The Free Press. Becker’s approach was innovative in the early 1960s and went against the research practice of studying deviant people in search for commonalities and an understanding of what made them different and why they did what they did. Studying so-called deviants requires some assumptions—that they did what they’re accused of, and that we have knowledge of all of the deviants and not simply all who have been caught and identified as deviant. If these assumptions are bad, then the research will be seriously flawed and include wrongfully labeled and miss some who should be included. 3

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understanding. Scouts and coaches set the positive and negative criteria for evaluation and apply their criteria via labels. We look at some of the labels assigned to boy ballplayers, how boys get labeled, and why some labels stick. Our deep interest and reconsideration of labeling theory is in the impact of being negatively labeled and who benefits. Words matter and negative labels are devaluing and have impact. Elite boy basketball players work to avoid or change negative evaluations and labels that threaten their status and potential economic and sporting opportunities. Basketball leads all sports in reported youth sports injuries and more injuries occur during games than in practice.5 We estimate that the best of the best play 756 games a year (for reference, professionals in the NBA play an 82-game season) and under high pressure. It would appear, injury is accepted as an undesirable but “inevitable cost,” a circumstance that all elite athletes will face. And there’s a culture of machismo wherein societal messaging on physical and mental toughness is reinforced by coaches, parents, and peers who tell youth “no pain, no gain,” instruct athletes to “suck it up,” and ask “are you injured, or are you hurt?” Toughness is used more and more as an important and desirable athletic attribute. There are two parts to this: physical (how their body handles physicality and heals from injury) and mental toughness (how they deal with “adversity”) and their ability to “suck it up” (play through pain). Youth who fail to show that they can rise above their challenge or who incur an injury that leads to poor performance risk devaluation. They are called “soft,” “injury prone,” and if they can’t defy this label, they get the kiss of death—“damaged goods.”

 Boys, aged 13–17, had 119,589 emergency visits and listed “basketball“ as the sport they were playing when injured. Football was next (118,886), then soccer at 45,475. This said, one has to consider absolute numbers of athletes: basketball is the most popular sport for boys and so this pattern makes a lot of sense—the sport with the greatest number of participants should also have the greatest number of emergency visits (i.e., there are more boys playing basketball so we should expect more basketball boys will end up injured). Girls and boys are more likely to incur an injury during competition than in practice and sprains/strains and lower extremity injuries accounted for the majority of all injuries (ankle is #1), regardless of sport or setting. And sport specialization, defined as engaging in a single sport for the fall, winter, and spring, brings higher risks for injury. Found in the Orthopeadic Journal of Sports Medicine, a multiyear study was published covering 10,138 youth athletes and their mothers. It was conducted to examine the impact sport specialization has on injury. See also https://coachad.com/articles/which-sports-cause-themost-­injuries-to-high-school-athletes/ Retrieved on October 12, 2019. 6  We came to the estimate by averaging the number of high school games that are played (30) plus the number of games in the EYBL summer circuit (12) and the number of games played in (non EYBL) AAU tournaments (20–4 tournaments with 5 games) and 2–4 invitational showcases). 5

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Case Study: MPJnr Basketball play, as with any formal activity, is learned. No one is born and is automatically a basketball player. Regardless of their God-given gifts—length, size of hands, and so on—a girl or boy has to be made aware of the sport, must be given some opportunity to play, usually within the context of peer groups, and then they need whatever resources are required to continue playing. Michael Porter Jr. was raised a basketball player but becoming a basketball player is linked to a larger structure of relationships, arrangements, rules, and interests, which varies by race and gender.7 Michael Sr. (Big Mike) and Lisa Porter met at a gym where they were playing for a Christian-based evangelical basketball team (there is a men’s and a women’s team each composed of former/graduated college players) that toured America and played college teams and delivered the Gospel. Lisa was nearly 6-feet, 5-inches and Big Mike was 6-feet, 4-inches tall. Michael, from Mississippi, played college ball at the University of New Orleans and tried out for the NBA before suffering a knee injury. Lisa had been an All-American in college and played professionally overseas before there was a WNBA. They dated for a while before getting married and, both coming from large families, they wanted to have their own family. They had eight kids—five boys and three girls—and doctors predicted that three of the boys would be 7-footers. They decided early on that they would teach their kids how to become good ball players so that they could go to college for free—anything else would be icing on the cake. Michael Jr. (Mike or Little Mike) was born in 1998; he was the third child and the first son. Little Mike showed promise early. He was competitive, surprisingly coordinated and agile, quick and aggressive. He was advanced and pushed to do more than he was being taught. He would try things, take risks, and he usually was rewarded for it. All of the kids were born in Indiana where basketball is effectively a religion. Big Mike coached all of the kids and each of them shined in their own ways. In 2010, Michael Sr. got an assistant coaching job at the University of Missouri, hired by his sister-in-law, Robin Pingeton, who was the head coach of the Missouri women’s team.8 The family moved and the two oldest  Messner, M. (1989) Masculinities and Athletic Careers. Gender and Society 3(1): 71–88.  Bri had been a very athletic and promising high school player before knee injuries and surgeries. After winning four consecutive high school championships they signed to play college ball for Missouri and, thus, for their aunt (and father). In college, Bri suffered two more knee injuries requiring additional surgeries. Cierra battled a nagging foot injury for three years. Due to injury neither fully reached their potential; both decided to stop playing before they used up their athletic eligibility. 7 8

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children, Bri and Cierra (girls), entered high school. Both were elite players and Cierra earned a national ranking. Little Mike was thirteen when the family moved to Missouri and in the same year an NBA scout saw him and declared that he was a future pro. From here, everything sped up. Michael’s ranking at the national level leaped to under 20 and he was sought after: invitations to individual camps and team tournaments flooded in and paying to play was less of a requirement. The collegiate arms race was on. In high school, Little Mike was recruited to play for MoKan (Missouri-­ Kansas) in Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL). He played a year-­ round basketball schedule that included playing for Nike’s Mokan Elite AAU, he played in the NBA’s top 150 (prospects) camp, Nike’s Lebron’s and Chris Paul’s camp for elite boys, (US sports apparel company) Under Armour and Stephen Curry’s camp for elite boys, and attended practices for Team USA. Little Mike’s performances at these various venues boosted his status quickly and he ascended to top-3 status and then the #1 ranking in three years. He was recruited to college prep high schools that had national reputations, played the best teams around the country, and included other top-­ ranked players. He was approached and offered scholarships by top-50 college programs and could go to any college in America on full-athletic scholarship. Sport agents reached out to Big Mike and Lisa hoping to cultivate a personal relationship that would lead to a professional one when Little Mike was ready for the NBA. And Little Mike had been contacted by representatives from Adidas, Nike, and Under Armour—who gifted him sport apparel—they too, sought a relationship with him that might pay off in the future. Big Mike was offered various jobs on the men’s side, and undoubtedly this was linked to the college coach’s desire to land Mike and even younger brother Jontay.9 But Big Mike accepted an assistant coach position with Lorenzo Romar, one of his longtime and best friends (they were in each other’s weddings), head coach at the University of Washington. And Mike and Jontay (a top-25 recruit in his class) verbally committed to playing college ball at the University of Washington. That summer, Mike won the Nike AAU national championship and led Team USA U18 to a gold medal in the FIBA Americas championships. The family now moved from Missouri to Seattle, leaving the two oldest behind. But Lorenzo Romar was fired, as was Big Mike, before Little Mike had finished his senior year of high school. Colleges recruited Mike again but not for long. Big Mike was offered a job to return to Missouri  The Porter package deal seemed to epitomize the corruption of college sport—a father gets a job for the college to get the son. https://collegebasketball.nbcsports.com/2016/07/19/all-in-the-family-howwashingtons-michael-porter-package-deal-came-to-fruition/. 9

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as an assistant with the men’s team and the family was reunited in Columbia, Missouri. Young Mike lost less than ten games during high school, won two state championships in two different states, and was a McDonald’s All-American (and the game’s Most Valuable Player). He finished high school the #1 nationally ranked player. And all while being hampered by a persistent back injury. Mike finished high school still the #1 nationally ranked player. He could have gone directly to the NBA from high school (if it were allowed). But, on NBA draft day, he was passed on by 13 teams, sliding from #1 to #14, the last “lottery” pick. The label “soft” had been used to describe Mike for several years. A news reporter wrote that an NBA scout described Porter as “soft,” another scout questioned his toughness because Porter’s recovery took more time than they thought it should and other scouts viewed him as “too cool.”10 Mike has been given other labels too. News reports spoke of insiders saying that he was “entitled” and “arrogant,” a poor teammate and hungry for celebrity. One journalist wrote in response to some of these labels, “Other outlets have reported similar concerns about him [Porter], and that’s to say nothing of the reputation for being soft that he carried with him throughout his high school career.”11 Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports also noted that an NBA person said Porter might lack the makeup to be “a killer.”12 Throughout his development Mike has heard from coaches, scouts, and recruiters at the college and professional levels that he needed “to grow tougher and welcome contact.”13 He believes that this wasn’t always fair, and that instead he is the victim colorism and bi-racism; the label “soft”—that he lacked toughness, physically and mentally—is a stereotype associated with his being bi-racial and light-skinned. Mike spoke about this during an interview. “Based on race, they’ve got a perception of you. People think that

 https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2765562-michael-porter-jr-draft-rumors-missouri-sf-labeled-softafter-­back-injury Retrieved on November 28, 2019. 11  Dauster, R. (2018). NBA Draft Prospect Profile: Michael Porter Jr. is this year’s biggest mystery. NBCSports.com. https://nba.nbcsports.com/2018/06/14/2018-nba-draft-prospect-profile-michaelporter-jr-is-this-years-biggest-mystery/. Retrieved on December 9, 2019. 12  Cronin, Z. (2018). NBA Scout Labels Michael Porter Jr. as “Soft,” The Basketball Network. March 20, 2018. Retrieved on December 9, 2019. https://thebasketballnetwork.com/nba-scout-labelsmichael-porter-jr-soft/. 13  O’Donnell, R. (2016). Michael Porter Jr.’s mission to be the country’s No. 1 recruit is almost complete: The most versatile player in the class of 2017 has spent the summer proving he might be the country’s best player, too. SBNation.com. https://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2016/8/16/12474258/ michael-porter-jr-recruiting-rankings-washington-huskies. Retrieved on December 7, 2019. 10

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light-­skinned [black males] are the pretty boys. I’ve got to go out here every night and show them that it’s not true. We can get after it.”14 Mike doesn’t like the labels but feels that he has to respond with action. He is motivated to play and change what is said, to prove the labels false. A scout remarked on his improvement over the years. “He’s become more physical,” Bossi said. “He’s become less dependent on his jump shot. When he was younger, he would really hunt that jump shot, and settle for it. Now, he realizes he’s 6′10″, why not try to dunk on these guys?” Mike was encouraged to dunk to combat the label and to show that he was not soft. It’s a display of athleticism—skying above the court to slam a ball downward through a hoop ten-feet high—and a feat of masculinity and superiority. Good dunks are described as strong, aggressive, angry, ferocious, and forceful. Dunking on someone is a special event because it humiliates others and shows dominance, fearlessness, and a killer instinct. There are numerous highlight reels of Mike’s high school play, all filled with dunks. One of his dunks made ESPN’s SportCenter (daily sports news television program) and was nominated for top dunk of the year.15 There are countless players who share the “soft” and “pretty boy” labels. Stephen Curry of Golden State Warriors is one of the faces of the league and is given both of these labels too. Likewise the Brooklyn Nets’ Kevin Durant has endured being called “soft” and “sensitive.” Kevin and Mike share height, wingspan and Mike has been called, “baby KD,” because he has a similar playing style. We identify Curry and Durant because their status and visibility may explain why some guys are labeled—high-status players are more likely to be labeled than lower-status players. Labeling expresses a relationship between two or more people—it requires a reference, and expresses what a person is and isn’t. Someone who’s soft is not tough. And, this might suggest that we label any and everyone all of the time. We do. But we don’t know it. We don’t take note because labeling only matters when we label those who are worth discussing. There are plenty of soft players and pretty boys playing basketball all over the world, but we can read about, watch, and discuss Michael Porter Jr. He is a conversation and part of conversations about others like him.16 Mike’s label was used to make comparisons, generally with others who shared his label and/or other recent examples of elite college players who were  Spears, M. (2019). The Wait Continues for Michael Porter Jr. The Undefeated, July 5, 2019. https:// theundefeated.com/features/missouri-michael-porter-jr/. Retrieved on December 7, 2019. 15  https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/12096409. Retrieved on December 9, 2019. 16  Rapp, T. (2018). Michael Porter Jr. Cleared For Physical Evaluation After Suffering Hip Injury. Bleacherreport.com. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2781118-report-michael-porter-jr-cancels-2nd-­ pro-­day-due-to-hip-injury. Retrieved December 10, 2019. 14

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injured during college or close to the draft: Kyrie Irving, Harry Giles, and Zion Williamson. The label may not be objectively true, but it has real consequences for Mike because it is coming from NBA scouts and other influential persons. It is a spark. Mike challenges the labeling, connecting it to stereotypes that associate Whiteness/lighter skin and his looks with being “soft,” less physical, less strong, and less dominant. He actively resists the labeling by playing hard and aggressive. But this has come at a cost. I was in a lot of pain for a while—I had a back injury during my sophomore year, and, even before I had my surgery, I was in pain all throughout high school. I always felt like I was playing at between 75 and 80 percent, and never really got back to the point where I should have been.17

For years, he has played in pain and risked exacerbating his injury, perhaps even doing permanent damage, and, further negative labeling. He was the best player in the country at less than full strength! A painful and frustrating reality—he could have been even better. Mike’s injury woes continued as a freshman at Missouri. At Mizzou I kept seeing more chiropractors, and I remember one chiropractor did an adjustment and the pain moved from my back to my hips, and I was like, ‘What’s going on?” And the chiropractor was like, ‘it’s new muscles turning on.’ And then it stayed with me for like three days, and I noticed my leg getting a little smaller … and I’m like, ‘what’s going on?’ … So I tried to jump at practice on my left leg and I couldn’t jump as high. And so that’s when I knew something was really messed up, and that was like the day before our first game against Iowa State. So that was the scariest thing ever.18

Mike’s basketball future was in jeopardy. He was in enough pain that he was seeing multiple chiropractors and his injury was worsened by an adjustment. Yet he still tried to jump and even play a game. It would be the first game of his college career and he played only a dozen minutes before suffering a back injury. Within weeks he was having microdiscectomy surgery to fix herniated disks.

 https://www.gq.com/story/michael-porter-jr-real-life-diet. Retrieved on December 7, 2019.  Snelling, S.T. (2019). Michael Porter Jr. opens up about his back injury. Rockmnation.com. https:// www.rockmnation.com/2019/7/6/20683888/michael-porter-jr-mpj-back-injury-sophie-cunningham-­ kassius-robertson. Retrieved November 28, 2019.

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What is the effect of being under this spotlight, of being measured and labeled constantly? Mike rehabbed and played in the last two games of the season but clearly wasn’t himself. He pushed to play because he wanted to show that he was healthy, that he wasn’t “damaged goods.” He hoped that his attempt would win reputation points. A scout praised the professionalism, discipline, and work ethic it took to rehabilitate after back surgery. “He is one of those guys, since he was young, who has been programmed to do this and be this. He put the work in. The training and rehab of the body. The cold tub, hot tub. All those things you’ve seen these guys doing, he has been doing it for years.”19 This highlights the reality of being an elite athlete: they must “put the work in,” including training and rehabbing their body. And yet, they are questioned—are they really injured and, if so, how bad, they are judged for being injured, for how quickly they return to play, and for their performances when they return. Mike kept to his professional plan and declared himself for the draft. Days before the draft, Mike canceled a workout in front of lottery teams because of muscle spasms. An ESPN writer, Jonathan Givony, reported that Mike’s injuries would adversely affect Porter Jr.’s draft. Three officials from teams with top ten picks said they were highly concerned about Porter Jr.’s health.20 “There doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with him right now,” an NBA executive told Givony. “But a conservative doctor could still [be concerned about] what might happen down the road.”21 This stoked the already loud questions about his health—was he a risky pick, would he pan out, could he have a long career? What about overcoming adversity? What about his persistence? What about the competitive drive that helped him to get on the court when his body was not 100%? Michael’s hard work and discipline in rehabbing from his college injury did not carry forward—his character and commitment were no longer so important—his value—economic value mattered most. After playing years with pain and beating the other elite talent to get to the top of the pyramid, he was “fragile,” “damaged goods,” and labeled injury prone. The process of injury, pain, and rehab and athletes’ management of injury are scrutinized. Athletes are questioned regarding their pain threshold—are  Spears, M. (2018). Michael Porter Jr. ‘I don’t feel entitled to this’. https://theundefeated.com/features/ michael-porter-jr-i-dont-feel-entitled-to-this-goes-to-nuggets-at-no-14-2018-nba-draft/ Retrieved on 10/19/2019. 20  Ibid. 21  Rapp, T. (2018). Michael Porter Jr. Cleared For Physical Evaluation After Suffering Hip Injury. Bleacherreport.com. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2781118-report-michael-porter-jr-cancels-2nd-­ pro-­day-due-to-hip-injury. Retrieved December 10, 2019. 19

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they injured or just hurt? We hear of different levels of injury, the varied treatments, and ranging timetables for healing and expected return to play. Increasingly, people seek multiple opinions leading to varied diagnoses and recommendations. One doctor may say that everything looks good and another sees something amiss. Recommendations for treatment vary from do nothing, rehab the injury or discomfort, to surgery. There are a lot of unknowns—will they be okay; can they return to normal? Sacramento Kings’ Harry Giles, drafted just one year before Mike, faced the “injury prone” label entering the draft, after being the #1 high school player and considered “the future of basketball.” Giles’ serious injury started around the same time as Mike’s, after his sophomore year, and he has rehabbed from two additional knee surgeries since then. He missed his entire college career, one season, due to injury, and his draft value fell precipitously—he was drafted #20. His high school trainer, Kenneth Bates, talked about what it has been like for Harry. Harry has seen the highest of the high. Everyone has told him he’s the best player in the world. He’s also felt the lowest of the low. He’s heard people tell him his career is done and he’ll never be himself again. He experienced all that by 20. He’s always had the talent, and now he’s got the maturity, too. What he’s going to do next will amaze you.22

Bates gives insight into the “talk,” the labeling and the impact. Giles has felt the highs of being the best and lows of being tagged as “injured” and told he won’t return to his former playing self. He has had to battle mentally against what people are saying about him. And, as a young adult, his first reported surgery happened when he was 15. As his trainer, Bates has been a source of support and he has seen Giles manage this. He remains optimistic and is campaigning for Giles. Dealing with injury is more than physical. Recurring and multiple injuries wear on athletes. Andrew Luck retired as the quarterback and franchise player for the Indianapolis Colts American football club. He spoke of a cycle of injury during his retirement speech. For the last four years or so, I’ve been in this cycle of injury, pain, rehab, injury, pain, rehab, and it’s been unceasing, unrelenting, both in-season and offseason, and I felt stuck in it. The only way I see out is to no longer play football. I’ve been stuck in this process. I haven’t been able to live the life I want to live. Taken  Gardner, D. (2018). Harry Giles Would Like To Reintroduce Himself. Bleacherreport.com. https:// bleacherreport.com/articles/2803293-harry-giles-would-like-to-re-introduce-himself. Retrieved on December 9, 2019.

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the joy out of the game, and after 2016, when I played in pain and was unable to regularly practice, I made a vow to myself that I would not go down that path again.23

Compounding the physical injury and the unknowns is the public/media scrutiny. Big Mike discussed his son’s handling of a fickle public. It’s been a humbling thing for him. When we made the decision to go back to Missouri, he got a lot of love from fans. And when he got hurt and wasn’t playing, he got a lot of hate from some of those people who were jocking him. When you’re a young guy and you start to hit the scene nationally and you get all of this [attention], you think everybody is your friend. It was great that he went through that because once he got to this [draft] stage, he understands that everybody that smiles in your face is not necessarily in your corner.24

Athletes matter to their fans but it is often a “what have you done for me lately?” relationship. Fans need something to support but support for an injured athlete soon wanes. This is a learning experience for young elite athletes. Jontay, Mike’s younger brother, feels for Mike. It’s really tough, just because obviously he has a lot of fans, but I’d say he has even more doubters. People talking about him being injury prone and never playing another game again. I think he’s done an exceptional job of not letting that get to him and taking the criticism like a grain of sand, but it does get to him, and it does to me, for sure, because I know how special he is.25

But taken together, labeling, injury, and support and attention, athletes can experience a decline in quality of life. The mental battle is increasingly addressed and athletes are speaking about it. Lebron James, future Hall of Fame NBA player, recently shared the impact of scrutiny and its mental toll. “The level of scrutiny that I was dealing with, and how I got out of my comfort zone. I lost my love for the game.”26 Dealing with injury and scrutiny

 Transcript of Andrew Luck’s Retirement news conference. https://www.espn.com/blog/indianapolis-­ colts/post/_/id/24738/transcript-of-andrew-lucks-retirement-news-conference. Retrieved on December 10, 2019. 24  Spears, M. (2018). 25  Singer, M. (2019). Michael Porter Jr.: An oral history of the Nuggets’ draft-night steal. Denverpost. com. https://www.denverpost.com/2019/06/20/michael-porter-jr-denver-nuggets-nba-draft/. Retrieved on October 12, 2019. 26  Daniels. T. (2019). Lebron James Talks Mental Health, Says He Lost ‘Love for the Game” in 2011. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2866319-lebron-james-talks-mental-health-says-he-lost-love-for-­­ the-game-in-2011. Retrieved on December 11, 2019. 23

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negatively impacts athletes, challenging their passion for the sport that they have committed so much of their lives to play. After being drafted, Mike maintained a warrior’s mentality. He was thankful but he was also motivated by the negativity that surrounded his change of fate. “All of this is a blessing. I can’t wait to prove a lot of people wrong,” he said. Labeling and criticism are significant to the sport industrial complex— journalists, doctors and medical personnel, agents, coaches, and management are labeling professionals who depend on athletes’ labor. What athletes do, what happens to them, and the continuous process of making new athletes matters to a lot of people who make a living off of athletes.

 he Collegiate Arms Race T and the Preferred Worker One of the most difficult tasks in analyzing American sport is that of disentangling patterns of consciously sustained racist practices from more non-­deliberate, largely unavoidable institutional features reflecting sport’s social functions and its structural and ideological interdependence with society.27

The Godfather of the Sociology of Sport, Harry Edwards, coined the phrase “collegiate arms race”28 to describe the competition between American colleges to recruit talented Black males for their basketball and football programs, the two sports with the greatest revenues and number of injuries. Black males are the preferred athletes and are sought out to play for a massive White gaze. Previously, we theorized that inner-city Black males were the preferred workers because of their socio-economic position, vulnerability, and usefulness to larger structural interests.29 Black males have relatively limited job opportunities and the athletic success of Black males historically provides an ideological narrative—Black males are the best athletes because they are less human and closer to animals. Young Black men, especially those from inner-city and poor backgrounds, feel a push from their communities to pursue basketball as a means to upward  Edwards, H. (1979). Sport Within the Veil. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Contemporary Issues in Sport. Vol. 445: September 1979. 28  Edwards, H. (1984). The Collegiate Athletic Arms Race: Origins and Implications of the “Rule 48” Controversy. Vol. 8(1): March 1984. 29  Edwards, H. (1983). Education Black Athletes. The Atlantic Monthly. Vol. 252(2): August 1983; Brooks, S.N. and McKail, M.A. (2009). The Preferred Worker. 27

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mobility, while at the same time being drawn by the pull from the sneaker companies, colleges, universities, and professional ranks who want to sell a product, field competitive teams, gain media attention, and improve their profitability. The recruitment of Black boys to schools provides the reason and the incentive for young boys to strive to be good—without an economic incentive, like school scholarships or bursaries, which is believed to be the foundation for upward mobility, the hoop dream would not exist. The push-­ pull effects created the hoop dream: unbridled hope in athletic achievement as a means to escape the urban crisis and the social inequality that they face daily and in employment. Hoop dream no longer simply refers to poor inner-­ city athletes, it is now the hope and dream for many young athletes who aspire to “Be Like Mike [Michael Jordan]”—cool, handsomely paid, corporate-­ backed, and famous. Journalist, Bill Rhoden30 documents the advance of Black male athletes over time, the current epoch of college recruitment, and the exploitation inherent in the process. His narrative speaks about the changing winds of racial inclusion and interest convergence. Black males are granted more access when it serves White interests. Rhoden describes a “conveyor belt” process that takes Black boys out of their communities, encourages them to follow their hoop dreams, and passes them through different White-owned and operated organizations, including historically and predominantly White colleges where they are evaluated, promoted, or demoted, and their value as labor is extracted. “Great young talents like LeBron James epitomize the Conveyor Belt, a process by which athletic gold is mined and distributed largely to the benefit of white institutions and individuals in the billion-dollar sports industry.”31 A single, popular, standout athlete can sell out stadiums, entice other elite athletes, and raise a school’s profile. Colleges need to arm themselves with the best athletes available to win, or at least illustrate their commitment to winning, and to reap revenues and garner media attention and public support. College sport is a $13 billion-dollar enterprise. The top, winning athletic programs can generate hundreds of millions of dollars from partnerships and commercialization. Sport apparel companies, multi-million dollar media deals, and the complementary industries support the sports. Nike, Adidas, and Under Armour have been instrumental in the commercialization of sport. Adidas, Under Armour, and Nike pay universities hundreds of millions of  Rhoden, W.C. (2006). Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The rise, fall and redemption of the Black athlete. New York: Three Rivers Press. 31  Rhoden, 2006, p.170. 30

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dollars for athletic teams to wear their apparel and to be considered the “authentic” clothing supplier of the university.32 Colleges also make money from increased admissions, media deals, gate receipts, and conference profit sharing. Collegiate athletes do not receive a share of the money but the cost of losing one top-level collegiate American football player or a similar basketball player has been calculated at over $700,000 and $1,500,000, respectively (and it is more for the elite of the elite).[1] Over the last two decades, the competition over elite talent has started earlier and earlier—colleges are recruiting and offering scholarships to children as young as 13 and middle and high schools recruit talented sportspersons to play for their school. College sport is the proving ground for the best athletes before getting drafted to play professionally, however, only a miniscule few will earn this opportunity. The vast majority of the collegiate athletes will end their sports career when they finish playing in college. While athletic scholarships are an exchange, talent and labor for free college tuition, the money business of sport has effectively relegated academic interests “to a secondary, if not wholly irrelevant” concern.33 Most athletes, in basketball and American football are forced to put athletics over their academic success; often receive a substandard college degree; and experience much lower graduation rates than their athletic peers. Further, only one side makes money.

The Profiteers of War Up to this point, we have discussed injury largely from the perspective of the injured—the labeled; now we will consider the broader context in which labeling occurs, who are the labelers and who benefits most from the use of labeling. In a recent book chapter deconstructing Rhoden’s concept of the conveyor belt, Oshiro and colleagues (2020) took an explicit focus on the operators of the conveyor belt—that is, the mostly White male elite operating behind the scenes of the sport industry and driving the exploitative nature of the athletics industrial complex as a system.34 Take, for example, the McDonald’s All-American Games (referred to as the “Games”), an elite  For an example of the largess of college/apparel partnerships see Tracy, M. (2016). UCLA and Under Armour in Record Sponsorship Deal. nytimes.com. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/sports/ucla-­ under-­armour-sponsorship.html. Retrieved on December 10, 2019. 33  Edwards (1984). 34  Oshiro, K. F., Weems, A. J., & Singer, J. N. (2020). Cyber Racism Toward Black Athletes: A Critical Race Analysis of http://TexAgs.com Online Brand Community. Communication & Sport. https://doi. org/10.1177/2167479520911888.

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basketball competition showcasing the talents of some of the most gifted young basketball players in the United States. In recent years, the commercialization of the Games has burgeoned as it developed into a multi-day sporting event where young boys and girls—and corporate sponsors—have a chance to celebrate their accomplishments on the “big stage.” Current corporate partners of the Games include McDonald’s, Adidas, Powerade (Coca-Cola), American Family Insurance, and Mercedes.35 Individuals who have been partly responsible for coordinating the business development of the McDonald’s All-American Games include Joe Martin, the Vice President of Sales at public relations and sports marketing firm KemperLesnik, and David Gough, the Vice President of Sports/Events at KemperLesnik. These two have played a significant role in coordinating corporate sponsorships for the Games, contributing to the event’s increased recognition nationwide. Because of this, it is important to understand how their status as (White and male) corporate executives impacts their decision-making in relation to an elite youth sport competition largely centered on the labor of young Black boys and men. This also sheds light on a larger issue more directly related to the armament of the basketball industry, and one that reaches well beyond the McDonald’s AllAmerican Games—namely the fact that commercialization is driven by and intimately tied to the fate of an overwhelmingly White, male, and capitalist elite connected through a variety of political and economic ties.36 Coca-Cola, a primary sponsor of the McDonald’s All-American Games through its sports drink brand Powerade, is also named as an official National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Corporate Champion—a tier “above” that of NCAA Corporate Partners.37 As a major corporate sponsor of sport events across different levels of competition, Coca-Cola depends upon the routine operation of the conveyor belt and the exploitation of Black athletic talent. Moreover, in addition to being a Corporate Champion of the NCAA and providing services for the NCAA’s major sport events (e.g., the “March Madness” men’s single-elimination tournament), Coca-Cola also has partnerships with individual universities and athletic programs, as evidenced by the production of NCAA team bottles (Coca-Cola, 2018).38 At a systemic  McDonald’s Company Website, 2019. McDonald’s All-American Game Sponsors. https://www. mcdonaldsallamerican.com/aag/en-us/sponsors.html. Retrieved on December 11, 2019. 36  Feagin J.R. and Ducey, K. (2017). Elite White Men Ruling: who, what, when, where, and how. New York: Routledge. 37  The NCAA Website, 2019. NCAA Corporate Champions and Partners. NCAA.com. https://www. ncaa.com/news/ncaa/article/2011-02-25/corporate-champions-and-partners. Retrieved on December 11, 2019. 38  The Coca-Cola Company Website, 2019. Coke Bottles Sport College & Pro Football Logos. https:// www.coca-colacompany.com/news/coke-bottles-sport-college-and-pro-football-logos. Retrieved on December 11, 2019. 35

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level, corporations like Coca-Cola depend on the continued exploitation of talented Black athletes in the context of both elite youth basketball and intercollegiate athletics. These organizations, which are overwhelmingly operated by White men significantly, shape the conveyor belt and the armament of the basketball industry more broadly. The Belt begins running with very young athletes. Kids, as young as three years old, start in local recreational leagues hosted by churches, schools, and youth development organizations. Scholastic basketball generally begins in middle school and runs through high school. It abides by state regulations and federal regulations—governing the number of games, rules of play, rules of eligibility, playoff structure, funding, competitive levels, and injuries. College recruiters have historically scouted players at school games. But this level of competition fails to offer national athlete comparisons—schools play other nearby schools and rarely play competition more than 100 miles away or in other states. How can a college recruiter know if the best girls’ or boys’ player in California is comparable to the best girl or boy in New York? Colloquially known as “AAU” basketball (after the Amateur Athletic Union, which used to be the federation/watch dog for youth sports), Adidas, Nike, and Under Armour’s grassroots basketball programs have become the key mechanism for the hoop dream over the last 20–25 years. AAU basketball is big business for the colleges, scouts, and shoe companies. It is in sync with the specific “viewing” periods when college coaches can watch athletes playing. Independent scouts catalog who played in which summer tournaments and rank them based on competitive and comparative play. College coaches pay to attend tournaments because their fellow recruiters attend and they are competing for players. Plus, the tournaments represent an efficient, close up, and coach-friendly space to see as much talent as possible, all-at-once. Coaches know which tournaments bring the best talent and so a relationship with the sneaker company that supports a prime athlete is important.39 And, all the while the sneaker companies benefit. Players are cultural influencers—having large social media followings—and can explicitly and implicitly promote a  National camps and tournaments have been around and college coaches attend to recruit the best players, but Nike created exclusive opportunities for the coaches who they were paying and supplying.# This began in the 1980s when Nike began to sponsor national elite camps and tournaments and gave college coaches stipends to have their teams wear Nike shoes and apparel. The boys left the camps with bags filled with T-shirts, shorts, track suits and sneakers, and were encouraged to continue to play at a high level. (This has evolved as Nike’s apparel options have grown and now these swag bags include multiple pair of shoes and shoes made exclusively for particular tournaments that are not available to the general public.) Nike’s goal was to use the elite boys as street representatives, going into the inner cities as credible endorsers of their product. 39

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brand. The apparel sponsorship of teams is also the initial courting phase of landing the next big endorsee—the hope is that a long relationship will sway the athlete when/if the sneaker company comes calling later. These tournaments are both sport tourism and youth aspirational activity. Teams and families fly or drive to the tournament city, reserve rooms in hotels and motels, eat, shop, and explore local entertainment for two to three days up to a week. There is a growing industry and building boom to accommodate the growth of youth sports and the end is not yet in sight.40 This pumps money into sporting cities and towns.41 Boys and their families are fully aware of the potential boon and missed opportunities—if their boy plays well, while playing against high-level competitive boys, he may be seen, ranked, and recruited by college coaches.

Seeing the Whole Sports Industrial Complex On draft day Little Mike was picked by the Denver Nuggets—The Kroenke’s team. Ann Walton Kroenke and Stan Kroenke are the owners/majority owners of six professional sports clubs, including Arsenal Football Club, Los Angeles Rams, and Colorado Avalanche in addition to Denver Nuggets. Together, they’re worth nearly $17 billion; Ann, as one of the heirs to Walmart Stores fortune, is worth nearly $8 billion. Tim Connelly, the Denver Nuggets’ General Manager, discussed the team’s feeling about Little Mike. “Obviously, there’s a medical risk, but there’s no basketball risk. The guy’s been the top guy in his class for five or six years.” Connelly is clear in distinguishing between types of risk. A medical risk is a concern with an athlete’s body and its capacity to handle the physical rigors of professional basketball. A basketball risk is related to an athlete’s skill and drive to compete at the professional level. Michael’s high school ranking answered the latter risk for Connelly. The medical risk could only be answered in time. One NBA insider mentioned the fear of buying too much into the negative labeling and counting Mike out. “Everyone is worried about missing out on a star. No one wants to miss out on another Joel Embiid [a Philadelphia 76ers  Estimates of $9 billion dollars or more is spent per year by families (and growing 20% per annually) on youth sports travel. Cook, B. (2017). So When Does the Youth SportsComplex Building Boom End? Forbes.com. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2017/06/09/so-when-does-the-youth-sportscomplex-­building-boom-end/#4318a96c407f. Retrieved on December 10, 2019. 41  Pathik, D. and Hatem, S. (2008). Comparing Apples to Apples. SportsDestinationmanagement.com. https://www.sportsdestinations.com/management/business-development/comparing-apples-apples-449. Retrieved on December 10, 2019. 40

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player, discovered as a teenager in his native Cameroon].”42 This is an example of the referential nature of labeling, there’s always a baseline and others who have been placed in the same category. Labels also have a time frame, as long as the player is relevant and known, and is/was important in conversations. Michael Porter Jr.’s story is becoming the norm. Kyrie Irving, of the Brooklyn Nets, and Harry Giles missed the majority of their single college seasons due to injuries. Zion Williamson of the New Orleans Pelicans had injuries prior to college and spent some time sidelined during his one-and-­ done collegiate campaign before being drafted and then having to undergo surgery in his first professional season. But Michael Porter Jr.’s dream could have turned into a nightmare. Because of the quick accumulation and timing of his injuries, he was stained and clubs feared that he was permanently damaged. An old saying goes, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” but we have found that “it’s not simply who you know, it’s what they’re willing to do for you.” What may have convinced the Kroenkes to gamble was their intimate knowledge of Mike. Stan was born in Missouri and attended the University of Missouri. He has two degrees and his son has one degree from Missouri; his son attended the school on a basketball scholarship. Stan and Ann call Columbia, Missouri (Stan’s birthplace), home. And, the Kroenkes are University boosters. Michael came from where they came from; his family had ties to the area and the Kroenke’s alma mater; and he was not only a known commodity to them, he was known to their community and this could help build more community favor for Stan Kroenke who was being sued by some Missourians for moving their St. Louis Rams American football club to California. The Kroenkes, better than any other owner, knew Michael. Connelly talked about the connection and its possible influence on the decision to believe in Michael. “I think it was neat having [Nuggets owners] Stan and Josh [Kroenke] in the room” said Tim Connelly, Nuggets President of Basketball Operations. “I thought that was neat, with the Missouri roots. They were as up-to-date and learned on Michael as anybody else. They had a ton of intel on him locally, they knew what type of kid he was.”43

 Rapp, T. (2018). Michael Porter Jr. Cleared For Physical Evaluation After Suffering Hip Injury. Bleacherreport.com. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2781118-report-michael-porter-jr-cancels-2nd-­ pro-­day-due-to-hip-injury. Retrieved December 10, 2019. 43  Singer, M. (2019). 42

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This story is illustrative of how the Sport Industrial Complex works. The Kroenke’s represent the invisible power elite who operate behind the scenes— they have directly and indirectly been significantly involved in Michael Porter Jr.’s career from as early as the age of 11.

Conclusion Mike Jr. was raised with basketball; he had played it with distinction and gained national attention. He was evaluated and ranked regularly and this gave him a guide—what he needed to do, who he needed to outplay, and what impression he had made. Sadly, his sport dreams have been mired in injury, labeling, and the unknown. His case, like many others’, illustrates the cycle of injury and its physical, economic, and mental costs. And, this begins for him at about the age of 15. Equally unfortunately, while it is easy to point out Mike and other superstars who incur injuries, the truly exploited are less visible, local stories of aspirants who played the AAU circuit and even got scholarships to college but who were stopped short. All, however, are on the frontlines in, and they are the Casualties of, the Sports War. When Professor Edwards coined and described the phrase “collegiate arms race,” he knew that college sport had tremendous earning potential and was going to be used to exploit Black athletes. What he could not have seen is the impact of sport apparel companies. They have been the game changer, the glue that holds the industry together, tying together corporate interests and universities, athlete, prospective athletes, and consumers in mutual dependence and consumption. We end with Professor Harry Edwards’ First Principle of the Sociology of Sport: “Sport inevitably recapitulates the character, structure, and dynamics of human and institutional relationships within and between societies and the ideological values and sentiments that rationalize and justify those relationships.” Racial categorization is a power dynamic that also sets arrangements and the informal rules of interaction. And, labeling is a mechanism of valuation that turns Black athletes into commodities to be discovered, developed, exchanged, and used up.

All Power to Your Elbow? Injury in US Baseball and the Politics of ‘Tommy John Surgery’ Stephen Wagg

This chapter explores the phenomenon of ‘Tommy John surgery’ (widely known, and often referred to in this chapter, simply as TJ), a procedure typically performed on baseball players in the United States. Its purpose is to analyse the attitudes to sport, injury and the body that the popularisation of this surgery has brought into play in a late capitalist society in the twenty-first century. More specifically it revisits questions raised previously by, among others, John Hoberman in his influential book Mortal Engines (Hoberman, 1992) about the alienation of elite athletes, reduced to the mechanics of their own bodies, and it examines the ethical dilemmas faced by those administering ‘sports medicine’. In this latter regard, TJ, first performed in 1974, opened up a debate as to whether doctors (some affiliated to sport organisations, some not) should perform it strictly in pursuit of the physician’s historic mission— the relief of pain or suffering—or be willing to conduct it simply on the basis that it might enhance the efficiency of the sporting body. Since this latter course of action was frequently urged by, or by the parents of, minors, it also raised an issue in the politics of childhood. The cultural backdrop to this debate was, of course, an American society long dedicated in its most prevalent self-descriptions both to business and to sport. ‘After all’, said President Calvin Coolidge to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1925, ‘the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly

S. Wagg (*) International Centre for Sport History and Culture, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_19

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concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world’ (Terrell, 2019). Historically sport has been increasingly central to this process: indeed, Tony Collins has argued that ‘modern sport is as much a product of capitalism as the factory, the stock exchange or the unemployment line’ (Collins, 2013: vii). And, in relation to the contemporary United States, David Andrews has recently written: ‘From kindergarten to retirement home, bar room to board room, beauty salon to barbershop, The New York Times to Instagram, and all spaces in between, the US is generally considered to be a sport-obsessed society. Indeed, sport could be considered one of the more unquestioned aspects of the nation’s heavily mythologized sense of self ’ (Andrews, 2019: 5). US society in the twenty-first century has established what Andrews calls ‘uber sport’—a political-cultural phenomenon that fuses together the domination of powerful corporations; the commercialisation of sport transactions; the production of spectacle and the creation of celebrities (Andrews, 2019: 10). The top ten salary earners in Major League Baseball (MLB) at the time of writing were all paid above $30 million dollars a year; seven of these ten were starting pitchers (https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/rankings/: access 29th February 2020). The previous year starting or minimum salaries for MLB players stood at $555,000 per annum (Gough, 2019). Access to this lucrative and glamorous world is much sought after, especially by middle income families. This, and the rationalisation of US sport and its assimilation to neo-liberal culture described by King-White and Andrews elsewhere in this book, help explain the growing demand for TJ, a procedure which, as recent evidence shows, has not gone without challenge, either in the US medical profession or among American baseball players.

 itcher’s Elbow: The Coming of Tommy P John Surgery Pain in the throwing arm and the fear that a serious injury to it could lead to the premature end to their career have always been endemic to the life of the pitcher in American baseball. As an article in Sports Illustrated stated back in 1978: As a race driver fears a crash, so a pitcher fears that fateful twinge in the elbow or shoulder. A career can end with a snap of the wrist. The effort involved in throwing a baseball hard 100 times or more in the space of two or three hours literally tears at bone and muscle. The pitcher is, therefore, a creature apart. Other players can function with sore arms, but the pitcher who cannot throw is

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finished. His arm has a life—and death—separate from the rest of him. (quoted in Landers, 2019)

In the baseball fraternity, prior to TJ, the damage to a pitcher’s arm was treated as an occupational hazard, treatable by the conventional palliatives— rest, ice packs, tablets and so on. Throwing, moreover, was seen predominantly as a natural activity. Indeed, Dr Glenn Fleisig, research director of the American Sports Medicine Institute and an acknowledged expert on baseball pitching biomechanics, recently asserted: ‘Throwing is a very natural activity. A 2013 study in the journal Nature explained that man developed the anatomy for throwing 1.8 million years ago. But throwing at a 100% effort 100 times every fifth day is not natural. Even though throwing a baseball has the fastest moving arm motion and highest torque [rotational force], it is still a natural movement that is healthy in moderation. This is not theory; this is supported by medical observation.’1 This view is now more likely to be contested, however. Interviewed in 2013, former New York Mets pitcher Al Leiter said: ‘It is an unnatural motion. If it were natural, we would all be walking around with our hands above our heads. It’s not normal to throw a ball above your head’ (Leitch, 2013). Leiter’s testimony implies that in the past those in charge of MLB players have had comparatively little concern for pitchers’ well-being: Back in 1989, Yankees manager Dallas Green, in order to “stretch out” 23-year-­ old phenom Al Leiter, forced him to throw 163 pitches on a damp day at Yankee Stadium in April. He pitched three more games that season (all losses), went on the disabled list, and pitched in a total of eight games over the next three campaigns. By the time he was a major-league regular again, he’d had three surgeries, and it was 1993. (Leitch, 2013)

Leiter’s treatment may have been abusive, but it was not unusual. Another clear case is ace pitcher Sandy Koufax, a left-handed MLB pitcher between 1955 and 1966. As his biographer stated in 2002, Koufax suffered from a condition that was neither well understood, nor appropriately treated: What they called it in those days was traumatic arthritis, and he injured his arm sliding back into second base in August, 1964. It was never the same after that.  Q&A: Dr. Glenn Fleisig on Tommy John Surgery Prevention and Myths. Dr Fleisig was interviewed prior to the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston in 2015. Retrieved February 29, 2020, from http://www.sloansportsconference.com/mit_news/qa-dr-glenn-fleisig-on-tommy-john-surgeryprevention-and-myths/. 1

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But sports medicine was really medieval in those days. All they had was ice, which was a new innovation in keeping swelling down, and they could shoot the cortisone directly into his elbow joint. And they put on this stuff called Capslun, a paste made of red-hot chili peppers that smelled so bad and burned so much that when Jim Kott went to shake his hand in the 1965 World Series, he had to run away. It felt like camphor. (‘Conversation: Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy’ https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/conversation-­s andy-­k oufax-­a -­l eftys-­ legacy Posted 21st October; access 29th February 2020. See also Leavy, 2002)

Koufax’s injuries were diagnosed by Dr Robert Kerlan who, along with his colleague, Frank Jobe, were physicians to Koufax’s team the Los Angeles Dodgers and pioneers of American sports medicine. This role made Kerlan and Jobe, and people like them, essentially head mechanics in charge of the repair and maintenance of elite baseball’s mortal engines. Out of conversations with Koufax and others, and inspired by the work of hand surgeons in transplanting ligaments to reactivate damaged fingers (Carroll, 2013), Jobe developed the notion of conducting reconstruction surgery on the elbows of afflicted pitchers. His first patient in this endeavour was another stricken Dodgers pitcher, Tommy John, then 31. This operation, during which Jobe transplanted ligaments from John’s right wrist to his left elbow, took place, as noted, in 1974. As Carroll observes: ‘Prior to 1974, injured pitchers just faded away’ (Carroll, 2013). ‘The arm had always hurt’, John said later. ‘I was 13, and that’s the year you move from the Little League field to the normal baseball field. The pitcher’s mound moves back 15 feet and, man, I can remember how much it would swell up’ (Carroll, 2013). In July 1974, a condition that John had seemingly been developing since boyhood finally incapacitated him: Right at the point where I put force on the pitch, the point where my arm is back and bent, something happened, Tommy John told Sports Illustrated. “It felt as if I had left my arm someplace else. It was as if my body continued to go forward and my left arm had just flown out to right field, independent of the rest of me. I heard this thudding sound in my elbow, then I felt a sharp pain.” The pitch completely missed the strike zone. Amazingly, after rupturing the medial collateral ligament of his left elbow, he tried throwing another pitch (it sunk and hit home plate). (Cormier, 2016)

In an interview with the Baseball Prospectus website in 2002, Jobe pointed out that damaged elbows were a simpler proposition for surgeons than injured shoulders—the other typical occupational hazard of the pitcher: ‘The elbow is almost a hinge, which is a simple joint. The shoulder has four joints involved

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and 21 muscles. They need to all be in good condition and functioning in a synchronous pattern. It’s easier to get the shoulder out of whack and it’s harder to get all the joints and muscles rehabbed and back in top shape. If you’re lucky enough to have a pitcher with one diagnosis in the shoulder, that’s easier. But there are often three or four problems. If you beat up more than one structure, it’s very hard to fully repair’ (Keri, 2002). The operation became so integral to US baseball’s recent history that Jobe was inducted, at the age of 88, into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2013. John played Major League Baseball until he was 46—a remarkable longevity—and suffered no further elbow problems. Although ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) reconstruction—what has since become popularly known as ‘Tommy John surgery’—ordinarily entails a minimum of 12 months’ recovery period and was estimated in 2012 to cost $15,000, not including rehabilitation costs (Gossett, 2012), it has become very popular. Carroll, for example, writes that the ‘more than 1000 pitchers who have had their careers extended or even enabled by Tommy John surgery all owe a tip of the cap to Dr Frank Jobe’ (Carroll, 2013) and Dr Timothy Kremchek, team doctor to the Cincinnati Reds, estimated in 2017 that he had performed over 1000 Tommy John procedures, the bulk of them on a ‘younger clientele’ (Scheinbaum, 2017). Moreover, the operation is now performed regularly on practitioners of other sports, notably ‘tennis, gymnastics, javelin throw, and football’: the apparent need for elbow reconstruction ‘can occur with any athlete who places high, sudden torque on their elbow’, suggested surgeon Neal ElAttrache of the Cedars-Sinai Institute in California (named after Kerlan and Jobe) in 2018 (Cedars-Sinai Staff, 2018). The growing frequency with which the Tommy John operation has come to be performed and the issues that this popularity has carried with it—chiefly, the concern over the patient-pitcher’s chances of regaining his previous level of performance, the assumption that the surgery makes the patient into a better pitcher and the (often concomitantly) high incidence of young pitchers going under the knife—has stimulated important debates, which will now be examined. In these debates the vocabulary of the ‘mortal engine’ is seldom absent. Nor is the commercial imperative. That’s not to say, however, that these tendencies have gone unchallenged; they haven’t.

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‘Never Say Never, But …’ Tommy John Surgery, Dollars and Cents We live now in an age of well-established sport analytics and sport medicine. Contemporary elite sportspeople are simultaneously, in effect, both data and patients. American baseball has a long history of data collection, stretching back into the nineteenth century (Puerzer, 2002) and since 1980 this activity has been popularly known as ‘sabermetrics’—a term coined by baseball writer Bill James and derived from the acronym for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). The compiling of baseball statistics was initially done principally by enthusiasts and in order to facilitate discussion among fans about players, teams and performances. It has in recent times been powerfully argued, however, that sabermetrics has acquired a business logic, fashioned on Wall Street rather than on the bleachers—a notion popularised by Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball in 2003 (Lewis, 2003) and the film of the same name (based on the book) in 2011.2 As Jack Moore wrote in 2014, ‘This principle of openness is missing in today’s sabermetrics. Sites like FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus, and Beyond the Box Score function as farm systems, churning out major league consultants once they prove their technical skills and creativity’ (Moore, 2014). Predictably, during the last decade, with the rigours of pitching posing an apparently escalating threat to the efficiency of baseball’s mortal engines, the combined lenses of sport analytics and sport medicine (specifically, the thriving sub-discipline of baseball biomechanics) have been trained on the damage done to the pitcher’s arm and its implications. Initially, attention focused on elite pitchers. A number of scientific studies examined the performance level of MLB players returning to the game after TJ, a group which now included upwards of a quarter of all pitchers (see Bakalar, 2016; Dines, 2018). Research at the American Sports Medicine Institute at Birmingham, Alabama, by the afore-mentioned Dr Glenn Fleisig, a leading commentator on the operation, and colleagues (Fleisig et al., 2015) and R.A. Jack et al. (2018) is typical. Conclusions were in general cautiously affirming as to the effectiveness of the returning athletes. Nevertheless, the vocabulary in which these baseball players were rendered was predominantly one of dollars and cents. ‘Imagine’, wrote Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated in 2015,  Moneyball, written by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, directed by Bennett Miller and distributed by Columbia Pictures. 2

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a pitch-black room filled with porcelain vases, clay sculptures and glass tables. You have never set foot in the room before. Now you are asked to walk from one end of the room to the other. This is how baseball is proceeding with investing in pitchers who have had Tommy John surgery. Teams are taking careful, baby steps in the dark, but you just know we are on the brink of the industry’s first $100 million disaster with damaged goods. Would you give Jordan Zimmermann [pitcher for the Washington Nationals, who had had the operation in 2009] seven years of guaranteed money? Would you lock up Matt Harvey [then pitching for the New York Mets, having missed the whole 2014 season following the surgery] today to a long-term contract extension? […] Now clubs, including Zimmermann’s Nationals, are skittish about how long these rebuilt ulnar collateral ligaments will hold up. “We think it’s about seven years”, said one AL talent evaluator. “Listen, we think six- or seven-year contracts for any pitcher are risky. We wouldn’t do it for a guy with a clean bill of health. So, a guy who has had Tommy John surgery presents even more risk.” (Verducci, 2015)

Nevertheless, later that same year, it became clear that this medical procedure was no bar to a reasonably lucrative contract—indeed, Zimmermann, a leading beneficiary, signed a five-year, $110 million contract with Detroit Tigers in November 2015. Verducci added that Jeff Euston of the sabermetrics website Baseball Prospectus had recently calculated that ‘only’ a further eight ex-Tommy John patient-pitchers had gone on to sign contracts worth 30 million dollars or more, one of them being John Smoltz of Atlanta Braves, the only man to have had TJ and been admitted to the Baseball Hall of Fame (‘Jordan Zimmermann set to make Tommy John history in free agency’ https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-­a -­b it-­o utside/story/jordan-­ zimmermann-­free-­agency-­tommy-­john-­surgery-­adam-­wainwright-­liriano-­ wilson-­sanchez-­111915 Posted 19th November 2015; access 11th March 2020). In 2019, Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg, who had had TJ in 2010, was announced as ‘the richest pitcher in baseball history’ (Rymer, 2019) when, having become a free agent, he agreed to a seven-year, $245 million contract to return to the Nationals. Once again, this development was rendered in the vocabulary of economic calculation. For instance, Bleacher Report writer Zachary Rymer’s report was headlined ‘The Washington Nationals Take a Massive, Market-Value Risk on Stephen Strasburg’, a judgement that he went on to elaborate: ‘Even one Tommy John surgery is one too many, and 2019 was the first time in five years that he was able to top 30 starts and 200 innings. A guy with this kind of track record suddenly becoming a paragon of durability all the way through his age-37 season is … well, unlikely. There’s also the extreme likelihood that Strasburg’s velocity loss will go from minor to severe in the coming years. His margin for error will get smaller as a

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result, perhaps to a point where no pitch mix alterations can save him. So, will Strasburg ultimately be worth $245 million? Never say never, but it’s awfully hard to side definitively with “yes” with this particular question’ (Rymer, 2019). One thing, however, seems certain: these guarded assessments of the Tommy John pitchers as investments in no way diminished demand for the operation itself. On the contrary, by the second decade of the twenty-first century, around a quarter of MLB pitchers had had TJ and, whereas the operation had been seen initially as a career-saving benefaction, the mounting numbers of players undergoing ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction was being rendered as an epidemic in the baseball press (see Ortiz, 2014; Frank, 2016). This perceived epidemic or ‘explosion’ (White, 2018) has stimulated two, intertwining debates. First, instead of dwelling on the performance prospects of the pitchers who have had TJ, voices in the baseball community (coaches, sport scientists, writers etc.) have begun to ask why so many players have needed it in the first place. Second, attention was drawn to the fact that Tommy John patients were increasingly to be found among the young. In this latter regard, dollars-and-cents rhetoric (pitchers who have had elbow surgery in their teenage years are likely to be deemed even poorer investment prospects than adult patients) has been accompanied by arguments that are essentially about childhood and, by extension, what is frequently rendered as the American way of life.

‘Kids’ Bodies Are Paying the Price’: Tommy John Surgery, Youth and Neo-Liberal America In 2013 MLB’s escalating pitcher-injury crisis was well summarised by Will Leitch, once again in the language of Wall Street: ‘Pitchers’ health has always been a vital part of the game, but it’s arguably never been more important than it is today. […] In the past three seasons, MLB teams scored an average of roughly 4.3 runs per game. The last time the average was anywhere near as low was 1992, at 4.12. In 2000, the heyday of Bonds & Co.,3 it was 5.14. A team with great pitching is, in essence, a great team. Pitchers themselves have never stood to gain, or lose, as much as they do now. The last time scoring was this low, the average baseball salary had reached $1 million for the first time and the minimum salary was $109,000. Now that average salary is $3.2 million. Stay healthy, and you’re crazy-rich. Blow out your elbow, and it’s  A reference to Barry Bonds, former professional baseball left fielder who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball with the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants. 3

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back to hoping your high-school team needs a coach. And yet, for all the increased importance of pitching, pitchers are getting hurt more often than they used to. In 2011, according to research by FanGraphs.com, pitchers spent a total of 14,926 days on the disabled list. In 1999, that number was 13,129. No one is sure why this is happening, or what to do about it, but what is certain is that teams are trying desperately to divine answers to those questions. (Leitch, 2013)

The following year science writer Chris Gorski noted that ‘during this year’s spring training at least five pitchers expected to play major roles with their respective teams were diagnosed with a damaged part of the elbow known as the ulnar collateral ligament, or UCL, in their throwing arms’ (Gorski, 2014). Nor was MLB elbow injury confined to pitchers. In 2018, orthopaedic surgeon Joshua Dines told visitors to Forbes.com that Los Angeles Dodgers’ All-­ Star shortstop Corey Seager would need the surgery but could be available to training in Spring the following year (Dines, 2018). Darin White of Samford University provided chapter and verse on Tommy John operations, showing importantly that this surgery was now widely conducted outside the MLB: ‘The number of pitchers in the MLB that are having to get Tommy John Surgery is growing tremendously. From 1974 to 1994 there was a total of 12 MLB players that had the procedure done. After that, the number of surgeries climbed drastically. In the next 5 years (1995–1999) there were about 22 Tommy John surgeries conducted on MLB players. In the next 12 years (2000–2011), there were 194 operations performed on MLB players alone. There were another 275 surgeries carried out on Minor League (MiLB) players during that same time span. In 2012, there were 36 Tommy John surgeries on MLB players. Then in 2013, the total decreased to only 19 MLB players that needed their UCL reconstructed. However, in 2014, there were 19 surgeries by May. That is not even half way through the season’ (White, 2018; see also Stark, 2014). While there was a slight dip in 2018 FanGraphs analyst Jon Roegele calculated that 1483 professional and high-­ level amateur pitchers (i.e. those in college and high school baseball deemed candidates to play professional baseball) had had UCL surgery since the first operation in 1974 (Sawchik, 2018). And, crucially, a study by Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, published in 2014, had concluded that the incidence of TJ had for some time been rising among the young: ‘The overall average incidence of Tommy Johns during the period studied, 2007 to 2011, was just under four per 100,000 patients in the database the analysis used. However, the incidence for patients aged 15–19 was 22 per 100,000 patients, which the study’s authors call “a staggering statistic”’ (O’Hara, 2015).

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For many, with raw human material apparently being damaged at source, this growing trend represented a threat to professional baseball’s vital supply chain and a variety of measures, emanating from sports medical practitioners, coaches, commercial operators and other interested parties were prescribed. Important contributors to the debate have included Tommy John himself and his son, Tommy John III. The response of the of sport medical professionals, a number of whom were themselves frequently performing Tommy John surgery, was principally to counsel less baseball for young players. As early as 2001 teams of researchers (including doctors Glenn Fleisig and James Andrews, both prominent in the field) had been publishing reports on injury to young pitchers. One paper advised that in order to avoid damage to the shoulder or the elbow ‘young pitchers probably should not throw more than 75 pitches in a game’ (Lyman et al., 2001). Another, the following year, suggested that pitchers aged 9–14 ‘should be cautioned about throwing breaking pitches (curveballs and sliders) because of the increased risk of elbow and shoulder pain’ (Lyman et al., 2002). The time since has seen a string of guidelines for the coaching of young players issued by the American Institute of Sports Medicine4 and, from 2014, the MLB itself.5 The signs are, though, that these measures did not have the desired effect. Recent research by Luke Zabawa and Jeremy Alland (the latter based at Rush University Medical Center) attributes this largely to parental ignorance. They assert that: ‘Injuries continue to rise among youth baseball players despite extensive research into prevention and the availability of throwing guidelines such as Pitch Smart’ and found that ‘parents who were knowledgeable about the Pitch Smart throwing guidelines and actively followed them were significantly less likely to have a child with an injury. Pitching was associated with an increased risk of injury in youth baseball players. Excessive showcase participation was predictive of player injury after adjustment for age’ (Zabawa & Alland, 2019). Such findings, however, though important, do no more than hint at the structural factors that lie at the heart of the controversy over injury and youth baseball in the United States. These factors strongly suggest that serious arm injury is inherent to US baseball as it is now constituted. Attention has therefore been drawn to the cultural and commercial landscape inhabited by the parents in question.  Position Statement for Adolescent Baseball Pitchers (Updated April 2013). Retrieved March 13, 2020, from http://www.asmi.org/research.php?page=research§ion=positionStatement. 5  Retrieved March 13, 2020, from https://www.mlb.com/pitch-smart/. 4

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Central to this landscape is America’s youth sports industry—‘a $15 billion-­ a-­year enterprise, according to sports writer Bob McManaman, ‘that entices parents to enrol their kids in showcases, clinics, camps and travel teams. Typically, these clubs and programmes are marketed as the way to turn your young boy or girl into the best athlete possible. And the services don’t come cheap’ (McManaman, 2018). Tommy John’s son Tommy John III, a chiropractor and baseball coach, was one to stress the dangers of this industry, if mainly to the MLB’s recruitment apparatus. Children specialised in baseball too early, he argued, and were put under duress by their parents. He recalled his baseball sessions with youngsters: ‘It got to the point to where I had to have a closed-door policy. Parents were no longer allowed in the back room. We could email, we could talk afterwards, but I need your son or daughter without you in there, because I don’t get the true them. They’re terrified to be real. That’s what I started to see. Besides the injuries, it was the mental, emotional capacity that—they were just under so much strain for a baseball lesson in November’ (Gay, 2018). His explicit concern, however, was for the maintenance and accurate appraisal of mortal engines. He told another interviewer: If I’m going to offer somebody an $8 million signing bonus, I want to go into that kid’s history. I want to know how much baseball he played. Did he specialize early? I want to go into his cupboards. I want to know what he eats. I want to know who he’s training with. I want to know if he did drugs. I want to know a lot of these things because if I’m going to invest $8 million into a car, I can guarantee you I want an accident history and I want to know if there’s sugar in the tank. We’ll do more research into a Ferrari or even a Honda than we will on kids. If I’m an organization and I’ve got a bottom line and I’m investing in people, I’m going to go on the deepest level of human performance possible. (McManaman, 2018)

Others offered more fundamental critiques of the youth sport industry, notably Jeff Passan, baseball columnist with ESPN, whose book The Arm was published in 2016 (Passan, 2016). ‘There are national rankings for four-year-­ olds. […] The youth baseball system right now is broken’, argued Passan. ‘A lot of the injuries that are happening these days can be traced back to things that were done as early as eight, nine, 10 years-old’ (Frank, 2016). He suggested that the pursuit of velocity, deemed crucial to pitching, irrespective of age, made arm injuries endemic and he accused youth baseball promotion company Perfect Game of clocking 11-year-olds on radar guns at their events

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(Frank, 2016). He also pointed to the growth of commercial intervention in youth baseball: I don’t think I understood the extent to which baseball’s youth apparatus has been completely co-opted by for-profit ventures. It’s companies like Perfect Game, which holds showcase events and tournaments all year, that have benefited the most from the single-sport-specialization culture in the United States. With year-round baseball as big of a pox as it is, the wilful ignorance of parents, coaches, tournament administrators and others who help foster a youth baseball-industrial complex surprised and saddened me’ (Williams, 2016). Perfect Game, based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was founded in 1995 by ex-baseball scout Jerry Ford and is currently worth over $100 million. It organises showcase events in which parents pay over $600 for their children to participate. Ford dismisses claims that the intensity of his operation leads to Tommy John surgery: ‘It’s almost like we’re hammering at the kid’s elbow or something. It’s a baseball problem. To that extent, we’re part of the problem. We do baseball. (Steppe, 2019)

Passan’s book and public statements also drew attention to a firm called Driveline Baseball, a thriving company founded in 2008 and based in Washington. It offers ‘World-Class Pitching and Hitting Training’ (https:// www.drivelinebaseball.com/ Access 13th March 2020) and claims, contrary to baseball’s conventional wisdom, to be able to teach velocity; it works with 500 pitchers a year (Kepner, 2017). These companies are two of a cluster of businesses offering promotion and data analysis in what has become the youth sport market in the United States: the term ‘youth sport industrial complex’ is now pervasive. This complex offers such things as sophisticated video analysis (Leitch, 2013), showcase tournaments, travel leagues and all-year-round baseball. For example, national youth sports media company Youth1 (Izzo, 2015), based in New Jersey, offers parents a variety of reasons why year-round baseball is a good idea for their children: The arrival of fall can sadly mark the end of summer and with the end of summer, it might mean you should stash away your glove for the next six months and greet the quiet of the offseason. The great thing about baseball however, is you can get involved in it year-round and do not ever have to worry about an inactive winter. […] There is a reason why baseball is America’s greatest pastime, as it provides the great escape to a very busy and exhaustive lifestyle. Not only is baseball great for recreational purposes, but it also provides the fitness and exercise to maintain one’s health. That is especially true for youth athletes and their

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generation. After a long day’s work at school and studies, young athletes have a reason to finish their homework early, and that is to get out on the diamond. Not only is baseball a form of physical activity and exercise, but kids love to play it. The sport allows them to relieve all the tension from the day’s work and expel that energy in a positive way. (https://youth1.com/baseball/1416645375-­ benefits-­baseball-­all-­year-­round Access 13th March 2020)

A further complicating factor has been that a number of the sport medicine specialists conducting TJ have, wittingly or otherwise, become implicated in the youth sport industrial complex. Glenn Fleisig, for instance, while acknowledging that the number of pitches as a factor in elbow injury, has also endorsed a commercial pitching aid, citing the importance of individual ‘mechanics’: How much one pitches is the biggest risk factor, but not the only factor. Another major factor is the quality of the pitcher’s mechanics. […] Two pitchers who both throw 100 pitches may exhibit very different elbow and shoulder damage because of their mechanics. The best way to understand and measure a pitcher’s mechanics is to conduct a full biomechanical analysis. But short of that, I am excited to be working with a company called Motus Global to develop the Motus Pitch Sleeve, which is an electronic sleeve measuring the torque placed on a pitcher’s elbow. Professional baseball is beginning to use the Pitch Sleeve, and the sleeve will be available for amateur baseball in the near future. This is an exciting new development for a practical way to measure pitching stress with implications about fatigue and injury.6

Other sport medicine specialists have had to counter the assumption, prevalent among some parents, that TJ enabled the patient to pitch faster. As early as 2007 doctors were telling the New York Times of a rising number of such requests. Dr Champ L. Baker Jr., then president of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, said: ‘More parents say, “Fix him and he can pitch in a year”. If it involves surgery, they’re not opposed to it. Young kids see this as a way to get better. It’s a problem because people want an operation that we think they don’t need’. ‘There’s no way we can make it better than the good Lord made it’, added Dr James Andrews, another prominent Tommy John surgeon, ‘We don’t want to advertise that we can make you a better pitcher by the Tommy John procedure; that’s misleading’ (Longman, 2007). In 2016 Andrews estimated to Passan that he was performing between 80 and

 Q&A: Dr. Glenn Fleisig … Retrieved March 14, 2020.

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90 Tommy John operations per year on minors: ‘Hell, I’ve got four to do tomorrow’ (Passan, 2016). But, while even these doctors were as concerned about baseball’s future as they were about young elbows—‘I don’t think there’s as deep a talent pool anymore’, said Nashville doctor Damon Petty, adding that many kids were leaving high school with ‘100,000-mile arms’ (Longman, 2007)—there has been growing concern for the well-being of children who play competitive baseball and for childhood itself. In 1998 former Stanford Business School lecturer Jim Thompson founded the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) which promotes a less competitive ethos through which children can experience sport as fun and as a source of self-esteem (Bornstein, 2011). And writers associated with PCA, such as Mark Hyman, a Management and Tourism academic at George Washington University, have maintained a public critique of the competitiveness promoted by the youth sport industrial complex (see, e.g., Hyman, 2009, 2014). Jeff Passan has been explicit in his condemnation of ‘the commodification of the child’ inherent in the US youth sport industry (Frank, 2016) and writer Melissa Jacobs recently told of her resistance, as a parent, to the blandishments of (year-round) travel baseball in favour of a gentler family life: ‘[I] had a coach ask me if my eight-year-old would be participating in their “winter workouts”. I said no, that we didn’t want to burn him out. The coach looked at me like I was torturing my child, and simply uttered, “I hope he doesn’t get too rusty.” I smiled on the outside and rolled my eyes on the inside. Then I left to pick up my kid and meet my husband at a local park where we all played catch for the next hour. Like we always do’ (Jacobs, 2019). Washington Nationals doctor Wiemi Douoguih told in 2018 of how he had given a family who had come to his office to request Tommy John surgery on their son’s perfectly healthy elbow ten minutes to leave before he called Child Protection Services (Frank, 2016). But no party to the debate has been more vocal in the defence of an uncompetitive and surgery-free childhood than Tommy John himself. In 2007 he suggested that ‘a kind of benevolent child abuse’ now prevailed among the parents of young baseball players (Longman, 2007). And in 2018 he wrote: ‘It doesn’t bother me to watch my legacy being upstaged by an operation that has saved plenty of ballplayers’ careers. What does bother me is that my name is now attached to something that affects more children than pro athletes. I was in my 30s and playing major league ball for nearly a dozen years before needing the operation. Today, 57 per cent of all Tommy John surgeries are done on kids between 15 and 19 years old. One in 7 of those kids will never fully recover. But this is about more than just baseball and elbows. It’s about the way we are raising our

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children. The nation’s youth sports industry is a $15 billion business—and more and more, that business pushes children to make decisions early about which sport they want to play, and then to pursue that sport to the exclusion of all others. And kids’ bodies are paying the price’ (John, 2018). ‘They work, work, work, work and their bodies aren’t ready for that’, he said the same year. ‘Work, work, work, work when you get to be in college. That’s when you work, work, work, work. Kids should be kids’ (McManaman, 2018).

 onclusion: How Do You Keep a Pitcher C from Getting Hurt? Back in 1974 Frank Jobe is said to have given the following prognosis to Tommy John: ‘Look, I’m gonna perform something, but it’s so that you can continue to be a man and a father and a husband and sell cars after this. The chances of you pitching are slim’ (Gay, 2018). The ‘epidemic’ to which Jobe unwittingly gave birth, and which now engulfs America’s aspiring baseball players, is down to a series of ever-heightening political and cultural imperatives. First, we see a hyper-, profit-and-loss rationalisation of sport—baseball in this instance. Second, in pursuance of that hyper-rationalisation, capitalist (‘for-profit’) organisations are increasingly active in formally proscribed areas of the labour market—that is children of school age and younger. Third, aspirational parents, operating in a hyper-competitive, but nominally ‘open’, society manoeuvre and pay substantial sums of money to procure advantages for their offspring. Fourth, in the United States private medicine is privileged over public health, and curative or corrective medicine over preventative. Fifth, the US, like many late capitalist societies, is essentially a technocracy, in which it is widely thought that most things can be ‘fixed’ by experts, operating in a reasonably unfettered market. All these factors together converge to produce the present high rates of TJ among the young. The choice for those involved seems to be accurately summed up as follows. In 2014 ESPN writer Jayson Stark quoted MLB executive Frank Wren on the continuing surge of Tommy John operations thus: ‘We’ve taken a step back and looked at everything’, said Wren. ‘We’ve talked to our doctors. We’ve talked to [Dr.] Jim Andrews. We’ve talked to our medical staff. And from everything we can tell, nothing would indicate that what’s happened to us is anything other than fate.’ This attitude, Stark pointed out, was easily summarised by the old joke ‘How do you keep a pitcher from getting hurt? Easy.

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Don’t let him pitch in the first place’ (Stark, 2014). Here, the issue disappears into an insoluble and irrevocable ‘American way’ and, thus, becomes part of the natural order of things. Alternatively, as Jeff Passan stated in 2016: ‘I think you have to be willing to go against what modern American culture preaches these days, and that is competitiveness at a very young age’7 (Frank, 2016). Acknowledgements  Many thanks to friend and colleague Dr Brett Lashua for many helpful suggestions, including the topic itself.

References Andrews, D. L. (2019). Making sport great again: The uber-sport assemblage, neoliberalism and the Trump conjuncture. Palgrave Macmillan. Bakalar, N. (2016, May 20). Fastballs Can Lead to Tommy John Surgery, Study Finds New  York Times. Retrieved August 8, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/ 2016/05/21/sports/baseball/fastballs-­can-­lead-to-tommy-john-surgery-studyfinds.html Bornstein, D. (2011). The power of positive coaching. The New  York Times, 20 October. Retrieved March 15, 2020, from https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes. com/2011/10/20/the-­power-­of-­positive-­coaching/ Carroll, W. (2013, July 17). Dr. Frank Jobe, Tommy John and the surgery that changed baseball forever. Retrieved February 29, 2020, from https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1672080-­dr-­frank-­jobe-­tommy-­john-­and-­the-­surgery-­that­changed-­baseball-­forever Cedars-Sinai Staff. (2018, April 16). What is Tommy John surgery? Retrieved March 1, 2020, from https://www.cedars-­sinai.org/blog/what-­is-­tommy-­john-­ surgery.html Collins, T. (2013). Sport in capitalist society: A short history. Routledge. Cormier, R. (2016, June 3). Who is Tommy John, and why is there a surgery named after him? Retrieved February 29, 2020, from https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/80317/who-­tommy-­john-­and-­why-­there-­surgery-­named-­after-­him Dines, J. (2018, May 1). Dodgers’ Corey Seager learns the hard way that Tommy John surgery isn’t just for pitchers. Retrieved March 12, 2020, from https://www. forbes.com/sites/joshuadines/2018/05/01/dodgers-­s eager-­l earns-­t he-­h ard-­ way-­that-­tommy-­john-­surgery-­not-­just-­for-­pitchers/#6dc82e927f45

 A film exploring these possibilities was produced by Cornell University in 1976 and is still widely available in US universities. See David H. Gluck, Edward C. Devereaux and Douglas A. Kleiber Two Ball Games Ithaca, New York: Cornell University/Sterling Films, New York 1976. 7

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Fleisig, G. S., Leddon, C. E., Laughlin, W. A., Ciccotti, M. G., Mandelbaum, B. R., Aune, K. T., Escamilla, R. F., MacLeod, T. D., & Andrews, J. R.. (2015, February 17). Biomechanical performance of baseball pitchers with a history of ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 43(5), 1045–1050. Retrieved March 11, 2020, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ abs/10.1177/0363546515570464 Frank, N. (2016, April 13). Why baseball is fighting (and losing) the Tommy John epidemic. Retrieved March 12, 2020, from https://wtop.com/mlb/2016/04/ the-­arm-­baseballs-­biggest-­mystery/ Gay, J. (2018, June 22). Tommy John III warns against surgery that saved dad’s MLB career. Retrieved March 13, 2020, from https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/ 2018/06/22/tommy-­john-­surgery Gorski, C. (2014, April 1). Do pitchers get better after Tommy John surgery? Retrieved March 12, 2020, from https://www.insidescience.org/news/ do-­pitchers-­get-­better-­after-­tommy-­john-­surgery Gossett, W. (2012, April 6). Tommy John surgery rehabilitation estimated to take a year. Retrieved March 1, 2020, from https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/ sports/preps/story/2012/apr/06/ucl-­surgery-­rehab-­a-­year/74806/ Gough, C. (2019, September 29). Major league baseball (MLB) minimum player salary 2003–2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020, from https://www.statista.com/ statistics/256187/minimum-­salary-­of-­players-­in-­major-­league-­baseball/ Hoberman, J. (1992). Mortal engines—The science of performance and the dehumanization of sport. Free Press. Hyman, M. (2009). Until it hurts: America’s obsession with youth sports and how it harms our kids. Beacon Press. Hyman, M. (2014). Keep sports fun. The New York Times, 21 October. Retrieved March 15, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/10/10/ childrens-­sportslife-­balance/keep-­sports-­fun-­3 Izzo, M. (2015, 24 August). National youth sports media company settles in Parsippany. Retrieved March 13, 2020, from https://eu.dailyrecord.com/story/ news/2015/08/24/national-­youth-­sports-­media-­company-­settles-­parsippany/ 32074101/ Jack, R.  A., Burn, M.  B., Sochacki, K.  R., McCulloch, P.  C., Lintner, D.  M., & Harris, J. D. (2018). Performance and return to sport after Tommy John surgery among major league baseball position players. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 46(7), 1720–1726. Jacobs, M. (2019). Travel baseball: A world where eight-year-olds are treated like pros. The Guardian, 11 December. Retrieved March 14, 2020, from https://www. theguardian.com/sport/2019/dec/11/travel-­b aseball-­a -­w orld-­w here-­e ight-­ year-­olds-­are-­treated-­like-­pros John, T. (2018, September 10). Why Tommy John is against the surgery named for him. Retrieved March 14, 2020, from https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-­ treatments/info-­2018/tommy-­john-­opposes-­namesake-­surgery.html

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Kepner, T. (2017). Velocity school: Where pitchers pay to throw harder. The New York Times, 14 September. Retrieved March 13, 2020, form https://www.nytimes. com/2017/09/14/sports/baseball/mlb-­velocity-­pitchers.html Keri, J. (2002, September 13). Interview with Dr. Frank Jobe. Retrieved March 12, 2020, from http://www.espn.com/mlb/columns/bp/1431308.html Landers, C. (2019, February 27). Just who is Tommy John, and why does everyone talk about his surgery all the time? Retrieved February 25, 2020, from https:// www.mlb.com/cut4/why-­is-­it-­called-­tommy-­john-­surgery Leavy, J. (2002). Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s legacy. HarperCollins. Leitch, W. (2013, March 15). The glass arm. Retrieved February 29, 2020, from https://nymag.com/news/sports/pitchers-­2013-­3/ Lewis, M. (2003). Moneyball: The art of winning an unfair game. W.W. Norton. Longman, J. (2007). Fit young pitchers see elbow repair as cure-all. The New York Times, 20 July. Retrieved March 14, 2020, from https://www.nytimes. com/2007/07/20/sports/baseball/20surgery.html Lyman, S., Fleisig, G. S., Waterbor, J. W., Funkhouser, E. M., Pulley, L., Andrews, J. R., Osinski, E. D., & Roseman, J. M. (2001). Longitudinal study of elbow and shoulder pain in youth baseball pitchers. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 3(11), 1803–1810. Retrieved March 13, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/pubmed/11689728 Lyman, S., Fleisig, G. S., Andrews, J. R., & Osinski, E. D. (2002). Effect of pitch type, pitch count, and pitching mechanics on risk of elbow and shoulder pain in youth baseball pitchers. American Journal of Sports Medicine, 30(4), 463–468. Retrieved March 13, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ 12130397 McManaman, B. (2018, December 15). If there’s a cure for avoiding Tommy John surgery, Dr. Tommy John III aims to find one. Retrieved March 13, 2020, from https://eu.azcentral.com/story/sports/mlb/diamondbacks/2018/06/10/ dr-­tommy-­john-­out-­find-­cure-­avoiding-­tommy-­john-­surgery/679415002/ Moore, J. (2014, October 22). How wall street strangled the life out of sabermetrics. Retrieved March 11, 2020, from https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/aem895/ how-­wall-­street-­strangled-­the-­life-­out-­of-­sabermetrics O’Hara, D. (2015, July 11). Study: ‘Staggering’ number of youths having elbow surgery. Retrieved March 12, 2020, from https://www.rush.edu/news/ tommy-­john-­surgeries-­highest-­among-­teens Ortiz, J.  L. (2014, April 11). Tommy John surgery now ‘an epidemic’. Retrieved March 12, 2020, from https://eu.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2014/04/11/ tommy-­john-­elbow-­surgery-­strasburg-­parker-­corbin/7583413/ Passan, J. (2016). The arm: Inside the billion-dollar mystery of the most valuable commodity in sports. HarperCollins. Puerzer, R. J. (2002). From scientific baseball to sabermetrics: Professional baseball as a reflection of engineering and management in society. NINE: A Journal of Baseball

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History and Culture, 11(1), 34–48. Retrieved March 11, 2020, from https://muse. jhu.edu/article/24204 Rymer, Z. D. (2019, December 9). The Washington nationals take a massive, market-­ value risk on Stephen Strasburg. Retrieved March 12, 2020, from https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2866180-­the-­washington-­nationals-­take-­a-­massive-­market-­ value-­risk-­on-­stephen-­strasburg Sawchik, T. (2018, September 14). Tommy John surgeries are down in MLB. Will it last? Retrieved March 12, 2020, from https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ tommy-­john-­surgeries-­are-­down-­in-­mlb-­will-­it-­last/ Scheinbaum, C. (2017, April 25). A “Tommy John” surgery specialist’s advice for little league pitchers. Retrieved February 29, 2020, from https://www.fatherly. com/play/sports/why-­little-­league-­pitchers-­should-­lay-­off-­the-­curve/ Stark, J. (2014, April 24). Tommy John surgery ‘epidemic’? Retrieved March 12, 2020, from https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/10831700/is-­mlb-­midst-­ tommy-­john-­epidemic Steppe, J. (2019, September 3). Perfect game helps promising young baseball players get noticed—at a cost. Retrieved March 13, 2020, from https://www.thegazette. com/subject/sports/perfect-­g ame-­c edar-­r apids-­y outh-­b aseball-­s couting-­ 20190903 Terrell, E. (2019, January 17). When a quote is not (exactly) a quote: The business of America is business edition. Retrieved February 17, 2020, from https://blogs.loc. gov/inside_adams/2019/01/when-­a-­quote-­is-­not-­exactly-­a-­quote-­the-­business-­of-­ america-­is-­business-­edition/ Verducci, T. (2015, April 21). The post-Tommy John surgery calculus that is changing the game. Retrieved March 11, 2020, from https://www.si.com/ mlb/2015/04/21/tommy-­john-­surgery-­jordan-­zimmermann-­matt-­harvey White, D.  W. (2018, March 29). The Tommy John surgery explosion in the MLB. Retrieved March 12, 2020, from https://www.samford.edu/sports-­analytics/ fans/2018/The-­Tommy-­John-­Surgery-­Explosion-­in-­the-­MLB Williams, J. (2016). Speed hurts: Jeff Passan talks about baseball’s arm troubles. The New York Times, 20 April. Retrieved March 13, 2020, from https://www.nytimes. com/2016/04/20/books/speed-­h urts-­j eff-­p assan-­t alks-­a bout-­b aseballs-­a rm-­ troubles.html Zabawa, L., & Alland, J. A. (2019, May 20). Association between parental understanding of pitch smart guidelines and youth baseball player injuries. Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, 7(5), 2325967119846314. Retrieved March 13, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6537076/

Is Injury “On Brand”? Examining the Contexts of the CrossFit Injury Connection Shaun Edmonds

Introduction CrossFit is an emergent branded physical fitness activity that has garnered both acclaim and notoriety for its unorthodox training style, irreverent attitude, and its near cult-like community. Founded in 2000 by former gymnast Greg Glassman and his then wife Lauren Jenai, CrossFit has since exploded in popularity with over 13,000 CrossFit facilities, or “Boxes,” established globally (Ozanian, 2015; Price, 2015). Those who practice CrossFit range from first-time exercisers to elite competitors in the annual Reebok CrossFit Games. To many, CrossFit offers an alternative to what some perceive as an increasingly dehumanized and exploitive experience found in many commercial gyms (Andreasson & Johansson, 2014; Herz, 2014; Sassatelli, 2010; Wiest et al., 2015). However, CrossFit’s entry into the fitness industry was met (and continues to be met) with skepticism, concern, and outright derision (e.g., Bowles, 2015; CBS, 2015; Fainaru-Wada, 2014; Helm, 2013; Petersen et al., 2014; Rippetoe, 2012). In particular, the use of high repetitions with certain exercise patterns seemed overly risky (Fainaru-Wada, 2014; Shugart, 2008), and its philosophy of constant variation appeared ineffectual for increasing athletic performance (Mullins, 2015; Rippetoe, 2012; Shugart, 2008). What

S. Edmonds (*) Augustana College, Rock Island, IL, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_20

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emerged from these varied discourses was the belief that CrossFit had a high potential for injury, particularly for casual exercisers (Babiash et al., 2013). Still, those who had found typical training techniques used in mainstream gyms to be tedious or mundane saw CrossFit as exciting and filled with potential—in part due to the language of risk associated with CrossFit in both the popular press and through word of mouth (Greeley, 2014; Gregory, 2014; Herz, 2014). CrossFit promised an inclusive and competitive space to push the body’s limits in a way that many found enticing, specifically through its “immersive model” of sport that combines and rewards elements of competition and participation (Herz, 2014; Heywood, 2015; Madden, 2014; Murphy, 2012). Additionally, through the online CrossFit website and social media platforms, as well as the network of Boxes around the world, many have found a sense of community within the CrossFit culture that they struggled to find in other fitness communities (Belger, 2012; Heinrich et  al., 2017; Knapp, 2015). Although many have found positive transformation and reinvention through CrossFit, critics remain vigilant of CrossFit’s influence on individual decision making. As a “reinventive institution,” participation in CrossFit encourages a reimagining of social networks, relationships, and priorities that can drastically alter an individual’s daily lifestyle (Dawson, 2015). In other words, those who invest in CrossFit often prioritize their CrossFit practice as the center of social engagements, diet, and culture. Similar to the military or organized religion, the CrossFit practice can become a totalizing institution— encompassing and affecting daily decisions (Dawson, 2015; Edmonds, 2019). CrossFit is a branded form of physical activity, and those who practice CrossFit socially and physically become aligned with the brand—becoming veritable walking advertisements for the CrossFit brand (Powers & Greenwell, 2016). Given the power that the CrossFit brand exercises over its adherents through both transformation and branding, CrossFit has evolved into a force of cultural change not only within the fitness industry but more broadly in society. At stake is the credibility of established systems of science and expertise around fitness and human performance. CrossFit’s rise to fame and notoriety has been fraught with debates over whether those who participate in CrossFit are at a higher risk for injury. This debate has been complicated by CrossFit’s hybrid nature as both sport and exercise, and exacerbated by sensational coverage of the CrossFit practice. In this chapter I will first examine the structure and organization of CrossFit as well as the research on CrossFit injury rates. I will then look to the ways in which CrossFit has pushed back on traditional fitness industry norms—creating controversy and brand value for CrossFit. Finally, I will show how the

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culture of CrossFit both reinforces fears on the part of the broader fitness industry and simultaneously cultivates an aggressive anti-fitness industry perspective, thereby completing and continuing a feedback loop that presents CrossFit as an exciting (and risky) alternative to dominant exercise culture.

What Is CrossFit? Unlike other forms of sport where the practice of playing the sport is synonymous with the sport itself, CrossFit’s branded form of fitness creates some very unique distinctions. CrossFit is often classified as an “extreme conditioning program” (EPC) that combines elements of Olympic Lifts, gymnastics, plyometrics, and others into high-intensity workouts called the Workout of the Day (WOD). These elements are used to perform “constantly varied, high intensity, functional movement,” or CVFMHI (Glassman, 2007). However, simply performing constantly varied, functional movement at high intensity does not mean one is doing CrossFit. Although CrossFit takes credit for introducing CVFMHI to the wider fitness community, as a branded form of physical activity, only CVFMHI performed under specific conditions counts as CrossFit. According to Russell Berger, a former company spokesman and key advocate: What constitutes “CrossFit” is therefore limited to CVFMHI performed by a party that CrossFit Inc. legally recognizes. This means one of three scenarios: 1. Someone performing training on his or her own, using methods or knowledge he or she found on CrossFit.com or other CrossFit publications. 2. Someone performing training on his or her own, using methods or knowledge gained from our CrossFit Trainer education and certification programs. 3. A licensed CrossFit affiliate, employing CrossFit L1 Trainers who use CVFMHI to train members. (Berger, 2014)1

Therefore, throughout this chapter when I mention the CrossFit philosophy I am referring to the statements made by founder Greg Glassman and the documents found on CrossFit’s branded website. When I refer to “CrossFit” I am speaking to the branded organization. When I refer to the CrossFit practice, I am speaking to the branded CrossFit programming, either in the

 This has changed slightly in the past few years with the development of CrossFit “sanctioned” competitions—a new format of progression associated with the CrossFit Open. This also opened the doors for long-running CVFMHI competitions to use the CrossFit name in its title (see Wodapalooza). 1

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form of the posted WOD on the CrossFit site, or through the training of CrossFit trainers. CrossFit has a somewhat unique organizational structure that consists of a central branded organization (CrossFit Headquarters) and a network of licensed affiliates (Boxes). CrossFit headquarters develops content for the official CrossFit website and social media, and manages and promotes the yearly Reebok CrossFit Games. CrossFit “affiliates” are individual Boxes who have at least one Level 1 CrossFit instructor and have paid to use the CrossFit brand. In contrast with a franchising hierarchy wherein the central headquarters dictates details of the franchise, CrossFit Headquarters does not control or invest in individual affiliate Boxes. Instead, the CrossFit philosophy is that individual Boxes must stand or fall on their own merits—without intervention or assistance from Headquarters (Cej, 2009; Conditioning, 2009). Although many individuals performed the WOD at home during CrossFit’s inception, in the contemporary moment a majority of individuals attend an affiliated Box in order to perform the CrossFit practice. At the Box, trainers may use the prescribed CrossFit WOD, or develop their own WODs based on their CrossFit education (Glassman, 2002a, 2003b, 2007). Participating in the CrossFit practice has been linked to physiological benefits such as improvements in aerobic capacity and body composition (Baştuğ et  al., 2016; Kliszczewicz et  al., 2014; Murawska-Cialowicz et  al., 2015), improvements in psychological factors such as self-esteem (Eather et al., 2016) and motivation (Fisher et al., 2016; Sibley, 2012), and social benefits such as community building (Belger, 2012; Herz, 2014; Knapp, 2015; Madden, 2014; Murphy, 2012; Pickett et  al., 2016). While the research is relatively recent, a majority of studies point to positive benefits to participating in the CrossFit practice. Although the research on CrossFit generally concludes that it is beneficial, studying CrossFit is complex. CrossFit’s programming is based on a philosophical approach that encourages “constantly varied, high intensity, functional movement” in preparation for “not only the unknown but the unknowable” (Glassman, 2003b, 2007). This sheer variability and range of the CrossFit practice has made it difficult for researchers to perform rigorous scientific studies on CrossFit, not even accounting for other variables such as coaching efficacy, equipment modality, and relative training age (Knapik, 2015). Therefore, many of the studies focus on acute responses to one of the many standardized “benchmark” WODs such as “Cindy” (Kliszczewicz et al., 2014) or “Fran” (Butcher et al., 2015), and there is little research on the long-­ term effects of CrossFit practice.

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Studies that have looked at the mechanical injuries found in CrossFit have generally found CrossFit to be a relatively safe form of physical activity. Participating in CrossFit leads to similar rates of injury as other recreational sports and activities such as traditional weightlifting (Elkin et al., 2019), and comparisons between ECP training programs showed similar rates of reported injury (Aune & Powers, 2017; Grier et al., 2013). Additionally, several studies have indicated that CrossFit has similar rates of injury to comparable competitive sport participation such as strongman or powerlifting training (Hak et al., 2013; Keogh & Winwood, 2016; Weisenthal et al., 2014), and potentially less injury than other competitive sports such as soccer (Sprey et  al., 2016). A majority of the mechanical injuries occurred at the shoulder (Aune & Powers, 2017; Summitt et al., 2016; Weisenthal et al., 2014) followed by the lower back (Weisenthal et al., 2014)—consistent with the types of activities found in typical CrossFit WODs. Importantly, CrossFit appears to cause a higher chance of injury for those who are undertrained or new to the CrossFit practice (Feito et al., 2018), with new members (less than 6 months) twice as likely to be injured (Aune & Powers, 2017). While mechanical injuries are common in many sports and recreational activity, a greater concern attributed to CrossFit is exertional rhabdomyolysis. Exertional rhabdomyolysis is a potentially fatal condition that occurs, “in response to nonfamiliar and/or excessive, prolonged, or repetitive exercises, with eccentric characteristics” (Tibana et al., 2018, p. 2). It is most frequently seen among military personnel, endurance athletes during competition, and untrained individuals who push themselves too hard too quickly (Ray & Su, 2008). Although there has not been a widespread study that clearly links exertional rhabdomyolysis to the CrossFit practice, there have been several high-­ profile popular press articles (Shugart, 2008; Vieth, 2008) and a number of individual clinical case studies that have appeared linking CrossFit with rhabdomyolysis patients (e.g., Hopkins et  al., 2019; Meyer et  al., 2018; Rathi, 2014; Tibana et al., 2018). As Tibana and de Sousa (2018) argue, “depending on the stimulus … and training status of a practitioner, an ECP session may precipitate rhabdomyolysis” (p.  1). As CrossFitters may have less previous experience than other exercisers, they may be more prone to overreaching and overexertion, which may increase the potential for rhabdomyolysis (Drum et al., 2016). Taken together, the current research on CrossFit indicates that there are many beneficial aspects of practicing CrossFit and few drawbacks. In particular, those who are new to CrossFit should exercise more cautiously when beginning the program in order to avoid overreaching and overtraining. Many CrossFit Boxes have instituted a “fundamentals” program to help circumvent

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these types of injuries by slowly ramping up both metabolic conditioning and exercise technique. However, given the decentralized nature of the CrossFit organization, this type of programming is not a given in any individual Box.

CrossFit and the Fitness Industry The emergence of CrossFit into the fitness landscape in 2000 came at a particularly important conjuncture within the fitness industry. The fitness boom of the 1980s had brought with it a glut of products, certifications, and eager entrepreneurs seeking to profit from the new fitness craze (Maguire, 2007; McKenzie, 2013). In the wake of the fitness boom, the fitness industry struggled with two major questions concerning self-regulation and legitimacy. First, who was qualified to train others at both the sport level and, perhaps more pertinently, at the commercial level of fitness? Second, how could the fitness industry avoid injury, and the subsequent litigation and government regulation that would come with increased injury incidence (Malek et  al., 2002). Several organizations stepped up to develop certifications and educational standards to help the industry to regulate itself. This included the academic and clinically focused American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the strength and conditioning professional driven National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), and the regulatory watchdog and certification organization the American Council on Exercise (ACE). These organizations used exercise science as the foundation of their certifying exams, and employed a conservative approach to exercise that espoused low-risk activities and slow exercise progression (Berryman, 2004; Myers, 2010; Webster, 2009). In contrast, CrossFit has been outwardly antagonistic toward the study of exercise science.2 Glassman is quoted as saying that, “The world’s most successful athletes and coaches rely on exercise science the way deer hunters rely on the accordion” (Mullins, 2015, p. 34). Similarly in a comment posted on the Keep Fitness Legal CrossFit site, company spokesperson Russell states: “It’s nothing personal, but assessing the methods from the point of view of what is traditionally taught in exercise physiology leaves you ill equipped to understand or accept what we have found to work” (Berger, 2014). Although Glassman contends that, “CrossFit is empirically driven, clinically tested, and community developed” (Glassman, 2007, p. 2), many of the assertions made  Although this is generally the case, the CrossFit Journal articles that form the foundation of the CrossFit branded practice at times reference the exercise physiology literature for the basis of its arguments (e.g., Glassman, 2002a, 2003a). 2

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in the CrossFit Journal are anecdotal or do not supply empirically rigorous data.3 This combative attitude toward the science which underpins a majority of the fitness community has put CrossFit at odds with scholars and researchers in the field. It also acts as a point of demarcation for the CrossFit brand— allowing CrossFit to argue that their form of training is superior in the fitness marketplace. Additionally, CrossFit’s Workout of the Day is a departure from the exercise programming in a majority of the strength and conditioning field which instead advocates for choosing exercises based on individual evaluation and needs (e.g., Coburn & Malek, 2012). Glassman’s philosophy on the CrossFit practice is that the general structure and exercise modalities of a WOD should remain standard for everyone, but be scaled to the abilities of the individual. CrossFit workouts are the same for every person who walks into a gym. The only differences are the amount of weight used and the intensity. “Our understanding is that the needs of Olympic athletes and our grandparents differ by degree, not kind,” Glassman told CNBC. “One needs functional competence to stay out of the nursing home. The other one wants functional dominance to win medals.” (Wang, 2016)

The American Council on Exercise (ACE), long known for engaging with fitness fads, was one of the first to offer overt criticism of the WOD method. “‘My concern is that one cookie-cutter program doesn’t apply to everyone,’ said Fabio Comana, an exercise physiologist at the American Council on Exercise. He said people in their 60’s who have osteoporosis, for example, may not be able to do an overhead press, pushing a barbell over one’s head”(Cooperman, 2005). Comana was concerned that the WOD structure might provide specific exercises that could be contraindicated for certain populations. Additionally, a particular area of concern for many fitness industry professionals was not just the exercises themselves, but the programming of the WOD. While CrossFit advocates for full-body “functional” movements in the WOD, other well-renowned fitness industry professionals remained skeptical of the safety of certain exercises at a high number of repetitions. Mike Boyle warned that, “high-rep Olympic lifting is dangerous. Be careful with CrossFit,” while Alwyn Cosgrove argued that CrossFit’s programming is “all over the place” and that “there are more effective and safer choices” (Shugart, 2008). For these professionals, the lack of safety was not in the type of movements used in CrossFit, but instead in the programming of those  The major exception being a study with Canadian troops (Glassman, 2006).

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particular movements in a CrossFit WOD.  Although the simplicity of the WOD structure makes it easily accessible to the general populace, the programming and exercise selection of the WOD sometimes goes against dominant knowledge paradigms within the fitness industry. Arguably, it was fears around the safety of CrossFit’s programming and exercise selection, coupled with its lack of empirical data on training efficacy, that led to a joint position paper between the ACSM and the Consortium for Health and Military Performance (CHAMP) (Bergeron et  al., 2011). The CHAMP paper took aim at two fundamental differences between ECPs and traditional fitness programming: the competitive nature of ECPs and the performance of near maximal lifts with little recovery time—particularly for those who are undertrained. “Exercise sessions also can be very competitive. … Thus, individuals are often encouraged to push themselves unknowingly to excess, with a greater potential for concomitant injury. It is difficult for a competitive Warfighter to ‘scale back’ because of an inherent desire to be part of the team and reluctance to do less than their peers” (Bergeron et al., 2011, p.  384). The position paper argued that until there was sufficient empirical data on ECPs such as CrossFit, they should not be used as part of military training.4 In addition to the CHAMP paper, an ACSM study on CrossFit’s efficacy that was published in the NSCA’s Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research indicated that 16% of participants had dropped out of the study due to injury (Smith et al., 2013). While the study was generally supportive of CrossFit’s efficacy, CrossFit argued that the injury numbers had been fabricated to make CrossFit appear more dangerous (Berger, 2013). Thus began a contentious legal battle, with the study first having an erratum (later proved false) and then subsequently being fully redacted on a technicality. However, in the court ruling, it was stated that the “NSCA had ‘commercial motivation’ to make the false statement about study participant injuries in the Ohio State study and that it had made that statement ‘with the intention of disparaging CrossFit and thereby driving consumers to the NSCA’” (Han, 2017).5 The combination of the CHAMP joint position paper and the NSCA study was a flashpoint in the already bellicose relationship between CrossFit and the rest of the fitness industry.  Even recently, Knapik (2015) cautioned that there was insufficient data on ECPs such as CrossFit to safely incorporate them into military physical training. However, further research argued that CrossFit may actually be safer for military training when compared with traditional military training methods due to decreases in overall volume—particularly reductions in required running (Poston et al., 2016). 5  The full battle over this study is beyond the scope of this paper. However, the court ruling is still in debate at this time, with the NSCA intending to appeal the court’s decisions. 4

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While CrossFit’s stance contended that the ACSM and NSCA were part of a larger conspiracy, involving collusion with soda lobbyists (Bowles, 2015; Carpenter, 2018; McCarty, 2016), perhaps a different argument could be made around the fear of litigation in the fitness industry. Following the initial fitness boom in the 1980s, several states had proposed bills to develop governmental regulations around personal trainers and other strength and conditioning professionals (e.g., Davis, 2015a, 2015b; Werner, 2017). The increased legislation was spurred by numerous concerns around clients being injured through neglect and incompetence on the part of the personal trainer (Herbert & Herbert, 2017; Rabinoff, 1994). In recent years, the number of lawsuits brought forth as a result of alleged negligence on the part of fitness professionals has dramatically risen. Inadequate screening and premature certification of unqualified candidates can expose both health clubs and certifying organizations to liability should clients suffer injuries due to the negligence of an unqualified personal fitness trainer. Thus, it is in the best interest of all parties involved—clients, personal trainers, health clubs, certifying organizations, and society as a whole—to implement standards that may reduce the incidence of such injuries and the resulting legal entanglements. (Malek et al., 2002, p. 24)

In response to the fear of governmental legislation affecting the fitness industry, higher levels of education and more stringent degrees of certification were suggested (Malek et  al., 2002). CrossFit’s low certification threshold, pervasive media coverage of injuries (e.g., Allen, 2005; Cooperman, 2005; Shugart, 2008; Vieth, 2008), and antagonism toward established science would make it a liability for the rest of the fitness industry. Indeed, there has been increased pressure in recent years to regulate the fitness industry, much to the chagrin of CrossFit (Davis, 2015a, 2015b; Herbert & Herbert, 2017; Kilgore, 2015a; Werner, 2017). Glassman and CrossFit’s antagonism toward the fitness industry continues to take many forms—most recently in the denunciation of soft-drink-funded research in exercise physiology, and ACSM’s Exercise is Medicine initiative that brings fitness professionals into medical settings (Carpenter, 2018; Kilgore, 2016; Leonard, 2016; Wilson, 2016). In challenging the legitimacy of other organizations in the fitness industry and repudiating the established science upon which the industry has been built, CrossFit positions itself as a rebellious and misunderstood underdog combating the tyranny of the fitness industry. This repeated antagonism creates an “us versus them” relationship,

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furthering the CrossFit brand by creating ideological and political differentiation in relation to the broader fitness industry.

CrossFit as Liminal Space To further understand the contemporary debates around injury in CrossFit, it is integral to examine the ways in which CrossFit straddles two very different (though overlapping) networks of fitness professionals. As Herz contends: CrossFit athletes assume the risk of injury in the context of sport, rather than the context of what mainstream exercisers consider to be fitness activity. This explains why gym-oriented fitness experts and CrossFit defenders talk past each other about injury and flame each other online. One group views CrossFit through the lens of Pilates and Zumba and bicep curls, and the other views CrossFit through the lens of gymnastics and basketball and NASCAR. CrossFit calls itself ‘the sport of fitness’. It really matters which of these words come first. (Herz, 2014, p. 127)

CrossFit’s unique hybridization of elite sport and everyday fitness, or perhaps its lack of distinction between the two, runs roughshod over the contemporary separation of commercial fitness and athletics in the Western context. The commercial fitness industry is typically a space wherein individuals of low to average fitness perform bodywork toward self-actualization, individual improvement, and the pursuit of bodily capital among other aspirations (Chaline, 2015; McKenzie, 2013; Sassatelli, 2010). Conversely, sport is a more competitive environment wherein well-trained individuals are driven by performance and tangible success (i.e., winning). While these definitions are inherently reductionist of the two fields, they illustrate the ways in which “fitness” and “sport” are ideologically focused on two very different forms of improvement. Consequently, while CrossFit envisions itself as “the sport of fitness,” it does not fit neatly within contemporary classifications that typically divide “sport” and “fitness” into two very different networks of management, coaching, and individual engagement. Within the sporting network, individual players are encouraged to perform at the edges of their physical ability in competitive environments under the guidance of a coaching staff. The coaching staff frequently consists of a head or lead coach, assistant or specialty coaches, strength and conditioning staff, and a network of medical care professionals such as athletic trainers and physical therapists. The coaching staff has traditionally had an authoritarian

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relationship with athletes (Burke, 2001; Denison et  al., 2017; Gearity & Mills, 2012; Mills & Denison, 2016). Given the high level of individual guidance and extensive injury prevention/rehabilitation network, it can be argued that those within the sporting network are expected to both perform at a high level and put their bodies at higher risk for injury (Fuller, 2007). Indeed, there is a large body of sociological literature on the connections between elite performance and injury risk (e.g., Howe, 2003; Loland et  al., 2006; Theberge, 2008). Conversely, the commercial “exercise network” is typically an individual endeavor engaged in primarily by average participants seeking to improve health or body composition. “Fitness gyms are non-competitive environments aimed at providing recreational exercise to boost physical form and well-being” (Sassatelli, 2010, p. 6). In some instances individuals may hire a personal trainer or group fitness coach—people pursuing fitness careers that typically require far less credentials and education than strength and conditioning or medical staff. This trainer-client relationship is often predicated on the client obediently deferring to the fitness trainer with the understanding that the fitness trainer is responsible for the well-being of the client (George, 2008; Hutson, 2015). Fitness trainers are certified through external organizations to “reassure clients and club members of adequate knowledge and training,” and to assure that clients “are hiring a qualified individual to train them” (Waryasz et al., 2016, p. 98). As part of this relationship, it is expected that trainers will choose methods and techniques that are injury-averse; therefore, exercises that require a higher degree of technical skill and coaching, such as Olympic lifts, are not commonly implemented by fitness staff in commercial fitness settings (Glassman, 2002b; Waryasz et al., 2016). Finally, the fitness space is very much a commercial profit-driven space that is often completely detached from a medical professional network. The fitness business thrives on selling memberships that go unused (DellaVigna & Malmendier, 2006; Smith, 2014), and there are persistently new (often ineffectual) products or gimmicks (de Regt et al., 2019; Ethan et al., 2016) that are profitable due to consumer ignorance of nutrition and exercise science. In other words, the fitness industry is reliant on under-educated individuals who are risk averse that are willing to abdicate authority to fitness experts. As a hybrid of the sport network and the exercise network, CrossFit combines the language and techniques of athletics with the networks of the fitness industry. CrossFit participants are called “athletes,” and their instructors are called “coaches.” The CrossFit ethos argues that athletic fitness, not simply health and wellness, should be the goal of any training program (Glassman, 2002c). The coach-athlete relationship in CrossFit more closely mirrors the

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coach-athlete relationship in sport, wherein coaches are cognizant that they not only must be proficient at programming and technique, but also fulfill a more relationship-based role that facilitates individual athlete improvement (Heywood, 2016). However, in contrast with sport coaches, the onus of injury is on the athlete for overreaching or not properly learning technique—not on the quality or expertise of the coach. “If you ask a CrossFit coach, the injuries were all my fault. … You’re supposed to push yourself to the limit, but when you hit the limit and pay the price, you’re the idiot who went too far” (Kessler, 2013). CrossFit coaches then are more guides or facilitators when compared to a strength and conditioning coach or a fitness trainer. As Nash (2018) found, this decentralization of authority within the CrossFit space may lead to members “routinely ignoring the advice of the expert (him) and willing to push past the point of what is considered to be safe” (p.  1441). Although CrossFit uses the athlete-coach language, the cultural practices of CrossFit encourage the individual athlete to develop personal expertise, with the coaches acting as guides or instructors instead of necessarily authority figures. The coach-athlete distinction in CrossFit becomes particularly pertinent when considering debates around the certification process for CrossFit instructors. To become a Level 1 CrossFit instructor requires attending a weekend of CrossFit training and taking a 55 question exam (Carroll, 2014). As Carroll states, “Participants spend two days with CrossFit’s top trainers learning movement and methodology and—perhaps most importantly— being immersed in CrossFit culture” (Carroll, 2014, p. 4). Critics argued that the certification process was not only too easy, but also commercially motivated (e.g., Mullins, 2015; Rippetoe, 2012; Simmons, 2014). Greg Everett, a former affiliate partner, lent voice to the criticism: “We joke all the time that a CrossFit certification only certifies that you have a valid credit card” (Fainaru-­ Wada, 2014). Starting in 2010, the CrossFit certification process went through a significant restructuring and accreditation process (Carroll, 2014; Kilgore, 2015a, 2015b) but concerns still linger. The certification is, in some ways, simply an entry into the CrossFit practice, and both CrossFit coaches and athletes are encouraged to do their own research on technique, physiology, nutrition, and other components of fitness. Similar to the structure of the affiliate system, it is expected that the “free market” will sort good coaches from bad coaches, so there is little oversight of individual CrossFit coaches from the central CrossFit organization. Therefore, many CrossFit coaches seek out supplementary certification from other organizations to bolster their credentials—particularly in Olympic lifting and kettlebells, which are heavily featured in the WODs (Waryasz, Suric, et al., 2016). In essence, while certification is the marker of quality and competency in other areas of the fitness

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industry, the marketplace decides quality and competency for CrossFit coaches. However, given that many fitness clients initially choose trainers based on trainer physique instead of credentials (Edmonds, 2018; Hutson, 2013; Melton et al., 2010), the free market approach may not be beneficial to those who are just beginning their fitness journey. While there is no medical community inherently attached to the CrossFit practice, there is a strong cultural push within CrossFit for individuals to seek out their own medical network and to pursue individual educational opportunities about proper form, diet, and exercise fundamentals. However, as Powers and Greenwell (2016) state, “A telling example is in the case of injury, where branded fitness becomes the solution for injury, even if it is also the cause. To cope, branded fitness often pushes a deeper commitment to the routine, including dietary changes (Avurvedic [sic.] for Bikram, Paleo for CrossFit), clothing or gear that in some way manages discomfort, and advice sought from teachers or coaches instead of medical professionals” (p.535). Within the CrossFit structure, this advice often comes from additional cost sessions at a particular Box, through branded CrossFit seminars organized by CrossFit’s continuing education programs, or by articles posted on the CrossFit website. Indeed, through articles in the CrossFit Journal, the CrossFit practice is advertised as a cure-all for everything from cancer (Cooper, 2013) to autism (Cooper, 2014) to PTSD (Cooper, 2015). In a blistering denunciation of the US medical system posted on the CrossFit website, affiliate owner Jason Cooper argues that, “These patients truly need help and care. What they need is what we affiliates provide: real food and CrossFit” (Cooper, 2017). Indeed, CrossFit recently announced the creation of a CrossFit MD Level 1 certification for doctors interested in using CrossFit as part of their practice (Easter, 2018). Instead of building a network of medical care to support the CrossFit practice, the CrossFit practice supplants the medical network with more CrossFit. The CrossFit organizational model puts the responsibility on its membership to become advocates of their own health and to understand their own limits. CrossFit coaches act as cultural intermediaries (Maguire, 2008) who are expected to guide CrossFit athletes to success—even as coaches may be ignored in the heat of CrossFit’s competitive WODs. When members do encounter injury during their CrossFit practice, they are presented with CrossFit branded ways of recovery and care. This entire process puts a heavy responsibility on individual CrossFit participants to make rational, well-­ informed decisions while simultaneously excoriating contemporary medical and fitness knowledge. The deeper an individual goes into the CrossFit brand, the more they are expected to become experts on their own health and fitness.

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Although this may empower individuals in some ways, the CrossFit system puts a much higher level of responsibility on the individual when compared to the fitness or sport networks. It is precisely this combination of increased responsibility and single-stream branded health information that makes CrossFit appear as simultaneously self-actualization to insiders and risky subculture to outsiders.

CrossFit Culture “Jesus, as a vast discipline, you orthopedists can’t get enough of football and running, but somehow CrossFit is the boogeyman,” Glassman says. “Fuck injuries. You think we got to 15,000 boxes by hurting everyone?” (Easter, 2018)

As the figurehead of CrossFit, Glassman’s off the cuff and crass statements have set the tone for CrossFit practitioners—particularly in the early days of CrossFit’s meteoric rise in popularity. The early articles posted on the CrossFit website were primarily written by Glassman and laid the foundation for the CrossFit practice. Through these articles, Glassman provided guidance on developing a home gym (Glassman, 2002b), understanding CrossFit’s exercise philosophy (Glassman, 2002a, 2002c, 2007), and other instructional materials that would form the basis of the original Level 1 CrossFit certification. Written in a non-academic and accessible manner, these articles included sarcasm and pointed jabs at the fitness industry (e.g., Glassman, 2002b), as well as a blustering bravado comparing the performance of CrossFit athletes to other sports figures (e.g., Glassman, 2002c). However, it is Glassman’s impulsive and unplanned commentary that he is most known for outside of CrossFit. Particularly in the early days of CrossFit, Glassman would spend considerable time on the CrossFit website message boards responding, often acerbically, to other posts.6 Although Glassman wrote a thoughtful piece on the risk of rhabdomyolysis in the CrossFit Journal (Glassman, 2005), he also reportedly retorted to criticism of CrossFit that, “We have a therapy for injuries at CrossFit called STFU” (Helm, 2013). Glassman’s comments connecting a hypermasculine incorporation of injury into the CrossFit practice were not limited to the CrossFit boards. Glassman is quoted in the New York Times as saying, “If you find the notion of falling off the rings and breaking your neck so foreign to you, then we don’t want you in  Indeed, there is an entire forum thread devoted to tracking Glassman’s spurious claims and aggressive outbursts, https://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?5377964-The-Case-Against-CrossFit 6

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our ranks” (Cooperman, 2005). As part of the differentiation from the broader fitness industry, Glassman’s commentary portrays CrossFit as a hypermasculine space wherein bodily harm is acceptable in the pursuit of athletic fitness. In this way, the CrossFit brand is associated with risk and the potential for injury. In branding CrossFit as a risky subculture, Glassman and others attract risk-seeking individuals such as those in pain communities. Atkinson (2008) describes pain communities as subcultures wherein individuals develop social capital through “the ability to withstand and enjoy suffering” (p165). Through the process of participating in the grueling high-intensity WODs and comparing performance, CrossFit participants develop subcultural capital (Wheaton, 2000) that elevates their status within the CrossFit community (Herz, 2014). The “potential for injury” is a badge of honor in the quest for performing at the highest level (McCarty, 2015). In other words, while injury is not inherently sought after, the discourse of injury is normalized as an indicator of pushing one’s limits, and the discussion of injury becomes a point of bonding within the CrossFit community (Edmonds, 2019). The normative nature of injury in CrossFit is exemplified through CrossFit’s two unofficial mascots—Pukie the Clown and Uncle Rhabdo. Pukie the Clown is an image of a clown vomiting, often surrounded by CrossFit equipment, while Uncle Rhabdo is a clown depicted as exhausted, attached to medical machines, and in a pool of blood and internal organs. While these images may appear disturbing to those outside of the CrossFit practice, particularly the injury-averse fitness community, within CrossFit they are tongue-in-cheek anthropomorphizations of potential injuries related to overexertion in the metabolically taxing CrossFit workouts. To some, Pukie serves as a reminder to CrossFit participants to push themselves to their limits, even if it means throwing up (Darsh, 2013). Throughout the early days of CrossFit, images of Pukie could be found on affiliate t-shirts and other commercial items, as well as emblazoned on lifting platforms and on the walls of the Box (Morjaria, 2013). There is even an oversized Pukie statue in residence at CrossFit Headquarters (CBS, 2015). While less common, Uncle Rhabdo appeared in several spaces, including an image of Uncle Rhabdo that accompanies Glassman’s article cautioning how to avoid rhabdomyolysis (Glassman, 2005). As CrossFit increased in popularity, these images were included or alluded to in popular press articles that spoke of the risky nature of the CrossFit practice (Cooperman, 2005; Robertson, 2013; Shugart, 2008). The images reflected the dark humor of Glassman and the hardcore group of ex-military and former athletes that comprised the initial CrossFit movement, but they have all but disappeared as CrossFit has become more mainstream and attracted more

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casual adherents (Hay, 2018). While modern CrossFitters have moved away from adopting Pukie and Uncle Rhabdo in their facilities and their branding, it is unclear the degree to which these cartoon images persist in contributing to the connection between CrossFit and risk. In addition to CrossFit’s antagonism toward accepted exercise science and its non-traditional structure, the culture of CrossFit itself is enmeshed in discourses of injury and injury potential that separate it from the wider fitness industry. Even though there is a low incidence of injury in the CrossFit practice, the concept of injury is infused in everything from Glassman’s bravado to the community mores. While CrossFit as a loose conglomerate of affiliates is shifting away from some of the more visible connections to injury such as the clown mascots, Glassman’s aggressive public persona combined with the culturally valued intensity of the CrossFit workouts may continue to reinforce the connection of CrossFit to injury within the public sphere.

Conclusion While the extant evidence generally agrees that CrossFit is not a particularly injury-prone activity, CrossFit continues to be associated with injury within the fitness industry and the popular press. Although part of the connection between CrossFit and injury can be attributed to sensational news coverage and contested research, part of it can also be attributed to the visibly risk-­ laden culture of CrossFit and the branded nature of CrossFit’s certification process and affiliate system. In turns, CrossFit denounces the injury potential of the WOD, valorizes the risky nature of the WOD, and jokes about the risks associated with high-intensity training. To those outside the CrossFit practice, particularly those concerned with legitimacy of the field and avoiding litigation, CrossFit can be seen as a very troublesome phenomenon. Arguably, CrossFit as a branded entity uses the discourses of injury and risk to its benefit—offering adherents a challenging alternative to the less exciting and more conservative fitness industry. Additionally, by focusing on this difference and dismissing the science and methods used throughout the fitness industry, CrossFit builds its brand as not simply an alternative to the fitness industry, but as superior to the fitness industry. Finally, in proclaiming its superiority, CrossFit can then offer an abundance of new certifications and lifestyle products (including more CrossFit) to meet the needs of its adherents.

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Kessler, J. (2013). Why I quit CrossFit. https://medium.com/this-­happened-­to-­me/ why-­i-­quit-­crossfit-­f4882edd1e21#.1g14t9t2p Kilgore, L. (2015a). Certification and licensure: Benefit or liability? The CrossFit Journal, 1–8. Kilgore, L. (2015b). Locking it down. The CrossFit Journal, 1–6. Kilgore, L. (2016). Exercise is medicine: Imprecision and impracticality. The CrossFit Journal, 1–6. Kliszczewicz, B., Snarr, R. L., & Esco, M. R. (2014). Metabolic and cardiovascular response to the CrossFit workout ‘Cindy’. Journal of Sport and Human Performance, 2(2), 1–9. Knapik, J. (2015). Extreme Conditioning programs: Potential benefits and potential risks. Journal of Special Operations Medicine: A Peer Reviewed Journal for SOF Medical Professionals, 15(3), 108. Knapp, B. A. (2015). Rx’d and shirtless: An examination of gender in a CrossFit box. Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal, 23(1), 42–53. Leonard, K. (2016). CrossFit’s founder seeks to sour government’s soda stance, U.S.  News & World Report. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-­09-­21/ crossfit-­brings-­soda-­battle-­to-­capitol-­hill Loland, S., Skirstad, B., & Waddington, I. (2006). Pain and injury in sport: Social and ethical analysis. Routledge. Madden, S. (2014). Embrace the suck : What I learned at the box about hard work, (very) sore muscles, and burpees before sunrise. HarperWave, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Maguire, J.  S. (2007). Fit for consumption: Sociology and the business of fitness. Routledge. Maguire, J. S. (2008). The personal is professional: Personal trainers as a case study of cultural intermediaries. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 11(2), 211–229. Malek, M. H., Nalbone, D. P., Berger, D. E., & Coburn, J. W. (2002). Importance of health science education for personal fitness trainers. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 16(1), 19–24. McCarty, P. (2015). A qualified defense of puking in CrossFit. Retrieved November 19, 2019, from https://breakingmuscle.com/fitness/a-qualified-defense-ofpuking-in-crossfit McCarty, P. (2016). Breaking down the CrossFit, #SugarKills, and Coke debate. http://breakingmuscle.com/fitness/breaking-down-the-crossfit-sugarkillsand-coke-debate McKenzie, S. (2013). Getting physical: The rise of fitness culture in America. University Press of Kansas Lawrence. Melton, D. I., Dail, T. K., Katula, J. A., & Mustian, K. M. (2010). The current state of personal training: Managers’ perspectives. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 24(11), 3173–3179.

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‘This Must Be Done Right, So We Don’t Lose the Income’: Medical Care and Commercial Imperatives in Mixed Martial Arts Alex Channon, Christopher R. Matthews, and Mathew Hillier

Introduction The provision of medical care within competitive sports contexts has emerged as a discrete area of research interest for sport sociologists over the past few decades. Sitting at the juncture of sport studies, the sociology of professions, medical sociology and medical ethics, this work has critically explored the role played by various types of medics within a range of contexts, informed by debates and theoretical insights from these disparate areas of literature. The relatively recent publication of a theoretically driven monograph (Malcolm, 2017), an edited collection of empirical work (Malcolm & Safai, 2012) and agenda-setting literature review articles (e.g. Malcolm, 2014) indicates the developing maturity of this research area.

A. Channon (*) University of Brighton, Brighton, UK e-mail: [email protected] C. R. Matthews Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK M. Hillier Huddersfield, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_21

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One point upon which the majority of studies in this field tend to concur is that medical work in sport cannot be understood outside of the social conditions of its production. Following the oft-cited work of Elliot Freidson (1970) on the sociology of medicine more broadly, it is generally accepted that the execution of medical work in practice is less a matter of how skilled, professional or well-educated any given physician might be, and more a consequence of how well that particular physician is able (or willing) to perform within specific social contexts. As such, exploring pertinent sociocultural factors within sports environments becomes vital in understanding the working practices of sports medics. This would include such phenomena as the well-­ evidenced notion of the ‘culture of risk’ that shapes athletes’ health-related behaviours (Donnelly, 2004; Nixon, 1992; Matthews & Jordan, 2019; Pike, 2004; Safai, 2003; Theberge, 1997, 2008); the influence of commercial pressures on individual athletes, coaches and teams to prioritise performance over health (Hoberman, 1992; Malcolm, 2017; Malcolm & Scott, 2014; Safai, 2003; Young, 1993; Waddington & Roderick, 2002; Theberge, 2006); and the wider political economy shaping various sports organisations’ ability to provide particular types of medical care to athletes (Boyd, 2007; Hanson, 2018; Malcolm, 2006; Malcolm & Safai, 2012; Malcolm & Sheard, 2002; Waddington et al., 2001). With respect to these latter two points, numerous studies have highlighted both clinical shortcomings and ethical failures that are facilitated by the political-­economic organisation of competitive sport. Here, the compromised loyalties of ‘team doctors’, whose employment by their patients’ bosses generates potential conflicts of interest, have been evidenced numerous times (Malcolm, 2006; Malcolm & Safai, 2012; Waddington et al., 2001). Commercial pressures produced by the ‘spectacularisation’ of televised sport, or the high premiums associated with winning for securing sponsorship deals, may diminish the situational importance of medics when their advice runs contra to athletes’ ability to produce exciting and effective performances (Anderson & Jackson, 2012; Hanson, 2018; Malcolm, 2017; Malcolm & Sheard, 2002). In less-commercialised sports, budgetary restraints combined with the relatively expensive nature of medical support have been shown to impact upon the quality of care athletes can expect to receive (Liston et al., 2006; Malcolm, 2017; Walk, 1997). Elsewhere, the lack of formal governance structures in some sports means medical care is conducted without clear guidance or rules to ensure that any sort of clinical or ethical standards are adhered to (Channon et al., 2020). In this chapter, we extend these enquiries by exploring the provision of medical care at two different levels of competitive Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)

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in the UK. To date, ours is the first investigation of medical provision within organised combat sports, as well as only the second study within this field to use an observational methodology (see Kotarba, 2001). To gather data on medical care in this environment, we shadowed medical professionals at 27 different competitive combat sports events, accumulating 200 hours of observational fieldwork in total. The majority of these were MMA events (n = 13) or mixed-discipline events that mostly featured MMA bouts (n = 5), but also included boxing (n = 5), kickboxing (n = 2) and Brazilian jiu-jitsu events (n = 2). While the clear majority of these were understood within the field to be at the ‘regional’ level of competition, three of the MMA events we visited were internationally televised, professional, elite-level shows.1 In addition, we also carried out formal, semi-structured interviews with 25 medical professionals, 7 referees and 9 promoters and commission staff,2 as well as numerous informal, conversational field interviews during our observations. The resulting data, analysed using an iterative thematic analysis protocol, generated diverse insights into the work of medical professionals within a largely unregulated sport (Channon et al., 2020), wherein athletes’ risk taking is both normalised and celebrated (Channon, 2020). Due to the preponderance of our findings concerning the sport of MMA, as well as the recent emergence and rapid development of this sport, we focus on the data from our study that specifically pertains to MMA for the remainder of this piece. Contextually speaking, MMA events almost always consist of competitions between opponents of similar weight, which take place in front of paying audiences as a sporting spectacle (hence the use of the term ‘show’, which is common parlance in the field). Fights most often take place in an octagonal cage under the supervision of a referee. They last for a fixed time period, usually up to three rounds of either three or five minutes (for amateurs and professionals respectively), although matches for championship belts or other ‘main event’ fights may last for five rounds. Victory is earned through either ‘stoppages’—most often resulting from knockouts, technical knockouts or submissions—or from judges’ scorecards after the completion of the final  Roughly defined, ‘regional’ shows are more likely to feature amateur rather than professional fights, and are seen to serve a developmental role in providing a platform for ‘up-and-coming’ fighters to gain experience or exposure. They are run by smaller organisations, usually involving volunteer labour, and are likely to be reliant on small, local sponsors as well as ticket sales for revenue. They operate on tight budgets as a consequence of the uncertainty this involves. By contrast, ‘international’ shows are run by larger, more professional organisations that benefit from broadcaster income, merchandising and sponsorship deals. They showcase established, professional fighters whose bouts draw large global audiences. 2  In MMA, ‘commissioners’ are staff tasked with responsibility for stage-managing events. They ensure fighters’ equipment is adequate, monitor the conduct of coaching teams at ring or cage-side, walk fighters to and from the arena and so on. 1

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round. During bouts, opponents may strike each other with fists, elbows, knees, shins and feet; they may throw and wrestle each other; and can apply a wide variety of joint locks or chokes. MMA is not a ‘no-holds-barred’ sport— many techniques are forbidden under its ‘unified rules’3—but the diversity of techniques it does permit gives rise to a wide spectrum of potential injuries. In this sense, fights are often bloody affairs, and fractures, joint dislocations, concussions and other types of kinetic injury are common (see Jensen et al., 2017). Medical staff are typically employed at MMA events to provide immediate, cage-side care following such injuries, as well as perform pre- and post-fight medical screening. However, in the UK, the exact nature of their work is not formally mandated by any overarching governing body—indeed there is no effective regulation of the sport in the UK at the time of writing—and instead rests on what any given show promoter asks (or permits) them to do. As such, this gives rise to considerable variation in actual practice across the sport, as was recorded throughout our fieldwork observations. In what follows, we discuss how this variation manifests with respect to the wider structural organisation of MMA, commenting on how the commercial imperatives currently shaping the sport either facilitate or constrain the medical care that athletes receive. We do so in two distinct sections, concerning firstly ‘regional’ and secondly ‘international’-level shows.

 edical Care on the Regional Circuit: M The Structural Alienation of Medics At the regional MMA events we visited, the provision of medical care varied widely between shows, with different types of medics employed, in teams of varying sizes, who performed their duties in a variety of different ways (see Channon et al., 2020; 2021). At one event for instance, the medical team consisted of one doctor, two paramedics and one emergency medical technician (EMT); at another event, it was composed of one nurse, one paramedic and one EMT; and at another, only two EMTs were present.4 Each of these teams followed fairly distinct procedures; while all of them performed  For details of amateur and professional rulesets, see IMMAF (2019) and ABC (2017) respectively.  Each of these types of staff are qualified (and thus insured) to perform different duties. Among them, EMTs are the lowest ranked within typical medical hierarchies in the UK, and unlike doctors, paramedics or nurses, ‘EMT’ is not a protected title and there is no statutory professional register for EMTs in the UK. This makes verifying the currency of their qualifications—should private employers wish to do this—more difficult. 3 4

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pre-fight medical checks for each fighter and gave emergency cover throughout events, not all of them did routine post-fight checks of every competitor and the treatments they provided to injured fighters varied substantially. This lack of standardisation in staffing and procedures is largely a consequence of there being no formal regulations which event organisers must follow, leaving the determination of such things largely in the hands of promoters. At the level of each individual show, it is also indicative of a relatively ‘hands-­ off’ approach on the part of those promoters, who typically left medics to their own devices after hiring them. Although many of the medics we interviewed appreciated the degree of autonomy this gave them, most recognised this as a consequence of promoters’ problematic lack of interest in medical cover, rather than healthy professional respect: It’s a mixed bag, some are good but some promoters just don’t wanna even speak to you. One I worked for, if I approach him to say, ‘ok I’ve done this and that’, he’s like, ‘ok yeah, whatever, make sure you have a good night, yeah, yeah, yeah’. OK? So he’s not overly interested in us, he doesn’t come over and be like, ‘any problems?’ He just books us and leaves us to it. And like you said, he could be booking anyone, right? Presumably it wouldn’t make any difference if you were professionals or like, St John’s Ambulance volunteers? Exactly! It wouldn’t make any difference to him. (Victoria,5 A&E nurse) That naivety comes into it when the promoter just goes for the ticking-the-­box process of what he needs to cover the event. … When you find a businessman promoting something, you generally don’t get that love and attention, it’s a money-making scheme, tick-tick-tick-tick, they’re all here, done. I’ve done my bit, now let’s watch what the cash register does. (Steve, EMT)

That the specifics of medical cover received little of promoters’ attention could give rise to a number of problems. Two particularly consistent observations in the field were the implications this bore for both the physical staging of events and the types of medics hired. While significant effort was almost always put into creating environments that would generate the atmosphere of professional fight shows their audiences will have seen on television, with numerous (presumably expensive) embellishments in place to do so, medical provision was often given minimal consideration—or, indeed, directly marginalised as a consequence of these other priorities. For example, at one well-­ attended amateur show, we noted extensive ‘showbiz’ staging and staffing, but a largely underqualified and poorly located medical team:  Pseudonyms are used throughout this chapter.

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The venue for this event is a multi-court sports hall in a leisure centre located in the suburbs of a large city. Inside, the huge space of the hall is dominated by a full-size cage, surrounded in a ring by a VIP seating area. A huge projection screen almost covers the entire far wall, while a raised walk-in stage lies along one side, with access to this area fenced off from the spectators’ standing zone around the rest of the perimeter. The cage area itself is also fenced off from the ring of VIP tables, with a decent amount of space for the professional camera crew and officials (several of whom, the promoter was keen to emphasise to me, had worked at the highest level of the sport) to move around the outside. As I arrive, the lights are already dimmed, with brightly coloured spotlights dancing around the ceiling and walls while hip-hop music blares over the sound system. Later on, smoke machines and walk-out music add impact to the arrival of fighters on the stage. The two ring girls, whose seats are closer to the cage door than are the medics’, are professional models. Prior to the commencement of the event, the promoter asked the medics to begin their pre-fight checks in the short, narrow hallway outside the squash court that was supposed to be their medical area, but had at that moment been inexplicably repurposed for the referees’ rules talk. Lawrence, an unqualified, trainee paramedic, took a folding table and set it up in the only space available to him, directly in front of the corridor’s fire escape. Here, he and his colleague (the only fully-qualified paramedic in this team of four) began seeing to fighters. I wasn’t able to observe the procedure as the hallway, where I had earlier been standing while talking with Lawrence, quickly filled with bodies. The checks seemed to progress much more quickly than at other shows, and the corridor was crowded and cramped, with no attempt made to split fighters from their opponents or provide any kind of confidentiality during the process. I couldn’t understand why the organisers hadn’t provided more adequate space for medical screening in this large sports complex. (Field notes, regional MMA show)

Promotions’ relative lack of investment in and attention to medical care was frequently complained about by medical staff with experience of working at this level of the sport. In explaining this, the most consistent point we heard was that medical provision was sacrificed in the pursuit of profit, as per Steve’s quote above. Penny, a nurse with over ten years’ worth of experience working in combat sports, made this particularly clear when discussing shows that employed unqualified or unreliable medics: You’ve carried on with the show knowing that you have people that wouldn’t be able to deal with a knockout. That’s really appalling. Appalling. And so sad, that they’re willing to put people’s lives at risk for money. I’m wondering, is it just naivety? That these guys don’t know what they don’t know about medical staff, that sort of thing?

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No. Definitely no. It’s about the money. I went to another show with my friend in the summertime, we were going to watch the fights, and my trainer was coaching there, and he rang me up and went, ‘they haven’t got any medics, can you be the medic?’ And both of us were in clothes to go out in, and I went, ‘let me see if I can get some kit’. Long story short, I managed to get kit up to the event and everything, and we covered the show. I did it barefoot because I couldn’t wear heels in the cage. And then when it came to the end of the night, the promoter kind of went, ‘so, how much?’ And I didn’t even put any extra money on it over my normal price and he was like, ‘how much?!’ And I was like, ‘we’ve just saved your bacon, completely here. Completely!’ And we’ve never heard from them again, and he does loads of shows. And you just think, we totally saved your bacon there and yet you’ll still go back to the same people who’ll let you down, because they’re cheaper. And that’s the thing with all of this. Money. (Penny, A&E nurse)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the promoters we managed to interview6 did not directly echo this sentiment, but they did frequently acknowledge the financial pressures that they faced in staging events, and admitted that this was one consideration when deciding how many medics they would employ as well as what profession those medics would be (i.e. expensive doctors vs. relatively cheap EMTs). Such concerns were always contextualised by promoters with reference to the financial risks that they took with running regional-level shows, which could easily incur losses due to depending largely on unpredictable ticket sales for their revenue: Do you mind me asking, your first show, did you make much from that? Not much at all. I think I made something like a thousand pounds. Which for me was awesome. I think it went fantastic and also I made this grand, as a side thing. I didn’t have to pay any extra. But do you know what? It was very, very, very time consuming. It’s very hard, so then if you are considering that you have made that thousand pounds from the last three months’ work you’ve put in, it’s not worth it. But looking at the bigger picture, increasing your tickets sales in the future, and maybe increasing the people in there, because I have seen that you can easily squeeze in another hundred people there. Then you could make some real money. (Jakub, regional-level promoter)

 It is fairly likely that our interviewee sampling of promoters was affected by selection bias, insomuch as, in the words of promoter Jim, ‘if anybody said “no” when you wanted to talk to them about promoting and about doctors, things like that, if they just flatly refused it is probably because they have got something to hide’. Indeed, several promoters did refuse (or ignore) our request for interviews. 6

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As indicated here, besides short-term concerns over protecting the viability and profitability of any given event, most promoters were also concerned with developing their brands over time, building a sustainable audience at the local and wider regional level. For some, this involved being willing to make the occasional financial loss in order to establish or maintain their credentials within an increasingly busy marketplace. The payoff for such acceptable losses always needed to be a show that people would talk about and remember; that sponsors would be interested in putting their name next to; and that talented, up-and-coming fighters would want to perform on. In this sense, for some promoters the presence of (expensive) doctors and private ambulances was of relatively little importance compared to bright lights, loud music, exciting fights and glamorous ring girls,7 which were considered to be more immediately impactful on an audience—whose presence would, in turn, draw the wider attention that event sponsors and aspiring fighters sought. As well as clarifying why medical teams were often staffed with cheaper, lower-grade professionals who often did not have access to the best available equipment or facilities, this may go some way in helping to explain a more troubling phenomenon that we witnessed several times, wherein promoters ignored or directly overruled medical staff during events. Indeed, we saw one promoter interfere with medics to prevent a fight stoppage (see Channon et al., 2021), and another who urged an injured fighter to move backstage before ambulance paramedics could arrive to assess his dislocated knee joint. In another incident, we saw a promoter arguing with a medic about allowing a fighter who’d been knocked out to compete again less than an hour later, to keep a fight on the card after another competitor hadn’t shown up. In each case, a clear motivation to ensure that the show went on ran directly against medical advice, disrupting medics’ ability to work in the interests of their patients. Several interviewees told us of similar incidents at other shows, confirming that promoters’ priorities could, at times, bring them into conflict with medics, placing athletes at potentially great risk as a consequence. Although these examples highlight some of the more egregious problems we encountered during our study rather than providing an overview of all (‘good’ as well as ‘bad’) practices in the field, they nevertheless illustrate that medical staff risk being structurally alienated from the central operational concerns of the enterprise of regional-level MMA shows.8 Thus, within  Interestingly, ring girls were frequently cited by medics in interviews as an example of superfluous extras that promoters would rather spend money on than invest in better medical cover. 8  This problem is further compounded at times by the uncooperative behaviours of athletes and their coaches, who may perceive medics as outsiders or even threats to their ability to perform (see Channon et al., 2021). 7

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lower-level MMA competition in the UK, the provision of medical care to athletes can become directly constrained by the short-term management of limited economic capital, along with a concurrent priority on the part of promoters to invest in developing their promotions’ brands. That these largely economic concerns interfered with medical provision is not altogether surprising in light of previous research on the commercialisation and commodification of sport (Hoberman, 1992; Malcolm, 2017; Safai, 2003; Waddington & Roderick, 2002). Thanks to such processes, the protection and promotion of athletes’ welfare is diminished in importance insomuch as it does not provide a direct benefit in terms of generating or protecting an event’s revenue. So long as the specific, individual athletes competing on lower-level shows are not integral to their commercial success, there is limited incentive to ensure that their health is adequately protected (Malcolm, 2017), particularly when measures to do so preclude spending on other things. As such, the competitors’ bodies, upon which athletic spectacle is built, are afforded minimal support and protection in these environments.

 ports Medics at Professional Shows: S An Alignment of Interests However, the professional, international-level MMA shows we observed were very different from those at the regional level. While the physical risks to athletes’ health remained largely the same,9 the provision of medical care was substantially more robust. During the period of our study, it was widely understood within the field that all international MMA shows in the UK were covered by one highly regarded medical firm, whose large, experienced and professionally diverse body of staff followed the same protocols and adhered to the same standards of practice at each event. Always composed of multi-­ disciplinary teams of doctors and paramedics, with a minimum of two private ambulances in attendance to transport fighters to hospital if needed, these teams were far better equipped than any we saw operating at the lower levels of competition: At all points of the night this team has controlled the physical space that they work in. Their well-stocked, fit-for-purpose medical room is secure and private. They have cage-side seats next to the door, and when they go into the cage, the  Or in fact, were arguably reduced by the better training the fighters received, along with more adequate matchmaking and more robust support systems preparing athletes for their matches. 9

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commission staff won’t allow anyone else to follow. They accompany fighters out of the cage directly to their dedicated treatment room, via a walkway neatly separated from the crowd by security fencing. Every step is controlled, every decision recorded, every process rehearsed, all managed and performed by a team under the charge of Jason and Luke, two senior doctors. Theirs is a well-­ defined, functional hierarchy operating within clearly demarcated space; they have effectively recreated a hospital environment within the arena, and it seems that nothing escapes them because of it. (Field notes, August 2018)

Unlike medics working at lower-level events, the staff employed by this firm demonstrated a significant degree of control over the staging and procedure of the events they worked at. Tellingly, these staff never experienced challenges to their autonomy from the promoters employing them, and were very clear on the extent of their authority within the social milieu of a fight night. Discussing the ability to prevent fights from taking place—which could be a key point of tension in relations between medics and others in this field— they told us the following: We pull at least one match on pretty much every [top level promotion] show, for one reason or another. And [the promotion] are happy with it. If we don’t think they’re medically fit to fight, they don’t fight. That’s it. (Luke, A&E consultant)

This team were keen to emphasise to us in interviews that their authority at events superseded that of other staff, including commissioners, coaching teams, and broadcast media. Specifically, in this respect, they insisted on medically assessing all fighters immediately after their matches, prior to their engagement in television interviews—which, in this team’s experience, had been a key problem in previous work they’d undertaken in boxing (see Anderson & Jackson, 2012): I’ve just had a chat with the media guy from [top-level promotion], so we’ve got an arrangement now that the fighters are picked up cageside, go out back for their post-contest medical, and then he will pick them up at the medical room and take them to the media room. Whereas in pro boxing the interview happens first, [medical work is] all dictated by TV. (Luke, A&E consultant)

The importance of carefully managing the presence of the media in top-­ level MMA was a consistent theme in our interviews with medics working at this level. Interestingly, the presence of TV cameras at their events, combined with the public influence that media exposure could wield, meant that the

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stark differences in medical care at higher and lower levels of MMA can be explained with reference to the same phenomena: commercial imperatives and brand development. While such issues facing promoters at the regional-­ level shows could obstruct the provision of high-quality medical care, at this level of competition it was understood to do the opposite, as illustrated in the following exchange: Because [British media companies] are piling money into [top promotions] in the sport, they can’t afford to make mistakes with safety because the TV companies aren’t going to want to show it if things are going horribly wrong. So with that money you get that added sense of urgency, this must be done right, so we don’t lose the income sort of thing. (Davi, orthopaedic surgeon) And don’t forget the ambulances. At [televised events] you need to have more ambulances [at the venue] to help you maintain the show, because if you send off your ambulance, it means you can’t really start the next fight until it’s back and so if you’ve got only one ambulance then the event could be seriously disrupted. (Michael, orthopaedic surgeon)

Furthermore, with MMA’s public image walking something of a tightrope between spectacular sport and unpalatable violence (see Brett, 2017; Mayeda & Ching, 2008), a perceived need to demonstrate good ethical credentials whilst minimising the apparent physical risks of competition was recognised as important in protecting the longer-term reputation and political viability of the sport. This was thought to be particularly the case in the aftermath of the widely publicised death of the Portuguese MMA fighter, João Carvalho, following a bout in the Republic of Ireland in 2016 (see Roseingrave, 2018). With expectations of increased public scrutiny following this tragedy, both medical and promotion staff recognised the extent to which fears about protecting MMA’s reputation could drive proactive involvement in improving standards of care: I was saying, we need everyone to get brain scans, and now after the Carvalho death in Ireland, people are saying ok, we need brain scans, everyone has to do it, because they’re scared now of it happening here, what people will say about the sport. (Jason, general practitioner) We have got to protect our sport. We have got to protect our brand, and a lot of people are just looking for an angle to diminish what we do, to put a headline out there that shows that MMA is as bad as everyone thinks it is. (Rich, international-­level commissioner)

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[Medical and safety provision] is again first of all to help the sport, but also to make it more palatable to venues, to audiences and to fighters to compete. (Stuart, international-level promoter)

In this light, an oft-repeated notion throughout all of our sample of medics, including those who had only worked on regional shows, was the recognition that medical work had a role to play in helping MMA to grow as a sport. Medics working below the international level were generally happy with this, and some openly expressed their desire to ‘keep [MMA] growing and make it more and more professional’ (Ravi, paramedic). Indeed, expanding the amount of medical provision at their shows was thus understood as a sign of a (regional) promoter’s aspiration to become a larger player on the scene, mimicking the practices of higher-level shows: This show has evolved from being in [a small leisure centre], with two medics, to the [large arena] with two medics, to the [large arena] with three medics and a cutman, and you know, the reputation of the event is now such that they enjoy having those resources to ensure that they maintain credibility. There’s a level of kudos with this, like this event is a big event now, well known. And I like being a part of it myself actually, and I like how they’ve evolved. (Victoria, A&E nurse)

Among both promoters and medical staff then, medical care could be positioned as being in the service of sport development, rather than solely concerned with the welfare of athletes. Although it is tempting to sound the alarm over the potential for conflicts of interest this presents (e.g. Walk, 1997; Waddington & Roderick, 2002), the exact nature of the contribution medics made to the success of MMA and its promotions is worth considering here. Specifically, it was medics’ ability to work autonomously, to be visible and be shown exercising power, and to work squarely in the athletes’ interests (even at times when athletes may not want to listen to them—see Channon et al., 2021) that made them valuable to promoters in this sense. As illustrated above, the need to be seen to be proactive and comprehensive in caring for their competitors is what drove these promotions to invest in medical care. As such, we argue that this arrangement constitutes more of an alignment of interests than a conflict between them. As Kotarba writes, sports-related occupational healthcare serves ‘extraproductivity objectives such as public relations or employer image’ (2001, p. 768) as much as it works to promote the health of athlete-workers. In his study of professional rodeo, he argues that promoters ‘can readily claim legitimacy by displaying to their audiences and critics’ (p. 777) that they take good care of their cowboys, an observation

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which clearly resonates with our findings here. Indeed, we could go so far as to say that the development of a visible and robust medical support system in televised shows—which for better or worse constitute the public face of the sport—has become a component of how promoters defend MMA’s mainstream legitimacy. Ironically then, while the commercial forces driving sport development are typically critiqued for their harmful implications for elite athletes’ health in general (Hoberman, 1992; Young, 1993) and for the autonomy of sports medics in particular (Anderson & Jackson, 2012), in this instance there is good reason to believe that they may also be responsible, at least in part, for going some way to help protect these things.

Conclusion To conclude, we argue that the disparity in medical care between the regional and international levels of MMA competition illustrates the simultaneously enabling and constraining impact of commercial imperatives. While on the one hand, a lack of resourcing in favour of either cutting costs or spending money on developing a recognisable brand may undercut medical provision, on the other hand those same interests can facilitate its prominence in the sport. While the absolute cost of medical professionals is definitely a factor here (i.e. large teams of doctors are prohibitively expensive for smaller shows), it would be incorrect to assume that just because international-level promotions can afford to hire the best cover available, they will. As Malcolm reminds us, ‘the assumption that significant financial resources necessarily entail the development of elite occupational healthcare’ is not borne out in other sports contexts (2017, p. 108). More specifically then, it is the wider political-economic environment within which large-scale, international-level promotions operate which has the greatest impact on the medical work done within them. Here, the high stakes associated with fighters’ injury mean that promoters’ concerns become more closely aligned with those of medics, as Arthur, whose experience was limited to working on international shows, succinctly summarises: Oh I do think the big promoters are aware of it, quite acutely, because if a fighter dies on their show, or has a massive injury and there’s no medic there, there’s no doctor there, it reflects very, very badly on them. The promoters are acutely aware that they need the medical staff there before the fight, both for their own show’s continuation and for the fighters’ safety. (Arthur, advanced paramedic)

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Yet while we might see an important and promising alignment of priorities here, which at least within our data set seems to promote attention being cast towards fighter’s safety and health, it is important to acknowledge potential problems that accompany the economic imperatives that drive this process. Such ‘market forces’ can be capricious and, as such, are not a strong foundation upon which to advocate greater provision of medical care to athletes. What happens, for example, if the current public attention to head trauma as a consequence of concussions in sport shifts (see Malcolm, 2019)? If the importance of appearing to manage such damage to athletes is removed or downgraded in the public consciousness, we may expect to see a downturn in the motivation of promoters to support highly visible, empowered medical staff at events. Likewise, as was recently the case in a highly anticipated international-­level MMA show, doctors’ involvement can at times be interpreted by fans and the wider MMA community as an unwelcome and anticlimactic interference (see Marrocco, 2019). Should the audiences that are so central to the sport’s financial wellbeing turn against doctors’ involvement in calling off or preventing fights, this too may negatively impact on promoters’ willingness to empower them so. Furthermore, whenever finance drives this process there is increased space for promoters to focus on the symbolic appearance of well-developed medical supervision. While such symbolism does not inherently result in poor medical resources and practice, it could act as a veneer over such a reality. Of course, the majority of the promoters we spoke with attached great significance to fighter safety, but this was certainly not the case at all times throughout the rest of our fieldwork. And, as such, the appearance of medical safety without the costly expense, or at least a reduction in cost, might well be of interest to some, especially in times of economic hardship. If individual promoters are left to decide the nature and level of medical supervision at sporting events, this economic imperative, with its associated foundational problems, can act as a basis from which athlete safety and health is undermined.

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Vanguards on the Starting Line: Race, Work, and Dissent in Sport Dystopian Films from Rollerball to The Hunger Game Nicholas Rickards

On October 16, 1968, John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised a salute at the Mexico City Olympic Games in what endures as one of the most iconic protests in sports history. As a result of systemic racism in collegiate and professional sport, black American athletes were prepared to disrupt the Olympics or boycott them completely unless the demands of the Olympic Project for Human Rights were met and respected. Included in their list of demands were the reinstatement of Muhammad Ali’s boxing title and the resignation of Avery Brundage, the racist president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). After earning first and third in the 200  m race, Smith and Carlos stood upon the medal podium with heads bowed, adorned with beads,1 feet steady with black socks, and black, gloved fists raised. Determined to make visible the horrors, injustices, and injuries that black bodies continued to endure in the late 1960s, the salute was subtle in action but thunderous in effect. Derided by much of the white America, IOC officials, and sports media, Smith and Carlos’ actions laid bare the uncomfortable truth that many Americans continued to ignore: that along with fandom, patriotism, and the inevitability of injury, there exists, as Smith and Carlos’ mentor Prof. Harry Edwards describes it, an “inherent political nature of athletics” (2018, p. 94).  The beads and scarves worn by Smith and Carlos were specifically to protest the lynching of black Americans. 1

N. Rickards (*) University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_22

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Despite the contentious or inappropriate use of sport as a platform for politics that was so widespread during the “revolt of the black athlete” (Edwards, 2018), it comes as no surprise that Hollywood and American popular culture would adopt a series of films that explore the complex and contradictory nature of the collision of sport, social relations, violence, and political unrest. Some 40 years later, a fictitious iconoclast would adopt a similar stance to Smith and Carlos’ and would be forever memorialized in the annals of popular culture. In 2012, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) stood resolute, holding her hand high with the iconic three-finger salute as a protest of the authoritarian, repressive state in the dystopian film, The Hunger Games (2012). The film adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ book trilogy currently stands as the latest entry in a science fiction subgenre of future sport films, identifiable as sport dystopian films. Beginning with the seminal film Rollerball in 1975 and culminating with the latest entry in The Hunger Games series, Mockingjay Part 2 (2015), sport dystopian cinema includes films like Death Race 2000 (1975), The Running Man (1987), the Rollerball (2002) remake, Death Race (2008), The Tournament (2009), and Gamer (2009). All of these futurescape films share similar motifs in that they use violent, injurious, and deadly sports as allegory or metaphor to comment on social relations, political economy, and the reigning ideology of the time. As such, sport dystopian films offer an array of commentaries on pervasive issues inherent to any sociological understanding of sport like ethics, labour, capital, and race relations (see, e.g., Brohm, 1978; Gruneau, 1999; Rhoden, 2006; Moore, 2017). We might find it odd, however, that “future sport” films continue to be depicted as a dystopia, where games are more violent, bodies are easily disposable, and the sport industrial complex becomes an increasingly oppressive apparatus that functions as an extension of the state.2 Where does this anxiety come from? How can we read increasingly violent sport films as allegory for contemporary politics? Why are dystopian conventions required to maintain the integrity of a future sport film? While the sport dystopian subgenre has undergone various renditions, it has been reinvigorated and (re)popularized with a return to themes of whiteness, labour, social justice, and bodily injury, many of which were pervasive in the subgenre’s foundational film, Rollerball. Gary Ross’ The Hunger Games, for instance, presents imagery where the sports arena and the podium become a platform for not just defiance, but political  A notable exception in future sport genre is the film Real Steel (2011). Although the film is not dystopian, it still offers an analysis for contemporary issues in sport. While Real Steel uses science fiction elements to image what Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot-boxing could look like in the future, the idea of a white, washed-out boxer struggling to find work has serious ramifications for our understandings of the brutality of bodily injury, “ownership” of prized fighters, and labour politics in boxing. 2

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activism. Here we find a poor, white young woman forced to compete in a deadly form of entertainment for social elites in a future North America. As a result, The Hunger Games works as a metaphor and allegory which sees sport as a repressive state apparatus. In doing so, The Hunger Games does ideological work to transcode discourses of race, politics, labour, and sport. To flesh out these meanings, this chapter will view Rollerball and Hunger Games as texts to be read. In effect, this chapter will take its theoretical and methodological cues from post-structural analysis which reads films contextually and symbolically, seeing pop culture media as artefacts that comment on, contradict, subscribe to, or challenge dominant ideological positions (see, e.g., Ono, 2009; Izzo, 2015; Kellner, 2010; Nama, 2008). Social theorists refer to this form of study as semiotics, wherein systems of languages, images, and messages can be encoded and decoded (Hall, 2007). For critical media theorists, media are contested terrain that reproduce existing social and political struggles, transcoding the hopes, anxieties, and fears of various groups in any given sociohistorical moment (Kellner, 1995). In doing so, media culture, and films in particular, can serve as profound sources of cultural pedagogy, illuminating the connection between language, image, and the exercise of power that constitutes social relations, identities, and systems of knowledge (Fairclough, 1995, pp. 54–55). Through this optic, sport dystopian films can draw on fantasies of the past and anxieties of the future to help understand the present. Within the sport dystopian genre, Rollerball and Hunger Games may provide a better understanding of how injury inflicted on the body as a result of competitive games can become synonymous with injury inflicted on the body politic, if we consider the intersection of sport, injury, race, and labour.

Sport Dystopia and Rollerball One of the first grotesque parodies of sport that defines sport dystopian cinema was made popular by Richard Connell’s 1924 short story, The Most Dangerous Game, which was adopted as a film by the same name in 1932. The Most Dangerous Game follows a deranged, aristocratic hunter, General Zaroff, who stalks-to-kill a shipwrecked trapper, Sanger Rainsford, for sport on his private island. Originally conceived following the cauldron of revolution of political upheaval in Europe leading up to World War I The Most Dangerous Game offers succinct meditation on class difference, power, and the ironic ethics of hunting game for sport (Thompson, 2018). Moreover, Dangerous Game is also credited as providing literary, thematic, and cinematic scenario

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inspiration for the sport dystopian genre. More still, we might find that Hunger Games is an “echo-with-a-revision” of The Most Dangerous Game (Montgomery, 2018, p.  3). As Montgomery (2018) describes it, The Most Dangerous Game is about “isolated competition,” whereas Hunger Games is about competition for the purpose “of oppression and eventual liberation of an entire society” (p. 1). Where gratuitous exaggerations had been used to explore the irony of sport ethics in Dangerous Game, the thematic motif of sporting dystopias found popular appeal with the release of Norman Jewison’s Rollerball. Ironically, popular appeal to Rollerball was not necessarily because of the social critique it offered but rather the sport itself; reflections on the film often return to the fact that the cast and crew played the game before and after shooting, and buyers were in talks to purchase the rights to the game to stage it in “real life” (Barsanti, 2015; Delaney, 1999). Moreover, real-world echoes of the fictional derby resurfaced in American popular culture in the early 2000s with the basketball/football/gymnastics drollery, Slamball. In Rollerball, however, by the year 2018, following the ‘corporate wars’ the world has come under the control of a corporate oligarchy. Having relieved the world of sovereign states and social welfare systems, the independent company, Energy Corporation, helps to maintain a functional society in part by facilitating the entertaining sport rollerball—a lethal mashup of roller derby, motocross, and rugby. As Baccolini and Moylan (2003) remind us, a dystopia serves as a map for social and political concerns, a foreboding warning us of terrible outcomes that “could if continued, turn our contemporary world into the iron cages portrayed in the realm of utopia’s underside” (p.  2). Indeed, one of the most frightening elements of the Rollerball is the absence of the social welfare state and the ascent of corporate power. This vision of the future was pertinent to the release of the film in the 1970s as global economies were leaning into what David Harvey (2005) recognizes as the “emphatic turn towards neoliberalism” (p.  2) where “deregulation, privatization, and withdrawal of the state from many areas of social provision” were becoming all too common (p. 3). Although the film is underscored by neoliberalism’s inevitable end, diegetic momentum is gained mostly from visceral rollerball scenes in the arena. If the film is a fable about “corporate power and violent sport” which “were real sources of paranoia in the seventies” (Delaney, 1999, par. 5), how might we contextualize a sport film beyond the simple exaggeration of violence in pro leagues? Indeed, Rollerball invites audiences to critique the “national preoccupation with professional sports” (Canby, 1975, par. 1), but it does so in very subversive and contradictory ways.

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Along with nightmares of neoliberal hegemony, issues surrounding sport labour is a second theme that is pervasive in the sport dystopian genre and Rollerball, an issue that dominated discussion surrounding pro sport before the release of the film. Curt Flood’s labour struggles with Major League Baseball (MLB) are perhaps the best example to elucidate the contradictory ways in which Rollerball is embedded in the real state of political affairs in sport. In 1969, Curt Flood’s lawsuit against the MLB made historical gains for the labour rights of pro athletes, as well as bringing attention to the relations of labour that often favour team owners over athletes in pro leagues. Arguing that athletes are more than assets to be traded irrespective of their wishes, Flood’s goal was to challenge the long-standing reserve clause, which essentially locked athletes into perpetual bondage for their entire careers (Lomax, 2003), marking them as “pieces of property to be bought, sold, or discarded as their ‘owners’ saw fit” (Rhoden, 2006, p. 232). The athlete as slave and plantation metaphor is intended to be heavy-handed here. The critical consciousness of athletes like Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Muhammad Ali, and Curt Flood during the period of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements was essential for politicizing the confluence of sport, labour, and ownership. It is no coincidence that the sport dystopian cycle found its legs in the popular imagination soon after. This intersection, made apparent by black athletes in the world outside of the film, is a marquee motif that runs through much of the subgenre and is quite apparent in Rollerball. That said, the thematic motif of ownership and labour is sanitized and racially depolitisized by agressively recentering whiteness. Despite the horrors of a corporate-run society being the scariest aspect of the film, the main conflict of Rollerball centres on team Houston’s veteran captain, Jonathan E. (James Caan), who is being cajoled into retirement by the chairman of Energy Corporation and Houston team owner, Mr Bartholomew (John Houseman). Early in the film, Jonathan is invited to Bartholomew’s swanky office and offered a lavish retirement package if he leaves the sport. Bartholomew, however, does not disclose why Jonathan should retire. And as a skilled vet and a fan favourite the world over, Jonathan is reluctant to do so. To convince Jonathan, Bartholomew discloses that “there are executives that want you out,” and whispers critical messages about how “the game serves a social purpose” and that Jonathan should “not interfere with management decisions.” After Bartholomew condescendingly asserts that athletes should be grateful for opportunities provided to them and that they should “not interfere with management decisions,” Jonathan apologetically inserts, “I don’t mean to resist.” The film continues to follow Jonathan as he leads his team through lethal matches while wrestling with his potential

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forced retirement. The dénouement of the film, however, provides great insight into the dominant cultural discourse of the time, and as a reminder of how popular culture and Hollywood films are contested ideological terrain. Towards the end of the film, after being hounded by Energy Corp. mistresses and executives, Jonathan and team Houston duke it out with team New York in a deleterious world championship match. By today’s standards, the climax of the film is campy and disjointed. Regardless, the film intentionally works to critique professional sport. In one respect, it represents the corporeal dangers and egregious violence inherent to pro leagues, a message intended by director Norman Jewison, who was influenced by vicious hockey fights, bloodthirsty fans, and football hooliganism (Delaney, 1999, par. 6). In another, the film obviously suggests that violence and conflict, both in sport and society, are often manipulated and instigated by powerful corporate and political elites. However, as Nama (2008) understands it, the climax of Rollerball and the film as a whole is underscored by a subtext of semiotic imagery that “presents a clearer critique of race relations under advanced capitalism along with the function of American nationalism in a global economic context” (p. 98). Although, in his pivotal analysis, Nama offers us an insightful and thorough reading of race as represented in Rollerball, acknowledging that the film reflects and reacts against “integrationist sensibilities,” “intense racial animus,” and “white political backlash” of the era (p. 99), a contextualization of the racial-political landscape of sport in the 1970s is absent in his reading. By extending Nama’s critique, we might be better equipped to show how Rollerball not only resonates with race relations generally, but is also quite reactionary to relations in pro sport and the case of Carlos, Smith, Flood, and white male backlash of the 1970s. At the end of the final match between Houston and New York, Jonathan and one competitor from the New York team remain on the track. Following a brief tussle, Jonathan pins his opponent and holds the solid steel game ball above his head, contemplating whether or not to kill the man. Once he decides against it, Jonathan abandons his subdued opponent and instead scores a point with the game ball, ending the match with 1–0 for Houston. Upon scoring the point, Jonathan slowly skates around the track amidst a rising tide of “Joh-na-than” chants from the crowd. The film ends with a close up of his face as Bach’s Toccata and Fugue blare through the credits as a homage to the baroque sense of gothic horror that the film intends to provoke. Yet, what marks the end of the film as problematic and contradictory is how it handles resistance in the arena. What Monaco (1975, p. 45) recognizes as “[o]ne of the great ideological cop-outs of contemporary movies,” the ending of Rollerball succumbs to an exaggerated “white-male American

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individualism and hero worship” which reinforces American egoism instead of celebrating organized class revolt (Nama, 2008, p.  102). Interestingly enough, this is exactly where the 2002 remake of Rollerball offers a significant departure from the original. Taking place in “Central Asia,” the film relies significantly on the “alien horde” trope, using “Mongols, Arabs, and ex-soviet miners” as both baddies and, eventually, comrades (Klawans, 2002, par. 2). Although the film unapologetically indulges in a heavy dose of what Said (1979) refers to as “Orientalism,” the ending is remarkably different. Instead of scoring the last point and ending on ambiguity, the remake of Rollerball ends when Jonathan leads a revolt where athletes from both teams and fans in the arena thrash owners and security—the final sequences even feature a dusty miner and Karl Marx lookalike who begins the “Joh-na-than” chant. In short, the film supports an international proletariat uprising over individual egoism in and through sport. Unfortunately, the original film’s intended message of the athlete-as-rebel is undercut by its support for the continuity of a game which upholds the power structure of league ownership. If we consider the sociohistorical moment in which the film is situated, not only can Rollerball be read as a metaphor for race relations under industrial capitalism, it can also be read as allegory for the white male backlash to the politicization of sport and the spirit of black rebel athletes. Thus, we would be remiss not to acknowledge that Jonathan is one of the first Hollywood iterations of the rebellious athlete. A symbolic stand-in of, or at least a reflection of, the rebellious ethos of Flood, Smith, Ali, and Carlos painted white and emboldened by libertarianism. However, where Curt Flood opposed league ownership in racial solidarity with all players in the league, Jonathan is more concerned with his personal status than the state of political affairs. Rollerball fits in a larger subset of films that use sport as a venue to articulate a “white male paranoia” in which white men become victims and sometimes are able to overcome dark bodies, the government, and society at large (Kellner, 1995, p. 64). Such anxieties were pertinent to the cultural milieu and historical epoch of late 1960s and early 1970s which saw a damaged white male working-class identity take a brutal hit with the disaster of Vietnam, job cuts in the auto industry, and the indomitability of black athletes like Muhammad Ali who represented America on the international stage. The Rocky films, for instance, are sport films that responded directly to white male victimhood of the time, offering speculative redemption “which sees a black boxer humbled by a white challenger in every single movie” (Serwer, 2018, par. 2). But where Rocky succeeds, Jonathan fails. By never really overcoming the power relations that keep him subordinate and oppressed, through Jonathan, Rollerball is a response to both the plight of white working-class

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men and the plantation-like relations of labour in sports. With the face of Rocky and a bastardized, Ali-like ethos, Jonathan personifies the troubling trope of the “white slave” (Roediger, 2007, p. 65). For Roediger, the notion of the white slave is, in part, a “paranoid style” of critiquing capitalist social relations enlivened by the horrific example of chattel slavery (2007, p.  67). Although the term “white slave” was historically used to call attention to indentured and poorly paid workers in the U.S. and Britain, in this case it provides subtextual cues to the ways that Rollerball imagines whiteness, labour, and sport.

Racial Projects and The Hunger Games If Rollerball was a progenitor of Hollywood sport dystopian cinema, the four films in The Hunger Games series (hereafter, Hunger Games) are the updated models, better suited for a twenty-first-century anxieties about a growing fascist police state and gross wealth inequality. Collectively, the series was a gigantic commercial success. It generated millions of dollars of revenue in ticket sales and merchandise, shot actress Jennifer Lawrence into stardom, and resonated on a profound sociocultural level. In addition, along with the close attention of the popular press, Hunger Games generated a large body of scholarly work in fields like child and youth studies, queer studies, critical race theory, cultural studies, political economy, and gender analysis (see, e.g., Abate, 2015; Brown, 2015; Dubrofsky & Ryalls, 2014; Fisher, 2012; Gilbert-­ Hickey, 2014; Kirby, 2015). Hunger Games ratchets up both the sport and dystopian elements that are unique to the genre and which were originally conceived in Rollerball. Indeed, Hunger Games shares similar thematic motifs with Rollerball in how it uses and represents sport; in both films, sport is a Machiavellian industry, used to control and entertain while athletes compete on the premise that they may lose their lives. The most poignant similarity, however, is that the arena eventually serves the interest of athletes who challenge the hegemony of their respective dystopian worlds. However, where Rollerball ends on athletic resistance, Hunger Games imagines a preface and an epilogue for the rebellious athlete. In doing so, Hunger Games does substantial ideological and diegetic work in the sport dystopian genre to further explain how whiteness affects and is affected by sport in a dystopian context. In other words, not only does Hunger Games replicate the white slave narrative but it also offers crucial insight into the process and project of racial formation which makes a case for white servitude in the twenty-first century.

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In the Hunger Games, a young, poor woman, Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence), volunteers as a Tribute to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a televised gladiatorial combat-to-the-death, where she represents her poor, working-­ class, coal-mining community, District 12. District 12 is one of 12 geographical spaces where the denizens of the dystopic Panem labour to support the bourgeois elites in the capital. The games are held yearly to keep the citizens “in their place.” The president, Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland), governs Panem with an iron fist, using the hyper-militarized police force of Peacekeepers to quell dissent (and kill when needed), all while hosting lavish, over-indulgent parties for the wealthy of Panem while poor citizens in other districts starve. On the surface, The Hunger Games (both as a film series and as the sport) is a symbolic stand-in for relations between labour and capital, which is fitting considering the timeliness of prevalent social and political issues. Contextually, Hunger Games is situated in a sociohistorical moment when class consciousness is heightened and edgy. Although the Occupy movement had failed to organize and find leadership, its slogan, “We are the 99%,” endures as a reminder of a fizzling middle class and massive wealth inequalities. Similarly, the series is also inscribed with particular racial politics, which should come as no surprise since it is situated in the cultural hurricane of the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. In effect, much of the popular discourse on the series recognizes it as a “precarious dystopia” (Fisher, 2012, p.  33), which, through Katniss, “offers the populist hero the Occupy movement wasn’t able to deliver” (Allan, 2012, par. 10). But although the series offers timely warnings, criticisms, and speculations concerning political economy, as Siddique (2014) reminds us, race relations is a topic that young adult dystopian films like Hunger Games actively avoids. As he suggests: If the United States were to truly transform into a totalitarian state, or suffer environmental catastrophe, it’s safe to say that society’s deepest division wouldn’t magically disappear overnight. These dystopian adaptations ask their young audiences to imagine that race and gender issues have been partially overcome in the future, while general human suffering has somehow increased. (2014, par. 3)

Although we can agree here with Siddique, dismissing racial politics completely from sport dystopia films can be too reductive. In both Rollerball and Hunger Games, racial politics are understated or hinted at, they exist in absentia, speaking mostly through a structural absence or textual significance rather than blatant and obvious overtones.

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If Rollerball warns of white indentured servitude in sport, Hunger Games helps explain how whiteness functions as a racialized category through what Omi and Winant refer to as a “racial project” (1994, p. 56). For the theorists, a racial project does ideological work to make clear the linkage between structure and representation, connecting what race means through discursive practices (Omi & Winant, 1994, p. 56). There are two discursive practices that contribute most to the racial project of whiteness in the Hunger Games series. The first is the use of the “biracial buddies” trope which functions as a cheap plot coupon to forward the narrative (Guerrero, 1999, p. 127). Second, the series racializes Katniss through signifiers of “white trash” (Isenberg, 2016). Intentional or not, if these are read within the sociocultural landscape of sport, they draw parallels to how predominantly poor, black labour fuels the sport industrial complex. Representations of blackness and cross-racial alliances are fundamental pillars of the series. In both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, Katniss undermines the games, and by extension, the authoritarian government. In the last two films, Mockingjay Part 1 and Mockingjay Part 2, Katniss fronts a bloody revolution which eventually topples the regime and ends the hunger games. But Katniss does not do this alone. Katniss’ journey and the series as a whole are supported by various black characters who eventually die so that Katniss can develop a critical consciousness and live out the revolution. In fact, black death is at the epicentre of much of the emotional stress in the series. In The Hunger Games, after working with Rue to beat the other contestants, black death manifests in the young Rue’s untimely murder in the arena. In Catching Fire, we can find it in the execution of an elderly man in District 11 (the all-­ black district), and later, Katniss’ stylist and friend, Cinna (Lenny Kravitz), both of whom were killed by faceless Peacekeepers. In Mockingjay 2, Boggs (Mahershala Ali), her rebel military commander and confidant, is killed-in-­ action while guiding Katniss on her mission to assassinate Snow. Throughout the series, Katniss is haunted by the spectre of black death and suffers post-­ traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in part from the brutal violence of state police. The death of Katniss’ “black buddies” and the Stormtrooper-esque Peacekeepers can be read as a reflection of the growing concern over the police killings of black adults and children by police officers, as well as the heightened militarization of domestic police forces (Else, 2014). This considered, the response to uprisings in Panem draws remarkable parallels to the police response to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, over the fatal shooting of 18-year-­ old Michael Brown Jr where “the police seem prepared to quell a rebellion” (Myers-Montgomery, 2016, p. 279).

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Yet, Hunger Games wants us to move beyond positions of white-guilt or resentment, inclining audiences to view the series through a post white optic. But rather than navigating a path of antiracism, we follow one of colour-­ blindness and whiteness-as-injury that draws a false equivalency with blackness. This symbolic equivalency of whiteness-as-injury to black oppression reveals itself throughout the series, particularly through the use of signifiers of transatlantic slavery, Antebellum oppression, and Jim Crow era enforcement. For example, in an especially gruesome scene in Catching Fire, Katniss’ occasional love interest, Gale (Liam Hemsworth), is shackled to a post and whipped repeatedly by a captain Peacekeeper. As a dystopian parable, whiteness-­as-injury is aggressively centred, so much so that it vociferously proclaims, “things could get so bad that people who look like Liam Hemsworth are now at the bottom, too” (Siddique, 2014, par. 7)! Along with a structural equivalency to blackness, the forced participation in the games is a symbolic equivalency to the ways in which pro sport alienates poor and working-class blacks. Where Rollerball draws this equivalency through Jonathan’s arc of resistance to ownership hegemony in the 1960s and 1970s, then Hunger Games can be read as white racial allegory which epitomizes how poor whites are mined for the benefit of the sports industrial complex, a critique which might find parallels in current debates surrounding concussions, black-muscle, and the NFL (all treated at great length in this volume). As it is often acknowledged, the NFL disproportionately fills its rosters with black athletes who come from destitution and poverty. Consequently, “we are facing a sport ready to go ‘full gladiator’” as disproportionately black athletes duke it out for the entertainment of mostly white audiences (Zirin, 2015, par. 8). Despite sport dystopian films being claimed as classic parables of political economy, subjugation, and social control, they also function as spaces that follow the evolving patterns of whiteness in popular culture. In doing so, we find a sci-fi subgenre that is intimately related to the cultural discourse of race relations at any given historical moment. As a result, the progenitor, Rollerball, and recent bookend, Mockingjay Part 2, perform this cultural work through metaphor and allegory that finds a reference in real-world dynamics of sport and race relations.

Conclusion: Myth of a Progressive Social Critique? Rollerball set a standard for the genre in how it allowed whiteness to co-opt struggles of black athletes in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At a time when black militancy and Black Power had rattled professional sport, Hollywood

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would use sport dystopia as an analogue to (re)frame social struggles, dulling the edge of not only black militancy but ideological militancy in general. It should come as no surprise then that even as Smith and Carlos shattered the facade of a united America at the 1968 Olympics, the black filmic image was being relegated to Blaxploitation or sidelined in more politicized sport films like Rollerball. By inserting whiteness, Rollerball actively works to comment on relations of control, labour, and ownership in sport, mostly through a white lens while it conveys the same messages espoused by the likes of Curt Flood. Consequently, a paranoid, white, working-class subjectivity emerges. Despite the film conveying timely and pertinent warnings through dystopian conventions, it also articulates a white male backlash. Through Jonathan, Rollerball articulates the anxieties of a mythical declining white masculinity at a time when forced integration and black excellence in athletics signalled the declining stature of white men in the workforce and sport more broadly. Yet, the discourse of whiteness we find in Rollerball is not violent or reactionary. Rather, it is relatable along class lines by signalling that racial tension may not exist in the future. As a result, Rollerball makes a case for the “white slave” by drawing on the plantation metaphor used by black rebel athletes to articulate the unfair relations of labour in professional sports. But Rollerball does not examine how whites might come to the same subject position, a thread better explored in The Hunger Games series. Distancing itself from the reactionary politics of white male backlash of the 1970s, Hunger Games performs cultural work to reject a white male masculine victimhood in favour of “soft” white liberalism through its progressive gender politics. Under these conditions, the Hunger Games explores the “long-­ awaited, long-deferred Jock Spring” or “slave’s revolt” (Lypsite, 2018, par. 3). How curious that the temporal location of Rollerball is set in 2018, very soon after the finale of the Hunger Games series, and at the height of racial tensions in American professional sports, specifically the NFL. In an amazing degree of syncretism, Hunger Games was prescient of similar protest made by Colin Kaepernick that would soon dominate and re-politicize the sporting landscape. Yet, we might consider how strange and ironic that a culture which glamorized and memorialized dissent through sport in Hunger Games also waged a terrible “War on Black Athletes” in America’s favourite pastime (Lipsyte, 2018). Such a quandary poses the question, to what extent is the radical imagination of Jonathan or Katniss Everdeen really so different from Colin Kaepernick’s? Rather than working in a radical sporting tradition, Hunger Games is able to distance itself from such questions by using the cinematic conventions of dystopia to relocate whiteness in sport politics, thereby providing an imaginative, hypothetical, and speculative space to reimagine

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dissent. The most effective way this disassociation is put into action is by strategically working within a liberal racial project, flattening the racial landscape of dispossession, white privilege, and inequality, all while centralizing whiteness-as-injury. Consequently, sport dystopian films represent whiteness in popular culture along with the radical imagination of sport. Both Rollerball and Hunger Games speak to a paradox of whiteness that is transhistorical and malleable rather than fixed and static. In such a case, they employ a progressive, radical critique of sport through a regressive racial lens of whiteness. By using sport as a metaphor and thematic tool, sport dystopian films are able to use symbolism, metaphor, and allegory to comment on inherent violence and cruelty of inequality under late capitalism as well as the paradox of colour-blind, post-racial discourse.

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Myers-Montgomery, J. (2016). Militarized Police and Unpermitted Protest: Implementing Policy That Civilizes the Police. Cultural Studies–Critical Methodologies, 16(3), 278–286. Nama, A. (2008). Black space: Imagining race in science fiction film. The University of Texas Press. Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960’s to the 1990s (2nd ed.). Routledge. Ono, K. (2009). Contemporary media culture and the remnants of a colonial past. Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.. Rhoden, W. C. (2006). Forty million-dollar slaves: The rise, fall, and redemption of the Black Athlete. Three Rivers Press. Roediger, D. (2007). The wages of whiteness: Race and the making of the American working class (2nd ed.). Verso. Said, E. (1979). Orientalism. Random House, Inc.. Serwer, A. (2018, November 28). How creed forever changed the Rocky series. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/11/howcreed-forever-­changed-­rocky-­series/576757/ Siddique, I. (2014, November 19). The Topics Dystopian films won’t touch. The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/11/the-topicsdystopian-­films-­wont-­touch/382509/ Thompson, T. (2018). A tale of two centuries: Richard Connell’s ‘The Most Dangerous Game’. The Midwest Quarterly. Zirin, D. (2015, March 18). Chris Borland and the revenge of history. The Nation. https://www.thenation.com/article/chris-­borland-­and-­revenge-­history/

Part VI Sport and Injury: Case Studies

Injury and Olympics Politics, 1896–1988 Lee Hill and Helen Jefferson Lenskyj

Introduction The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw three related trends that promoted medical and public interest in sport: the 1896 revival of the Olympic Games, the expansion of sport programmes in educational institutions and the growing popular interest in cycling, running and other relatively accessible forms of physical recreation. In the UK, boys’ team sport as a project of physical and moral improvement attracted international interest and emulation, with Pierre de Coubertin, the principal force behind the modern Olympics, among its many admirers. In the period 1896–1988, nationalist agendas were increasingly played out in and through the Olympics, as seen, for example, in the escalating use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) from the 1960s on, most notably in East Germany’s doping programme. For their part, Olympic industry leaders, especially members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the IOC Medical Commission, used sports medicine to support policies that best served their conservative ideologies on issues ranging from female inclusion and eligibility to the medical surveillance of athletes. Most of the sports medicine content that appeared in the official

L. Hill (*) University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] H. J. Lenskyj University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_23

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IOC publication Olympic Review (OR) reflected the Olympic industry’s guarded responses to new developments in the field.

Developments in Medicine and Sports Medicine1 Vitalism dominated medical and popular thought in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These theories promoted the concept of a fixed supply of vital energy that would be depleted through excessive physical, mental or sexual activity. Applied to working class boys and men, sport and other forms of physical recreation were presented as healthy alternatives to occupy ‘idle hands’, in other words, a means of social control. In the case of women (of the privileged class), doctors pronounced that physical recreation would use up the vital energy that their reproductive function demanded. As recently as 1969, retired Olympic runner Dr. Roger Bannister invoked the social control rationale when he stated that, in a society where ‘natural dangers’ no longer provide challenges, ‘unless men find them in the sphere of sport, is it not possible that some of them may rebel with some further form of violence?’ This kind of violent rebellion, he claimed, ‘can be safely extinguished in the sports we play’ (Bannister, 1969, p. 643). European doctors and physical educators led the way in developing the field subsequently known as sports medicine. Swedish medical gymnastics (or the Ling system, after Pehr Henrik Ling, 1776–1839, Swedish pioneer of gymnastics) was well established in Europe and beyond in the nineteenth century. Gymnastics was a compulsory subject in German schools, and Turner societies (gymnastics clubs), numbering about 1 million members by 1900, were mostly led by doctors and teachers. A precursor of modern physiotherapy, the Swedish technique included active and passive movement as well as massage. However, the medical profession, most notably orthopaedists, criticized medical gymnastics as unscientific and its practitioners as unqualified to diagnose or treat patients. For their part, gymnasts claimed that doctors who lacked medical gymnastics training should not be practising these techniques (Wanneberg, 2018). Simultaneous developments in modern science and modern sport in the early twentieth century provided German sports leaders and doctors with  The primary sources cited above were published in The Olympic Review (OR), also called Revue Olympique and Bulletin du Comité International Olympique, 1894–1988, and the IOC’s Newsletter. Most content related to  sports medicine was  written by members of  the  IOC, its Medical Commission and  retired Olympic athletes. A sample of about 50 articles was obtained through by searching for medicine and medical. 1

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opportunities to collaborate, as did nationalistic demands for manual labourers and soldiers. The German term Sportarzt encompassed medical support for improvement of athletes’ performance; rehabilitation of athletes and others; health promotion through movement; and scientific research (Kruger, 2015). German doctors pioneered the field of sports medicine, founding the Reichs Committee for the Scientific Research of Sport and Physical Exercise in 1912, a year after the first sports laboratory had been established in Dresden. A two-volume 1910 publication, Hygiene des Sports, by Berlin doctor Seigfried Weissbein was probably the first in the genre, followed by two English language books in 1931. A 1938 American publication, Athletic Injuries, by Dr. Augustus Thorndike, was the most influential source on sports medicine in the US until the 1960s (Ryan, 1978). As surgeon in the Department of Hygiene at Harvard University, Thorndike was in a good position to use his experiences treating Harvard men’s sports teams as basis for his work. From 1896 to 1936, Harvard men, especially rowers and track and field athletes, were overrepresented as US national team members and Olympic medallists (Harvard Olympians, 2014). The German University for Bodily Exercise opened in Berlin in 1920, with a programme of teaching and research that focused on sports medicine, health promotion and rehabilitation through sports and exercise. In 1928, at the St. Moritz Winter Olympics, German doctors took the lead in establishing the professional association known as the Fédération Internationale de Médecine Sportive (FIMS). At the Amsterdam Summer Olympics the same year, doctors, scientists and ‘schoolmasters’ convened a Congress of Physical Education (PE) to discuss the influence of sport on heart function, the role of PE in general education and the standardization of medical examinations of ‘sportsmen’ (International Medical, 1929). In 1928, doctors and scientists also worked together in the first ‘laboratory’ of its kind, at the Amsterdam stadium, in order to study the athletes. Olympic athletes provided physicians and medical researchers with ‘real, living cases of the limits of human physical achievement’, with implications for research and practice beyond sport to workers and soldiers (Kruger, 2015, p.  341). The 1936 Berlin Olympics hosted the 4th World Congress on Sports Medicine, and Leonardo Conti, German head of medical services at these games, was elected FIMS president in 1937. He subsequently led the public health service of the Nazi regime and was charged as a war criminal during the Nuremberg trials in 1945. Three German-Jewish sports medicine experts had left Germany in 1933, one of whom, Dr. Ernst Jokl, was an influential figure in American PE and sports medicine circles for many decades (Kruger, 2015).

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The 1932 Los Angeles Olympics featured the first Olympic village and the first dedicated Olympic ‘hospital’. In 1960, the IOC established the Olympic Medical Archives, followed in 1966 by the founding of its Medical Commission, primarily to address doping issues, and 1988 saw the publication of the Olympic Book of Sports Medicine: Volume I of the Encyclopedia of Sports Medicine.

‘Athlete’s heart’ Debates In the late eighteenth century, as sport was increasingly practised in schools, colleges and communities, the health of male athletes attracted doctors’ attention, and numerous concerns about ‘athlete’s heart’ were aired in medical literature in the period 1870 to 1920. Doctors who had been recommending moderate exercise as a counter to increasingly sedentary lifestyles were now warning against excessive ‘athleticism’, especially cycling and distance running. After several Americans competed in the first Olympic marathon in 1896 and the first Boston marathon the following year, rumours of heart damage led doctors to examine these men to determine their pulse rate, heart size and heart sounds. Most had hypertrophy (enlarged hearts) and temporary heart murmurs after the race, but later studies confirmed the growing medical consensus that these were physiological, not evidence of permanent injury. By the 1930s, ‘athlete’s heart’ had become ‘a medical curiosity’ and exercise was recommended for the preventive health, the promotion of heart health and rehabilitation after heart attacks (Whorton, 1982). Decades after these debates, OR published a report of the 1978 International Cardiology and Sport conference compiled by FIMS vice president Dr. Antonio Venerando (1978a, 1978b). Topics included the ‘sportsman’s heart’, measurement and diagnosis using ergometers and prevention of sudden death through cardiac radiography tests. On the ‘sportsman’s heart’ topic, Dr. Ernst Jokl reported on studies conducted at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics and more recent research that dispelled earlier ‘fallacies on the injurious effect of muscular exertion’ (Venerando, 1978a, p.  433). No mention was made of female athletes’ heart health.

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Training and Injuries By the 1970s and 1980s, many of the contributions to OR were focusing on specific issues in sports medicine, as well as growing concern with doping. Topics included training and overtraining (La Cava, 1976; Hanne-Paparo, 1983), effects of heat and altitude (Alcazar, 1983), football injuries (Halim, 1979) and ‘osteo-articular rheumatism’ (Commandre, 1984). A 1976 article by FIMS president Giuseppe La Cava inaccurately titled ‘What medicine owes to the Olympic Games’ actually demonstrated the converse, that is, what the Olympic Games owed to medicine in terms of coaches’ and sport leaders’ understanding of training, injury prevention, doping and other key concerns. While many sports medicine articles in OR discussed the general health concerns of both men and women, others continued to perpetuate the female frailty myth, that is, the view that sportswomen were particularly vulnerable to injury. In a 1984 article, Hungarian doctor Jeno Kamuli predicted, without providing evidence, that young gymnasts who ‘wear themselves out … will suffer from problems of the spleen … and their defective ossification will make it impossible for them to give birth’ (Kamuli, 1984, p. 40). A lengthy two-part article by Canadian doctor Jack Taunton (1986a, 1986b) titled ‘Medical care of the athlete’ demonstrated both the growth of sports medicine and the extent to which medical professionals and coaches collaborated to ensure not only comprehensive medical oversight but also the seamless surveillance of every aspect of athletes’ lives. In a statement that clearly reflected his priorities, Taunton concluded by stating that ‘the healthy athlete has the best chance of a medal on that given day’ (Taunton, 1986b, p. 538). By the 1980s, sports medicine specialists had become indispensable members of elite athletes’ entourages.

The ‘woman question’, 1896–1988 In the early decades of the twentieth century, medical concern focused on white middle-class ‘mothers of tomorrow’, whose future responsibilities must not be jeopardized through excessive physical exertion. Barely concealed eugenics arguments were often invoked to support this position. Several aspects of female anatomy and physiology dominated medical attention, including the threat of a ‘dropped uterus’ as a result of strenuous physical activity; the need to rest during menstruation; and the vital energy needed for healthy development of the reproductive system (Lenskyj, 1986).

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Countless research studies showed that sportswomen experienced few, if any, of these problems, but, for many doctors, the issue was more political than physiological. In their stated opinion, girls and women should not waste vital energy on frivolous sporting pursuits when they should be devoting time and effort to working in the domestic sphere, their rightful place in the social order. Housework, claimed one male expert, ‘is admirably suited to bring into play all the different muscles of the body’ (Kellogg, 1888), while British physician Dr. Arabella Kenealy claimed that the ‘New Woman’ should be sewing for her sister, helping her brother with his homework or soothing her father’s ‘ruffled temper’ instead of indulging in cycling or golfing (Kenealy, 1899).

Women in the Olympics The first five Olympic Games, 1896 to 1912, offered very limited opportunities for female participation, and World War I and its aftermath interrupted the cycle of Olympiads until its renewal in 1924. By this time, women in the UK and Europe had begun to organize their own Women’s Olympics which included a much broader programme of events, particularly in athletics, than the Olympic founding fathers and medical experts of that era were prepared to offer. The European and English women involved in leadership of these initiatives had the advantage of the long tradition of German and Swedish gymnastics and the more advanced status of exercise science and sports medicine. Nevertheless, doctors managed to sway the IOC and the International Amateur Athletic Federations (IAAF) on the question of female athletics competition. Prompted by external pressure and the threat posed by the rival Women’s Olympics, the IOC eventually included women’s track and field events in 1924. The 1928 programme expanded the programme, a move that was quickly reversed following the results of the women’s 800 m run. Accounts on the part of eyewitnesses and journalists differed considerably: of the nine participants, it is not clear how many actually fell to the ground at the end of the race. Dr. M.  Messerli, an FIMS official who was judging this event, claimed that three women collapsed, but not because of exhaustion. According to him, they ‘burst into tears, betraying their disappointment at having lost the race, a very feminine trait!’ (Messerli, 1952). A recently discovered German documentary titled De Olympische Spelen showed only one woman on the ground—visual evidence that should probably settle the argument (McKernan, 2011, p. 572). Regardless, medical men, including Canadian team manager

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Dr. Arthur Lamb and Dr. Messerli, vetoed any future middle-distance races for women, which were not reinstated until the 1960 Olympics in Rome.

Post-war Developments OR articles in the 1950s continued to offer medical experts’ mostly conservative views on women and sport. In 1952, Dr. Messerli contributed an eight-­ page discussion of women in the Olympics. Echoing views that had been expressed 50 years earlier, he wrote, ‘Education is as great for girls than boys (sic), considering that the future of the race depends as much if not more on women than men’ (Messerli, 1952, p. 24). In the same vein, he warned against sporting competition for the adolescent girls, on the grounds that ‘untimely fatigue … may impede and injure the final stage of physical development’ (the reproductive system). He went on to review female participation in the first eight Olympic Games, as well as discussing the Women’s Olympics and their organizers’ negotiations with the IAAF and the IOC. Numerous factual errors and omissions are apparent in his account (cf. Lenskyj, 2016), even though he had firsthand experience of these developments and was one of the men appointed to the IAAF’s commission on female participation in 1928. In one example of the impossible standards by which sportswomen were judged, Messerli claimed that some runners in the 1928 Olympics 800 m race ‘were handicapped by too full a bosom’ (26). On the other hand, he observed that many successful female athletes from ‘the North’ (of Europe) ‘presented an unusual masculine aspect, but they showed a very fine spirit of sportsmanship and were in splendid form’ (emphasis added). Although these androgynous women, as they might be described today, seem to have impressed Messerli, he concluded by justifying the limited number of Olympic events open to women. In his view, the men of the IOC were wise to curb woman’s ‘natural impulse … to overdo sports’. ‘Any excess in the field of sport may be injurious to herself and her descendants’, he concluded (31). In a short item appearing in the June 1953 issue of OR, FIMS doctors Albert Govertis and Guiseppe La Cava invited FIMS members to respond to a so-called Questionnaire on women’s rowing that asked:

1. Can women harmlessly devote themselves to rowing? 2. Can they benefit from it? 3. Have they a physical frame suitable for rowing competition? 4. Which are the positive or negative effects deriving from rowing? 5. Is it likely that morphological alternations should follow it?

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6. Which are the systems and the organs most engaged in this sport? (International Sports Medical Federation, 1953) Apart from the obvious bias behind these questions, four required only yes/ no answers, thereby serving merely to poll doctors’ opinions rather than advancing sports medicine in any significant way. In marked contrast to Messerli’s position, extracts from Belgrade physician Dr. Smodlaka Wohjn’s report to the VIIIth FIMS Congress of 1958 included her view that there were no ‘biological-medical reasons’ to prevent women from engaging in sports that required strength and endurance, rather than limiting their sporting activities to events based on speed and skill. Wohjn reviewed a number of research studies to support her argument that external factors accounted for many of the physical differences between the sexes, and called for changes in education, particularly physical culture and sport training, to address the problem. In Yugoslavia, as she pointed out, women were quite capable of doing heavy agricultural labour, as well as working ‘in factories and workshops, in offices and schools, in hospitals, in scientific institutes. … Faculties at the Universities … all branches of the Arts’ (Wohjn, 1951, p. 22). Athletics and sports should be no different, she argued. In 1958, American PE professor Dr. Charles McCloy generated a list of 17 areas within the field of sports medicine, including physiology, anthropology, psychology, hygiene, pedagogy, training, pathologies, clinical sports medicine, surgery and orthopaedics, exercise therapy and research. ‘Girls and women in sports’ earned its own special category in McCloy’s typology. He included menstruation, ‘gynecological and obstetrical problems’, ‘the so-­ called “intersexual” type of body build’ and the ‘possibility of masculinization’ through sport (McCloy, 1958, p. 48). Overall, sports medicine in the 1950s was intent on problematizing rather than normalizing female participation in physical activity.

1960s–1980s: Impacts of Women’s Movements The 1960s saw somewhat more progressive views in sports medicine circles. In a 1961 OR article, ‘The Athletic Status of Women’, Dr. Ernst Jokl debunked a number of prevailing myths and warnings. In short, as he documented, there was little evidence that menstruation affected female athletes’ performance, or that they looked ‘masculine’, had weakened hearts, reproductive problems, ‘moral or physical damage or “overstrain”’ (Jokl, 1961, p. 34). Jokl

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even referred to Simone de Beauvoir’s work, agreeing with her that ‘environmental forces of education and social tradition under the purposive control of men’ were largely responsible for women’s subordinate position (35). In a 1964 OR article, Bulgarian doctor Nora Hanne contributed her views on ‘Physical exercise during puberty’ and the value of sport in countering ‘the diseases of civilization’ and stimulating the cardiovascular and respiratory systems during puberty. Surveys had shown girls’ ‘functional deterioration’ at puberty, when menstruation ‘caused a sharp interruption of play and games in the open air’, a trend that Hanne noted with concern (Hanne, 1964, p. 43). While promoting physical exercise for girls and boys during puberty and adolescence, she recommended that training be carried out ‘under medical control’ to ensure it is ‘at the required scientific level’ (44). A 1977 commentary by Mexican IOC member Dr. Eduardo Hay took a generally positive approach to female participation, concluding that ‘From the medical point of view everyone is now agreed that a gynecologically healthy woman loses none of her femininity in the practice of sport’ (Hay, 1977, p. 685). He defined ‘femininity’ in terms of ‘obstetric and gynecological behaviour’, citing numerous studies to support the claim that sport, including Olympic-level competition, has ‘a favourable influence on their psychological and physical development’ (686). In fact, ‘they marry and become excellent mothers from the gynecological and obstetric point of view’ (685). In a passing comment that did not withstand the test of time, Hay noted approvingly that one reason for the success of the German Democratic Republic’s sportswomen was the fact that ‘their training program is identical to that of the men’s team’ (685). African doctor Amadou Thiam briefly discussed women’s sport in a 1980 OR article, emphasizing that ‘sport in no way affects the normal functioning of sexual organs’, and has a ‘beneficial effect’ on menstrual regularity and pain, but warned against competitive sport during pregnancy (Thiam, 1980). In 1981, Jokl contributed a lengthy article titled ‘Medicine, science and sport’, in which he reviewed historical changes of the twentieth century that promoted new standards of growth, health and fitness. He noted some surprising implications for sporting achievements—for example, a 12-year old girl who won the 1500 m race in the 1979 PanAm Games, and more than 400 athletes over the age of 40 who competed in the 1976 Montreal Olympics (Jokl, 1981, pp.  86–87). Referring to women’s dramatic improvements, he pointed out that the performances of most top female track and field athletes of 1980 would have won the men’s events a few decades earlier.

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Sex Tests Veiled references to the alleged ‘masculinizing’ effects of sport on women, as well as allusions to a ‘masculine’ type of women who dominated sport, foreshadowed the inevitable debates over women who were not ‘woman enough’ to qualify for the female category. In the 1960s, sparked by controversies over women with ‘anatomical anomalies’, the IOC instituted ‘femininity tests’ at the 1968 Grenoble and Mexico City Olympics. In a 1967 OR article on ‘Feminity’ (sic), IOC Executive Director Monique Berlioux explained that these chromosome tests would follow a procedure approved by FIMS. On the issue of performance-enhancing medical ‘treatments’, she stated that while they may endanger women’s health and were ‘reprehensible … from a moral point of view’, they did not change women into men. In fact, she claimed (inaccurately) that ‘it has been scientifically proven that hermaphroditism does not exist’ and therefore there was no need for concern on that issue (Berlioux, 1967, p. 1). Dr. Hay, cited above, was a longstanding member of the IOC Medical Commission that developed and carried out ‘femininity tests’. His 1974 OR article on the topic explained ‘the normal process of sexual differentiation’ and the alleged unfair advantage enjoyed by athletes with hermaphroditism or intersexuality. (Hay, 1974, p. 120) Interestingly, he reported that the Medical Commission had selected a classification of intersexuality developed in 1876, mainly because testing based on this (dated) definition was cheap, easy and ‘ensures the minimum of … disturbance to the athlete’ (122). As a bronze medallist in the 1960 Olympics, American doctor and former diver Elizabeth Ferris was one of the few Olympic ‘insiders’ to publish well-­ researched and unbiased analyses of female athletes’ health. In two lengthy OR articles on ‘Sportswomen and medicine’ (1979a, 1979b), Ferris debunked virtually every prevailing myth, as well as documenting dramatic improvements in women’s performance, particularly in running and swimming, as a result of improved training and changing societal attitudes. On the issue of female eligibility, she called the current sex tests that relied on detecting chromosomal abnormalities ‘a ridiculous solution’ since women with ‘testicular feminization’ (now termed androgen insensitivity syndrome) derived no athletic advantage from their condition (Ferris, 1979b, p. 338).

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Doping at the Olympic Games While rule violations were punished severely during the ancient Olympic Games, doping and PED usage appear not to have been considered a form of cheating. Nor does it appear that any culture or nation made an effort to discourage the use of these substances. During the latter part of the nineteenth century, doping and PED usage were accepted standard practices (Yesalis & Bahrke, 2002). Indeed, the advent of six-day cycling races in 1879, as well as professional boxing matches, and dog and horse racing—events often linked with gambling—helped to foster a culture of doping (Müller, 2009). The first documented doping case at the Olympics involved the marathon winner, Thomas Hicks, during the 1904 St. Louis Olympics (Hoberman, 2007). At the 22-mile mark, Hicks begged his coach to let him stop and rest but instead was given a dose of strychnine mixed with raw egg white. A few miles later, Hicks was given injections of strychnine as well as brandy to drink until the finish line, where he had to be carried by two of his handlers. He collapsed and it took four physicians over an hour to revive him (Rosen, 2008). Eight years later at the 1912 Stockholm Games, the first recorded death at an Olympic event occurred when runner Francisco Lazaro collapsed during the marathon (Rosen, 2008). As in 1904 Games, the 1912 marathon was held in sweltering conditions. Although the autopsy report stated that Lazaro died from dehydration and sunstroke, it was argued instead that the runner suffered from heat exhaustion exacerbated by the use of a mixture commonly known as ‘capsizing’ (turpentine and acetic acid) (Lucas, 2009).

Culture of Doping in Sports In the early twentieth century, the mixing of PEDs and human athletic performance did not spark any moral or ethical outcry from the athletes, coaches, trainers or society at large. However, the term ‘doping’ only began to take on rather negative connotations when it was associated with cheating in horse racing and cycling (Johnson, 2016). To legitimize doping, physiologist and researcher Peter Karpovich helped to shift the definition of doping to match the prevailing non-judgemental attitudes towards PED usage. He reviewed the various effects of substances including alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines, hormones, oxygen, sugar and fruit juices in his 1941 publication Ergogenic Aids in Work and Sport (Karpovich, 1941). Karpovich urged readers to avoid the term ‘doping’ in the context of PEDs and athletes and argued that

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substances that made one soporific should constitute doping rather than those that made one lively or more energetic. Further, he suggested the term ‘ergogenic aids’ be used instead as it covered powerful stimulants such as cocaine and the benign ingestion of fruit juices, allowing for the distancing of any negative associations (Johnson, 2016). From a moral and ethical standpoint, Karpovich argued that the use of PEDs to improve performance was legitimate so long as the drugs did no harm to the competitor. Further he asserted that ‘the usage of a substance or device which improves the physical performance of a man without being injurious to his health, can hardly be called unethical’ (Karpovich, 1941). However, the long-term effects of PEDs on health had yet to be studied. The potentially negative effects of PEDs usage were deemed inconsequential, so long as it resulted in improved athletic performance. This notion helped to bolster the culture of doping in the years to come, justifying the intentional doping of athletes without their knowledge while prioritizing victories and national pride over health and well-being (Hunt et al., 2014). It wasn’t until the beginning of the 1920s that any effort was made to warn against doping, much less to have it designated as a formal rule violation (Hoberman, 1992). Doping was still an accepted practice and was still considered an integral part of an athlete’s preparation for competition. Further compounding the situation, doping lacked any formal definition or specific guidelines within the scientific community. The concepts of ‘doping’ and ‘stimulant’ remained frustratingly vague throughout the early anti-doping movement. Physicians attempted to argue what constituted doping and sought to define ‘doping’ as a formal term but could not reach a consensus (Vettenniemi, 2010). However, the only aspect that physicians could agree upon was that doping was synonymous with stimulation (use of stimulants). Therefore, by 1928, the IAAF had prohibited the use of stimulants during competition (Müller, 2009) stating that ‘Doping is the use of any stimulant not normally employed to increase the power of action in athletic competition above the average’ (Vettenniemi, 2010, p.  421). Yet, this was near to impossible to enforce, and the restrictions remained largely ineffective due to limited knowledge and technology to test human samples. However, differing attitudes around doping practices began to emerge and, in 1933, Dr. Otto Reiser began to critique the prevalence of doping in addition to the culpability of medical professionals. Reiser argued that doping was ‘wholly incompatible with the spirit of sport’ and that medical professionals and support staff were not without blame (Yesalis & Bahrke, 2002, p. 43). Although the practice and culture of doping had its detractors, it required a high-profile death

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before any significant movement towards a robust anti-doping policy and prohibition of PEDs.

Doping Death and Birth of Anti-doping The death of Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen at the 1960 Rome Games, the first attributed to doping, was the catalyst for anti-doping policy in sport. During the 100 km team time trial, Jensen suddenly collapsed and fell off his bicycle (Rosen, 2008). The cause of death was officially listed as sunstroke, not surprising since the event took place in temperatures over 100 degrees (37.8 °C). The Danish team denied accusations of doping during the event; however, traces of methamphetamine and roniacol were allegedly found following the autopsy (Møller, 2005). Later, one of the Danish cycling team’s trainers, Oluf Jorgensen, admitted to administering roniacol to Jensen and four of his teammates. Although the drugs were only available through prescription, Jorgensen stated that they were acquired legally (Rosen, 2008). Although the story of Enemark has been disputed and the evidence is circumstantial at best (Møller, 2005), his death became a symbol of the unethical behaviours in sport widely and openly practiced by athletes at the time.  In response, the IOC instituted its own Medical Commission and created its first list of Prohibited Substances in 1967 (Müller, 2009). A year later, the IOC introduced the first doping tests at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. The testing was somewhat successful in detecting several drugs, but was largely ineffective at curbing the use of long-acting substances including anabolic agents (Fitch, 2008). In 1969, commenting on now apparently rampant and unchecked doping practices, sport journalist Bill Gilbert predicted that ‘the Doctor and Chemist [would] soon be as important to an athlete as a coach’ (Gilbert, 1969, p. 4).

 he Rise of Anabolic Agents and the Rise T of East Germany The physiological effects of anabolic and androgenic agents (steroids) in human athlete performance are well documented (Dimeo, 2007). It is believed that the first systemic use of steroids began with Soviet weightlifting teams in the early 1950s (Fitch, 2008). However, it was rumoured that German

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athletes were given testosterone as early as 1936 in preparation for the Berlin Olympics (Yesalis & Bahrke, 2002). By the 1960s, steroid use was not just limited to power athletes from the US and the USSR (Rosen, 2008). Coaches, physicians and government officials administered steroids to athletes indiscriminately in order to achieve athletic success and bolster nationalistic sentiment (Dennis, 2012). As the Cold War intensified, the sporting field became a proxy for the battlefield, where countries pitted their political ideologies against one another. East Germany used sport as a method of securing international diplomatic recognition, further promoting a separate East German identity (Dennis, 2012). The Olympics would become a theatre for the demonstration of alleged superiority of socialism over capitalism. The Stasi (Ministry of State Security) was implicated in one of the largest state-sponsored drug programmes, leading to international and Olympic success beginning with 25 medals at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games, and cementing the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as sporting ‘miracle machine’ (Dimeo et  al., 2011). The systematic and meticulous programme involved broad surveillance of sporting institutions, with large portions of research budgets being allocated to PED usage and innovative equipment and technology (Dennis, 2012). Core to the programme was the widespread and deliberate doping of athletes, especially girls and women (Dimeo et al., 2011). According to archival evidence, between 1960 and 1989 approximately 10,000 male and female athletes (including minors) from the GDR were doped without their knowledge or consent, with around 2 million doses of anabolic agents administered annually (Spitzer, 2006). Sport scientists and clinical researchers devoted large amounts of time and funding towards determining the potential performance effects of anabolic agents, which resulted in the patents being filed for Oral-­ Turinabol by the state-controlled pharmaceutical company VEB Jenapharm in 1961 (Hunt et al., 2014). By 1974, a document known as State Plan 14.25, led by Manfred Hoppner, outlined the foundational principles of the GDR’s doping programme (Spitzer, 2006). More specifically, doping was transformed into an organized protocol that specified dosages of anabolic agents tailored individually to an athlete’s sport, age and past performance. Furthermore, they allowed for potentially failed doping tests by creating a protocol whereby an athlete was systematically cycled through an on-phase (taking the drug) and an off-phase (allowing the drug to leave the body). The off-phase cycle was designed to coincide with competition so that they would pass potential drug tests (Hunt et al., 2014).

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From a political standpoint, the programme was a necessary method to ensure success and achieve Cold War objectives. Many athletes were deliberately misled about the substances they were taking, and some of the worst abuses occurred with young swimmers and gymnasts, who were administered anabolic agents during puberty (Hunt et al., 2014). The long-term damage included emotional trauma, abnormal physical changes and birth defects among the children of these athletes (Dimeo & Hunt, 2012). Two notable cases illustrate the long-term effects of participation in the programme: shot putter Heidi Krieger and swimmer Rica Reinisch. Krieger asserted that the psychological and physical effects of the anabolic agents contributed to the decision to undergo gender realignment. Reinisch later suffered from ovarian cysts and a significant heart condition that had been attributed to heavy testosterone use (Ungerleider, 2001). The doping programme was so successful that very few East German athletes produced a positive test between 1960 and 1989 (Spitzer, 2006). The extent of the programme was only brought to light with the GDR’s eventual collapse and reunification into the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990, when sealed Stasi records were opened (Dimeo & Hunt, 2012). Later in the 1990s, a special division of the criminal police was tasked with investigating the doping crimes and blatant abuses of human rights, and in 2016, the German Bundestag passed into law the Second Doping Victims Assistance Act whereby 13.65 million euros were allotted to victims of GDR doping. Despite the long of history of PEDs use in sport and the potential for harm to health, athletes will still seek to push the boundaries in pursuit of Olympic success. It is not the moral and ethical failures of the athletes, but rather the product of a corrupt sporting system that seeks to exploit these athletes for political and ideological gain. The abuses by the GDR, although horrendous from an ethical perspective, should be seen rather as a symptom of larger issues in elite sport, and not isolated incidents. Winning isn’t everything, but it can cost you everything.

Conclusion The involvement of sports medicine professionals in Olympic sport in the period 1896–1988 may be viewed as both a benefit and a liability. Sports medicine specialists became better equipped in the areas of injury prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of athletes at the recreational and the elite levels, and their oversight of training and recovery was a positive step. By the mid-­ century, changing attitudes towards physical recreation for health and

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enjoyment were supported by some progressive voices in sports medicine, in contrast to the earlier vitalist approaches that dominated medical and popular thinking and had particularly negative consequences for girls and women in sport. On the other hand, as the Olympics expanded and countries increasingly exploited Olympic medal counts for nationalistic purposes, sports medicine doctors became complicit in the surveillance of elite athletes, not necessarily holding their welfare as a top priority, as the case of East Germany’s state-sponsored doping programme tragically revealed. Olympic industry politics and the ‘win-at-all costs’ ethos were at play throughout the century, and changing interests and priorities within sports medicine were clearly reflected in the content of the IOC’s official publication, the Olympic Review.

References Alcazar, A. (1983). The influence of heat and altitude on sports performance. OR, 192, 651–654. Bannister, R. (1969, November–December). Medical aspects of competitive athletics. Newsletter, 11, 641–643. Berlioux, M. (1967). Feminity (sic). Newsletter, 3, 1–2. Commandre, F. (1984). Osteo-articular rheumatism and sport. OR, 198, 255–258. Dennis, M. (2012). Securing the sports ‘miracle’: The Stasi and East German elite sport. International Journal of the History of Sport, 29(18), 2551–2574. Dimeo, P. (2007). A history of drug use in sport 1876 1976: Beyond good and evil. Routledge. Dimeo, P., & Hunt, R. (2012). Doping of athletes in the former East Germany. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 47(5), 581–593. Dimeo, P., Hunt, T., & Horbury, R. (2011). The individual and the state: A social historical analysis of the East German ‘Doping System’. Sport in History, 31(2), 218–237. Ferris, E. (1979a). Sportswomen and medicine (I). OR, 138–9, 249–254. Ferris, E. (1979b). Sportswomen and medicine (II). OR, 140, 332–339. Fitch, K. (2008). Androgenic-anabolic steroids and the Olympic Games. Asian Journal of Andrology, 10(3), 384–390. Gilbert, B. (1969, June). Letter from the Publisher. Sports Illustrated, 4. Halim, A. (1979). Epidemiology of football injuries. OR, 141–2, 440–442. Hanne, N. (1964). Physical exercise during puberty. OR, 87, 43–44. Hanne-Paparo, N. (1983). Overtraining in athletes. OR, 194, 829–832. Harvard Olympians. (2014). Harvard athletics. gocrimson.com/information/history/olympians Hay, E. (1974). Femininity tests at the Olympic Games. OR, 76–77, 119–123. Hay, E. (1977). Considerations on women’s sport. OR, 121–122, 684–688.

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Hoberman, J. (1992). Mortal engines. Free Press. Hoberman, J. (2007). History and prevalence of doping in the marathon. Sports Medicine, 37(4–5), 386–388. Hunt, T., Dimeo, P., Hemme, F., & Mueller, A. (2014). The health risks of doping during the Cold War. International Journal of the History of Sport, 31(17), 2230–2244. International Medical and Scientific Union of Physical Education. (1929). Report on the laboratory of research formed at Amsterdam, 1928. OR, 13, 11. International Sport’s medical federation (sic). (1953). OR 39–40, 42. Johnson, M. (2016). Spitting in the soup: Inside the dirty game of doping in sports. VeloPress. Jokl, E. (1961). The athletic status of women. OR, 76, 34–40. Jokl, E. (1981). Medicine, science and sport. OR, 160, 85–89. Kamuli, J. (1984). Medical aspects of violence at sports events. OR, 195–6, 36–41. Karpovich, P. (1941). Ergogenic aids in work and sports. Research Quarterly, 12, 432–450. Kellogg, J. (1888). Plain facts for young and old. Arno (reprinted 1974). Kenealy, A. (1899, May) Woman as an athlete. Living Age, 368–369. Kruger, M. (2015). History of sports medicine in Germany. Historical Social Research, 44(4), 331–349. La Cava, G. (March–April 1976). What medicine owes to the Olympic Games. OR, 101–2, 164–167. Lenskyj, H. (1986). Out of bounds: Women, sport and sexuality. Women’s Press. Lenskyj, H. (2016). Women’s Olympics: Protest, strategy or both? In J.  Dart & S. Wagg (Eds.), Sport, protest and globalisation (pp. 35–50). Palgrave Macmillan. Lucas, C. (2009). Francisco Lázaro: A primeira das vítimas do ‘doping.’ Diário de Notícias. dn.pt/dossiers/desporto/doping-­em-­portugal/noticias/francisco-­lazaro-­ a-­primeira-­das-­vitimas-­do-­doping-­1308210.html McCloy, C. (1958). What is sports medicine? Journal of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, 29(1), 45–48. McKernan, L. (2011). Rituals and records: The films of the 1924 and 1928 Olympic Games. European Review, 19(4), 563–577. Messerli, M. (1952). Women’s participation to the modern Olympic Games. OR, 33, 24–31. Møller, V. (2005). Knud Enemark Jensen’s death during the 1960 Rome Olympics: A search for truth? Sport in History, 25(3), 452–471. Müller, R. (2009). History of doping and doping control. In W. Heubner et al., eds. Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, 187, 1–23. Rosen, D. M. (2008). Dope: A history of performance enhancement in sports from the nineteenth century to today. Praeger. Ryan, A. (1978). Sportsmedicine history. The Physician and Sportsmedicine, 6, 77–82. Spitzer, G. (2006). Sport and the systematic infliction of pain. In S. Loland et al. (Eds.), Pain and Injury in Sport: Social and Ethical Analysis. Routledge.

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Taunton, J. (1986a). Medical care of the athlete (I). OR, 227, 462–465. Taunton, J. (1986b). Medical care of the athlete (II). OR, 228, 535–538. Thiam, A. (1980). Sports medicine for creating the athlete of tomorrow. OR, 150, 170–175. Ungerleider, S. (2001). Faust’s gold: Inside the east German doping machine. Thomas Dunne. Venerando, A. (1978a). Cardiology and sport (I). OR, 129, 431–433. Venerando, A. (1978b). Cardiology and sport (II). OR, 130–1(509–510), 528. Vettenniemi, E. (2010). Runners, rumors, and reams of representations: An inquiry into drug use by athletes in the 1920s. Journal of Sport History, 37(3), 415–430. Wanneberg, P. (2018). Gymnastics as a remedy: A study of nineteenth-century Swedish medical gymnastics. Athens Journal of Sports, 5(1), 33–52. Whorton, J. (1982). ‘Athlete’s heart’: The medical debate over athleticism, 1870–1920. Journal of Sport History, 9(1), 30–52. Wohjn, S. (1951). Woman and sport. OR, 30, 22–23. Yesalis, C., & Bahrke, M. (2002). History of doping in sport. International Sports Studies, 24(1), 42–76.

Fits and Starts: Re-examining the Mystery of Brazil’s Ronaldo and the Rumours Swirling Around his Controversial Role in the World Cup Final of 1998 John Sugden and Peter Watt

In this chapter I re-open (Sugden & Tomlinson, 1993) the extremely curious case of Brazil’s super-star player, Nazario Ronaldo, who for reasons that will be explored in the following piece, after having initially been left out of Brazil’s starting XI for the 1998 World Cup final against France in Paris’s Stade de France on July 12 was astonishingly restored to the starting line-up. In this contribution, looking mainly through a critical sport-sociologist’s lens, supported with research and knowledge drawn from the field of sport-science, I draw on first-hand experience of being in the press box on that fateful evening in Paris. I was able to mingle and trade information with the cognoscente media-corps and thus gain insight into what may or may not have happened in the Brazilian’s camp before the game and thus explain why events unfolded the way they did. I shared in the confusion and consternation gripping the ‘hack pack’ as the pre-match team sheet was handed around the media seats revealing that Brazil’s Nazario Ronaldo, known simply as Ronaldo and not to be confused with Portugal’s Christiano Ronaldo, would not be playing. Ronaldo who at the time was Brazil’s super-star player and had been twice honoured as FIFA’s World Player of the Year, was not in manager Zagallo’s starting 11, having, so it seemed, been replaced by the Fiorentina player

J. Sugden (*) • P. Watt University of Brighton, Brighton, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_24

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Edmundo. The bewilderment and consternation among the media pundits were further ramped up when less than half an hour before the scheduled kick-off a second team sheet was handed around on which Edmundo’s name had been scratched off to be replaced with that of Ronaldo who, so it seemed, would after all be playing! Cue more furrowed brows and head scratching in the press box. Herein we focus upon and interrogate a number of key issues brought to light by this mysterious affair. Firstly, had Ronaldo, as subsequently reported, actually suffered an epileptic seizure only a matter of hours before the match was scheduled to be played? Secondly, if this was in fact the case why on earth was he allowed to take the field? Thirdly, whose decision was it to insist that a clearly dangerously unfit player had got to participate in the match? Was it the manager Zagallo’s or were there, as many in the press-core suspected, other more powerful and sinister forces at work? These would have included the leading global sportswear company, Nike, who endorsed the Brazil team’s kit. It was widely believed that this sponsor wielded considerable influence over the Brazilian national football team’s affairs and were able to exert pressure on its national governing body, the Confederação Brasileira de Futebol (Brazilian Football Confederation or CBF). Nike were thought to influence among other things the choice of Brazil’s opponents in international friendlies and, as exemplified in this case, their influence extended to determining who must be included, and who not, in the Brazilian team’s starting line-up in competitive matches. This leverage it was believed was exercised through interventions made by the CBF’s then president, Ricardo Teixeira. Teixeira would later be suspended by the CBF before being banned by FIFA from having involvement in football governing body affairs, but this reportedly was not for the Ronaldo affair, but rather for corrupt dealing with regard to Brazil’s television broadcasting rights (Sugden & Tomlinson, 1993). That night in Paris it was this version of events that was gaining most traction among the scribes in the media tribe. The rumour circulating was that that Teixeira on being given the original team sheet had burst into the Brazilian team’s dressing room confronting manager Zagallo and insisting that fit or not, Ronaldo must start! Moreover, some members of the press had been told that on hearing of this decision several of Brazil’s senior players, some of whom who had witnessed Ronaldo’s seizure and had been involved in assisting with Ronaldo’s recovery from his violent fit, objected to the change of plan. These objections were waved away and thus did not prevent the obviously unsteady and groggy Ronaldo taking to the field. To make matters worse Ronaldo was tasked with the job of man-marking France’s best and most influential player, Zinedine Zidane. Unsurprisingly Ronaldo in his weakened condition could do little or

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nothing to stop Zidane who scored twice before half time with France going on to win 3–0. This embarrassing result caused uproar back home in Brazil where Zagallo’s team were hot favourites and had been expected to win comfortably. Although a subsequent inquiry into the whys and wherefores of the Ronaldo affair commissioned by the Brazilian Government ruled out corporate interference by Nike there are many who remain unconvinced by this conclusion. But this still begs a wider and perhaps more important question. If Ronaldo had in fact been fitting before the game, what had caused his seizures in the first place? Was it the pain-killing drugs that reportedly had been prescribed and administered by Brazil’s team doctors to ease pain on Ronaldo’s niggling knee injury? The government inquiry also considered this, but concluded that medical intervention had not been the cause of Ronaldo’s seizures and exonerated the Brazilian team’s doctors of any blame. This leads me to wonder. If not caused by drugs, could it be that the centre-forward’s seizures had more to do with residual brain tissue damage caused by a life-time of heading tens of thousands of footballs? This latter issue has personal resonance insomuch as in 2013 I suffered a major stroke which left me with some scarring on my brain, although my recovery has been otherwise ‘remarkable’ to quote the neurologist who dealt with my case. I have detailed the circumstances that led up to my suffering a brain haemorrhage and the measures taken to accelerate my recovery in, ‘how Beachy head and Sepp Blatter saved my life’ which is the title of the foreword to my latest book (Sugden & Tomlinson, 2018). I have since learned that the residual brain scarring which lingers after suffering a stroke can, without taking appropriate medication, leave me prone to epileptic seizures, in a manner not dissimilar to those that may have affected Ronaldo that night in Paris. Reflecting on the Ronaldo case has caused me to ask the extent to which my long career as an amateur footballer whose main positions were centre forward and centre half, both roles in the execution of which require the repetitious heading of footballs. Over my long amateur football playing career I headed a lot of balls, not to mention other numerous clashes of heads with opposition players or punches to the head from over-enthusiastic fist launching goal-keepers! This might have contributed to me having a stroke in the first place and might have left me prone to fitting subsequently. Not that for a moment I am comparing my modest career as an amateur footballer with that of Ronaldo! However it does cause me to ponder what are the consequences for me and others of suffering immediate and long-term head injuries while playing football? These are important medical questions that I am not fully qualified to answer. However there are certain aspects related to head injuries in sport that do have a bearing

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on the Ronaldo mystery that I want to flag up here. Research in this area has been driven by concerns related to head injuries in boxing, so-called punch drunk syndrome AKA dementia pugilistica, or to give it its scientific name, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Building on this and on research in many other sports, wherein the head can be subject to singular and/or sustained impact injury, governing bodies have followed the lead of boxing and taken steps to find out more about the extent of and consequence of head injuries in their sports as well as taking steps to mitigate the effects of potential neurological damage suffered in the sporting arena (Kordi et al., 2009). The occurrence of CTE as diagnosable stages may assist in monitoring and diagnostic protocols that can provide information for early detection and subsequent intervention to affect progression. The stages run from headaches and lack of attention at the earliest stages, through short-term memory loss, mood swings and culminating at end stages in respiratory failure, cardiac disease, suicide and degrees of dementia. Recent research (Mackay et al., 2019) suggests up to fivefold increase in the risk of footballers developing dementia and its sequelae (i.e. further consequences), increased risk of motor neurone diseases and a twofold increase in Parkinson’s disease risk. This can be contrasted to the reduced risks of the same profession for heart disease and lung cancer. It has become increasingly recognised that repetitive heading of footballs and associated sport-related head injuries in the sport can lead to brain damage and on-going neurological problems, including dementia. Research into this area in association football in the UK has been championed by The ‘Jeff Astle Foundation’ a trust set up by the family of former West Bromwich Albion and England centre forward, Jeff Astle (1942–2002).1 The work of this Foundation has the backing of the Football Association and is supported by several high-­ profile former England football internationals, including BBC pundits Alan Shearer and Gary Lineker. The Foundation is working hard to ensure that association football comes into line with the prevention and after-care protocols now routinely required of many other sports, such as American football, various codes of Rugby football and cricket wherein long- and short-term head impact injuries are to be expected. Already in the United States the heading of footballs at youth level and all under age cohorts has been proscribed by the USFA. It will not be long before many others if not most other football federations follow suit. In this context a repeat of what happened with Ronaldo, in the Stade de France in 1998, is unlikely to be tolerated. For the record after France 1998  Astle played 292 games for West Bromwich Albion between 1964 and 1974, scoring 137 goals, many of them with his head. He had five England caps. 1

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Ronaldo would resume his career playing in two more World Cups and starring for club sides in Europe (Inter Milan, Real Madrid, AC Milan) and Latin America (Corinthians, of Sao Paulo), but after that fateful night in Paris he would never again reach the heights that had seen him become the world’s most valuable and sought after striker. Eventually when his fitness once again failed him and with regular periods of convalescence and inactivity he gained weight significantly and disappeared from world football’s top table retiring in 2011 when he finished playing with Brazilian club Corinthians.

References Kordi, M., Maffulli, N., Wroble, R. R., & Wellby, S. (Eds.). (2009). Combat sports medicine. Springer. Mackay, D.  F., Russell, E.  R., Stewart, K., MacLean, J.  A., Pell, J.  P., & Stewart, W. (2019). Neurodegenerative disease mortality among former professional soccer players. NEJM. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1908483 Sugden, J., & Tomlinson, A. (1993). Badfellas: FIFA family at war. Mainstream. Sugden, J., & Tomlinson, A. (2018). Sport and peace-building in divided societies: Playing with enemies. Routledge.

The Cricket Pitch as “Unsafe Workplace”: Sports Culture and the Death of Phillip Hughes David Rowe

Introduction: Death and the Cricketer The death of cricketer Philip Hughes on 27 November 2014 generated enormous media coverage and expressions of grief, even in countries where cricket is not a particularly prominent feature of the sporting landscape (Cricket Country Staff, 2014). He was fatally struck by a ball when batting in a little-­ watched domestic match (in the Sheffield Shield interstate competition) between South Australia and New South Wales at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG). The meme of a solitary, leaning cricket bat casting a shadow signifying his passing featured for a time on the much-coveted Google landing page (Samuels, 2014). Other sports around the world, such as association football, rugby union and golf, expressed their regret at Hughes’ death via the viral #putoutyourbats Twitter campaign featuring a bat, often with a player’s cap sitting on its handle (Hay, 2014). A Nepalese mountaineer, Chhurim Sherpa, even carried a bat and two shirts owned by Hughes to the summit of Mount Everest (Malhotra, 2015). The incident was by no means unprecedented in cricket around the world: for example, there had been deaths in cricket matches in Pakistan and South Africa in recent memory (Reason, 2014). Indeed, “a historical review of direct

D. Rowe (*) Western Sydney University, Parramatta, NSW, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_25

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trauma-related deaths in Australian cricket, both organised and informal” between 1858 and 2016 prompted by the reaction to the Hughes tragedy, identified “174 relevant deaths” (Brukner et  al., 2018: 261), with victims ranging from a baby to an elderly umpire. So, death on and around the cricket field is infrequent but by no means unprecedented. The loss of Hughes became world news because he was a high-profile cricketer from a particularly prominent sporting nation that is intimately connected to global media networks (Rowe, 2011). Passing along the global vectors of mainstream and social media (Williams et al., 2014), and permeating many conversations in homes, schools, workplaces and bars, his demise prompted reflections on the relationship between sport and health, and on the culture of popular pastimes that can end in such sudden, violent death. Much of the response to the tragedy was suffused with myth and nostalgia, deriving its emotional force from the sharp contrast between cricket’s rather anachronistic image of gentility and the ugliness of Hughes’ demise (e.g. Iyengar, 2014). To maintain this position, it was necessary to interpret the incident as a “tragic” or “freakish” accident that brought the loosely constructed transnational cricket community together in sadness (Harvey, 2016). It resisted other perspectives, like that articulated by Hughes’ father, Greg, who contended that on the day of his catastrophic injury, his son operated in an “unsafe workplace” characterised by physical and verbal intimidation (Beers & Australian Associated Press, 2016). These divergent positions on the cause and interpretation of the events occurring at the SCG two days before Hughes was pronounced dead (having never regained consciousness) demand a critical examination of the prevailing culture of cricket, including its often-­ celebrated aggressive masculinity and commercially induced ruthless competitiveness, and the relationship between the cricketing world and the wider social formation of which it is both constituent and product. This chapter analyses questions of safety and duty of care in sport in general and, especially, in cricket, and the ways in which the media represent, and sport spectators consume, legitimised violence. The focus is on men’s cricket because of the historical dominance of masculinity. Women’s cricket (Velija, 2015), as well as other women’s sports of a potentially or routinely dangerous kind (Rowe, 2019), require as they develop and become increasingly professional a detailed analytical attention that cannot be given here. It is proposed in the present context that, in Hughes’ case as in others, there is a general reluctance to recognise and accept responsibility for the dangers of sports that are intensively mediatised, commoditised and mythologised in a space of pleasure that is also a site of labour.

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Sport as Workplace To conceive of a sports stadium as a workplace jars to some degree with sport’s most cherished foundational myths. Professional sport is a form of physical culture that derives much of its appeal from being seemingly—if misleadingly—disconnected from the world of work. The same might be said of many other forms of popular culture that have transmuted into organised leisure, such as music and dramaturgy, but sport is distinctive in being historically imbued with the ethos of amateurism—literally the love of the game. The institution of sport was fashioned out of the rationalisation of pre-­modern physical play under modernity, as the introduction of codified rules (Guttmann, 1978), professional practitioners and paying spectators created an extensive sport industry. As a systematic division of labour developed in sport and, in Marxist terms, generated exchange value (Carrington & McDonald, 2019), the sites at which it was practised as real-time performance became workplaces, albeit rather unusual ones. A substantial sport-related labour market and workforce inevitably grew to discharge the necessary resultant functions, turning the proliferating spaces of sport into workplaces for administrators, coaches, athletes, stadium operators, event organisers, goods and services suppliers, architects and builders, security personnel, hospitality staff, maintenance contractors, cleaners and so on. Sitting atop all this mostly hidden, conventional labour is the spectacle of athletic work performed by a relatively small number of sportspeople who acquire “star” and even “celebrity” status (Smart, 2005). Despite this sophisticated modern organisation of play and display, the symbolic underpinning of sport harks back to pre-industrial and pre-capitalist times, being influentially linked to the Ancient Olympics in which physical competition was imagined as “pure” athletic contestation and performance that was not only unremunerated, but could also instigate a temporary truce among warring parties. Although empirically flawed—there is evidence that Ancient Olympians could be handsomely compensated (Hill, 1992)—this notion of sport as a domain insulated from the daily struggle for existence was adapted out of ancient Olympic narratives and British organisational methods in the modern Olympic revival instigated by French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin. It was institutionally anchored in the school curriculum (Hargreaves, 1986) and materialised in adulthood in the masculinist, social class-based distinction (Bourdieu, 2010) of those of independent means who could afford to engage in sport at a high level without the need to be paid to play. These elite amateurs were set apart from those in lower social classes for

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whom playing without material compensation or reward was a luxury that they could not afford. This structurally conditioned difference in orientations to sport was exacerbated as the industry created by enclosing sport events became more extensive and sophisticated: charging spectators for entry and then servicing their needs to eat, drink and, if desired, gamble on the outcome; rewarding the emerging elite player cohort; allowing commercial brands to be associated with sports, clubs, associations and sportspeople; manufacturing sport-related equipment and apparel; and above all communicating about sport and sport events through evolving media technologies. Sport was the key constituent of what became the “media sports cultural complex” (Rowe, 2004), connecting diverse practices, products and services around playing and watching it. The pivotal “maker space” where sport could be expertly practised under the gaze of co-­ present and media-dependent spectators is the stadium. In spatial terms, the stadium came to be regarded, in religious discourse, as “hallowed ground” (Dyreson & Trumpbour, 2010). However, these “cathedrals of sport” could not be regarded readily as workplaces any more than, in the Christian tradition that nurtured sport culture in the West, churches were seen as the places where professional worker priests were subsidised by congregations of consumers by means of the collection plate. This point, no doubt heuristically exaggerated, is being emphasised because it illuminates the conflict—perhaps contradiction—that situates sport, simultaneously, as in some ways transcending the material world while signifying the many ways in which it cannot escape it. Between the almost mystical vision of transcendent sport and the mundane reality of capital accumulation and the exchange of labour power in the leisure market is a range of justifications for sport’s existence and nature. A key argument is that sport enhances health and wellbeing, which in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was conventionally represented as the pedagogy of cooperation, discipline, respect for leadership and distraction from unhealthy, “immoral” practices among the young (Hargreaves, 1986). Its late twentieth- and early twenty-­ first-­century iteration is that sport has the capacity to counter rising levels of obesity, especially among children and young people seduced by sedentary, screen-based lifestyles that weaken the development of their social selves and individual bodies (Smith et al., 2004). For some—necessarily a tiny minority—sport may also offer a lucrative, lifelong career beyond the imagination of previous generations of hobbyist and professional sport practitioners alike. Sport, therefore, constitutes a (highly variable) workplace for a few while, for the majority, most of whom are at any one time consuming it in mediated form (Serazio, 2019), it offers an absorbing (if usually temporary) relief from

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the everyday demands of paid and domestic labour. The daunting scale and visibility of the media sports cultural complex have produced the regularly accessed experience of mass, sometimes global viewing of sportspeople at work in real time. In the specific instance of Phillip Hughes’ death, there was only a small co-present audience and the live broadcast audience was also minimal. But, millions across the world had seen him “at work” in international cricket matches, as well as many other cricketers in similar circumstances. It was this widely available visual “back catalogue” that contributed substantially to the newsworthiness of this industrial accident. Most workplaces, even those involving direct contact with customers and clients, provide only limited opportunities for watching the work being conducted. But elite sportworkers are watched closely by millions (sometimes billions) as they perform, their every move made available for dissection and criticism by a battery of invasive media technologies. Few workers are monitored and judged in such direct competition with their peers, or under conditions where they might be injured or even die. Their labour is common property—possessing the most tenuous understanding of the rules and standards of the game awards a licence to proffer an opinion on the quality of their work, and even to demand that they be sacked. Professional sportspeople are subjected to such scrutiny because they are often well and, in some cases, extravagantly compensated for making their work visible and/or representing the pride of neighbourhoods, cities, regions, nations and continents. They are conventionally regarded as being fortunate to turn their leisure into a lucrative income stream and, if both successful and personable, widely lionised. If successful sportspeople behave badly, especially off the field, they may be seen as spoilt, pampered and over-entitled. But, such criticism is tempered to a degree in some sports by the possibility of traumatic injury occasioned by opposing bodies or speeding projectiles. There are also not many workplaces—certainly in advanced nations—where it is permissible to be physically intimidated and berated by fellow workers and onlookers. These are, though, the workplace norms of many sports, including professional cricket, and their impact on physical and mental health usually comes into question only when there is a catastrophic event. The term post mortem is routinely used in sport to describe discussion of a contest that has taken place. It is literally applicable to what happened to Phillip Hughes, as is another term deployed in reflecting on a sport event—the inquest. The formal proceedings and the media coverage relating to his death are now considered in relation to this workplace fatality.

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“ This Sad and Violent Death”: The Inquest and Media Coverage Almost two years after the SCG tragedy, the “Inquest into the death of Phillip Joel Hughes” (State Coroner’s Court of New South Wales, 2016) was conducted by the State Coroner, Magistrate Michael Barnes. Reading the coroner’s report is a discomfiting experience, as it details Hughes’ biography, the circumstances and cause of his death (“traumatic basal subarachnoid haemorrhage”, p. 2), disputation surrounding it and recommendations pertaining “to issues which may relate to public health and safety or ways in which the likelihood of similar deaths occurring may be reduced” (p.27). Sport is no stranger to legal language and process, which permeates formal proceedings in areas as diverse as foul play, use of performance-enhancing drugs and sex/gender identity in fora such as the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Such deliberations starkly reveal how far contemporary sport has come from the largely unregulated environments of folk physical play, as well as from earlier phases of the sport industry when many matters were resolved in relatively informal ways. The Hughes inquest determined that, from “a legal perspective, this was a workplace death that occurred in a hazardous but regulated environment in the presence of the primary regulators—the umpires” (p.22). But, it ranged far beyond workplace law to encompass the history and culture of cricket, and its contradictions. Importantly, the court explored the potential role of “sledging … a term used to describe humorous, insulting or threatening remarks directed at a batsman or spoken in his hearing with a view to intimidating the batsman or breaking his concentration” (p.16), in contributing to Hughes’ death. The Coroner noted that commercial pressures and performance-based remuneration had rendered cricket a less “honourable” and even a more hazardous workplace: 185. Throughout its long history, fair play has been paramount in the game, so much so that in the vernacular “it’s just not cricket” is still used to describe something that is unjust or improper. Until recently, the spirit of the game was so well-regarded that batsmen were expected to give themselves “out” by “walking” even if the umpires failed to detect the dismissal. 186. With increased commercialization and very lucrative contracts dependent upon individual performances, it is perhaps inevitable that these honourable qualities would fray. The administrators have demonstrated their desire to preserve them by, for example, stipulating adherence to the spirit of the game in the rules.

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187. In the latest edition of the Laws of Cricket promulgated in 2013, the Spirit of Cricket is described in a preamble and the responsibility of the players, captains and umpires to uphold it is spelt out. The preamble provides that umpires can intervene if they consider any action to be unfair. It is against the spirit of the game to direct abusive language towards an opponent. (pp. 22–23)

Thus, the inquest took note of how cricket had come to symbolise ethical conduct across Australian society, despite its anachronistic evocation of a caste and social class-based order of gentleman-amateurs originating in England and transported to the Empire (Wagg, 2017). That it has been felt necessary by cricket authorities to articulate a Spirit of Cricket to guide the application of the laws governing the conduct of captains, other players and match officials (Cricket Australia, 2019; Marylebone Cricket Club, 2019) is a formal recognition of the tensions within the game created by intensified competition privileging ends over means. Policing this conduct has become more difficult as cricket and other sports stadia have been increasingly woven into conventional discourse of a workplace that, as noted, is subject to ever more searching real-time, mediated scrutiny. Among those represented at the inquest was, necessarily, the work health and safety regulator, SafeWork NSW. The efficacy of this regulation was challenged by the Hughes family, who, as the report noted in its conclusions, “believed their son and brother died unnecessarily, as a result of his colleagues, his cricketing mates, treating him unfairly, and the umpires failing to protect him by enforcing the laws of the game” (p.22). In addressing these criticisms and making findings on the “manner and cause” of his “sad and violent death” in a “potentially dangerous game” (p.22), Magistrate Barnes found “compelling evidence that the rules were complied with; that Phillip was excelling at the crease as he so often did, and that his death was a tragic accident” (p.30). Nonetheless, he made recommendations that Cricket Australia review and clarify its laws on “dangerous and unfair bowling”, improvements in helmet safety, especially neck protectors, and in medical emergency responses relating to daily medical briefings and umpire training (pp. 27–30). This emphasis on compliance with rules recognised, though, a significant departure from the spirit that is supposed to infuse them. Accompanying the cautious magisterial language was a rhetorically flourishing critique of the conduct of sportworkers in their hyper-competitive environment in the light of the game’s much-touted ethical history. While he could make no finding that “the sledging alleged actually occurred”, Barnes also noted that “repeated denials of any sledging having occurred in the game in which Phillip Hughes was injured were difficult to accept” (p.23). The only hope, then, was that:

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the focus on this unsavoury aspect of the incident may cause those who claim to love the game to reflect upon whether the practice of sledging is worthy of its participants. An outsider is left to wonder why such a beautiful game would need such an ugly underside. (p. 23)

Certainly, the surrounding media coverage gave much attention to the proposition that sledging, intimidation and lack of rule enforcement created the unsafe workplace that cost Phillip his life. But, there was considerable disagreement about how safety could be enhanced and whether it had any relationship to what one cricketer might say to another during a contest. Sports journalist Glenn Mitchell (2016), for example, declared that, “Sadly, the Phillip Hughes coronial inquest has become something it was never meant to be. It should have been simply about safety levels in cricket. Unfortunately, it descended into an inquest about Phillip Hughes.” Hence there had been “angst, anger and unnecessary comments aired” when the journalist already knew the answer: “Hughes died as a result of a freak accident”. Although seemingly misunderstanding the role of a coronial inquest, Mitchell’s intervention did reflect the available evidence that, in Australia, “There appears to have been a substantial decline in the number of cricket-­ related deaths in recent years, probably linked with the widespread use of helmets by batsmen and close-in fielders” (Brukner et al., 2018: 261). But, he did grasp the anomaly that the level of safety afforded to professionals in the cricket workplace was not available to semi-professionals and amateurs who engaged in the same practice, despite the possibility of playing with and against professionals: the game itself cannot be made safer without the banning of short-pitched bowling which is something no cricketer or administrator would ever wish to see happen. Phillip Hughes, as a professional cricketer, was operating in a workplace. However, thousands of cricketers play the game on suburban grounds each week during the summer months without the presence of doctors or physios, people that are present at all first-class grounds in Australia. (Mitchell, 2016)

Since “the Hughes incident”, Mitchell notes, first-class grounds have defibrillators, but not at “minor venues”, despite professionals, including fast bowlers, sometimes playing in lower grades of cricket. Enhanced safety practices, such as new equipment and rules, may in time be disseminated from professional to semi-professional and amateur cricket. Nonetheless, a game that “involves a heavy, hard ball being speared at the batsman from a relatively

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short distance at great speed” (State Coroner’s Court of New South Wales, 2016: 22) cannot be insulated from danger. In addition, fielders, bowlers, umpires and even spectators bear some risk of being struck by the same hard object. There are intimations here of what Ulrich Beck (1992) has influentially described as “the risk society”, in which the concept of risk in modernity comes increasingly to the fore in calculations of how to organise institutions and everyday conduct. Beck’s theory mainly addresses the emergence of hidden risks in areas like the environment and the economy, but it can also be adapted to more obvious and longstanding risks, such as those that exist in cricket, which must be addressed in places of work and leisure. Managing risk in this environment is a major exercise, as there are manifold possibilities for harm and subsequent litigation arising from a wide-ranging interpretation of duty of care (Nohr, 2009). The cricket ground, when conceived as a workplace, is governed by especially stringent regulations applying to the conditions of labour. In the case of Phillip Hughes, it was accepted that his athletic labour was hazardous and that its culture tolerated a level of aggression towards other workers that would be completely unacceptable in a factory or office (Parry, 2013). The debate was, then, not only about disputed facts, such as whether fast bowler Doug Bollinger1 said on the field to Hughes “I am going to kill you” (Australian Associated Press, 2016). It also concerned whether conventional—if officially deplored—practices in cricket, including aggressive sledging and deliberately and repeatedly bowling at the batter’s head and body, are acceptable parts of the game. Thus, for example, one sports journalist declared in an opinion piece that “THERE is no separating cricket and sledging. They’re forever linked. You’re naive to think otherwise”, that Bollinger’s alleged remarks were “among the tamest verbal barbs that would have been said that day at the SCG”, and that it “is a sad indictment on an inquest trying to justify its existence that the intrinsic tradition of sledging in cricket has been put in the dock” (Otto, 2016). Such combative interventions, according to Peter English (2017: 107), demonstrate how “the construction of the Hughes coverage followed the patterns of commemorative journalism, with an overwhelming nature to the scale of reporting, the following of a dominant narrative and positive focus, and strong elements of emotion”. Sports journalists were forced in the face of the tragedy to choose between affectivity and rationality, and to manage competing professional norms of subjectivity and objectivity. Here their  Bollinger was not the bowler who delivered the fatal ball. The ball that killed Hughes was bowled by Sean Abbott. 1

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voices competed for attention, authority and effect with general commentators, including sportspeople and politicians, the latter including Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who recognised both the personal risk and national significance of sportswork: The thought that a player in his prime should be killed playing our national game is shocking and sobering. We should be conscious of the risks that our sportspeople run to give us the pleasure that they do. What happened has touched millions of Australians. (Abbott quoted in Alexander, 2014)

Abbott had placed a cricket bat outside his private home in Sydney, an act that reflected, as English (2017: 105) noted in his interviews with professional journalists about the death of Hughes, the “unorthodox direction of the news in such a major story—from social media to legacy media”, with one observing that “‘traditional media had to piggyback’ on the Twitter posts, especially those forming part of the #putoutyourbats campaign, in a ‘reversal of the usual order’”. This reconfigured public sphere, in which social media often set the agenda rather than major media outlets, addressed causality, risk and ethics in professional sport in a manner that required it to confront whether Australia’s national sport had developed in a way that questioned its own cultural legitimacy. It probed the extent to which developments in cricket were sui generis or symptomatic of the contemporary complexion of the institution of sport, the society that had produced it and the relationship between them. If the arbitrary cause of the “freak accident” that killed Hughes was not accepted, the responsibility for his death had to run much deeper and wider. In this way, the tragedy led to an inquest not just into the death of a cricketer, but into the national-cultural psyche with which sport is intimately connected (Cashman, 2010). The volatile relationship between sport and masculinity was one element at the centre of this deliberation.

An Inquest Into Sport and Masculinity As discussed above, responses to Hughes’ death clustered around two principal positions. From within the sport itself and among many professional sports journalists, there was a strong impulse to defend the game. The “freak accident” position emphasises very bad luck and improbable odds and, while there might be some technical improvements to protective equipment for batters, it was seen to be opportunistic and wrongheaded to attribute the cause of death to some malign aspect of cricket culture or to a wider social malaise.

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Such a critique resonates with Howard Becker’s (1963) concept of “moral entrepreneurship” in the construction of a “moral panic” (Cohen, 1972), whereby the event is exploited as a pretext to stigmatise certain people or to “amplify” threats to social order. For example, Jericho (2014) condemns the tragedy being used to highlight comparable but neglected problems in less conspicuous and mediated areas of society: the suggestion that whenever the media focus on something, it highlights how little the media focuses on [insert your pet subject]. Within hours of Hughes’ injury—while he was undergoing surgery—one Fairfax journalist noted it was White Ribbon Day and pondered, “Imagine if we paid as much attention to the one woman a week who dies as a result of DV [domestic violence]”. Since then others have similarly suggested we should focus on all workplace deaths like we did Hughes’, or have argued that if Hughes had been a woman sportsman [sic] the coverage wouldn’t have been as great.

While there is no doubt that “one of the reasons the media focussed on Hughes’ death at his workplace is the media and the public were interested in watching him work” (Jericho, 2014), it could be countered that the very mediated normalisation of what conventionally happens on the cricket pitch in some ways affords it the protection of “hiding in plain sight.” In looking beyond explanations of rare, accidental misfortune, the context in which it occurred must, according to this second main position, be appraised. Workplace norms in men’s cricket, as the Hughes coronial inquiry unequivocally finds, incorporate an aggressive expression of masculinity that is both officially denied and publicly visible. For example, Hughes himself had witnessed (though not participated in) a preceding “home” 2013–2014 Ashes series (as test matches between England and Australia have been named since the late nineteenth century) the resort to almost cartoon-like masculinist archetypes and behaviour that were redolent of cricket in the 1970s (Rowe, 2013). The series, won 5–0 by Australia, saw the ruthless exploitation of the mental fragility of English batsman Jonathan Trott, who left the tour early with a stress-related illness. This was the application of former Australian captain Steve Waugh’s so-called mental disintegration theory, adopted later, for example, in spinner Nathan Lyon’s description of a former England wicket keeper, Matt Prior, as “scared” during the same series and the aspiration to “end some careers” in the following one (quoted in Wade, 2019: 541). Relatedly, in 2014 Australian captain Michael Clarke was heard on television telling England batter Jimmy Anderson to “get ready for a broken fucking

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arm”. “Stump-mike” technology was not available to capture such threatening language in earlier times, necessitating reliance on the recollections of retired fast bowlers such as Denis Lillee and Jeff Thomson about plans to “to kill the pricks” (Hotten, 2013). Such language is often dismissed as pantomime-like or mere badinage by right wing journalists such as Janet Albrechtsen (2013), for whom “good old-­ fashioned sledging” is “celebrated as part of the culture”, a “throwback to the good old days” before widespread infection with the “PC [political correctness] virus”. Here, cricket is enlisted as a weapon of the culture wars, a “bastion of effrontery where cheeky banter has not yet been banished as bullying”. The death of Phillip Hughes, and the concern about sledging, provided a dramatic reminder of the dangers of a workplace that, at the very least, might have become too hard-edged  (Rowe, 2014). There were calls, after this “moment in sport so wrenching, so profoundly jolting, that there was prolonged introspection about how cricket could absorb it”, for “a renewed embrace of the civility at the game’s core” and for a “rejection of machismo” (Brown, 2017). Indeed, in contrast to Albrechtsen’s and Otto’s defence of aggressive sledging in the Murdoch family-owned News Corp Australia, an editorial in the Herald Sun (2014), the largest circulation newspaper in Australia from the same media stable, adopted a much less indulgent, even “PC” stance regarding the practice: The Australian tendency to ‘sledge’ their opponents by telling batsmen they are about to be felled by a fast ball needs to be dropped. Aggression has overcome passion. It has gone too far.

The renewed emphasis on the Spirit of Cricket implicitly critiqued the violence-masculinity nexus made so voyeuristically available through mediation and endorsed by much sports journalism (Rowe, 2019). This is recognition that, in an already perilous workplace, the conduct of workers placed in structured competition should not exacerbate risk by inviting and tolerating reckless, abusive behaviour.

Conclusion: The Fatal Pitch Although it is the subject of this chapter, cricket is obviously not the only sport that confronts questions of corporeal risk. For example, rugby union, with which it shares an historical connection to social elites, must deal with the inevitable toll on the body exacted by a contact sport involving routine

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high-impact collisions. Rugby union, though, is more open about this risk and it may even be the subject of jokes. For example, England coach Eddie Jones has described two players, Tom Curry and Sam Underhill, as the “Kamikaze Kids”, because “‘they hit everything that moves’—but equally he was referring to their long injury histories considering they are 21 and 23 respectively” (Meagher, 2019). In response, Underhill, who was injured, noted that, “A healthy disregard for your own wellbeing is pretty essential if you are playing rugby in general, so I will take that as a compliment” (Meagher, 2019). This jocular attitude is at odds with current moves to improve safety in rugby both at the elite level because of the “dramatic increase in the velocity of collisions since the advent of professionalism in 1995” (Peters, 2019) and in schools, including a proposal to ban tackling among children (Pollock, 2015). Indeed, there was complaint that, in discussions of the 2019 Japan Rugby World Cup, “the leading topic is the high tackle and refereeing controversies [that] are dominating the agenda” (Monye, 2019). The particularly stark contrasts between the “gentlemanly” historical ethos of the cricket, its high degree of contemporary competitive commercialism and the potentially lethal consequences of being struck by a hard ball at high speed, though, render its dangers particularly shocking. Furthermore, the reduction of the contest for brief moments to that between bowler and batter, especially in mediated form via the camera’s focus on the two principal antagonists, brings an individual “gladiatorial” dimension that is less marked in more fluid team games. Almost five years after the death of Phillip Hughes on the field of play, there was a stark reminder of it when ex-Australian captain Steve Smith was struck by a bouncer by England bowler Jofra Archer during an Ashes test at Lord’s. The ball hit Smith in the neck, as happened to Hughes, prompting another debate about mandatory additional side protection to the helmet. As he lay on the ground, it was immediately feared that Smith might have suffered Hughes’ fate (Morshead, 2019). Fortunately, this was not the case, although he controversially batted later in the same innings before succumbing to symptoms of concussion and missing the rest of the game. Under the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) new concussion rule, Smith was allowed a “like for like” replacement, Marnus Labuschagne, who was also struck in the head by Archer, though fortunately uninjured. This rule was brought in after “Cricket Australia introduced concussion subs into domestic cricket in 2016, following a recommendation from the independent review into the shock death of Phillip Hughes, and continued to lobby the ICC regarding the issue” (Australian Associated Press, 2019). This safety enhancement—or at least its expedition—could be regarded as a Phillip Hughes

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legacy, but there is more to safety in cricket than protective equipment and concussion substitution. In this regard, both players and spectators are implicated in fashioning the game’s ethos. Most of the latter observe the game via a screen, rendering it in some respects as a genre of video game with excited commentary, the screen providing the necessary distance from the actual bodies involved in the construction of “hyper-reality”. Unlike stage and screen performers engaged in ritual display and acting out with fake knives and guns, the main “weapon” at the disposal of cricketers is not placed in the service of artifice. Flesh-and-­ blood fatalities demonstrate that these are not mere two-dimensional cartoon displays, but the kinds of tragedy that question the mode of masculinity that has been allowed to flourish in cricket’s sportswork space. According to one theologian, the reason for the widespread reaction to Phillip Hughes’ death lies in its sudden and shocking revelation of the vulnerability of an ordered social world via a public ritual that produces a sacred, sacrificial victim akin to those witnessed in pre-modernity (Cowdell, 2015). More prosaically, it can be proposed that it was the inevitable consequence of the collision of softcore romanticism and hardcore instrumentalism, as exemplified by the abrasive, single-minded pursuit of victory leading to so-called Sandpapergate (Chiu, 2018) during an ill-tempered 2018 South Africa-Australia series. This scandal involved three members of the Australian team conspiring to break the rules by altering the condition of the ball, prompting another Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to comment about cricket, but this time to complain that “It seemed completely beyond belief that the Australian cricket team had been involved in cheating. After all, our cricketers are role models and cricket is synonymous with fair play” (Cricket Network, 2018). If cricket’s role models are expected to guarantee fair play, then the controllers of the game are compelled to provide as safe a workplace as possible. It should not take the death of a cricketer to renew the spirit of a sport that has so systematically mythologised its nobility while undermining it in the name of lucrative media spectacle.

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Mitchell, G. (2016). The Phillip Hughes inquest became something it shouldn’t have. The Roar, 14 October. https://www.theroar.com.au/2016/10/14/ phillip-­hughes-­inquest-­went-­neednt/ Monye, U. (2019). I’ve never known a sport to be on a knife edge like rugby union is in Japan. The Guardian, 27 September. https://www.theguardian.com/ sport/2019/sep/27/rugby-­world-­cup-­referees-­are-­not-­robots-­ugo-­monye Morshead, S. (2019). Exhilarating, compelling and, most of all, disturbing—the story of Jofra Archer versus Steve Smith. The Cricketer, 17 August. https://www. thecricketer.com/Topics/ashes/jofra_archer_versus_steve_smith.html Nohr, K. M. (2009). Managing risk in sport and recreation: The essential guide for loss prevention. Human Kinetics. Otto, T. (2016). Phillip Hughes tragedy does not change sledging’s intrinsic place in cricket. news.com.au, 14 October. https://www.news.com.au/sport/cricket/phillip-­ hughes-­tragedy-­does-­not-­change-­sledgings-­intrinsic-­place-­in-­cricket/news-­story/ 3d61435a034d80380166aee0b4ad3cd5 Parry, K. D. (2013). Sledging is out of order in the workplace, so why not the sports field? The Conversation, 5 December. https://theconversation.com/ sledging-­is-­out-­of-­order-­in-­the-­workplace-­so-­why-­not-­the-­sports-­field-­20812 Peters, S. (2019) World Rugby considering radical rule changes in bid to improve player safety. The Independent, 22 March. https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/ rugby/rugby-­u nion/international/world-­r ugby-­r ule-­c hanges-­p layer-­s afety-­ injuries-­50-­22-­kick-­a8832031.html Pollock, A. (2015). Rugby is dangerous—and we’re not doing enough to protect children who play it. The Conversation, 1 October. https://theconversation.com/ rugby-­i s-­d angerous-­a nd-­w ere-­n ot-­d oing-­e nough-­t o-­p rotect-­c hildren-­w ho-­ play-­it-­47974 Reason, M. (2014). Phillip Hughes death highlights cricket’s hypocrisy. Stuff, 3 December. https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/63759297/ Rowe, D. (2004). Sport, culture and the media: The unruly trinity (2nd ed.). Open University Press-McGraw-Hill. Rowe, D. (2011). Global media sport: Flows, forms and futures. Bloomsbury Academic. Rowe, D. (2013). The Ashes: Australian masculinity reborn amid English tumult. The Conversation, 10 December. https://theconversation.com/the-­ashes-­australian­masculinity-­reborn-­amid-­english-­tumult-­21265 Rowe, D. (2014) After Phillip Hughes’ death, it’s time for a post-traumatic Test. The Conversation, 9 December. https://theconversation.com/after-­phillip-­hughes-­ death-­its-­time-­for-­a-­post-­traumatic-­test-­34971 Rowe, D. (2019). Gendered violence in, of and by sport news. In C. Carter, L. Steiner, & S. Allan (Eds.), Journalism, gender and power (pp. 128–143). Routledge. Samuels, J. (2014). Bat tribute to Phillip Hughes goes global. YouTube, 28 November. www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8HVzPvbWbw Serazio, M. (2019). The power of sports: Media and spectacle in American culture. NYU Press.

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Smart, B. (2005). The sport star: Modern sport and the cultural economy of sporting celebrity. Sage. Smith, A., Green, K., & Roberts, K. (2004). Sports participation and the ‘obesity/ health crisis’: Reflections on the case of young people in England. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 39(4), 457–464. State Coroner’s Court of New South Wales. (2016, November 4). Inquest into the death of Phillip Joel Hughes. http://www.coroners.justice.nsw.gov.au/Documents/ Phillip%20Hughes%20Findings.pdf Velija, P. (2015). Women’s cricket and global processes: The emergence and development of women’s cricket as a global game. Palgrave Macmillan. Wade, M. (2019). Tactics of the ‘Ugly Australian’: Morality, masculinity, nationalism and governance amid a cheating controversy in sport’. Journal of Sociology, 55(3), 528–550. Wagg, S. (2017). Never the gentleman: Caste, class and the amateur myth in English first-class cricket, 1920s to the 1960s. Sport in History, 37(2), 183–203. Williams, A., Lynskey, J., Emons, M., & Jurejko, J. (2014). Phillip Hughes death— how the world reacted. BBC Sport, 27 November. https://www.bbc.com/sport/ live/29697239

Muhammad Ali, Sport Celebrity, and Perceptions of Parkinson’s Disease Nicole Eugene

Every black person who is endowed with an exceptional curiosity conducts an internal dialectic, which in some cases can lead to early death, depression, ostracism, or even murder. … Irate and often angry about the effects of white supremacy, from the daily annoying examples (micro-aggressions) to lynching and massacres, they find themselves either speaking out no matter the consequences, or they bear it, keeping such rage in storage. (Reed, 2015, pp. 23–24)

Ishmael Reed goes on to say that Malcolm X was one such person, as were Jackie Robinson, Elijah Muhammad, and Muhammad Ali. At a young age, Muhammad Ali looked around and noticed that most of the people in the world outside his home were white, causing him to ask his daddy, “What do colored people do?” (Reed, 2015, p. 23). Reed’s (2015) biography of Ali grapples with the complex dynamics of racism, criminality, and Afrocentric voicings while also addressing Ali’s wide appeal and legacy. Like many other biographers, in fact, like most people who know about Muhammad Ali, Reed believes that Ali’s Parkinson’s disease is a result of boxing. His take on the issue, like the rest of his book, The Complete Muhammad Ali, is simultaneously refreshing and somewhat unexpected. More specifically, Reed (2015) goes beyond merely acknowledging a relationship between boxing injuries and Parkinson’s disease to implicate the reporters who hailed from segregated newsrooms and were too eager to cast Ali as invincible. Moreover, this N. Eugene (*) University of Houston-Victoria, Victoria, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_26

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invincibility became, for Ali, “a belief that led to serious injuries in the ring, injuries incurred as a result of staying in the game long after the powers that were responsible for his ascendency had been shot” (Reed, 2015, p. 10). Like Reed, in this chapter, I return to the scene of Ali’s injuries to ask questions about the injury narrative that so many people take as fact all while keeping the larger context of racism as part of the scenery. Ali’s Parkinson’s disease is not in question; rather than dealing solely with the physio-pathological story of Ali’s Parkinson’s disease I am instead concerned first and foremost with the level of discourse. The absence of an autopsy of Ali’s brain means the controversy and the contested narrative will lay beyond the realm of empirical physical facts about his brain although the injury narrative will continue to circulate within the realm of cultural symbols. In a similar way that Sontag’s work which seeks to de-mythicize understandings and discourses on cancer and AIDS (Sontag, 1990), this foray into the gray matter of Ali’s brain injury has moral and literal components that sports communication researchers must wrestle with. I began researching Ali in 2013. Back then, I too was certain that he developed Parkinson’s disease as a direct result of boxing. In learning more about Ali’s whole life, the cultural context, societal shifts, the efforts to ban boxing, and the causes of Parkinson’s disease I eventually began to rethink my previous conviction. Standing in an old boxing gym in Appalachia Ohio, I once talked to a boxing trainer about my research on the way people framed Ali’s Parkinson’s disease. In bringing up Ali, I sensed that I had stumbled upon something somewhat sacred. How he lit up at the mention of Ali was unmistakable. It was nice to be regarded by this man as a potential female boxer for a brief moment, although just as I did not have the courage to share my questions, I did not have enough courage to ever get into a ring. The symbol of Ali’s claim to be the Greatest of All Time (GOAT) is more than a matter of adding up all of his fights, losses, and TKO’s. Similarly, the relationship between boxing and Parkinson’s and the way authors interpret Ali’s Parkinson’s disease all exist within a complex cultural landscape where power, religion, disability, and race shape how meaning is created, shared, and maintained. Ali’s Parkinson’s disease, as a disability, reflects a pattern of viewing disabilities in a way that reflects ableist devaluing of everyday life experiences of living in a world that labels some bodies as normal and others as not normal. As a marked body, many people who wrote about Ali tended to interpret Ali’s Parkinson’s disease as an unmoored signifier which meant that Parkinson’s disease was detached from pragmatic everyday meanings and instead were attached to the themes that emerged in Ali’s life and biographies: Parkinson’s was a symbol of greatness, a symbol of nonviolence, a symbol of resistance,

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and a symbol of inclusion (Eugene & Nelson, 2017). Out of these four themes, the one that was the most prevalent in the body of literature I examined was the tendency to view Ali’s Parkinson’s as a symbol of inclusion or as “the big embrace.” As Farred (2003) notes, the condition changed “the radical African-American anti-American into a neutered recognizable, non-­ threatening U.S. identity, a symbol of America’s capacity to embrace—even if only post-ipso facto—racial, religious and ideological difference” (p. 92). Ali’s appearance in the 1996 Olympics ceremony crystallized Ali’s transformation into someone Americans could embrace with ease in part because of his fragility and silence. As a symbol, Ali’s Parkinson’s disease has evolved over the years and it may continue to evolve, perhaps in the same way that Harriet Tubman’s disability and outstanding accomplishments have allowed her legacy to entangle myth and facts beautifully. To explore how Ali’s Parkinson’s disease came to be understood as unquestionably and primarily caused by boxing I will revisit a moment in my journey with Ali’s discourse. When I initially started working with the biographers who wrote about Ali, a vague memory of him being made fun of on a comedy show kept floating into my mind. Was it an SNL skit? Was it in the 1980s or 1990s? Perhaps it was Ezra’s (2009) book that referenced Ali being made fun of that allowed me to see the whole picture more clearly by referencing the embarrassing low point in comparison to the honor he later garnered. Eventually, I used Google to track down the clip by using different combinations with the phrase comedy skit. Parkinson’s disease brought nothing, but punch drunk helped me find the skit, “Three Champs and a Baby.” For Kurchak (2014) the comedy skit is one of the funniest skits from that show, hence why it is still on YouTube. As I watched, it became clear that the depiction of Ali as punch drunk is somewhat cringe-worthy now that making fun of people with disabilities has gone the way of 8-track cassette, yet it did cause me to wonder about a few things. The skit parodied a popular movie that was currently in theaters, “Three Men and a Baby” while poking fun at Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Muhammad Ali for their larger than life personalities and philandering tendencies. The In Living Color TV show started on Fox in April of 1990, long after Muhammad Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease although it was still portraying him as if he was punch drunk. In the skit, actor-comedian David Alan Grier depicts Ali as talking to himself and not knowing how to complete the famous line, “Float like a butterfly sting like a … tree?”. Ali often rambled to no one in particular and was generally not able to follow his conversational partners. Prior to 1984, which is when the public learned about Ali’s diagnosis, then called pugilistic Parkinson’s syndrome, many biographers and journalists believed that Ali

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likely had punch drunk syndrome (Boyle & Ames, 1983; Hauser, 1992; Tauber, 1988). This skit is relevant because, in the same way that it was lodged in the recesses of my mind, it may also be similarly lodged in minds of many others who were influenced by it or its sequel that appeared the following season. Back then, and still today, to laugh at it one not only needs to understand that making fun of Tyson and other boxers was a popular motif on the comedy show, but the audience also needed to be somewhat willing to conflate Parkinson’s disease and punch drunk syndrome. In many ways it allowed viewers to replace one PD for a decidedly funnier PD, yet beyond this particular cultural artifact, and simultaneously central to it, is the recognition that the different pathologies did not require people to abandon the presumption that boxing caused Ali’s peculiar embodiment. This moment in popular culture is also part of the process of co-constructing the narrative of Ali’s Parkinson’s disease, which refers to the way the public will shape narratives of celebrities who share personal health details with the public (Beck et al., 2014). Narratives about Ali’s boxing injuries and Parkinson’s disease exist within the larger history of research on the brain and head impacts. Nevertheless, this context does little to clear up the confusion that occurred and may still be an enduring aspect of Ali’s legacy. In 1928 Martland first described prizefighters as people who were disposed to specific behaviors and were likely to develop what he called, “punch drunk” (Alosco & Stern, 2019; Martland, 1928). Since his publication, various other terms have been used to describe the pattern of changes that were found in boxers, including pugilistic dementia. In 1973 Corsellis et al. published a study that looked at 15 retired boxers and further provided supporting evidence for a link between boxing and brain damage. Their research allowed reporters and doctors who had not examined Ali to conclude that Ali likely had developed punch drunk even though Ali’s doctors rejected these armchair diagnoses (Boyle & Ames, 1983). Alongside talk of Ali’s potential diagnosis of punch drunk, there were several voices and efforts to ban boxing. Indeed, the history of boxing is also a history of detractors and people like Martland who found it to be barbaric and inhumane (Changa et al., 2018). Beloved by many, Ali, through public knowledge of his condition, may have been central to this abolitionist campaign, and yet he was not explicitly a part of the efforts to restrict boxing. Hindsight shows us that both discourses about punch drunk and efforts to ban boxing were milestones in the development of what we now understand as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), which in turn has created a number of proponents for restricting America’s most popular sport—football.

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President George H. W. Bush made a Presidential Proclamation in July of 1990 that declared the 1990s to be the “decade of the brain” (Bush, 1990). As a result, according to Egolf (2012), this decade yielded bipartisan support for research on the brain, increased public awareness about the brain, advanced brain scanning technologies, developed new drugs for neurological conditions, and seeded a wave of researchers and who called themselves neuroscientists. I write about this era having experienced the increase in understanding of the brain as a beneficiary because of the peculiar neurological condition I was diagnosed within the 1990s. We knew so little about the brain in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s compared to where we are at the start of the 2020s. Nevertheless, the story of being irreparably wounded by boxing blows fits more into a pathology of CTE, which is a type of endogenous trauma that can cause changes in a person’s ability to communicate that may resemble that of some who has had a stroke (Egolf, 2012). According to a study of Ali’s rate of speaking from 1968 to 1978, boxing had a clear effect on Ali’s brain (Berisha et al., 2017; Eig et al., 2017), and yet this is different from proving that boxing directly caused Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s is a degenerative disease where there is a decrease in the brain’s ability to produce dopamine, the neurotransmitter which is responsible for feelings of pleasure and muscle movement (Egolf, 2012). It was the famous study by Omalu et al. (2005) on CTE that put the condition in the public’s eye in a way that far surpasses the suspicions and confusion that surrounded Ali’s possible injuries. Similarly, research on CTE and the brain bank of former football players allows researchers and doctors to understand the physiopathology of this condition to a degree that far outstrips what can be surmised from the case study of the way the GOAT talked. Perhaps Ali was touched by all three conditions, or maybe just two of them instead of the one? Punch drunk and CTE are thought to be the same condition now that better knowledge and technology are available (Changa et al., 2018). And yet for the average Ali fan who has a poster of Ali’s 1965 fight with Sonny Liston on their wall, the distinctions between CTE, punch drunk, and Parkinson’s disease may be moot. Too many punches is still a fairly persuasive way to explain Ali’s unexpected physical decline regardless of the mismatched matrix of causes, symptoms, and conditions. If I take the assertion that boxing injuries caused Ali’s Parkinson’s disease as fact then I must ask a question: when could Ali have walked away and saved himself from the experience of having Parkinson’s disease? While this is a purely intellectual question, there are some ways to engage in this speculative game thanks to the research done by his many biographers. For example, many people readily point to Ali’s third comeback as the heavyweight champion of the world in 1978 as something that was

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extremely punishing especially in comparison to the relative speed Ali used during the first time he won the title. For Reed (2015) and others, it was clear that when he came back for the second time, Ali was already showing signs of Parkinson’s. The speaking rate examination of Ali starts after Ali returned to the ring following the ban, in 1968, and charts a precipitous decline from that point in time that resembles the development of Parkinson’s disease (Berisha et al., 2017). While the conclusion suggests that neurological decline may perhaps one day be used to detect conditions from cell phone apps they also seem to shy away from thinking about what this could mean in terms of when the onset of his Parkinson’s symptoms began and what this could mean for the legacy of Ali. If Ali did not return to boxing after the ban to regain his title would we even still know who he was, much less cared about his condition? Just as there are studies that support the association between boxing and Parkinson’s disease (e.g., Lolekha et al., 2010), there are several studies and doctors that are clear and conclusive in declaring there is no relationship between brain trauma and Parkinson’s disease (Abdessadok, 2016). What I find to be provocative about this issue is not the different sides, but it is my unwillingness to accept Ali’s unique resilience as a type of risk factor for a disease. Doing this reduces Ali’s accomplishments and shapes the narrative into little more than a public service announcement against repetitive head trauma. Ali’s significance for blacks lays beyond the risks Ali took in the ring, because being black in the US or in other Western nations is itself a perilous existence. Moreover, being black is also an existence that is shaped by the persistence of black stereotypes that suggest that blacks are lazy or inferior (Kendi, 2016, 2019). Therefore, questions of illness and disability are often doubly taxing because it threatens to render blacks in ways that conform to stereotypes many labor to resist. In Blood Brothers (2016), Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith focus on the relationship between Malcolm and Muhammad Ali. Toward the end of the book they discuss how when Malcolm X died, Ali remained haunted by his death because, like Malcolm, Ali feared what would happen to him if he stepped away from the Nation of Islam. According to Roberts and Smith (2016), Ali said, “‘I would have gotten out of this a long time ago,’ Ali whispered. ‘But you saw what they did to Malcolm X. I ain’t gonna end up like Malcolm X’” (p. 308).1 A few months after this exchange the Messenger, Elijah Muhammad, died and another person took over leading the Nation of Islam. Once Ali did not have to worry about Elijah repeating what happened  Malcolm X was shot dead in New York in 1965. While it is widely supposed that his assassins were from within the Black Muslim movement, nobody has ever been tried for his murder. 1

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to Malcolm, Ali took a different approach to Islam by rejecting the hatred toward whites. Ali is quoted as stating, “We Muslims hate injustice and evil, but we don’t have time to hate people” (Roberts & Smith, 2016, p. 309). Power is always at play in the life of Ali, and although medical doctors and writers who claim Ali’s brain was clearly and unquestionably injured do not hold the same type of power that Elijah held they nevertheless do hold power over how Ali is remembered and over how fans understand his disease. More important than the story that is told about Ali’s illness is the story Ali told himself about the meaning of Parkinson’s in his life. Ali, with the help of his wife Lonnie, created a personal essay for the National Public Radio program “This I Believe,” wherein Ali discusses appearing in the 1996 Olympics as a torchbearer and reflects on the experience as another opportunity that supports his claim to be the Greatest of All Time (“I Am Still The Greatest,”, 2009). Not in the literal sense of the concept, but rather as someone who believes in themselves despite the odds and the circumstances. In a world where black boys and girls still struggle against stereotypes held by peers and adults alike that label blacks as lazy or otherwise inferior, Ali’s belief in himself even as a disabled former athlete seeks to inspire people from all backgrounds. As Blood Brothers continues, it recounts Ali’s disapproval of Malcolm’s abandonment of the Nation of Islam, and how several years after Malcolm’s death, Ali regretted the harsh stance he had taken immediately after Malcolm’s death. Ali is quoted as saying, “If I could go back and do it over again, I would never have turned my back on him” (Roberts & Smith, 2016, p. 309). Malcolm made Ali love himself and his people. Like Malcolm, Ali eventually journeyed away from the Nation of Islam, although their mentor and mentee relationship had long since ended. Ali followed Elijah for a decade although the relationship was not as intimate as the one that Ali had with Malcolm for a year and a half. Adding, “In time, Ali understood that who he was and who he became were the results of his friendship with Malcolm. He knew that without Malcolm X, he would never have become Muhammad Ali” (Roberts & Smith, 2016, p. 311). Who would Ali have been if he never slowed down? How would our memory and interest have changed if Ali had been allowed to age more gradually while retaining his ability to charm and his taste for adventure? How can we overcome the human tendency to cling to old stories in the face of newer, more messy stories? The complicated and perplexing relationship between Ali’s injuries and Parkinson’s disease has evolved amid a shifting landscape of knowledge about the brain. The quote used at the very beginning of the chapter is more than a way of acknowledging the resilience in Ali and the men who influenced him in his formative years as a young boxer because it also implicates the racist society in creating illnesses that befall African

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Americans at higher rates than their non-black peers. There is no shortage of research on how the experience of racism and the effects of living in a racist society create a toll that is expressed in health indicators (Sue, 2010). I end on this note because while boxing likely injures many who engage with it, viewing Ali’s Parkinson’s disease exclusively in those terms misses the point of why he put his body and brain on the line in the first place.

References Abdessadok, Z. (2016, June 5). Did head trauma give Muhammad Ali Parkinson’s disease? Aljazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/head-­trauma-­ muhammad-­ali-­parkinson-­disease-­160605063724682.html Alosco, M. L., & Stern, R. A. (2019). The long-term consequences of repetitive head impacts: Chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Handbook of Clinical Neurology, 167, 337–355). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-­0-­12-­804766-­8.00018-­2 Beck, C. S., Aubuchon, S. M., McKenna, T. P., Ruhl, S., & Simmons, N. (2014). Blurring personal health and public priorities: An analysis of celebrity health narratives in the public sphere. Health Communication, 29(3), 244–256. https://doi. org/10.1080/10410236.2012.741668 Berisha, V., Liss, J., Huston, T., Wisler, A., Jiao, Y., & Eig, J. (2017). Float like a butterfly sting like a bee: Changes in speech preceded parkinsonism diagnosis for Muhammad Ali. Interspeech 2017, 1, 1809–1813. https://doi.org/10.21437/ Interspeech.2017-­25 Boyle, R. H., & Ames, W. (1983, April 11). Too many punches, too little concern. Sports Illustrated Vault, 58(19), 44. Bush, G. (1990). Decade of the Brain: Presidential Proclamation 6158. The President of the United States of America. http://www.loc.gov/loc/brain/proclaim.html Changa, A. R., Vietrogoski, R. A., & Carmel, P. W. (2018). Dr Harrison Martland and the history of punch drunk syndrome. Brain, 141(1), 318–321. https://doi. org/10.1093/brain/awx349 Egolf, D. B. (2012). Human communication and the brain. Lexington Books. Eig, J., Berisha, V., & Liss, J. (2017, August 23). New Study Shows Boxing’s Early Toll on Muhammad Ali. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ new-­study-­shows-­boxings-­early-­toll-­on-­muhammad-­ali-­1503489119 Eugene, N., & Nelson, J. (2017). Signifying Dis(Ability): Perusing interpretations of Muhammad Ali’s disability. Howard Journal of Communications, 1, 1–15. https:// doi.org/10.1080/10646175.2017.1315690 Ezra, M. (2009). Muhammad Ali: The making of an icon. Temple University Press. Farred, G. (2003). What’s my name? Black vernacular intellectuals. University of Minnesota Press.

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Hauser, T. (1992). Muhammad Ali: His life and times (1 Touchstone ed). Simon & Schuster. I Am Still The Greatest. (2009, April 6). In This I Believe. NPR. https://www.npr. org/2009/04/06/102649267/i-­am-­still-­the-­greatest Kendi, I. X. (2016). Stamped from the beginning: The definitive history of racist ideas in America. Nation Books. Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be an antiracist. One World. Kurchak, S. (2014, November 9). Punching Up: In Living Color’s (Mostly) Funny Fight Skits. VICE Fightland. http://fightland.vice.com/blog/punching-­up-­in-­living­colors-­mostly-­funny-­fight-­skits Lolekha, P., Phanthumchinda, K., & Bhidayasiri, R. (2010). Prevalence and risk factors of Parkinson’s disease in retired Thai traditional boxers. Movement Disorders, 25(12), 1895–1901. https://doi.org/10.1002/mds.23210 Martland, H. S. (1928). PUNCH DRUNK. Journal of the American Medical Association, 91(15), 1103. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1928.02700150029009 Omalu, B. I., DeKosky, S. T., Minster, R. L., Kamboh, M. I., Hamilton, R. L., & Wecht, C. H. (2005). Chronic traumatic encephalopathy in a National Football League Player. Neurosurgery, 57(1), 128–134. https://doi.org/10.1227/01. NEU.0000163407.92769.ED Reed, I. (2015). The complete Muhammad Ali. Baraka Books. Roberts, R., & Smith, J. M. (2016). Blood brothers: The fatal friendship between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X. Basic Books. Sontag, S. (1990). Illness as metaphor and, AIDS and its metaphors (1st ed). Doubleday. Sue, D. W. (2010). Microaggressions in everyday life: Race, gender, and sexual orientation. Wiley. Tauber, P. (1988, July 17). Ali: Still Magic. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes. com/1988/07/17/magazine/ali-­still-­magic.html

‘Snipers Stop Play’: The Israeli Defence Force and the Shooting of Palestinian Footballers Jon Dart

Introduction The Israel/Palestine conflict is one of the most contentious, longest-running and divisive in the modern era with sport becoming a de facto battleground. In this chapter I discuss the extent to which the Israeli state is using violence to deliberately suppress Palestinian football and curtail the emergence of a successful league structure and national football team. As the sports journalist and activist, Dave Zirin (2014), has suggested, Just imagine if members of Spain’s top-flight World Cup team had been jailed, shot or killed by another country and imagine the international media outrage that would ensue. Imagine if prospective youth players for Brazil were shot in the feet by the military of another nation. But, tragically, these events along the checkpoints have received little attention on the sports page or beyond.

The chapter begins with an outline of the origins of the Israel/Palestine conflict. This is followed by a brief summary of Palestinian football. This chapter then explores the claim that the Israeli military, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), has deliberately targeted Palestinian footballers in an attempt to curtail the development of Palestinian men’s soccer.

J. Dart (*) Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_27

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Background At the end of the nineteenth century, in response to centuries of European anti-Semitic prejudice, Zionist settlers and Jewish refugees began to arrive in Palestine to join a longstanding but small Jewish community (‘Yishuv’). Jewish settlement was enabled by the 1916 Sykes/Picot agreement, in which the British and French governments, upon the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, sought to define mutually agreed spheres of influence and control across the Middle East (Barr, 2012). This was followed by what was to become a very significant statement from the British government, ‘the Balfour Declaration’ of 1917, in which they announced they would support the establishment of a ‘national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine. Between 1920 and 1948 the British governed Palestine under a Mandate, before relinquishing control to a nascent United Nations (Morris, 2001; Pappé, 2006; Segev, 2000, 2001; Stanislawski, 2016). After the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, an event described by Palestinians as ‘al Nakba’ (the catastrophe), the Israeli state has fought in a series of wars, most significantly in 1948, 1967 and 1973. Two conflicts in Lebanon (1982–1985 and 2006), the isolation of the Gaza Strip, the building of the ‘Peace Wall’ and the continued construction of illegal settlements across the ‘West Bank’ have increased international public criticism of the Israeli state. The dispossessed Palestinians moved away from unsuccessful armed struggles to civil protests, Intifadas (uprising), between 1987–1993 and 2000–2005. This change in tactics saw increased international public support coalesce around the nonviolent Boycott, Disinvestment and Sections (BDS) movement (Bakan & Abu-Laban, 2009; Barghouti, 2011; Lim, 2012; White, 2012, 2013; Wiles, 2013). Adopting a human rights approach and drawing inspiration from the successes of the US Civil Rights movement and South African anti-apartheid campaigns, the BDS movement seeks the end of the occupation and colonisation of all Arab lands, an end to the racial discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel and the right of return for Palestinian refugees as enshrined in the UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (adopted December 1948). The movement adopts a decentralised, grassroots structure with groups free to develop their own initiatives and activities (e.g. the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Medical Aid for Palestine, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, and Red Card Israeli Racism are all reasonably autonomous). The Palestinian people are geographically dispersed across Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip (the Occupied Palestinian Territories), refugee camps in

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neighbouring countries or in a global Palestinian diaspora. Approximately 4.9 million Palestinians live in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, split between 3 million in the West Bank and 1.9 million in the Gaza Strip (Berger & Khoury, 2018). The Israeli Civil Administration (ICA) and Palestinian Authority (PA) estimate that between 1.5 and 1.8 million Israeli Arabs live in Israel (constituting between 17% and 20% of Israel’s population). Although they have ‘equal legal rights’, this segment of the Palestinian population has been subject to discrimination in terms of education, employment, health and housing opportunities (Bregman, 2014). The lives of the Palestinians are unlikely to improve given the introduction of the ‘nation state’ law, in 2018, which defines the Israeli state as belonging exclusively to the ‘Jewish people’ (Beaumont, 2018). The violence the Palestinian population has experienced is enduring and has come in many forms. B’Tselem (2017), an Israeli human rights organisation, has shown how the lives of all Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (hereafter, OPT), are subject to a daily routine of violence by Israel’s military, civilian, legal and administrative structures. The violence can be overt, coming from the IDF, the security services, and the religious settlers (Thrall, 2017; Zertal & Eldar, 2007), or at other times the violence can be implicit. Regular acts of symbolic violence includes, but is not limited to, the checkpoints that limit Palestinian movement within the OPT, the denial of travel documents, intense levels of surveillance, the denial of basic human rights (including the ability to work, education, health and security), the denial there was ever a Palestinian population with a legitimate claim to its land, the denial and erasing of Palestinian records, its history, and numerous villages and towns which have vanished from the landscape and maps (Chomsky, 1999; Pappé, 2006). Such acts have become so routine that they attract almost no attention from the mainstream media. Other, more blatant, display of Israeli state violence includes its disproportionate use of physical force to control the Palestinian population. Research by United Nations (2016a), B’Tselem (2017), Human Rights Watch (2017) and Amnesty International (2018) has detailed how Palestinians living in the OPTs are subject to collective punishments (including house/ village/community demolitions), arbitrary road closure and travel restrictions, expulsions, state torture, arrest and detention (with or without charge and/or trial), shootings, assassination and border closure—all of which are justified on the grounds of ensuring Israeli state security. As a consequence of Israel’s actions Palestinians living under occupation do not enjoy basic human rights and instead experience mass unemployment, subsistence wages, poor living conditions, inadequate health services, intermittent power and water supplies,

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sub-standard transport, housing shortages and inferior educational opportunities (Pappé, 2017). Oxfam (n.d.) has reported that nearly 1 in 3 working age Palestinians under 29 are unemployed, with many having little option but to work in ‘illegal’ Israeli settlement factories and farms that are part-funded by the Israeli government. As a consequence, the three million Palestinians who live under occupation have very little control over their lives.

Palestinian Football in the OPT Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) and Anderson (2006) showed how a nation is a ‘community writ large’, and celebrates its civic rituals and symbols, history, landscape, architecture, food, music, art, literature, flag, national anthem, statues, shrines and coinage. Although sport was initially omitted from discussion of the nation, Bairner (2001) suggested that sport offered multiple opportunities to create and foster a sense of nationhood. Responding to Bairner’s proposal, others have gone on to show how sport acts as a site for the construction, expression or (re)imagining of national identity and national heroes (Smith & Porter, 2004; Tomlinson & Young, 2006; Wagg, 2008; Dolan & Connelly, 2019). For the Palestinians, who are a nation without a nation state, sport has become an important expression of their national identity and struggle for nationhood. The Palestine Football Federation which was initially established in 1952 was in 1962 reformed as the Palestine Football Association (PFA) (Blincoe, 2019). The PFA obtained provisional member status of FIFA in 1995 and full membership in 1998 after the creation of the Palestinian Authority. The PFA operates two leagues, one in the West Bank (since 1977), the other in the Gaza Strip, but due to the Israeli occupation and internal disputes, its seasons are often incomplete. Various incarnations of Palestine football league structures have operated with the West Bank Premier League (WBPL) currently the larger and more professional than the league in Gaza. In addition to better living conditions (including a more regular supply of electricity, clean water and freedom of movement, see Tawfiq, 2016), those playing in the West Bank leagues can earn an income from playing football, partly due to subscription television coverage. Thus, the West Bank teams are a popular destination for players of Palestinian origin, as they can often earn more money than they would playing for a club in the Israeli second or third tier (Khaled, 2015). The ongoing tension in Gaza, the political differences between those governing Gaza and the West Bank, and the lack of free movement of players and teams have prevented the creation of a national Palestinian football league structure (Mendel, 2017).

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In 2008–2009 during Israel’s military intervention in Gaza (‘Operation Cast Lead’) substantial damage was caused by the Israeli military to Gaza’s sports infrastructure with the Rafah National Stadium and Palestinian FA buildings destroyed along with damage to 20 sports clubs and 10 fields (BBC, 2012; Tawfiq, 2016). The stadium was targeted again in 2013, with FIFA each time promising to support its reconstruction (Habeeb, 2014). In 2014 the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) in conjunction with a Palestinian NGO, published a report (‘Israel hinders Football in Occupied Palestine: 2008–2014’) which documented numerous human rights violations and the systematic obstruction of the development of Palestinian football (Jennings et  al., 2014). The report detailed the extensive restrictions placed on the movement of players and officials, military violence against players, the prevention of stadium construction and pitch developments, and military actions which had prevented youth tournaments and training schemes from taking place. Further violations were detailed in the Palestine Football Association document ‘Sports Under Siege: Israeli Transgressions against Palestinian sports’ (PFA, 2017) which described the damage caused to the sporting infrastructure and how athletes, officials, coaches, visiting players and the import of sports equipment had all been restricted by Israeli officials. As with the wider Palestinian population, Palestinian football players routinely face checkpoints and travel restrictions not only when travelling between the territories and overseas, but also within the West Bank. This is a particular problem for team sports when, if they want to leave Gaza to participate in a training camp or competition, it is rare that all players are issued travel permits and often results in the whole trip being cancelled (Tawfiq, 2016). Israel regularly refuses to issue travel permits to foreign players and teams to enter the OPT for games or tournaments, citing concerns over national security. In 2000, football teams from Gaza were unable to play against teams from the West Bank and since then the leagues have experienced repeated interruptions. The 2005 season was interrupted four times and only officially ended in 2007 (Mendel, 2017). In 2016, after representations were made to FIFA, Israel agreed to allow players from Gaza to enter the West Bank to play the final match of the Palestine football cup (Hawwash, 2016). Again in 2019 Israel refused to grant access to 31 players and officials from Khadamat Rafah FC (who had just won the Gaza league) to travel a few kilometres to play in the second leg of the final against Balata FC (champions of the West Bank) (Warshaw, 2019). Nicholson (2019a) cites how only the Club President, Vice President, one doctor and one single player were allowed to travel. FIFA continued its position of ‘neutrality’ and refused to get involved in resolving the dispute.

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In 2009, Gaza-based Mahmoud Sarsak, 22, a member of the Palestinian national football team, was arrested whilst entering the West Bank to take part in a training session. He was arrested under the administrative detention laws and tortured and denied a trial or family visitations. After two years in prison Sarsak began a hunger strike and won international support from Glasgow Celtic FC’s Green Brigade, Amnesty International, film director Ken Loach, Noam Chomsky, and footballers Eric Cantona, Frédéric Kanouté, Abou Diaby and Lilian Thuram. During his 92-day hunger strike representation was made to the Israel Football Association (IFA) from UEFA, FIFA and FIFPro (an organisation which represents professional football players). Sarsak ended his hunger strike in exchange for early release; but after detention without charge for three years, his football career was over. Zirin (2014) suggests that Sarsak was detained because ‘Israel was afraid that he would become a sporting hero for his people’. Sarsak is just one example of many young, aspiring football players targeted by Israeli security forces with numerous media reports detailing the extent of this abuse (Nieuwhof, 2013; Gelblum, 2014; UNHRC, 2019; Wall, 2014).

Shoot-to-Kill The targeting of Palestinian youth by the Israeli forces has become so commonplace, it rarely features in the mainstream media. The Israeli state spends significant time and money in seeking to shape the domestic and international media narratives, but with the advent of social media has found it much more difficult to control the coverage, which now includes internet posting of ‘live’ footage of shootings which makes it more difficult to justify. Palestinian deaths are typically described as unintended consequences (or ‘collateral damage’), but there is evidence that indicates the IDF has a policy of targeting high-profile Palestinian politicians. This has resulted in a situation where there was no-one left, with any credibility, who could negotiate with the Israeli state. The number of casualties is especially shocking when one includes children, innocent civilians and peace activists shot by a single bullet fired by an IDF sniper.1 This is not a recent occurrence; back in 2003, the Palestinian  This is not a new tactic. International peace campaigners, killed as a result of Israeli action, include Iain Hook, James Miller, Rachel Corrie, and Tom Hurndall who was shot in the head by an IDF sniper despite wearing a bright orange jacket signifying he was a foreigner (McGreal, 2012). That these individuals were non-Palestinian and ‘Westerners’ meant that their cases drew international media attention, unlike much of the routine, day-to-day violence experienced by resident Palestinians. 1

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Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) identified a policy of ‘indiscriminate shooting, excessive force, a shoot-to-kill policy and the deliberate targeting of children’ (McGreal, 2003). In 2001, during the Second Intifada (‘uprising’), 11-year-old Khalil al-­ Mughrabi was shot dead by the Israeli army as he played football with a group of friends near the security fence. The death of al-Mughrabi was subject to an investigation after the Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, who forced an inquiry to be held (B’Tselem, n.d.). The Israeli army’s response to this incident was to become a template when facing calls for inquiries into deaths of Palestinian civilians. The response was one of obfuscation and denial with an accompanying narrative that defended the actions of the IDF and its soldiers, who when faced with violence, acted with ‘restraint and control’ (Konrad, 2018). US sport journalist and activist, Dave Zirin, drew attention to the increasing number of deaths of Palestinian footballers. Zirin identified the case of Palestinian footballer, Tariq Al Quto, who was killed by the IDF during the Second Intifada in 2004 (BBC, 2004). Zirin (2014) goes on to detail the killing of three national team players: Ayman Alkurd (34), Shadi Sbakhe (27) and Wajeh Mostahe (24) in 2009, as a consequence of Israeli missiles fired into Gaza during its ‘Operation Cast Lead’ in which 1000 Palestinians were killed and over 5000 injured. Zirin (2014) also cites Omar Abu Rios [Rwayyis] (a former goalkeeper for the national team), who was arrested in 2012 by Israeli police on ‘terrorism charges’, as was Muhammad Nimr (striker for the national team), and Zakaria Issa (former international footballer) who was imprisoned for 16 years. While many instances of killing and injury go un(der) reported by the foreign media, one incident did generate international condemnation. Four brothers, Ismael Mohammed Bakr (9), Zakaria Ahed Bakr (10), Ahed Atif Bakr (10) and Mohammed Ramiz Bakr (11), were killed while playing football on a beach after Israeli warships opened fire in ‘Operation Protective Edge’ (Sengupta, 2014). During this same period, Ahed Zaqout (Ahid Zakut) (49) was killed while sleeping in his apartment block. Zaqout was a star in the 1980s and 1990s and played in the first ever Palestine national team, and played against a team of French stars in 1994, four years before Palestine was accepted into the FIFA ‘family’. He went on to coach Riadi Gaza to a championship title and then host a popular sports programme in Gaza. During this nine-day period of Israeli aggression 213 Palestinians were killed with a further 1200 injured, the overwhelming majority of whom were civilians.

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The year 2014 also saw a high-profile incident involving Johhar Nasser Jawhar (19) and Adam Abd Al-Raouf Halabiya2 (17) both of whom were trying to cross at one of the checkpoints in the West Bank. On their way home from a training session at the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium in al-Ram in the central West Bank, the youngsters were shot multiple times in their legs and feet, beaten up, and had dogs set upon them (Robbins, 2014; Zahriyeh, 2015); the injuries they sustained prevented them from ever playing football again. The IDF claimed it was attempting to throw explosive devices at police officers. In March 2018, Palestinians living in Gaza began large-scale protests in an attempt to break the decade-long blockade; this became widely known as the ‘Great March of Return’. These protests, held alongside the border fence, led to a sharp upturn in the shooting of Palestinians and eventually generated an UN Inquiry to investigate the levels of violence and deaths caused by the IDF. One of those taking part in the border fence protests, Mohammed Khalil (23), who played for Al-Salah FC. Khalil was shot in the leg, destroying his knee. Mobile phone footage of the incident of the shooting was posted on the internet by a Gaza-based journalist, Mohammed Kareem (Weiss & Robbins, 2018). Khalil was shot with an explosive type of ammunition known as ‘the butterfly bullet’ which explodes upon impact, pulverising tissue, arteries and bone, while causing severe internal injuries. Gadzo (2018) highlights how these explosive rounds are banned internationally under the Geneva Convention because of the ‘unnecessary injury and suffering caused from large bullet wounds’. Cook (2013) has suggested that Israel is using the OPT to test various military hardware which it then sells on the international arms market as ‘battle tested’. Israel is the largest per capita weapons exporter in the world (Cook, 2017). The shooting of Khalil generated wider awareness when he called on Argentina to cancel its upcoming friendly against Israel. As a result of negative publicity, Argentina did cancel the game, citing concerns over the safety of its players. Other footballers also shot during their participation in ‘Great Return March’ protests included Mohammed al-Ajoury (17) whose leg was amputated after being shot by the IDF in 2018 (The Palestine Chronicle, 2018), Abed el-Fatah Abed e-Nabi, a Palestinian football player shot in his leg who posted footage of the incident on social media (Sanchez, 2018) and Mohammad Obeid (23) who also played for the Al-Salah club before he was shot in both knees (Yaghi, 2018).

 Adam’s mother was originally from the Ukraine and although allowed to visit her son in hospital in Jerusalem, she was also threatened with deportation (RCIR, 2014). 2

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All those shot needed surgery that was often unavailable in Gaza. Hospitals in Gaza are unable to respond to the scope and complexity of the injuries inflicted and lack the necessary medicines equipment, qualified staff, and regular supply of electricity and clean water (Landau, 2019). This is because Israel controls what medical equipment and who (here, medical staff) can enter the OPT, at the same time as preventing those injured from leaving to seek medical treatment abroad. The IDF has confirmed that its snipers had orders to target the limbs of protestors as part of the military rules of engagement, and has been noted they do this because of the pressures it places on the Palestinian authorities, not only in terms of the immediate medical attention required but also the resources needed to provide long-term medical rehabilitation and care. As a result of the injuries and deaths caused by live fire the UN launched an Inquiry on the 2018 Gaza protests (Landau, 2019). As was expected, the Israeli state chose not to cooperate with UN investigators. In February 2019 the United Nations found that the Palestinian demonstrations did not constitute combat or military campaigns (UNHRC, 2019). The report found that the Israeli Security Forces had killed 183 protesters with live ammunition, 35 of whom were children; 3 of those killed were clearly marked paramedics, with 2 others clearly marked as journalists. The Commission determined that Israeli snipers had shot at journalists, health workers, children and persons with disabilities, knowing they were clearly recognisable as such. However, without meaningful international sanction, it would appear that the IDF feels it is immune from censure from the international community.

The Official Response of the Israeli State As noted previously, the attitude of the Israeli state, and some of its supporters can be described as both delusional and arrogant, underpinned by their attempt to dehumanise the Palestinians. In response to the disproportionate treatment shown towards Palestinian protestors, the Israeli state claims it is necessary on the grounds of national security. In 2003, in response to criticism of Israeli aggression, the Chief Rabbi in Britain, described the Israeli military as the most humanitarian army in the world because of its efforts to avoid killing non-combatants (McGreal, 2003). In 2018, the attitude that Palestinian life was worth less than Jewish life was shown by the Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman who stated that the killing of Palestinians was acceptable because there were ‘no innocent people’ living in the Gaza Strip (Lazarof, 2018).

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Whilst the Israeli Football Association (IFA) claims it has worked to support the movement of Palestinian football players to attend training and matches, the Israeli state has a default position that the Palestinians are using football as a cover for terrorist activities. In the struggle for public opinion the Israeli state has claimed it is judged by different standards to those made of other countries. Various Israeli advocacy groups (nominally independent but usually pro-Israel and often funded by Zionists) are using hasbara (Hebrew for explanation) to justify its actions (Dart, 2016). The Israeli state has made significant investment in its public diplomacy machinery to make ad hominem attacks on BDS activists (‘they are anti-Semitic’) in an attempt to generate a counter-deligitimisation narrative (Oren, 2016). The Israeli state is also using legal methods (‘from warfare to lawfare’, and ‘blacklisting’) to discredit those who document the human rights abuses of Palestinians and/or propose boycott, disinvestment or sanctions of the Israeli state (Schulte, 2016).

The Position of UEFA and FIFA The position of football’s governing body is highly problematic. FIFA does not want to be seen as being political and has thus either ignored or vacillated on adhering to its own statues when responding to the actions of the Israeli state. On all the points raised earlier in this chapter regarding the treatment of Palestinian football, FIFA has been virtually silent. FIFA appears to be guilty of using double standards; willing to become involved in certain aspects of the conflict, such as arranging ‘Peace Matches’ between the different parties, and fining clubs whose fans express support for the Palestinians, most notably Glasgow Celtic FC (McKenna, 2016); however, FIFA is less willing to follow its own human rights policy when it comes to the Palestinians (or the six Israeli clubs located in the OPT, see Dart, 2018). While FIFA eventually got involved in the Sarsak case, it remained mute on the wider issue of free movement of players, officials and equipment/travel restrictions placed on Palestinian players and officials. However, FIFA officials were quick to involve themselves in the case of the footballer Hakeem Al-Araibi, who as an Australian refugee, was detained in Thailand at the request of the Bahraini government (Ellis-Petersen & Davidson, 2019). Al-Araibi’s case was immediately taken up by high-profile footballers, the Australian government, the IOC and the world players’ union FIFPro. So serious have been the attacks of Palestinian footballers and their footballing infrastructure and the number of violations committed by the Israelis that FIFA was obliged to form a committee to monitor Israeli actions.

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However, after much vacillation FIFA disbanded its working group on Palestine/Israel, refusing to take any action. As Nicholson (2019c) concluded ‘It was a stunning piece of political duplicity from the FIFA president who has shown zero support for Palestinian football’. When one of FIFA’s own officials, Susan Shalabi, vice president of the Palestine FA, was arrested at the Israeli border upon returning to Palestine having attended the opening of the 2019 Asian Cup tournament (Nicholson, 2019b), FIFA was reluctant to intervene. FIFA General Secretary, Gianni Infantino, took little note of Palestinian football, until, US president Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, took an interest in ‘solving the conflict’ and proposed building some football pitches in the region in a naive attempt to launch a ‘sport for peace’ initiative (see Dart, 2019). Consecutive Israeli governments have restricted the importation of building materials into the Gaza Strip (U.N., 2016a) with all donations of sport equipment from international sports organisations subject to restriction on entry to the OPT if the Israelis feel they could be used for terrorist activity. Thus, FIFA’s promise to (re)build football pitches in the OPT would require Israel to allow equipment and engineers with the necessary expertise into Palestine to build the pitches; Israel has typically been unwilling to allow this (Nicholson, 2019c).

Fighting Back Individual athletes have shown support for the Palestinians, including retired Malian-French professional footballer Freddie Kanoute who organised a campaign against Israel hosting a UEFA tournament in 2013 (Dart, 2016), Fleetwood Town manager Joey Barton who tweeted criticism of the Gaza bombing and English cricketer Moeen Ali who wore a pro-Palestine wristband (Bacchi, 2016; Burdsey, 2015; Rice, 2014). At the time of writing, however, there were no significant levels of support for the Palestinians coming from the world of sport, perhaps due, in part to Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters’ suggestion that individuals are ‘scared off’ (Gallagher, 2016), and fearful of being labelled as anti-Semitic were they to express support for the Palestinian footballers shot by the Israeli military. However, support for the Palestinians has increased with protests against Israeli sports teams often resulting in sanctions by sports governing bodies (MailOnline, 2014; Zirin, 2014; Gellar, 2015). Support for the Palestinians has also been generated by amateur football teams that have visited the OPT (FARE, 2015; Simpson, 2016), and in demonstrations when Israeli (national) teams play, by groups such as ‘Football against Apartheid’, ‘Red Card Israeli

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Racism’ and by fans of Glasgow Celtic FC, despite repeated threats of sanctions by UEFA (McKenna, 2016). In an attempt to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians, supporters have protested at sportswear manufacturer Puma’s sponsorship of the Israeli Football Association, not least because of its support for the six football teams located in Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. The participation of these teams in Israeli leagues is a direct violation of the rules of football’s global governing body FIFA and of international law (Dart, 2018). Grassroots protests have led to the cancellation of a friendly between Argentina and Israel (Guardian, 2018) with activists calling for, but ultimately failing to get the Argentinian and Uruguayan national football teams to cancel its ‘friendly’ in Israel. Activists see the use of sport by the Israeli state as an attempt to present itself as a ‘normal country’, to normalise its occupation and treatment of the Palestinians and thus acting to ‘sports-wash’ its crimes. Parallels are drawn between Israel and Apartheid South Africa, with the slogan ‘No sport in an abnormal society’ increasingly being heard.

Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism The recent adoption by some groups and political parties of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s ‘working definition of antisemitism’ has been highly controversial and problematic, not least because it conflates Jews with Israel and allows for very little criticism of the Israeli state to be made (see Philo et al., 2019). Arguments against the IHRA were stated in an open letter written by Palestinian trade unions and other groups who stated it was a, non-legally binding definition attempts to erase Palestinian history, demonise solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality, suppress freedom of expression, and shield Israel’s far-right regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid from effective measures of accountability in accordance to international law. (PCS, 2018)

In short, the IHRA document has become a genuine threat to freedom of expression with legitimate criticism of the Israeli state being dismissed as anti-Semitic. As Corrigan (2009) has noted, accusing those who are critical of the actions of the Israeli state and of Zionism as somehow being anti-Semetic has no rational basis, just as it makes no sense to accuse those who were critical of

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South African Apartheid as being racist towards white people, or those opposed to Nazi policies towards Jews was somehow being racist towards all German peoples. Many pro-Palestinian activists would argue that the expansionist Israeli and Zionist political agenda will continue to go unchecked until it is subject to direct and sustained pressure. Given this pressure is unlikely to come from within Israel (given its shift rightwards), the international community must become a key advocate for the Palestinian people. de Jong (2012) rightly recognises that the contemporary situation in Israel/Palestine is a human rights struggle and not a ‘value free’ exercise. Academics, sport governing bodies, and sportsmen/women who were involved in the, now historic, struggle against South African Apartheid are invited to consider their position in relation to the contemporary Israel/Palestine conflict. In order to avoid being accused of anti-Semitism, it is essential to maintain a clear and absolute distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, and to distinguish between individual Jews and the actions of the State of Israel. As Klug (2013: 470) has suggested ‘if Zionism is seen as the only alternative to antisemitism, then it follows that hostility to Zionism (or to the state of Israel as the expression or fulfilment of Zionism) must be anti-Semitic’. Those opposed to the racist ideology of the Israeli state and who are opposed to the political ideology of Zionism, cannot automatically be dismissed as racist or anti-Semitic. It is the Israeli state and its supporters who have deliberately sought to exploit anti-Semitism by conflating Zionism with Judaism, as evidenced in the IHRA tragedy, and in creating a situation whereby any criticism of Israel or Zionism is seen as anti-Semitic (Greenwald & Fishman, 2016; Habeeb, 2016). This tactic has proved effective in closing down support for the Palestinians.

Conclusion Sport will inevitably feature low on the list of priorities of those living in an inherently violent society and in which those affected have no control over their lives. As research from the United Nations (2016b), B’Tselem (2017), Human Rights Watch (2017) and Amnesty International (2018) have each shown, Palestinians living under occupation lack the basic human rights of security, health, freedom of movement, education and work. The five million Palestinians in the OPT have, for the past 70 years, been subject to systematic ethnic cleansing, house/village/community demolitions, collective punishments, travel restrictions, state torture, detention without trial, assassination, mass unemployment, subsistence wages, poor living conditions, inadequate

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health services, sub-standard transport, housing shortages and inferior educational opportunities. Targeting the structure of football and individual footballers has a ripple effect on wider Palestinian society. It was noted earlier that Anderson (2006) proposed that all nations are imagined or constructed upon a sense of national identity which combines invented traditions and popular mythologies. Following this, a nation’s football team can act as an important display of/for such ‘invented traditions’ and unrealised fantasies. Hobsbawm (1990: 143) claimed the cultural production of football seizes the popular imagination and that, What has made sport so uniquely effective a medium for inculcating national feelings, at all events for males, is the ease with which even the least political or public individuals can identify with the nation as symbolized by young persons excelling at what practically every man wants, or at one time in his life has wanted, to be good at. The imagined community of millions seems more real as a team of eleven named people.

It is concluded that the Israeli state has, deliberately or otherwise, sought to destroy (symbolically and physically) the lives and aspirations of individual Palestinian footballers and of football in the OPT. What is needed is for the international ‘footballing family’ to become more aware of the increasing number of Palestinian footballers who have died or become amputees as a result of being shot by Israeli snipers. If more were known about the conditions under which Palestinians played their football, they might be less willing to allow Israel to ‘sportswash’ its brutal military occupation, and its maiming and killing of Palestinians.

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Ellis-Petersen, H., & Davidson, H. (2019). ‘Please help me’: Refugee footballer Hakeem al-Araibi tells of his Thai jail ordeal. The Guardian. https://www. theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/24/please-­h elp-­m e-­r efugee-­f ootballer-­ hakeem-­al-­araibi-­tells-­of-­his-­thai-­jail-­ordeal Fare. (2015). UK women’s teams visit Palestine in solidarity football tour. FARE Network. http://www.farenet.org/news/uk-­womens-­teams-­visit-­palestine-­ solidarity-­football-­tour/ Gadzo, M. (2018). Palestinians face explosive bullets, dangerous gas bombs. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/palestinians-­face-­explosive-­ bullets-­dangerous-­gas-­bombs-­180501091514736.html Gallagher, P. (2016). Roger waters: Pink Floyd star on why his fellow musicians are terrified to speak out against Israel. The Independent. http://www.independent. co.uk/news/people/roger-­w aters-­p ink-­f loyd-­i srael-­b oycott-­b an-­p alestine-­ a6884971.html Gelblum, B. (2014). Soccer is under fire in Palestine. VICE. https://www.vice.com/ en_us/article/football-­israel-­palestine-­discrimination-­fifa Gellar, R. (2015). Palestine, the IRA, and a soccer team’s solidarity. Vice Sports. https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/palestine-­t he-­i ra-­a nd-­a -­s occer-­t eams-­ solidarity Greenwald, G., & Fishman, A. (2016). Greatest threat to free speech in the west: Criminalizing activism against Israeli occupation. The Intercept. https:// theintercept.com/2016/02/16/greatest-­t hreat-­t o-­f ree-­s peech-­i n-­t he-­w est-­ criminalizing-­activism-­against-­israeli-­occupation/ Guardian. (2018). Argentina ‘call off’ controversial World Cup warm-up against Israel. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/05/ argentina-­friendly-­israel-­jerusalem-­cancelled-­lionel-­messi Habeeb, N. (2014). Sports and violence: A red card for Israel. Foreign Policy in Focus. https://fpif.org/sports-­violence-­red-­card-­israel/ Habeeb, S. (2016). Cry anti-Semitism: Israeli conference targets BDS. Middle East Eye. http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/cry-­antisemitism-­israeli-­conference-­ takes-­aim-­bds-­1765488731 Hawwash, K. (2016). Hey Israel, give Palestinians a sporting chance. Middle East Eye. http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/give-­palestine-­sporting-­chance-­israel-­ 967625887 Hobsbawm, E. (1990). Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge University Press. Hobsbawm, E., & Ranger, T. (eds) (1983). The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge University Press. Human Rights Watch. (2017). Israel: 50 years of occupation abuses. https://www.hrw. org/news/2017/06/04/israel-­50-­years-­occupation-­abuses Jennings, M., Kuttab, J., & Shalabi-Molano, S. (2014). Israel hinders football in occupied Palestine: 2008–2014. Nonviolence International and Palestine Football Association. http://nonviolenceinternational.net/?p=2232

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Khaled, A. (2015). Football in times of crisis: Palestine’s game endures in the face of tragedy. The National. https://www.thenational.ae/sport/football-­in-­times-­of-­ crisis-­palestine-­s-­game-­endures-­in-­the-­face-­of-­tragedy-­1.1743 Klug, B. (2013). Interrogating ‘new anti-Semitism’. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(3): 468–482. Konrad, E. (2018). Videos show Israeli soldiers sniping unarmed protesters in Gaza. +972. https://972mag.com/videos-­show-­israeli-­soldiers-­sniping-­unarmed-­ protesters-­in-­gaza/134282/ Landau, N. (2019). UN council: Israel intentionally shot children and journalists in Gaza. Haaretz. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-­news/un-­council-­israel-­ intentionally-­shot-­children-­and-­journalists-­in-­gaza-­1.6979358 Lazarof. T. (2018). ‘There are no innocents in Gaza’, says Israeli defense minister. The Jerusalem Post. https://www.jpost.com/Arab-­Israeli-­Conflict/There-­are-­no-­ innocents-­in-­Gaza-­says-­Israeli-­defense-­minister-­549173 Lim, A. (Ed.). (2012). The case for sanctions against Israel. Verso. MailOnline. (2014). Israeli football players are attacked with flying kicks by pro-­ Palestinians who invade the pitch during friendly match in Austria. MailOnline. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­2703713/Maccabi-­Haifa-­s-­friendly-­ Lille-­s topped-­e arly-­p ro-­Palestinian-­p rotesters-­s torm-­p itch-­ATTACK-­ players.html McGreal, C. (2003). ‘I can’t imagine anyone who considers himself a human being can do. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jul/28/israel McGreal, C. (2012). Rachel Corrie verdict exposes Israeli military mindset. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/28/rachel-­ corrie-­verdict-­exposes-­israeli-­military-­mindset McKenna, K. (2016). Why Celtic fans flew the flag for Palestine. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/27/why-­celtic-­fans-­ flew-­flag-­for-­palestine Mendel, Y. (2017). The Palestinian soccer league: A microcosm of a national struggle. +972. https://972mag.com/palestinian-­soccer-­league-­gears-­up-­for-­ nailbiter-­final/106184/ Morris, B. (2001). Righteous victims: A history of the Zionist-Arab conflict, 1881–2001. Vintage Books. Nicholson, P. (2019a). Palestine forced to postpone Cup Final after Israeli refuse 31 visa applications. Inside Football. http://www.insideworldfootball.com/2019/ 07/04/palestine-­forced-­postpone-­cup-­final-­israeli-­refuse-­31-­visa-­applications/ Nicholson, P. (2019b). Palestine lawyer asks if FIFA’s new human rights agenda is just a callous political tool? Inside Football. http://www.insideworldfootball. com/2019/01/31/palestine-­l awyer-­a sks-­f ifas-­n ew-­h uman-­r ights-­a genda-­ just-­callous-­political-­tool/ Nicholson, P. (2019c). Infantino’s hollow words on Palestine forget his own cynical football oppression of the country. Inside Football. http://www. insideworldfootball.com/2019/06/27/infantinos-­h ollow-­w ords-­p alestine-­ forget-­cynical-­football-­oppression-­country/

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Nieuwhof, A. (2013). Move football tournament out of Israel, says growing campaign. The Electronic Intifada. http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-­nieuwhof/ move-­football-­tournament-­out-­israel-­says-­growing-­campaign Oren, A. (2016). Israel setting up ‘dirty tricks’ unit to find, spread dirt on BDS groups. Haaretz. http://www.haaretz.com/israel-­news/.premium-­1.725684 Oxfam. (n.d.). What is Oxfam’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict? Oxfam International. https://www.oxfam.org/en/countries/occupied-­palestinian-­ territory-­and-­israel/what-­oxfams-­position-­israel-­palestine-­conflict Pappé, I. (2006). The ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Oneworld Publications. Pappé, I. (2017). The biggest prison on earth: A history of the occupied territories. Oneworld Publications. PCS. (2018). PSC endorses Palestinian civil society statement on IHRA. Palestine Solidarity Campaign. https://www.palestinecampaign.org/psc-­endorses-­ palestinian-­civil-­society-­statement-­on-­ihra/ PFA. (2017). Sports under Siege Israeli transgressions against Palestinian Sports Israeli transgressions against Palestinian sports. http://cartonrougeapartheidisrael. weebly.com/uploads/1/2/6/0/12608354/rapport_anglais.pdf Philo, G., Berry, M., Schlosberg, J., Lerman, A., & Miller, D. (2019). Bad news for labour. Antisemitism, the party and public belief. Pluto Press. RCIR. (2014). Palestinian footballers Johar and Adam shot by Israeli forces never to play again; Rajoub calls for Israel’s removal from FIFA. Red Card Israeli Racism. http://rcir.org.uk/?p=594 Rice, S. (2014). Joey Barton and Yossi Benayoun become involved in Twitter row over Israel-Gaza conflict. In The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-­and-­comment/joey-­barton-­and-­yossi-­benayoun­become-­involved-­in-­twitter-­row-­over-­israel-­gaza-­conflict-­9628185.html Robbins, A. (2014). State Dept to ‘check out’ vicious attack on Palestinian athletes. Mondoweiss. https://mondoweiss.net/2014/03/vicious-­palestinian-­athletes/ Sanchez, R. (2018). Israeli military defends tactics as video appears to show unarmed Gaza protesters shot by snipers. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/2018/03/31/israeli-­military-­defends-­tactics-­video-­appears-­show-­unarmed/ Schulte, E. (2016). How do you stop a blacklist? Socialist Worker. https://socialistworker.org/2016/08/04/how-­do-­you-­stop-­a-­blacklist Segev, T. (2000). The seventh million: The Israelis and the holocaust (H.  Watzman, Trans.). Owl Books. Segev, T. (2001). One Palestine, complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate. Abacus. Sengupta, K. (2014). Israel-Gaza conflict: Four boys killed while playing football on beach after Israeli warships open fire. The Independent. https://www.independent. co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/israel-­gaza-­conflict-­leaflets-­dropped-­on-­northern-­ gaza-­ordering-­100000-­to-­evacuate-­amid-­fears-­of-­9609788.html

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Simpson, W. (2016). Easton cowboys and cowgirls: A “political” sports club that is not political and “anarchist” sports club that is not actually anarchist. Sport in Society, 18(4), 466–476. Smith, A., & Porter, D. (2004). Sport and national identity in the post-war world. Routledge. Stanislawski, M. (2016). Zionism: A very short introduction. OU Press. Tawfiq, M. (2016). Palestinian athletes face Israeli hurdles. The Electronic Intifada. h t t p s : / / e l e c t r o n i c i n t i f a d a . n e t / c o n t e n t / p a l e s t i n i a n -­a t h l e t e s -­f a c e -­ israeli-­hurdles/18466 The Palestine Chronicle. (2018). ‘My football career is over’: Gaza athlete who lost his leg to Israeli bullet speaks of his ordeal (VIDEO). http://www. p a l e s t i n e c h ro n i c l e . c o m / i -­d i d n t -­t h i n k -­m y -­l e g -­w o u l d -­b e -­l i k e -­t h i s -­ palestinian-­who-­lost-­limb-­by-­israeli-­snipers-­speak-­video/ Thrall, N. (2017). The only language they understand: Forcing compromise in Israel and Palestine. Metropolitan Books. Tomlinson, A., & Young, C. (Eds.). (2006). National identity and global sports events: Culture, politics, and spectacle in the Olympics and the Football World Cup. State University of New York Press. U.N. (2016a). COMMON COUNTRY ANALYSIS 2016 leave no one behind: A perspective on vulnerability and structural disadvantage in Palestine. http://www. unsco.org/Documents/Special/UNCT/CCA_Report_En.pdf U.N. (2016b). Freedom of movement. Human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the secretary-general. February 2016. https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/ PS/SG_Report_FoM_Feb2016.pdf UNHRC. (2019). Report of the UN Commission of inquiry on the 2018 protests in the OPT. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIOPT/Pages/ Report2018OPT.aspx Wagg, S. (2008). Cricket and national identity in the postcolonial age: Following on. Routledge. Wall, J. (2014). Does the IDF target Palestinian soccer players? Wallwritings. https:// wallwritings.me/2014/03/17/does-­the-­idf-­target-­palestinian-­soccer-­players/ Warshaw, A. (2019). Israel buy Argentina vs Uruguay friendly igniting new Palestinian complaints. Inside Football. http://www.insideworldfootball.com/2019/11/01/ israel-­buy-­argentina-­vs-­uruguay-­friendly-­igniting-­new-­palestinian-­complaints/ Weiss, P., & Robbins, A. (2018). Video appears to show Israeli shot ending Palestinian footballer’s career as he stands with selfie stick. Mondoweiss. https://mondoweiss. net/2018/04/appears-­palestinians-­footballer/ White, B. (2012). Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, discrimination and democracy. Pluto Press. White, B. (2013). Israeli apartheid: A beginners guide (2nd ed.). Pluto Press.

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Wiles, R. (Ed.). (2013). Generation Palestine: Voices from the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. Pluto Press. Yaghi, A. (2018). Football dreams battle Israeli bullets. The Electronic Intifada. https:// electronicintifada.net/content/football-­dreams-­battle-­israeli-­bullets/24201 Zahriyeh, E. (2015). Fans cheer on Palestinian soccer team in its first major tournament at Asian Cup in Australia. Al-Jazeera America. http://america.aljazeera.com/ articles/2015/1/12/palestinian-­soccerteammakeshistorydespitelosstojapan.html Zertal, I., & Eldar, A. (2007). Lords of the land. The war over Israel’s settlements in the occupied territories, 1967–2007. Nation Books. Zirin, D. (2014). A red line for FIFA? Israel, violence and what’s left of Palestinian soccer. Nation. https://www.thenation.com/article/red-­line-­fifa-­israel-­violence-­ and-­whats-­left-­palestinian-­soccer/

Part VII Sport, Harm, and the Politics of Wellbeing

The Politics of Safeguarding and Protecting Children in Sport in England Joanne McVeigh and Melanie Lang

Introduction The last 20 years has seen one of the biggest transformations of the UK sport policy landscape for children ever witnessed. In just these two decades, sport has gone from being on the periphery of legislation and policy on child welfare to a key institution with legal and moral responsibility for safeguarding and protecting children in the UK. This shift is, in large part, the result of political and social changes in how children’s welfare has been conceptualised, managed and operationalised, which has included developments in ideas about how the state thinks about children and what happens to them, its relationship with children and how it constructs the responsibilities of professionals working with children (Parton, 2014). The impact of these changes on sport in the UK has been particularly profound, yet there has been limited academic discussion of the history or politics behind these developments in sport to date. As eminent child welfare scholar Nigel Parton (2014) argues, analysing historical and contemporary developments in child welfare legislation and

J. McVeigh (*) Department of Sport and Physical Activity, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK e-mail: [email protected] M. Lang Department of Social Sciences, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_28

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policy, along with critical appraisal of resultant developments in practice, can provide crucial insights into the relationship between policymaking and practice and help us make sense of the current context. In recognition of this, this chapter traces the incorporation and development of child welfare initiatives in sport and explores the ideologies and the key events behind these developments. The aim is to provide a “history of the present” (Skehill, 2007, p. 449) so as, to paraphrase Skehill (2007, pp. 452–454), to problematise the contemporary nature and form of child welfare in sport in the present by recourse to its past. We begin the chapter by discussing developments in child welfare legislation beyond sport, in order to highlight changing discursive conceptualisations of child welfare and the implications of this for child-related settings. We then map these changes against developments in sport to show how political discourse on ‘safeguarding’ children, in tandem with high-profile ‘focusing events’ of coaches sexually abusing athletes, converged to position sport as a key institution with responsibility for protecting and promoting children’s welfare. Finally, we discuss the impact of this rapidly changing policy landscape on sport, highlighting the challenges and gaps that remain in sports organisations’ approach to child welfare.

F rom ‘Protecting’ to ‘Safeguarding’ Children: A Discursive Shift Almost 90% of children and young people in England (86.4% in 2017/18 according to Lange, 2019) take part in sport, with those who are members of sports clubs being more physically active than those who are not (Telford et al., 2016). Given the many acknowledged benefits of sports participation— increased physical and mental health and wellbeing, self-esteem, and individual as well as social and economic development (Department of Health, Physical Activity, Health Improvement and Protection, 2011; Eime et al., 2013; Sport England, 2018)—this is without doubt a cause for celebration. Conversely, in recent years sport has been identified as a site where the abuse and exploitation of children not only occur but can be facilitated and concealed by the culture of sport (Brackenridge et al., 2010; Lang, 2010a, 2010b). Birkland and Schwaeble (2019) note how ‘focusing events’—sudden, relatively uncommon, harmful events that come to be known to policymakers and the wider public—can be important triggers for legislative and policy change. In child protection terms, the murder of eight-year-old Victoria Climbié is one such event: it led to significant changes in child welfare law,

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policy and practice in England (Munro & Calder, 2005), with profound consequences for what child welfare is, who has responsibility for children’s welfare and how this is managed. These consequences, which are mapped out later in this chapter, changed the landscape of sport, making sports organisations responsible for the first time not only for protecting children from child abuse and maltreatment but also for preventing other forms of harm to children, promoting their positive development, and implementing wide-ranging child welfare strategies. Victoria Climbié was murdered in 2000 by her great aunt and her great aunt’s partner after suffering months of abuse and neglect at their hands (Littlemore, 2003). Social services, the police and three other agencies had contact with Victoria and expressed concerns about her welfare yet failed to share information on her case and, following the discourse of minimum state intervention enshrined in then-Children Act 1989, were reluctant to take action (Munro & Calder, 2005). The inquiry into Victoria’s death (Laming, 2003) highlighted limitations in the way providers of services for children shared information and cooperated in child welfare cases. It also criticised the then-emphasis in legislation and statutory guidance that the role of key agencies, such as police and social services, was primarily to react to abuse concerns as and when they occur rather than to intervene early to prevent or mitigate against them occurring in the first place (Munro & Calder, 2005). Victoria’s murder and the resulting criticisms of the then-child protection system in England led to the publication in 2003 by the Labour government of the initiative Every Child Matters: Change for Children (Department for Education and Skills [DfES], 2003) and, a year later, its related legislation, The Children Act 2004 (DfES, 2004). These signalled important changes in the government’s vision for child welfare provision and practice and, while Every Child Matters was quietly archived in 2010 under the new Conservative government, its legislative basis, The Children Act 2004, remains the legal framework for children’s welfare in England. Indeed, it and current statutory guidance such as Working Together to Safeguard Children (Department for Education [DfE], 2018) retain many of the features that first appeared in Every Child Matters, including a focus on ‘safeguarding’ children as well as protecting them from abuse and maltreatment (more on this below). The government’s new legislative and policy framework for child welfare went far beyond what had, until then, been concerned largely with protecting the relatively small number of children at risk of abuse and maltreatment. Instead, the discourse shifted towards promoting children’s welfare more broadly through a more holistic approach that placed a new emphasis on preventative measures and on ensuring ‘the best outcomes’ for all children, not

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just those at risk of abuse and maltreatment (Parton, 2014). The purpose of this new approach was to intervene early to prevent social problems before they occurred and promote the welfare and wellbeing of all children throughout their childhood and into adulthood (Parton, 2008). One of the most significant changes was the discursive shift towards ‘safeguarding’—the term first appeared in the Every Child Matters green paper in 2003 and features throughout The Children Act 2004 and its related documentation (as evidenced in the title of the government’s statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children). Indeed, the terms ‘child protection’, ‘child abuse’ and ‘risk’—the buzz words of The Children Act 1989 (Department of Health, 1989)—were, and still are, largely absent from these documents, replaced by the terms ‘safeguarding’, ‘needs’ and ‘strengths’ (Munro & Calder, 2005). This is more than a simple change in terminology. The government (DfE, 2018, p. 6) defines ‘safeguarding’ as: • protecting children from maltreatment • preventing impairment of children’s health or development • ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care • taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes As this definition suggests, the use of the term ‘safeguarding’ goes beyond child protection. Use of the term in The Children Act 2004 and related guidance signalled a move away from predominantly reactive services for a small number of ‘at-risk’ children (those experiencing or at risk of experiencing abuse and neglect) and towards a more preventative range of services for all children ‘in need’ (Munro & Calder, 2005). The ‘safeguarding agenda’ is more broad-ranging in its remit, covering all issues that have the potential to disrupt a child’s health and development, regardless of their cause (Parton, 2014). In other words, emphasis is shifted away from the previous focus on predominantly protecting children from abuse and maltreatment, particularly sexual abuse and death, which had dominated previous government discourse and inquiries as well as media coverage (Lonne & Parton, 2014), and towards adopting a wider concern for all children. That is, protecting children from maltreatment becomes only one part of ‘safeguarding’ children, alongside much more wide-reaching (and arguably vague) requirements such as ‘promoting children’s welfare’ (DfE, 2018, p. 5), “preventing impairment of children’s health or development” and “taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes” (DfE, 2018, p. 6). This has had significant implications for all child-related settings, including sport, as will be discussed next.

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J oined up Thinking: Sport’s New Role in Safeguarding Children The focus on ‘safeguarding’ in legislation and policy since 2004 has had implications for all organisations, including those involved in sport. For example, The Children Act 2004 for the first time identifies sports organisations and their staff and volunteers as having direct responsibility for safeguarding children: ‘safeguarding’ is identified as everyone’s responsibility, and Section 11 of The Children Act 2004 imposes a duty on agencies involved with children to safeguard them and promote their welfare (DfES, 2004), where the term ‘agencies’ is defined as “any organisation, body or professional grouping having contact with children” (Behan et al., 2005, p. 103). Consequently, voluntary and community organisations such as sports clubs and national governing bodies of sport (NGBs) are identified as playing a crucial role in children’s welfare. More recent guidance has reinforced this: the latest incarnation of the government’s key statutory guidance for organisations and agencies who work with or carry out work related to children, Working Together to Safeguard Children (DfE, 2018), includes a specific section on sports organisations for the first time, placing a duty on them to: … have the arrangements described in this chapter in place and [they] should collaborate to work effectively with the safeguarding partners as required by any local safeguarding arrangements. Paid and volunteer staff need to be aware of their responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, how they should respond to child protection concerns and how to make a referral to local authority children’s social care or the police if necessary. (DfE, 2018, p. 71)

It also states that: All National Governing Bodies of Sport that receive funding from either Sport England or UK Sport must aim to meet the Standards for Safeguarding and Protecting Children in Sport. (DfE, 2018, p. 71)

The Standards for Safeguarding and Protecting Children in Sport (Child Protection in Sport Unit, 2018) are a set of professional standards for sports organisations to follow to help them meet their legal safeguarding requirements. They will be discussed in more detail below, where we will map how the developments noted above in government legislation and the discourse

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around ‘safeguarding’, in tandem with a high-profile case of sexual abuse in sport, served as ‘focusing events’ for policy developments and practice in children’s welfare in sport.

 he Impact of the Hickson Case on Child Welfare T Developments in Sport Around the same time that the Victoria Climbié inquiry was underway and just before the turn towards ‘safeguarding’ in government discourse that made sports organisations legally responsible for children’s welfare, significant developments in this area were, by chance, also taking place in sport. Among the earliest was in 1999 when Sport England established the National Child Protection in Sport Task Force. This Task Force was established in response to the conviction several years earlier of the Olympic women’s swimming coach Paul Hickson (Lang & Hartill, 2015). Hickson, who had been the women’s national head coach at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, was convicted of 15 charges of rape and indecent assault of female swimmers aged between 13 and 20 years old (The Independent, 1995). The abuse had taken place between 1976 and 1991, when Hickson was a squad coach at swimming clubs in England and Wales, but only came to the public’s attention following his high-profile conviction in 1995.1 The Hickson case received a huge amount of media attention at the time, in large part because of Hickson’s profile as a well-known, respected, and successful coach—not the stereotypical profile of a prolific (child) sexual offender—and because the NGB for swimming in England at the time, the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA), had ignored complaints from female swimmers about Hickson’s conduct several years earlier, leaving him free to continue his abuse (The Times, 1995). At the time, most NGBs had no strategies for protecting children in their ranks. Brackenridge (2001) argues the Hickson case created a ‘moral panic’ (Cohen, 1972) about (child) sexual abuse in sport, prompting a flurry of activity focused on child protection in sport among sports organisations. In the two years between Hickson’s arrest in 1993 and imprisonment in 1995, for example, the ASA, the National Yachting Association and the Football Association began drawing up child protection guidelines (Brackenridge, 2001; Independent Football Commission, 2005). Around the same, the then-National Coaching Foundation (NCF), now UK  Hickson was jailed for 17 years at Cardiff Crown Court.

1

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Coaching, piloted its first child protection workshop and published advice on child protection and good practice (Bringer, 2002). Within a few years of Hickson’s conviction, Sport England and the other sports councils, in conjunction with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), had established the Child Protection in Sport Unit (CPSU). As such, the Hickson case had come to be a ‘focusing event’ within sport as it had prompted significant policy change and initiatives in children’s welfare in this context and laid the groundwork for future developments. The CPSU began operations in 2001 as a charity funded by the NSPCC and the sports councils and housed within the NSPCC offices in Leicester, its name a legacy of the focus in government and public discourse at the time on child protection (the introduction of the ‘safeguarding’ agenda was still three years away). The CPSU now has key contact points in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, while in Scotland a different charity, Scotland 1st, houses a similar unit for Scottish sports organisations. As such, the information that follows relates specifically to the CPSU in England and Wales, as legislation and practice on child welfare in (and beyond) sport are slightly different in devolved Northern Ireland and Scotland. The CPSU was initially tasked with implementing the National Child Protection in Sport Task Force’s action plan for child protection in sport (Boocock, 2002). With almost no sports organisations having policies or initiatives on child welfare in the early 2000s— sport bodies were not cited within legislation as having responsibility for children’s welfare until The Children Act 2004 almost three years later—one of the first actions the CPSU took was to link receipt of Sport England/government funding to the development and implementation of child protection policies. As a result, by 2002 all publicly funded NGBs in England had a written child protection policy in place (Boocock, 2002), though the extent to which these were implemented in practice is unknown—a criticism that can, to some extent, still be levied today (see Lang & Hartill, 2015). Importantly, since initial interest in children’s welfare in sport resulted from revelations about child abuse, specifically the sexual abuse, sports organisations’ early strategies primarily emphasised the protection of children from this form of abuse. Policy and guidance documents and coach education courses from the late-1990s to the mid-2000s used the language of the broader political, social and cultural discourse of the era. For example, the then-­ National Coaching Foundation’s (now UK Coaching) booklet ‘Protecting Children From Abuse: A Guide For Everyone Involved in Children’s Sport’ (NCF/NSPCC, 1996, pp. 1–10) contained sections on: recognising abuse, responding to abuse allegations, promoting good practice to reduce the likelihood of abuse and a lengthy section on defining sexual abuse.

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However, since the mid-to-late 2000s, in line with the discursive shift towards ‘safeguarding’ following The Children Act 2004, this has begun to change. Policies, guidance and initiatives that deal with issues beyond simply the protection of children from abuse have emerged over the past 15 years. For example, the ASA Code of Ethics, first introduced in 2000 and updated in 2005 (ASA, 2005), provided guidance on a wide range of issues that went far beyond child protection or the prevention of (child) sexual abuse. For instance, the 2005 version stated that coaches must: …respect the rights, dignity and worth of every human being and their ultimate right to self-determination. Specifically, teacher/coaches must treat everyone equally within the context of their activity, regardless of sex, ethnic origin, religion, disability or political persuasion.

It went on: The good teacher/coach will be concerned primarily with the well-being, health and future of the individual performer and only secondary with the optimisation of performance. Teachers/coaches should communicate and co-operate with other sports and allied professions in the best interest of their performers. (ASA, 2005, our emphasis)

Similarly, the CPSU reacted to changes in broader child welfare discourse by expanding its remit and developing its policy framework for sports organisations to follow. Despite its name being rooted in an era that prioritised child protection, the CPSU has since at least 2008 had a remit that is broader than protecting children in sport from abuse. For example, in 2008 the CPSU website stated its mission was “to safeguard the welfare of children and young people under 18 in sport and to promote their well-being” (CPSU, 2008, our emphasis), while at the time of writing (late 2019) it has broadened slightly to include a responsibility to “build the capacity of sports to safeguard children and young people in and through sport and to enable sports organisations to lead the way in keeping children safe from harm” (CPSU, 2019).

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 he New Policy Framework for Safeguarding T Children in Sport In late 2002, the CPSU established a set of standards that provided sports organisations with a blueprint for good practice when working with youth athletes. The Standards for Safeguarding and Protecting Children in Sport (referred to hereafter as the Standards), which were updated in 2006, 2016 and 2018 to reflect changes in legislation, government guidance and safeguarding practice, aim to standardise ‘safeguarding’ across sport and encourage sports organisations to continuously improve their strategies to meet their legal duties to children: These Standards provide a framework for all those involved in sport to help them create a safe sporting environment for children and young people and protect them from harm. The Standards also seek to provide a benchmark to help those involved in sport make informed decisions, and to promote good practice and challenge practice that is harmful to children. (CPSU, 2018, p. 3)

In England, government-funded sports organisations (such as NGBs and Active Partnerships that receive funding from Sport England or from UK Sport) map the policies, guidelines and initiatives they have developed for safeguarding children against the CPSU standards, then self-assess the extent to which they meet each of the CPSU’s Standards and to which of three levels—Preliminary, Intermediate or Advanced (Lang & Hartill, 2015). Working towards achieving all (now 10) Standards is mandatory for NGBs seeking government funding; NGBs report their progress annually to the CPSU before funding is approved. As such, the CPSU, which also supports NGBs in the development of their safeguarding strategies, is effectively acting as both a supporting body for sports organisations as well as an evaluating one—a situation that may well raise concerns about ‘conflict of interest’ in other sectors. However, these requirements are only for NGBs funded by Sport England (a list of these is available here: https://www.sportengland.org/our-­work/ national-­governing-­bodies/sports-­that-­we-­recognise/). For other sports organisations and providers that fall beyond this traditional structure, there are no such requirements. For example, mixed martial arts, which is one of the country’s fastest growing sports (Ayles, 2019) but remains largely unregulated, has no Sport England-recognised NGB and receives no government funding, is not required to follow the CPSU Standards or even to implement safeguarding procedures at all. Similarly, private organisations that provide sports

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activities or sports facilities (such as private gyms or pubs or schools that hire out their facilities or land to private sports providers or coaches) are under no obligation to implement child safeguarding strategies. As such, many of these organisations are likely to have few or no measures in place to safeguard the welfare of young participants. In their first incarnation in 2002, the focus of the Standards was on child protection, but in 2006 they were updated to align with new ‘safeguarding agenda’ embedded in The Children Act 2004 (CPSU, 2006). As well as the addition of the term ‘safeguarding’ throughout, the types of harm covered broadened in line with understandings of ‘safeguarding’, and a new Standard was added on ‘influencing’ that required sports organisations to ensure they were actively promoting safeguarding among their partner organisations, such as among affiliated sports clubs at grass-roots level as well as funders and other collaborators—mirroring the ethos within The Children Act 2004 and statutory guidance that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. Since 2006, then, in line with political and legislative changes in child welfare in the country, the Standards and the CPSU’s remit have been broader than simply child protection. The Standards also cover sexual harassment, discrimination and equity and inclusion, health and safety, and poor practice—issues that do not only apply to children and that are more ambitious than aiming simply to protect children from recognised forms of abuse—sexual, physical emotional—or neglect. The CPSU remains the only government-funded organisation dedicated to child welfare in sport worldwide, and for many years it worked in this area on its own, supporting sports organisations to develop and implement their new responsibilities in safeguarding children.

 xpanding the Safeguarding Agenda in Sport: E Developments and Challenges The CPSU is and always has been a small team—even after some expansion, there are only eight specialist staff to cover the whole country (plus a handful of administrators and webpage content staff). To plug this gap, more recently Sport England has begun to fund other expert organisations to work within sport. In April 2018, they began to fund the National Working Group (NWG), a national charity with specific expertise in addressing child sexual exploitation and trafficking whose mission is “the eradication of the exploitation and/or modern slavery of children and young people” (NWG, 2019), to host a Safeguarding in Sport lead to be housed within their Child Sexual

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Exploitation National Response Unit. The role aims to provide a point of contact and advice on safeguarding and protecting children to organisations, individuals and facility providers that lie beyond the CPSU’s remit (predominantly NGBs and Active Partnerships) or at local community level. In addition, as understandings of ‘safeguarding’ have increasingly expanded to incorporate the welfare of vulnerable adults, due in part to the incorporation of the global human rights charters into domestic legislation, such as in The Care Act 2014 (Cooper & Bruin, 2017), Sport England has developed additional partnerships. In 2016, they funded the Ann Craft Trust (ACT), a national charity housed within the University of Nottingham with specific expertise in preventing the abuse of disabled children and adults at risk, to develop the project ‘Safeguarding Adults in Sport and Activity’. This is in recognition of the fact that adults at risk (sometimes referred to as ‘vulnerable adults’) are particularly vulnerable to abuse in and beyond sport (Jones et al., 2012; Vertommen et al., 2016). A Safeguarding Adults in Sport manager was appointed as part of this project (ACT, 2017). The expansion of Sport England funding and partnerships discussed above have increased the number of organisations and individuals working to help those involved in sport at all levels and in a wide range of organisational settings better safeguard children (and, increasingly, adults at risk). These recent developments have also significantly expanded the range of support and expertise available to organisations in sport, helping them ensure their strategies, policies and practices are aligned with the expanded safeguarding agenda that emerged a little more than a decade earlier. Even in England, which became a world leader in protecting children in sport with the establishment of the CPSU in 2001, (still) the only dedicated organisation globally with responsibility for child welfare in sport, sport has a relatively short history in safeguarding and protecting children, especially compared with other national institutions such as education or other voluntary organisations such as the Girl Guides or the Scout Association. As discussed in this chapter, sport has only been specifically included in legislation and statutory guidance on child welfare since around 2004 and was only referred to in statutory guidance for the first time as recently as 2018 (in the latest version of Working Together). This has been attributed to the traditional autonomy of the sports sector and the nineteenth-century voluntary origins of most sports organisations, which for a long time made the government reluctant to intervene in sport (Houlihan, 1997) and resulted in “a legacy of traditionalism and resistance to change” in sports organisations (Brackenridge, 2001, p. 10). As a result, sport has been later and slower to adopt strategies to safeguard children, and in some cases

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there remains reluctance, even resistance, among some sport stakeholders to making the changes required (see for example, Lang, 2015a). While developments over the past ten years have been significant and rapid, even this means sport is a relative latecomer to the safeguarding agenda, and there remain critical issues that risk stymying this progress. The ‘new’ safeguarding agenda clearly requires significant organisational investment (in terms of time, workforce, finances etc.) as well as ‘buy in’ from everyone involved in sport, from NGB CEOs to coaches, parents and athletes themselves. Importantly, sports organisations are not required to set aside a minimum amount of money for safeguarding in the way they do for other operating costs, such as coaching (Hartill & Lang, 2014). Consequently, NGBs have different budgets for safeguarding and child protection, dependent on their size and, in some cases, the value attributed to the area by senior management (Hartill & Lang, 2014). As a result, many of those who serve as the dedicated adult with responsibility for safeguarding within their organisations, especially in smaller NGBs or at grass-roots club level, are volunteers, which raises questions about the efficacy of the roles and the value placed on safeguarding among NGB senior staff (Lang, 2009; Hartill & Lang, 2014). Unsurprisingly, cost restraints and inertia on the part of NGB senior managers have been identified as a key reason for sports organisations’ failure to fully address their safeguarding responsibilities (Hartill & Lang, 2014). In addition, as sports organisations were late in adopting the safeguarding agenda, there was (and to some extent still is) a considerable knowledge vacuum around safeguarding and protecting children within sports organisations, even among those in dedicated roles such as the Club Welfare Officer (Hartill & Lang, 2014; Lang, 2009). In addition, some in key roles (such as coaches) have been reluctant to accept (and have sometimes even been dismissive of ) their responsibilities to children’s welfare (see Lang, 2009, 2010a, 2015a), often seeing it as secondary to sport’s primary objective of developing performance (Lang, 2010a). There is also a reluctance among some key sport stakeholders to recognise that some traditionally common practices within sport can be harmful for athletes, especially children—for example, early specialisation and intensive training (Lang, 2010b; McPherson et al., 2017), encouraging training or competition while injured (Stafford et al., 2013), shouting at athletes and adopting other controlling and domineering coaching behaviours (Smits et al., 2017), and enforcing dietary restrictions (Lang, 2015b). In line with the wider remit inherent in the safeguarding agenda, other behaviours are also increasingly being recognised as potentially harmful or exploitative—for example, the inclusion of the tackle in school rugby in PE (Pollock et al., 2017), the pressures that competing to an elite level can put on

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children’s education (Smits, 2020), the use of ‘hazing’ initiation ceremonies (Waldron, 2020), and the potential for financial exploitation (Corlett, 2013) and for the development of mental health issues such as depression resulting from sport-specific risk factors such as retirement, concussion and severe injury (Beable et al., 2017). Moreover, while there have been dramatic developments in policy and practice regarding child welfare in sport over the past decade, there is still little to no independent evaluation of such initiatives in sport (Hartill & O’Gorman, 2014), meaning we have limited understanding of the effectiveness of the strategies in place.

Conclusion This chapter has traced the incorporation and development of child welfare initiatives in sport alongside political developments in national child welfare legislation and discourse in the UK. In doing so, we have identified how the ‘new’ ‘safeguarding agenda’ has shaped contemporary sports policy and practice and, through this historical analysis, highlighted the context and conditions for contemporary challenges in child welfare practice in sport. Through shifts in political discourse and key ‘focusing events’, sport has come to be recognised over the past 10–20 years as a key institution with responsibility for protecting and promoting children’s welfare. Many sports organisations are already doing great work in this area, but it is sadly also the case that some are not. This is no longer a viable position for sports that want to be successful, sustainable and effective. As the challenges mentioned above indicate, there is some way to go before responsibility for children’s welfare could be said to be fully understood, valued and implemented within sports governance and practice. It is fair to say, then, almost 20 years after the introduction of ‘safeguarding’, we remain some way yet from a full implementation of the safeguarding agenda in sport in the UK. One potentially positive development in this area is the growing recognition in sport of children as active citizens and bearers of rights. Since the early 1990s, the legally binding United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (UN General Assembly, 1989) has done much to advance understandings of the rights of children and young people in society. Protecting children from all forms of maltreatment and promoting their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights are key strands in the children’s rights agenda. Importantly, the UNCRC recognises coaches and other key stakeholders in sport as key individuals with a responsibility for embedding children’s rights (Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2011, para. 33). We

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believe that when children’s rights are taken as the essential starting point for the evaluation of the social spaces and activities that adults provide for children, many traditional cultural practices that are potentially harmful to children are called into question. As such, we see the steady penetration of the children’s rights agenda into sport as having potential for progressing the safeguarding agenda and embedding a holistic and wide-reaching approach to children’s welfare.

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Sidelined: Boys, Sport, and Depression Michael Atkinson and Kristina Smith

Owen’s Story Owen starts playing advanced level sport at the age of six. He excels at simple physical games and outruns and out-maneuvers anyone around him on the playground. His parents enroll him in soccer, ice hockey, and Little League baseball. Owen can hit a ball quite easily, has excellent eye-to-hand coordination, and can move in multi-directional ways with speed and grace. He quickly becomes a sport omnivore. At six, he is slightly taller than other boys his age and so his coaches put him into central attacking and scoring roles in his respective sports. Owen loves the attention, the accolades, and the positive feedback received from his parents through his early sporting successes. He is recruited to play for teams with boys a year older than him by the time he is nine. Everyone in the town knows him as the gifted young athlete. From the outside it might appear that Owen’s parents encourage his sporting participation as a means of building his (or their own) ego, but they facilitate his sports adventures for different reasons. While Owen seems gregarious and precocious on an ice rink, a baseball diamond, or a soccer pitch, at home and away from the field Owen is an incredibly shy young boy. Friends and family members have become worried about Owen’s shyness by the age of

M. Atkinson (*) • K. Smith University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_29

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four. His parents are directed to the help of professional counselors in order to assess whether Owen struggles with developmental or emotional disorders. But from the very moment Owen participates in team sports his personality shines through. He displays a level of confidence unseen in other aspects of his life, and his parents use sport as a means of enabling Owen to socialize with other boys. Owen adores his coaches and finds steady friends among his teammates. While still largely introverted and preferring to remain silent rather than take the lead with his sporting peers, he finds sport to be a critical social lifeline. He incessantly talks about his coaches and teammates at home, and constantly asks to watch sports on television, in part to study game strategy; Owen develops an identity as an athlete. His coaches praise him as an ideal team member because he listens intently and receives directions easily. Owen is eager to please, perhaps because he worries about not being picked again for his teams. His teammates start asking for play dates away from the field(s), his parents become close friends with other parents on his teams, and he even excels in school. But no one recognizes how insular Owen’s world has become. He does little else other than sport. His sense of purpose, his sense of place in the world, and his sense of social relatability to others hinge on his sports participation. At the age of thirteen, Owen is asked to play for a provincial level soccer team. But Owen is still involved in three other sports, none of which he wishes to abandon. Severing his involvement in one would be like severing one of his appendages. Even though he is constantly tired, worries about the scheduling conflicts posed by multiple sport participation, and possesses an inner knowledge that he simply cannot continue in all sports forever, he agrees to play for the provincial soccer team. It is a massive commitment. Owen begs his parents to allow him to remain in the other sports as well. With some reluctance they agree he can be a multi-sport athlete for just one more year. With an overwhelming weekly schedule of physical activity including multiple training sessions, games, travel, and recovery, all aspects of Owen’s life suffer greatly. He cannot maintain friendships in any group inside or outside of sport because he never has time. He is overtired and constantly hungry. Little injuries crop up here and never fully heal. He frequently lies awake at night worrying about satisfying his coaches, his teammates, and meeting all the extraordinary demands placed upon him. With little time to study or do his homework, Owen’s grades drop drastically. With an inability to focus on one sport entirely, questions about Owen’s dedication to each one are raised by coaches. By the end of his thirteenth year, Owen is completely burned out. Frustrated, exhausted, unsure, and full of doubt, Owen can no longer sustain

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or tolerate the demands of multiple sports. The mentally and physically cruel schedule of his existence leads him to drop out of all sports entirely. His parents encourage him to pick one and devote all of his attention to that sport, but he could not choose and did not want to let everyone down except one team. They ask him if he wants to play at a lower level of competition and merely have fun with his friends, but he is not interested in that option, claiming, “it would be too boring.” At the age of fifteen, Owen becomes overly self-critical, disengaged, socially isolated, and physically inactive. Indifferent to his parents’ ongoing suggestions, he refuses to play at lower levels of sport because he believes he would find it too pedestrian. He also feels his peers would ridicule him for not being able to play at a high level any longer. For ten years of his life he has known little other than elite competitive sport. Owen believes that a year away from any one of the sports will catastrophically impair his development. He possesses no idea how to relate to any young boys other than athletes, and he has only a handful of friends outside of physical activity contexts. Owen feels helplessly incompetent in all other spheres of life. He retreats to his house, stays indoors most days, and plays video games with a few of his peers from school. His parents, once more, attempt to register him for recreational sport or physical activity, but he resists. Owen, for all intents and purposes, disappears from the social landscape and his parents’ biggest fears are realized. We meet Owen when he was eighteen, at a public event hosted by a local soccer club devoted to athletes and their mental health. He spoke to a group of teenage soccer players about suicide ideation. At the age of seventeen, he has attempted to take his own life in the basement of his parents’ home; now, he publicly speaks about the need for sports organizations to understand the often-unforgiving demands of elite youth sport. While many troubling signs of his poor mental health were evident, indicating Owen’s struggle with suicide ideation and intent, no one wanted to believe his psychological state had deteriorated so badly. This is a common narrative in Canadian sports cultures and elsewhere, in that no one really wishes to accept that young people like Owen exist. Even more tragically, very few people listen closely to young athletes like Owen when they speak up about their mental health crises. This chapter is one of many new attempts in the sociology of sport and physical culture to break the deafening silence. Despite hundreds of calls by people inside and outside of sport to pay close attention to the mental health struggles of athletes like Owen, the library of qualitative research on young athletes and their struggles is strikingly bare (Gulliver et al., 2012). Notwithstanding attempts to publicly raise awareness about athlete mental health—widely touted athlete narratives of trauma and

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abuse, and media representation of high profile athletes such as Junior Seau, Rick Rypien, and Kenny McKinley dying from suicide in the past two decades—concatenated empirical work on the phenomenology of depression is only quite recently emerging (Atkinson, 2019a; Gulliver et  al., 2012; A. Smith, 2019a). Encouraging athletes to speak out in particular sport cultures is radically different from providing places for young people like Owen to safely speak to an empathetic ‘someone’ about their struggles; and, it is equally different than the concerted academic documentation and sensitive examination of stories told about anxiety, depression, and suicide by young athletes. Cross-sectional surveys of college athletes and their mental states (Barnard, 2016; Wolanin et  al., 2016), causal analyses of pathways into depression for athletes (Weigand et  al., 2013; Wolanin et  al., 2015; Yang et al., 2007), and studies of media campaigns to promote the idea of athlete mental health (Gibson & Gorczynski, 2019) fail to paint an accurate portrait of the existential complexity of being depressed in and through sport and physical culture from a perspective like Owen’s. The voices of young people like Owen are also important in light of the global emphasis now placed on sport/exercise as a highly effective inoculant against depression, or as a ready-made cure for depression as touted within the nascent Exercise is Medicine (EiM) movement (A Smith, 2019a). While the empirical evidence demonstrating the relatively positive effects of physical exercise in an allopathic—or medically remedial—sense are rather compelling and consistent (Caddick & Smith, 2018; Sallis, 2009, 2015), neither exercise nor sport automatically alleviates the cultural conditions of suffering in young people’s lives (Gulliver et al., 2012; Lester, 2017; K Smith, 2019b). Sport cannot magically or universally eradicate the devastating effects of income inequality, sexism, homophobia, racism, bullying, emotional or sexual abuse, domestic violence, addiction, environmental pollution, and a spate of other experiential realities with deep connective roots to depression. In its most unfortunate manifestation, sport can be the primary social context which contributes quite directly to the development of depression in a young person (Gulliver et al., 2012; Lester, 2017). This chapter, therefore, is an attempt to push the sociological analysis of mood disorders such as anxiety, depression, and suicide ideation into more humane academic spaces. We present a selection of stories and narratives about depression from boys and young men in sport we have met over the course of the last ten years in a variety of ethnographic contexts. We draw attention to how one’s central (and blocked) existential desires to choose, be free, and be authentic are deeply connected to the phenomenological manifestation of depression in young athletes. Emphasis is given to how existential

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anxiety from outside and within sport contributes to athletes’ awareness of being “situated” people (de Beauvoir, 1953; Sartre, 1956) and subsequently exacerbates their depression. Toward the conclusion of the chapter we highlight a story of hope and healing from a young man who has been, as he states, “there and back again.”

 port, Depression, and Suicide: Meeting Padraic S and Mathieu Both authors have extensive fieldwork experience in speaking to young people whose lives are peppered with trauma, injury, anxiety, and depression. For this chapter, we draw on narrative accounts of depression from young people aged 13–19 gathered across six separate case studies of injury, violence, and abuse in Canadian youth sports undertaken by the first author between 2009 and 2019. Atkinson’s ethnographic research documents, in a concatenated (Stebbins, 2006) way, the widespread experience of depression in youth sports such as hockey, soccer, rugby, triathlon, track and field, other risk sports, and even in gym class (see Atkinson, 2019b; Atkinson & Kehler, 2010). None of the studies was intentionally designed as research on depression per se, but the regularity with which many young boys spoke about being depressed in sport, or how they were trying to work through depression using sport, became striking. Data for this chapter have been drawn from field observations, interviews, and narrative work with boys who have opened up to us about their mental health struggles. The chapter also commences from the important empirical and analytic position that depression is not exclusively experienced by boys or young men in sport; quite to the contrary. The extant literature on high school and university/college athletics consistently indicates that female athletes tend to report higher levels of depression than their male counterparts (Wolanin et al., 2016). A significant portion of such an over-representation is accounted for by girls’ significantly higher rates of body/body image dissatisfaction-­ related depression by comparison to boys (Blair et al., 2017; McMahon & Dinan Thompson, 2011; Papathomas & Lavallee, 2014). Significantly understudied are also core intersections between sexual orientation and preference, ethnicity, social class, and other social determinants of mental health (Roderick et al., 2017; K Smith, 2019b). We acknowledge the extremely complex interconnection between a range of biographical and contextual-structural realities that help contour the onset and experience of depression in young people.

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The purpose of this chapter is not to account for and pay witness to this complexity. Rather, we aim to help ‘personify’ academic accounts of the subject. We can quite confidently attest, however, to the well replicated empirical finding that sports environments underpinned by aggressive power and performativity, mythic masculinity, identity-trimming—whereby the individuals identity is reduced to the sport s/he plays—and role specialization, and emotional denial can prove to be mentally and emotionally toxic for young boys over the long term (Gulliver et al., 2012; Atkinson & Kehler, 2010). Hyper-­ masculinized sport spaces, that of course prove to be especially unwelcoming for young girls, are stereotypically abrasive emotional landscapes which denounce mental illness in most forms as decisively unmasculine. While we demonstrate how masculine codes continue to be deeply stitched into the experience of sport-related depression, yet another attempt to provide a definitive link between masculinity, sport, and depression is at this stage in the academic debate unnecessary. Instead, therefore, we draw attention to how depression emerges for some boys in sport and argue that sport experiences may amplify the effects of depression and other mental illnesses rooted in socialization processes and personal experiences in the home, at school, among peers and elsewhere.

Padraic Padraic is a 16-year-old rugby player struggling through recovery from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee. Padraic finds the lack of mobility stemming from his leg being set in a partial cast post-surgery, and subsequent reliance on metal crutches, entirely maddening. He shies away from social gatherings with many of his rugby friends and has stopped communicating with his girlfriend of over two years. Padraic questions why he, of all people, deserves being injured and “sidelined in life.” His friends pity him and treat him like an incompetent child. They rush to help him sit down in the school cafeteria, ask if they can lower him into the car, carry his books for him from class to class, and constantly bombard him with what he calls “sympathy text messages.” Padraic simply wishes he could snap his fingers and magically heal his knee. Padraic’s injury plight is further complicated by his past. He has suffered from episodic physical and emotional abuse at home from the age of six. His father, a working-class wage laborer who suffers from alcohol dependence, routinely and yet unpredictably hits him until the police intervene when Padraic is ten. After two years away from the home, his father returns and now

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‘only’ verbally degrades him on a regular basis. Padraic’s mother belittles him with constant negativity about his schoolwork, lack of discernible skill outside of sport, and his apparent emotional disconnect his family. He is overly self-­ critical, often fails to emotionally connect with anyone apart from rugby players, and routinely reflects (in fear) about becoming abusive like his father and mother. As an only child Padraic can confide in practically no one about the trauma he suffers at home; even his close teammates know very little about his early childhood experiences. Even still, Padraic’s only social escape into normality, acceptance, empathy, connection, and personal meaning is rugby. He dreams of receiving a scholarship to play rugby at a university far away from home. Without the constancy of practice on the pitch and being in the clubhouse with the team, however, Padraic is now despondent and withdrawn. He dreads returning home every day after school and does not want to hang around with his teammates as it reminds him of, in his own words, “just how weak I really am.” Padraic grieves for the rugby life he lost and the family life he never possessed. Toward the end of his sixteenth year, Padraic hints, through a text to his girlfriend, Sara, that he is contemplating taking his own life. After two weeks of constant pleading by Sara, Padraic reluctantly seeks help from a trusted high school counselor. The counselor meets with him several times over the course of a week and recommends he visit a therapist. We meet Padraic five months into his therapy. His knee is largely healed, but his emotional wounds are still a work in progress. He has quit rugby entirely and wants to attend university to pursue a degree in psychology in order to help young people like him. Stories like Padraic’s and Owen’s draw attention to the risks associated with over commitment to, over-identification with, and over-socialization through sport. One of the most common narrative threads in stories about depression among young male athletes relates to the dangers of identity-trimming. Both Owen and Padraic articulate the suffocating effects of being a social persona in the singular; of being only known for athletics, being perceived as one thing (athlete), or as being overly linked to certain performative/masculine corporeal abilities. In Heideggerian (1985, p. 154) terms, boys like them learn to perceive themselves as static ‘whats’ (things, objects) rather than consider how they are able to constitute their own selves in ongoing, dynamic processes with a range of other people. They consistently tell stories about feeling cut off from other social opportunities, being unable to develop a wide set of roles and statuses, and remaining unsure of how to make choices about their self-­ expression. They feel “thrown” or “projected” (Heidegger, 1962) out of familiar social/identity contexts without a perceptive phenomenological script for

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future identity coherence (see Merleau-Ponty, 1962). Padraic says one day, “I only saw the world as a rugby player. Well, I mean, my place in the world as a rugby player. Everything I saw, it was in relation to how it would fit with my rugby or not.” Owen confirms, “I didn’t even have non-sporty clothes when I stopped playing. Like all I had were like track suits and sport shirts. The first time the other guys saw me in, like, street clothes, everybody freaked out. I was totally self-conscious and embarrassed. No one even recognized me.” The overly socialized and identity-trimmed athlete lives as a being-for-others and has scarcely, if ever, practiced being-for-themselves (Heidegger, 1962). In constantly thinking about how they (all others) see them, young boys like Owen and Padraic feel as if they have very limited abilities to make self-directed choices for great portions of their lives. Only through counseling did both learn about the extent of their freedom to self-create. Owen tells us that, “I had to really understand I don’t have to be my past, and the past isn’t me. My life isn’t over at, like, seventeen. I have a whole lot of life in front of me, and I am excited by the fact I have more choices about what to do than like ever before.” In another way, describing their acquiescence to identity-trimming and self-narrowing may be an overly critical assessment on our part. In Padraic’s case in particular, trauma, alienation, and anomie—one’s detachment conceived by/from the inability to relate to and integrate with other people or discourses—(Durkheim, 1951) also stemmed from powerfully negative social experiences across his life. His lack of perceived power to be (for a long time) something other than unwanted, a failure, weak, merely a broken rugby ‘body,’ and a unidimensional ex-athlete are inexorably linked to his feelings of being a complete non-person at home. In this way, athletes with troubling psycho-emotional lives outside of sport are particularly at risk of developing depression in highly competitive sport zones because, as we know, most of these young athletes will not become professionals and be supported with transition plans out of sport. So, it appears that these boys are living with the perception that there is no real self beyond the athlete self; no real Owen or Padraic exists apart from the social roles, identities, and status given to them by others and forming the thin veneer of their daily sports existence (see Guignon, 2004). They deeply feel how, as Sartre (1956, p. 175) writes, “the Other’s look holds a secret, the secret of who I am.” Even with tremendous social support at home, Owen tells us, “when you don’t go to practice, and play, and do the things you used to do, what do you do? Like what was I supposed to do. Friends [in sport] say they will stay in touch but they don’t. Sport is so close knit and, like, cliquey and when you are gone you are gone. You’re,

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like, standing there when the song ends in musical chairs and you’re the odd person out.”

Mathieu At the age of seventeen, Mathieu has no clue as to why he still competes as a track and field athlete; specifically, as a 5000  m cross-country runner. He describes it in an interview one day thus, “it’s something that I do, because I’m not sure really what else to do, you know.” He is a tall, lean, and a relatively confident young man. He starts running with his father at the age of eleven as a means of spending time one-on-one with him after dinner and on weekends. A boy with a slight frame, Mathieu keeps pace with his dad quite easily and the two become running partners. He enters a school-based cross-country race at age twelve and wins by some distance. He and his dad join a local running club and Mathieu becomes a full-fledged runner. He is lucky throughout his running career, winning many races and remaining injury-free. He becomes a star on his high school cross-country team and trains week in and week out, both on and off-season. After two years he is not, in his own words “crazy about running in races,” but it is the staple activity in his life. Mathieu is known by everyone as a gifted runner, great teammate, and nice guy. Mathieu thinks about quitting when he is sixteen to pursue other interests and be more social (he wants to date girls and hang out to do ‘nothing’), but his coaches and friends convince him to stay on the team and run competitively. He struggles with the guilt of disappointing everyone who relies on him if he quits. His mother and father encourage him to do whatever he wishes, but he finds it easier to please the people he has always pleased. Mathieu becomes saddened about his existence as a runner not in a physical sense, but rather as a matter of lingering melancholia stemming from an awareness of being inauthentic to himself. Mathieu’s ritualistic participation in cross-country running is devoid of any cherished personal meaning for him; it is neither any longer a means of connecting with his father nor expressing movement through space in the pursuit of his own jouissance (see Pronger, 2004). Mathieu has, in Sartre’s (1956) terms, “fallen” into the confines of a comfortable yet unsettling social persona (as a cross-country runner on a team) and remains there as a means of avoiding problematic decisions about his future. He deeply wishes to quit but does not know how, or even what being on the other side of quitting would resemble. His active inaction and indecisiveness align with the sport model Mathieu has experienced as he says, “one of the things about being an athlete is that everything is set up for you.

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Training, exercise, what the best races are, how to pace, like everything. People tell me what to do and my job is to get it done.” Mathieu is melancholic (gloomy, sad, and disconnected, but not debilitatingly so) for months at a time. While he cherishes his relationships with running friends, coaches, and peers, he is scarcely connected to the form or content of competitive running in an emotional or corporeal manner. In the central process of being-with-­ others in his life, he has learned to merely be-for-others (Sartre, 1956) as a good teammate. He is, as a person, a veritable ghost in a competitive running shell. Mathieu’s central struggle with authenticity is at the bedrock of another core narrative arc in stories about depression; the potential implications of entering competitive sport at a young age with no teleological reason or purpose other than to generate/reproduce competitive sport itself. Mathieu says to us one day, “I like running, love it really. But I won’t compete my whole life. So, I wonder why I still compete. I feel like I’m running for someone else, you know? After I’m done high school, like other runners will take my place on the team. Then it sort of goes on and on and on with no end.” In Camus’ (1942) terms, Mathieu has rubbed up against the sheer absurdity of hyper-­ competitive running as a social practice. He understands how racing does not inherently mean anything, and yet his coaches and fellow teammates (at least as he perceives) think it means everything. Following years of repetitive training and competitions, he wishes for his own personal meaning about running but cannot craft one for himself in such a highly regimented and ideologically constricted sport environment. He says, “my coach is great to me, yeah for sure, but he is in charge, not me. He’s not bossy or mean or a yelling sort of guy, and I like that. But it’s his way [or nothing]. But I’m the one running, right?” Young people like Mathieu may find themselves thereby tranquilized by the routinized practice of competitive running because they do not have informed conversations with others (parents, siblings, peers, fellow teammates, and coaches) about why they run, what they want out of running, and what running means to them beyond the learned scripts of (sub)cultural (Donnelly & Young, 1988) meaning often circulated in highly competitive sport cultures. Their continued running makes little, if any, sense in the broader narrative trajectory of their lives. Toward the end of their athletic careers, where time and space seem to collapse into the finite (i.e., my involvement is about to end and I need to make a decision) athletes like Mathieu may feel what Heidegger (1962) articulates as a certain “uncanniness” in their lives; or, the feeling of being lost in their own stories. Stolorow (2018) describes feeling not at home with one’s body, relational identity—formed through our relationship with ourselves, other people, worldly structures—or sense of purpose in life as a totalizing atmosphere surrounding one’s entire existence. At

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the time we met him, Mathieu’s response to such uncanniness was to remain nestled in the false social security promised by competitive running, and therefore, it may be no surprise that he says, “[I] want to get the season over because I don’t get a smile out of running anymore.”

The Freedom to Fail So far in this chapter we have presented narratives about sadness, depression, and melancholia that relate to the need or desire to exit sport for a variety of personal reasons. The accounts of being affectively disconnected to sport culture, being unable to maintain sporting commitments, or being injured and unable to compete, are all threads of a larger narrative told about the existential pains associated with being alienated or anomic within sport settings. The feeling that ‘I’ do not belong anymore within the apparent ‘We’ sports culture weighs heavily on young people. The ‘drift’ out of sport prior to social or corporeal exiting is a much-understudied source of youth disaffection and depression in (particularly competitive) sporting environments. Indeed, the inability to resolve such feelings of alienation and anomie is a major contributor to the depression we have ethnographically studied in youth sport over time. Yet as Stirling and Kerr (2014) remind us, direct emotional abuse at the hands of sports insiders (coaches, parents, and parent-coaches) is a far too common tale relating to the onset of depression in competitive sport (see also Brackenridge et al., 2005; Fasting et al., 2007; Young, 2019). In a three-year ethnographic study of the coach and referee abuse of child athletes, Atkinson met a young ice hockey player named Lukas. Lukas told him a tale of how his mistreatment in sport over several years had caused him tremendous sadness, fear, anxiety, and self-hatred.

Lukas Lukas is a fourteen-year-old boy who currently plays recreational ice hockey in a ‘house league’. We came to know Lukas when he played as a twelve-year-­ old ‘representative’ (rep) ice hockey player. At the age of ten, Lukas is spotted by a rep hockey coach and is recruited to play for a high level, competitive rep team in his town. Rep hockey is highly valued in Lukas’ local community and playing for a rep team is a dream, an honor, and a source of social status for many young Canadian boys (and girls). Lukas plays defense on the rep team, and even knows a few of the boys on his team from school. His mother and

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father attend every practice and game. They yell from the stands while he plays, loudly admonish the referee for making ‘bad calls,’ and constantly remind Lukas he needs to take hockey very seriously. His mother even volunteers as the team manager/coordinator. His coach is, in his own terms, very “old school” and tends to use negative reinforcement and punishment to motivate his players. His father experienced exactly the same style of coaching when he played rep hockey as a boy, and tells Lukas it is normal and will make him a mentally tougher player. Lukas loves to play, but often gets nervous before practices and games because whenever he makes a mistake his coach yells at him and calls him off the ice. He can hear his parents shouting for him to “get in the game” and “get his head straight and play better.” When the team loses, he knows his coach will call the players lazy, stupid, undisciplined, or unfocussed when they’re back in the change room. From time to time his coach even throws objects like plastic garbage bins across the room in anger. On the car ride home from the rink, Lukas knows he will endure a lecture from his father about how they are spending so much time and money on him, and if he does not try harder, they will pull him out of hockey for good. Two years into playing rep hockey, Lukas still endures constant denigration from his coach and his parents. His coach refuses to play him in many games and when he comes off the ice, he yells at Lukas for not being aggressive enough. He threatens, regularly, to throw him off the team. Lukas rarely skates with the puck on his stick during practice and prefers to quickly pass to other players. He takes very short shifts to limit his time on the ice. He is the last to show up to practice and the first to leave when it is over. His father barely comes to watch and has turned his attention to Lukas’ younger brother. Lukas is falling behind the development of other players because he is so fearful to try anything new. He has difficulty sleeping at night, has lost his appetite, and is nauseated when going to the rink. He is sullen, disengaged, and feels responsible for his own ostensible on-ice failures. Like other boys his age who showed ‘early promise,’ he has not settled into the sport, dislikes the hyper-­competitive environment, and values none of the social relationships with the other boys who live and breathe hockey and who escape the coach’s wrath when the team loses. He fondly remembers playing recreational hockey. One day, he walks downstairs into his family’s kitchen and tells his mother that next year he wants to play recreational hockey with his friends. She smiles, and simply says, “okay, sweetheart.” He walks back upstairs smiling. A year later he is playing recreational hockey with his friends. His father practically never attends his games, but his mother is always there cheering him on and celebrating every play he makes.

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We retell portions of Lukas’ narrative here as a means of attending to the unapologetically abrasive nature of competitive youth sports which entails the wrong people, in the wrong context, for particular boys. Here is where the facticity—the contextual realities that shape a person—(Sartre, 1956) of boys’ situations in sport are drawn into sharp relief. Lukas is situated along and projected into a historical continuum of ice hockey in which particular codes of rugged masculinity, emotional denial, aggressive body performativity, and the deferential acceptance of cruel authority figures are the norm. In especially competitive sports cultures like rep ice hockey in Canada, boys like Lukas understand there are dozens of other players ready and willing to take their spots on a team and live up to stereotypical scripts of performance. The boys play in the style their coach played as a child, they learn to perceive the game as he did, they are expected to uphold a mythic ideal about masculinity replete in Canadian sport culture more broadly, and feel culturally positioned as objects rather than reflecting young subjects. As such, they are as Lukas describes to us, “never happy because I feel like every day is a tryout and the coaches only care if I am good.” Further still, the indifference to his obvious fear of failure and eventual disengagement from the sport on the part of his father teaches Lukas that “he is only happy with me when I look good and I’m not embarrassing the family.” Lukas’ resolve to eventually play the sport on his own terms and construct it as meaningful to him is a bold move of self-determination and social reconnection. Playing for pleasure with his friends and removing himself from a primary source of his anxiety took immense (social) courage. Commitment to a personal choice, as both Camus (1942) and Frankl (1959) instruct, is essential in the human pursuit of happiness, but also extraordinarily difficult for young people who are constantly demeaned and humiliated by important male agents of socialization for their perceived lack of intellectual, psychological, emotional, and social competence. Unfortunately, boys like Lukas also have to face the traumatic consequences of their choices; in that while they are able to summon the resolve to make uncomfortable choices and extricate themselves from depressing social ‘situations,’ they are often left feeling as Lukas says, “I’m not really the kind of [young] man I should be.”

Conclusion The aim of this chapter has not been to provide yet another topographical summary or meta-review of academic research on sport and mental health. We seek to provide a different set of narrative accounts about boys and their

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experiences with depression. They are varied, similar, dissimilar, overlapping, exclusive, but, most important, they are compelling. The stories presented in this chapter are filtered through several dominant themes in existentialist thinking as a means of shedding light on what depression does to young people like Owen, Padraic, Mathieu, and Lukas. None of the stories is given as a defining of how depression is experienced, but rather as emblematic of accounts we have heard dozens of times in a range of ethnographic contexts and situations. Core themes pertaining to freedom, choice, authenticity, self-­ definition, alienation, facticity, and situatedness resound within the stories, as does young people’s power (at times) to reflexively work at resolving their existential dilemmas in creative fashions. Over-identification with sport as the locus or source of one’s total social identity appears to be critically dangerous, with effects felt over the long term. Equally damaging to the young person are codes of hyper-competition, punishing structures of training and play, and a pervasive sense that they are as replaceable as sports equipment. For many boys/young men, moving past these traumatic individual and social experiences in sport proves to be exceptionally difficult for reasons outlined in the chapter. Boys in our research do struggle with living up to essentialist constructions of masculinity in and through their sports, but chasing culturally contextual ideas regarding masculinity itself does not appear to be a dominant source of depression for most of them. Feeling as if they are unable to vocalize their emotional and psychological issues does appear to be a major barrier for improving their lives, however. This may be directly tied to lingering cultural constructions inside and outside of sport that male (and female) athletes should not speak about their mental health struggles as it denotes personal weakness on their part. Perhaps most chilling and troubling for us is how boys/young men feel ‘lost’ toward the end of their sport experiences, with no apparent perceptual map for how to see themselves outside of sport realities. Questions about the absurdity (Camus, 1942) of one’s sports life, the authentic meaning of being an athlete, and how one’s sense of identity is tightly linked to others come to the fore. Such reflexive questions without supportive structures can be dangerous as they may precipitate deeper and darker dives into feelings of anomie and hopelessness. We would like to end with a re-punctuation of Lukas’ story. His narrative, while peppered with accounts of verbal abuse and alienation from adult figures in his life, becomes particularly encouraging in the end as shining testimony of how pleasure and resolve can be found by young people in supportive social spaces. Popular narrations of sport and its potential to grow and heal

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young people remind us how sport in its simplest and most inclusionary forms can improve the mental, emotional, and social lives of young people.

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Injuries in Schools’ Rugby: Occasional Niggles and Scrapes? Allyson M. Pollock and Graham Kirkwood

Introduction: Rugby Kills: Death and the Gentlemen “From now on, we know. And no one can pretend there is still any doubt. Rugby kills. Rugby kills because with professionalisation a rough game has become a violent game. Rugby kills because it believed that preparation protected everything, that the players’ bodies could take more tackles, could take harder, higher, tackles, often made by two defenders simultaneously. Rugby kills because we did not want to see that it could kill” (Bull, 2018) L’Équipe December 2018. This editorial in the French nationwide daily sport newspaper, L’Équipe, was written following the deaths of three young French rugby players within months of each other from injuries sustained during the tackle. In May 2018, 17-year-old Adrien Descrulhes died from a brain haemorrhage after suffering a concussion in an under-18 match for Billom. In August 2018, 21-year-old Louis Fajfrowski died from a heart attack after being struck in the chest. In December 2018, 18-year-old Nicolas Chauvin, an under-21 player at Stade Français, died following a two-man tackle that broke his neck (Bull, 2018). While the sports minister for France, Roxana Maracineanu called for an

A. M. Pollock (*) • G. Kirkwood Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7_30

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urgent meeting with the head of the French Rugby Federation, UK media coverage was minimal and the UK rugby football unions were silent. In the UK, rugby is an elite sport with powerful patronage. Tony Collins documents rugby’s class lines in Rugby’s Great Split: Class, Culture and the Origins of Rugby League Football, describing how in 1895 rugby union became a game for amateur professional middle classes and rugby league a game for the working classes (Collins, 2006). Princess Anne is patron of the Scottish Rugby Union and Prince Harry, who gave up rugby due to numerous injuries, is a former patron of the English Rugby Football Union (RFU) and its “All

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Schools Programme” (Furness, 2018). Although only 7% of children under 16 years of age in England are privately educated, 68% of the players in the England squad for the Rugby World Cup in 2015 went to fee-paying schools (Williams, 2018), this compares closely with senior judges, 71% of whom were educated in a private school (Arnett, 2014). Rugby is big business. In 2015, hosting the Rugby World Cup contributed an estimated £1.1bn to the UK economy (Rugby World Cup 2019 News, 2016). Once revered as a game “played by gentlemen”, professionalism changed that image. By comparison with other sports, professionalism arrived late for rugby, introduced after the Rugby World Cup of 1995 in South Africa. Income from TV rights and government subsidies transformed the game entirely as the scale and lavishness of the new rugby stadia and growth of rugby academies and players earnings attest. Simultaneously, the sport has found itself besmirched by scandals, from on field cheating (Bloodgate 10 years on: Tom Williams on rugby’s biggest scandal, 2019), off-field cheating (Aylwin, 2020) through to the sport being placed ahead of the safety of a nation (Rees, 2019). The dangers of rugby are long known; in the nineteenth century, local newspapers would print the weekly toll of injuries and their nature—these, along with hooliganism, could result in games being abandoned, suspended or even a ban on the game being played for weeks at a time (Collins, 2006). Rugby has always been a high impact, collision sport. Players exert extreme force in order to acquire and maintain possession of the ball. Most injuries occur during contact or collision that is tackle, scrum, ruck and maul. However, professionalisation brought significant changes. Players in the rugby XV in the 2019 World Cup fixture between England and New Zealand were on average 11–13 kg heavier than their compatriots who had played in the same fixture 28 years earlier, at the 1991 world cup (Kitson, 2019). More emphasis has been placed on the collision, with game line gains more often being made by brute force rather than through the skill of avoiding the tackle. To quote Barry O’Driscoll, former medical adviser to the International Rugby Board, (now World Rugby) and capped four times for Ireland in the 1971 season, “These people are playing a new game, a different game and they are being experimented on. When I played rugby everyone was two stone lighter and, crucially, players looked for the gaps so the tackles were made by outstretched arms. Now, heavier players look for the contact and run straight at opponents and keep going until a gap eventually comes. We know very little about the brain for certain and we have a huge amount to learn but at the moment these players are being experimented on” (Meagher, 2015).

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There has been a worrying rise in the severity of rugby injury since 1995. An early study of Scottish professional rugby in 1997–98 season by W. M. Garraway and colleagues at Edinburgh University concluded that “the penalties for accepting the financial and other rewards accompanying professionalism in rugby union appear to include a major increase in player morbidity” (Garraway et  al., 2000). Injury severity is not limited to professional players. Professor Garraway, a passionate rugby advocate, highlighted an increase in the rate of injuries for all age groups, with under 16-year-olds most affected: the latter more than doubled their rate of injury (Garraway et al., 2000). Following this study, Garraway was side-lined; funding was denied by Rugby Unions for a follow-up cohort study of injuries because, he was told by the Rugby Unions, ’we can see where this is going’1. So an important avenue of enquiry was curtailed, just as another study by Garraway’s research team which had surveyed current and former rugby players, was published, showing that “Rugby injury” (19%) was the second most common reason (after “Studies”: 23%) for males stopping play by the age of 20 years. For all ages injury sustained during rugby was the principal reason given for stopping playing (Lee et al., 2001). Garraway’s early research was prescient. Figures from England’s RFU’s Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project (PRISP) 2017–18 season report (England Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project Steering Group, 2018) show a sharp rise in injury severity in both match and training injuries (measured as time away from play), with the overall burden of injury (injury incidence and severity combined) being at its highest level since records began in 2002. Injuries requiring more than 84 days away from play rose four-fold from three per 1000 player hours in 2002–03 to 12 per 1000 player hours in 2017–18 while injuries requiring between 29 and 84 days away from play rose two-fold from 9 per 1000 player hours in 2002–03 to 19 per 1000 player hours in 2017–18. Concussion, or mild traumatic brain injury, has raised the profile of injuries. In rugby it is a routine occurrence. Repeat concussions are associated with reduced cognitive function in young adult male rugby players which can be detected over three months later following the last concussion (Gardner et al., 2010). Repeat concussion is also associated with depression, memory loss and poorer verbal fluency in later life in former American football and ice-hockey players (Guskiewicz et  al., 2007; Guskiewicz et  al., 2005; De Beaumont et al., 2009; Tremblay et al., 2013). Evidence of a link between rugby and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in former players is also  Allyson Pollock: personal communication

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emerging (Gardner et al., 2014; Rugby ‘linked to early onset dementia’, 2013; Lawton, 2014). CTE is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in people with a history of repetitive brain trauma. Memory loss, confusion, impaired judgement, impulse control problems, aggression and depression all typically present in middle age, long after a player has retired, and may lead eventually to dementia. CTE has been a recognised issue in boxing since the 1920s and in American football since the 1960s. With all this in mind, our chapter looks at rugby from the perspective of children. It details the dangers of incurring serious injury from playing schools’ rugby football. It offers an account of the development and partial success of a research collaboration led by Professor Allyson Pollock at Newcastle University and Professor Eric Anderson of the University of Winchester with the Sport Collision Injury Collective (https://www.sportcic.com) which had the goal of bringing independent rugby research to the attention of the rugby and governmental authorities and the wider general public. It also documents how rugby authorities, employed and funded researchers, the medical establishment and sections of the media often coordinated their attacks on the credibility of our research.

 ugby and Children: Using Them R and Losing Them According to World Rugby there were 3.2 million registered rugby players in 2017, 11% of them in England. Moreover, more than two million children (39% of them girls) worldwide are reported to have participated in “Get into Rugby” activities in 2017 (World Rugby, 2017). However, children are an under-researched group. Rugby is played in many schools throughout the UK and is being rolled out to both state and private schools. In England, in 2013, almost half of state secondary schools (1500 out of 3281) played competitive rugby with plans to increase this number by 750 by 2019 (Education Committee, 2013). In a recent sample survey of statefunded secondary schools that deliver contact Rugby Union as part of the boys’ physical education curriculum, rugby union was the sport most likely to be made compulsory and was a compulsory activity in 91% of the 229 schools that delivered full contact rugby (White et al., in press). Despite the fact that a large proportion of state schools offer rugby, data on actual numbers of injuries sustained through rugby in a season are not collected routinely. However, the first ever Youth Rugby Injury Surveillance Project Season Report

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2017–18 has now been published. Using data collected from 19 English schools (15 private and four state) and from children aged 12–17 years, we see that the incidence of match injuries where players were prevented from play or training for seven days or more was 21.2 per 1000 player hours (Youth Rugby Injury Surveillance Project (YRISP) Steering Group, 2018); this compares to that in the professional adult game in the same season of 63 per 1000 player hours (England Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project Steering Group, 2018). Concussions were highest for the under-18s at 8.7/1000 player hours with under-13s recording 6 per 1000 player hours and under 15s, 5.9 per 1000 player hours. Most injuries, including concussions, happened in the tackle and 23% of concussed players returned to play in less than 23 days, the minimum medical timeframe specified for under-19 players; 6% returned within seven days. Research shows that: head impacts in under 11-year-olds playing rugby league are of a similar severity to those sustained by college American football players; a history of concussion negatively impacts on a person’s life chances across a range of social and educational measures; there is evidence that concussion is predictive of violent behaviour and subsequent injury in the year following the concussion in 13–14-year-old school children; and head injury is associated with an increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (Sport Collision Injury Collective, 2017a). It is striking that in the UK there is almost no independent research into rugby injuries; research is almost exclusively funded by the rugby unions. A similar situation exists for other sports. The governance and the rules of rugby for adults and children alike are left to the unions to draw up and police; likewise, sport injuries are left to the unions to monitor. In other words the professional game has been allowed to supervise the generation of science, its interpretation and its publication. The strategies employed here mirror those extensively employed by tobacco, food and pharmaceutical industries. In relation to independent critique there is a tendency on the part of the rugby authorities first, to deny injury risks and harms; second, to create doubt by concealing risks, ignoring harms and sowing confusion; and finally, should all else fail, to mount ad hominem attacks on the independent researchers.

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The Tackle: The Main Cause of Rugby Injuries “The most effective, although extreme, method for preventing concussion would be to eliminate exposure by removing the tackle from the game”

Matthew J Cross et al (Cross et al., 2019) “Concussion accounted for 18% of all injuries to the ball carrier and 37% of all injuries to the tackler, highlighting the tackle as the key game event to consider when developing concussion and all injury reduction strategies”

The England Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project Steering Group Chaired by Dr Simon Kemp 2018 (England Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project Steering Group, 2018) Of all the phases of play the tackle is the most injurious. In England the tackle is introduced at eight years of age  and other collision elements (the scrum, ruck and maul) at nine years of age (England Rugby, 2019). In a US surveillance system study of high school rugby clubs, 65% of all concussions were associated with the tackle (Collins et al., 2008). In English schools the tackle is also the most common cause of concussion with tackling twice as risky as being tackled (Youth Rugby Injury Surveillance Project (YRISP) Steering Group, 2018). All collision elements of the game are dangerous and risk is increased particularly where opposing player sizes and weights are mismatched as scrummaging, rucking and mauling can all place immense pressure on developing spines. For decades the Rugby Unions have underplayed the role of the tackle as the main cause of injury, focusing instead on the scrum. Since the evidence has started to mount, however, rugby researchers have become more willing to talk about the tackle as the prime cause of injuries. The logical next step would be to see rule/regulation changes around the collision elements of the game, in order to encourage players to avoid the tackle. However, the evidence points to the contrary:, the number of tackles taking place in professional matches is on the rise across European, National Cup and Premiership fixtures with an average of 139 tackles per team in 2017–18 compared to 102 tackles per team in 2013–14; there has also been a corresponding rise in the number of tackle-related injuries (England Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project Steering Group, 2018). As with the findings of the English schools research, for the first time since 2002 the tackler is more likely to be injured than the ball carrier (England Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project Steering Group, 2018).

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The rugby unions need to recognise that increasing player welfare and reducing injury risk lies in their own hands. Despite being “less often studied”, the evidence for rule and regulation changes in reducing incidence of injuries is stronger than that for attempting to change the behaviour and actions of athletes through training programmes or through the use of protective equipment (Emery et al., 2017; Vriend et al., 2017). Take the example of ice-hockey, another collision sport with a high risk of injury, particularly concussion. The body check is the main legal collision element in ice-hockey where a player deliberately makes contact with an opposing player to separate them from the ice-puck, often crashing them into the side barriers. Subsequent research has shown that since the body check ban in the youngest versions of the game in Canada, there has been a 67% reduction in concussion risk in 11- and 12-year-old players (Emery et al., 2017).

Putting the Tackle Into Touch The laws and rules governing the game are intended to control and regulate athletes’ behaviour. A simple ban on tackles, rucks, mauls and scrums in schools’ rugby would eliminate the main cause of rugby injury and concussion in school children. A good example of how rule change can make a difference occurred with the introduction of a new scrum engagement sequence (“crouch, bind, and set”) in 2013–14 season. Since introduction the number of scrum-related injuries has nearly halved from 4.3 per 1000 hours (95% confidence interval 3.8 to 4.9) in the pre law change seasons to 2.6 per 1000 hours (2.1 to 3.2) in the post law change seasons (England Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project Steering Group, 2018). Changing the rules of rugby in schools is not however a straightforward matter. A large part of the problem is that governments and education authorities have abdicated responsibility for sport safety and in any case always had little control. The responsibility for setting the rules of individual sports lies with the national sport governing body for each individual sport, and within schools in the UK, versions of these rules are adopted as advised by the national sporting bodies. For example, school children playing rugby union in England do so under a set of rules created for each age grade by the Rugby Football Union (“RFU”) (England Rugby, 2019), derived from the laws established by World Rugby. Under the current structure, any changes to rules in order to lower injury risk would need to be adopted by the sport’s governing bodies at a national union level; individual schools would then adapt their sport environments accordingly. Moreover, health and safety has been

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weakened due to cuts and erosion of the executives’ powers and resources, while the power of local authorities to intervene has also diminished with the rise of academy schools and free schools which are autonomous and lack strong accountability, either to the local community or to parents.

 ow a Request for Data Led to the Uncovering H of a Public Health Scandal In 2005 Allyson Pollock’s son was injured playing rugby at school, not once but three times. His injuries included a broken leg and concussion and a badly fractured cheek bone requiring surgery. His eye socket hung down and he could only drink through a straw. She asked his headmaster about the frequency of injury only to be told that monitoring was the responsibility of the Scottish Rugby Union (SRU). Pursuing the matter, she wrote to the SRU and was invited to a meeting at their headquarters at Murrayfield rugby stadium. There she learned that there were no active mechanisms to collect routine and comprehensive statistics on injuries from schools and clubs and such injury reports as had been submitted were not analysed. As she is by training a public health physician, she decided to carry out her own telephone survey of parents and boys to audit rugby injuries at her son’s school. She discovered that in a one-year period, in a cohort of 76 boys, 28 had sustained injuries, and 12 had been injured twice or more. More worryingly for those who played rugby throughout their time at  school, more than 90% had sustained a serious injury. She asked to present her findings to the parents’ association but was prevented from doing so by the school. The headmaster—who perhaps thought she was planning to sue the school over her son’s injury (she wasn’t)— met her reluctantly with a phalanx of male staff and the local GP, the headmaster saying he would prefer if a lawyer was present. When she asked to audit the injury book, they told her it could not be found. She then contacted the Scottish Chief Medical Officer who was at that time Dr (later Sir) Harry Burns and persuaded him to collaborate on a study of injuries over the second half of a single season in six Scottish schools (four state and two private); in the end one school refused to participate. He in turn asked his trainee Dr Alastair Nicol to work with them on this project. Dr Nichol, now consultant in Sport and Exercise Medicine at Edinburgh University, had previously worked for the Scottish Rugby Union and was team doctor for Scotland rugby squad at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010.

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The aim of the study was to show the ease and feasibility of establishing an injury monitoring system. The study was published in the Journal of Public Health in June 2010 (Nicol et al., 2011). Using the World Rugby Board’s own definitions of injury and severity of injury, the team recorded 26 match injuries among 470 children aged 11 to 17 years over 193 games in one term; there were a further 11 training injuries. Twenty injured pupils had to attend hospital Accident and Emergency departments and most, 23 (62.1%) injuries, had occurred during the tackle. The match injury rate was equivalent to 10.8 injuries per 1000 player hours. The SRU, which had collected no data of its own, wrote to Prof. Pollock’s employer, Edinburgh University, to complain about her comments on her study “which had caused significant damage to the standing and reputation of the game in Scotland”. The Principal’s reply emphasised “the long history the University had in engaging with rugby and the long and positive working relationship with the Scottish Rugby Union” but did not mention injuries or concerns about injuries. Dr Nicol, the lead author, wrote to the Glasgow Herald on 08 July 2010 distancing himself from the conclusions of the paper. The Principal’s office instructed the University press office to pull the debate on rugby injury they had planned to publish, presenting both sides of the argument. It so happened that the debate would coincide with a visit from the New Zealand national rugby team, the All Blacks and the opening by Prince Philip (the university’s patron) of the new sports clinic. The striking thing about Nicol and Pollock’s study was that the injury rate recorded was, if anything, lower than that found in larger-scale school and youth studies of rugby injuries. The SRU could have pointed to it as a sign that the game was safer than critics claimed. But rugby is used to being treated as a case apart. In most UK schools, comprehensive risk assessments are compulsory for seemingly innocuous activities, but even in state schools rugby injuries aren’t systematically counted as rugby injuries and there is poor recording and monitoring of injuries in the sport. Some of these injuries are horrific. Michael Carter, a paediatric neurosurgeon in Bristol and a rugby parent himself, wrote an editorial in the British Medical Journal in 2015 in which he described an hour spent “picking skull fragments out of the contused frontal lobes of a teenage rugby player” (Carter, 2015). Carter and three neurosurgical colleagues counted between them two deaths over the last decade, around 20 children’s rugby injuries requiring neurosurgical consultation or intervention, four or five serious spinal fractures and several depressed skull fractures, with varying degrees of associated brain injury. There were in addition lots of cases of spinal injuries and concussions which required acute in-­patient care and rehabilitation. No other school sport bore comparison with this.

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Rugby Unions responded to Prof. Pollock by claiming that the results were not generalisable—it was a small study of six schools, they said, in the second half of an ordinary season. Although Pollock and her colleagues had made repeated calls for collection of injury data and asked the Rugby Unions for their data, they had refused to provide it. Claims of lack of data and lack of evidence support a “do nothing” approach. The next step was to conduct a systematic review of injuries from rugby in children (Freitag et  al., 2015a) and a separate systematic review of rugby induced concussion injuries (Kirkwood et  al., 2015), looking at all studies worldwide. A key difficulty in assembling these data was that injury data were presented as exposure rates—that is, the number of injuries per so many player hours—and not as risk of injury in a game or match. This made them unintelligible to the public and to ourselves. So, with the help of Dr Nikesh Parekh (who was a medical student) and Professor Stewart Hodges, professor of finance and expert on statistics at Cass Business School, City University London, we converted these injury data to probabilities to show the true risks of injury. These data showed that on average a schoolboy rugby player had a greater than one in four risk (28.4%) of being injured over the course of a season with one in eight (12.1%) likely to be injured seriously enough to require seven days absence from the game. At a later date, we further analysed the studies included in the meta-­analysis in our systematic review by age group (Pollock et al., 2018). We found a high rate of injury in all age groups, young and old; almost one in five 11–13-year-­ olds, 18.6% (95% confidence interval 12.8%, 26.6%) were likely to be injured in a season ; almost one in ten 9–13-year-olds, 9.0% (2.3%, 31.5%) severely enough to be away from play for at least a week; one in four 14–18-year-olds, 25.0% (21.6%, 28.9%) were likely to be injured in a season and one in five 14–16-year-olds 19.5% (4.1%, 67.6%) severely enough to be away from play for at least a week. Our reviews on rugby injuries and concussion in children and adolescents, showed both the high rates of injuries across all studies and concluded as “children are more vulnerable to concussion and its effects than adults, it is therefore urgent that rugby and other contact sports are made safer for children and adolescents to play” (Kirkwood et  al., 2015). We recommended: improving data collection at matches and hospitals; ensuring at least a trained first aider is available at every school and club rugby match; and the removal of compulsion from school rugby. We decided to bring the work together in a book to inform parents, teachers, medics and health and safety officers. The resulting book Tackling Rugby

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was published in September 2014 (Pollock, 2014) and it marked the start of a campaign to ban the tackle in rugby played by school children.

Kick Off The first sign that our work was creating waves came in the form of an editorial published 24 September 2015  in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM) titled “Turning people into couch potatoes is not the cure for sports concussion” which clearly sought to equate taking action to reduce youth concussion in sport as advocating a sedentary lifestyle for young people (Calderwood et  al., 2016). The authors—Catherine Calderwood, then Scottish Chief Medical Officer, Andrew Duncan Murray a consultant in sports and exercise medicine at the University of Edinburgh FASIC Sport & Exercise Medicine Clinic and William Stewart, neuropathologist at the University of Glasgow—sidestepped the findings of our systematic review on concussion, referring to it as a “challenging review article” before moving on to focus on the benefits of sport, conflating the proven and long established benefits of physical activity with sport and ignoring the harms. It is, of course, a fact that physical activity is a key component of a healthy lifestyle. Pollock’s work did not deny these benefits; it simply highlighted the dangers of concussion and other injuries frequently incurred in contact sport, which can have disastrous impacts on health in the long term. Calderwood, however, ignored the occasioning of these harms, focusing instead on secondary prevention,—for example on what to do when someone has sustained a concussion. She then went on to claim that sport brought proven benefits from participation which outweighed the risks of concussion and overcomes the UK problem of physical inactivity and obesity. However the evidence for the “proven benefits of participation”, for individual sports is very weak: the first ever systematic review (and meta-analysis) of the evidence assessing the health benefits of specific sports found some evidence for health benefits from running and football (“soccer”) but the only study of the health benefits of rugby found merely a decrease in body fat in middle aged men following an eight week training programme (Oja et  al., 2015). Furthermore, Calderwood’s statement that “everyone can win through sport, which improves health and well-being, yielding benefits to at least 40 chronic diseases” is unreferenced. It appears to be a misquoting and a misrepresentation  of written evidence given the previous  year to the House of Commons Health Committee inquiry into the impact of physical activity and diet on health, in which the Department of Health stated “regular physical

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activity helps prevent and manage over 20 chronic conditions including coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, cancer, obesity, mental health problems and musculoskeletal conditions” (House of Commons Health Committee, 2015a).

 uilding the Defence: Launching B the Collaboration Following the publication of Tackling Rugby in September 2014 we were approached by two colleagues who worked on sports science, Adam White, a keen rugby player, and his doctoral supervisor Eric Anderson, a Professor of Sport, Masculinities & Sexualities at the University of Winchester. We decided to create an academic group of sports scholars (the Sports Concussion Injury Collective) to host our work, the accumulating of evidence and to respond to parent’s queries. On 1 March 2016, along with another 71 academics and medical practitioners, we wrote to the Chief Medical Officers (CMOs), children’s commissioners and secretaries of state for education, health and sport in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland calling for the tackle and other forms of harmful contact to be removed from school rugby (Anderson et al., 2016). The resulting press coverage was extensive.

The Hand-Off: The Royal Colleges The very next day, a response was published on the website of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) by Professor Russell Viner, their Officer for Health Promotion (Viner, 2016). The day after that in an apparently coordinated response a statement on behalf of the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine (FSEM) was posted on its website by Dr Paul D Jackson, their president, in support of the statement by the RCPCH (Jackson, 2016). With arguments reminiscent of those presented in the Calderwood Couch Potatoes editorial, Viner wrote on behalf of the RCPCH “it is as equally vital that we appreciate the benefits gained from children playing sports in school. Currently around 1 in 3 children aged between 2 and 15 in the UK are overweight or obese, making it imperative that we make as much effort as possible to encourage more children and young people to take up regular exercise. Although there are risks attached to any sport, it is imperative that we don’t let this prevent our children from getting out and taking part in

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much needed physical activity.” Taking a different tack, Dr Jackson on behalf of the FSEM wrote that “there is insufficient good evidence to justify a call for tackling to be removed from school rugby. More research is required from medical experts, in injury surveillance, using standard definitions of injury which can be applied across all sports to enable comparisons to be made”. He also wrote that “skill acquisition at an early age is essential in all sports and teaching of the correct techniques is a vital element of injury prevention”. Our response to the points raised in these website articles and to the earlier Calderwood editorial was published as an editorial in the BJSM on 19 April 2016: “Removing contact from school rugby will not turn children into couch potatoes” (Pollock & Kirkwood, 2016). We reiterated the evidence that the tackle is the main source of injury in rugby, the lack of evaluation of injury prevention initiatives citing our own review (Freitag et al., 2015b), and highlighting again how the physical activity for which the benefits are well-founded was being conflated with organised competitive sport. We also wrote to the president of Academy of Royal Medical Colleges Professor Susan Bailey, asking her to ensure that the pronouncements of member organisations were evidence-based. We received no reply.

Coming Off the Bench: The CMOs On 29 July 2016, Professors Pollock and Anderson received a letter from the four UK CMOs rejecting the call to remove the tackle and other forms of collision from the school game and attaching a report they had commissioned from their UK Physical Activity Expert Group (The four UK Chief Medical Officers. Chief Medical Officer’s Correspondence, 2016). In the letter they referred to research published in the British Journal of Sport Medicine by South African sport scientist Ross Tucker and colleagues on 20 June 2016 (Tucker et  al., 2016) as supporting the conclusions of the expert group. They concluded that “it is our view that the evidence does not support the conclusions and recommendations laid out in your open letter”. The CMOs of England, Wales and Northern Ireland were in a difficult position, their hands apparently tied by loyalty to the then Scottish CMO Catherine Calderwood. Clearly the CMOs had known that the Tucker piece was in preparation and had waited for its publication prior to sending us their reply. A likely explanation was that conversations were now taking place between the UK CMOs and their advisory group and researchers employed by World Rugby. So we wrote our own response to the arguments raised by Ross Tucker and colleagues which was published in the BJSM. We then sent this publication to

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the CMOs on 13 July 2017 along with a detailed critique of the paper written by the CMOs Physical Activity Expert Group. We didn’t anticipate the time it would take for publication of our response to Tucker by the BJSM. It took from 16 September 2016 to 04 May 2017 and three extensive rounds of peer review totalling 43 pages before being accepted for publication (Pollock et al., 2016). It was only later, when our response to Tucker was included in a rugby special print edition of the BJSM in August 2017 (Pollock et al., 2017) that the true mechanics of this peer review process came to light. The special issue of the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM) on rugby in August 2017 was guest-edited by Jon Patricios, Director of Waterfall Sports Orthopaedic Surgery in Johannesburg and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand. Patricios is also a former member of the South African Rugby medical committee and is author of the South African Rugby Union “BokSmart” concussion protocols. He used this platform to dismiss our evidenced and heavily peer reviewed response to Tucker as an opinion piece, accusing us of “cherry picking of facts, self-contradictory statements, selective use of data subsets and straw man fallacy” (Patricios, 2017). It was only in 2020 that Patricios’ competing interests as an unpaid advisor to South African Rugby’s BokSmart programme and a voluntary member of World Rugby’s Concussion Advisory Group were declared in a correction to his editorial in the BJSM (Patricios, 2020). The special issue also contained a critique of our article by Ken Quarrie, Senior Scientist at New Zealand rugby, written using the reviewer’s comments to our response to Tucker (Quarrie et al., 2017a). So in a breach of publication ethics and before any debate on our response could take place, there was already an article in the same issue attempting to refute our evidence. If that wasn’t enough, Quarrie’s article was made editor’s choice and free to view (as was Patricios’ editorial) while our paper enjoyed no such privilege and is unobtainable to most non-academics. This is because we could not afford the £1,950 plus fee, whereas the rugby unions who fund the researchers can not only afford this but also help to sponsor the journal’s income by buying reprints. Our work remains behind a pay wall while Quarrie’s criticisms and Patricios’ ad hominem attack stand so long as readers cannot access our work to judge for themselves. The same special issue of the BJSM carried an editorial by Allyson Pollock and Joe Piggin of Loughborough University in the UK which asked for the retraction of World Rugby’s wrong and misleading statistics on injury risk which they had presented in an infographic for the public. World Rugby specifically designed this infographic to reassure parents making the claim that

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cycling was more injurious than playing rugby. In fact it was the other way around; World Rugby had transposed the injury data for cycling injuries to rugby (Piggin & Pollock, 2017). This resulted in a year-long battle to get World Rugby to withdraw and retract the infographic, exposing it in the BJSM and writing to advertising standards. Our editorial exposing this misinformation also sits behind the pay wall. The effect of all this can be seen in the BJSM’s own statistics. As of 09 June 2020, on average, since publication in June 2016 Ross Tucker’s article has had its abstract downloaded 278 times a month whereas our response has had its abstract downloaded 427 times a month, both for free. Tucker’s article was made editor’s choice and free to view and has had the full article downloaded 153 times a month since publication whereas our response has been downloaded only 49 times a month as this requires a charge to the institution or individual. This form of academic censorship inhibits debate and prevents critical analyses from being given equal consideration; researchers with funding, invariably from business and corporate interests such as World Rugby and the England Rugby Football Union, call the tune. The main funders of rugby research are World Rugby and the RFUs—bodies who make the Laws and thus deliberate on appropriateness of the tackle in school rugby. Critics of the injuries incurred in the sport receive no funding and there is no government support for research into the sport or indeed into any injuries and harms resulting from sport. It is seen as a private matter. Some major academic journals also, as in our case, close down the debate by delaying publication and restricting access to their articles. Their censorship is based on the ability to pay. The use of free to view open access creates another bias. The flawed Tucker article criticising our systematic review on rugby injury was made open access, whereas our detailed and in-depth systematic review showing the rates and risks of injury, and our responses to their criticisms are behind a pay wall because as independent researchers we cannot afford to pay. The rugby unions, like the pharmaceutical companies, pay large amounts to journals for reprints of their articles and so the bias is perpetuated. This is a hidden form of sponsorship. Despite repeated requests to the editor that they be made free to view to inform the evidence underpinning the debate, it is not in his gift. Finally on 13 July 2017, the day after our response to Tucker was published online, we sent our response to the CMOs (Sport Collision Injury Collective, 2017a). A reply was received from Calderwood on 10 October 2017 on behalf of the four CMOs which simply stated “As a group we continue to support the position set out in my article in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in September 2015—that it is important for schools and community groups to

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develop and implement strong concussion management policy” (Calderwood et  al., 2016; Calderwood, 2017). We had come full circle—back to couch potatoes.

Throwing a Dummy One of the arguments raised by both Tucker and, earlier, by Paul Jackson of the FSEM is that not having the tackle available to young children will result in an even higher risk of injury in the older age groups, who would thus be unfamiliar with tackle technique: “We interpret this to hypothesise that the proper teaching of good technique, as well as management and guidance of which type of tackle young players are taught and expected to use, can have material effects on injury risk during Rugby Union participation” (Tucker et al., 2016). Similar objections were raised in Canada when the “body check” was banned from ice-hockey in under 13-year-olds. Research has found that introducing the body check does carry a high risk of injury but this is the same at whatever age it is introduced (Emery et al., 2011). Players need to be involved in deciding when they are ready to take on this increased risk of injury; prior to this they can focus on skill development (Emery et al., 2011). In the United States where body checking is also banned in the under-13 game, US Hockey views it as a positive step, giving space for creativity to grow and, thus, allowing children to develop their skills—focussing, for example on the puck and not the hit (The United States of Hockey, 2013). The same argument could be made for rugby. The book and our work have had some impact. Denial and evasion over the tackle as the major cause of injury has been rugby’s hallmark. Only since but not before, the publication of our book, the research and media exposure which began in 2005, all the leading rugby researchers including Ken Quarrie, Martin Raftery, Colin Fuller, Nicholas Burger, Simon Roberts, Grant Trewartha, Mike England, Keith Stokes, John Brooks and Sharief Hendricks have acknowledged that rugby has a high rate of injury (Quarrie et al., 2017b; Burger et al., 2016; Roberts et al., 2013; Fuller et al., 2010; Hendricks et al., 2015). In addition many have acknowledged that the rate of injury in rugby is higher than other team sports (Burger et al., 2016; Roberts et al., 2013) or is at least on a par with other collision sports, such as American football and Australian rules football (Roberts et al., 2013). And at last, the tackle is now accepted as the leading source of injury (England Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project Steering Group, 2018; Cross et al., 2019).

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Counter Attacking: The Rugby Unions’ Response World Rugby’s Protocol for Head Injuries In 2012 World Rugby had introduced a new protocol for head injuries, the Pitch-Side Concussion Assessment (PSCA), colloquially known as the five-­ minute rule. Under the PSCA a concussed player is assessed for symptoms (for instance, can they stand up straight?), and asked a series of questions like the ones in drink-driving cases (Where are we? What’s the score?). If a player fails a question or commits four balance errors the player is removed from the game. Otherwise she or he can go back on after five minutes. In 2012, Barry O’Driscoll resigned as medical advisor to World Rugby and as their representative to the international conference on concussion in sport, protesting at the introduction of this new system which he described as coming “out of the blue” (Against the head: how the issue of concussion developed from amateur to professional rugby, 2017). “There is no test”, he said, “that you can do in five minutes that will show that a player is not concussed” (English, 2013). O’Driscoll was further alarmed when World Rugby decided to trial the new system in the world under 20s tournament: “they introduced it for the very first time with teenagers. That’s where I said I couldn’t accept that at all and that’s why I resigned” (Against the head: how the issue of concussion developed from amateur to professional rugby, 2017). O’Driscoll told Professor Pollock how he had been side-lined and marginalised by the Union. He told The Guardian he feared World Rugby and the national rugby unions would face lawsuits from players who were unaware of the risks they were taking, just like the National Football League in the United States (Bull, 2013). He has also criticised the new categories of concussion invoked at pitch-side namely, “probable” and “suspected” concussions, where players with suspected concussions are allowed to play on. It is simply not medically possible to differentiate between a probable and a suspected concussion. The decision to decrease the period before a player returns to play from three weeks to six days using a graduated return to play had no evidence to support it and coincided with the period between matches. World Rugby’s current “Graduated Return To Play (GRTP) Programme for the Community Game” concussion guidance states that the earliest players should return to play is 19 days for under-19-year-olds and 12 days for players aged 19 years and above (https://playerwelfare.worldrugby.org/concussion, n.d.). It should also be noted that these pitch-side tests may themselves fail to diagnose delayed concussion (Steve Smith: Brain injury charity says it was ‘incredibly dangerous’ to resume innings, 2019).

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The rugby unions’ response to the injury problem has always been to send up an immediate “smokescreen of new initiatives”. The four rugby unions of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland have rushed out many initiatives to prevent injury. Our published peer review article in the BMJ documented five initiatives internationally and showed that only two have been evaluated, RugbySmart and BokSmart. These initiatives include focussing on lack of fitness as a cause of injury. Strength and fitness training programmes are being rolled out across England; claims for their protective effect on injuries are unsupported by evidence. Large investments have been made in physical programmes to build neck strength (Barrett et al., 2015) and the strength, agility and balance movement control of players (Hislop et al., 2017), the evidence in support of these initiatives is weak or absent (White et al., 2018). In fact, findings from the latest RFU audit of injuries in the professional game for 2017–18 show a significant rise in the incidence of injuries sustained during rugby skills contact training and conditioning non-weights training compared with previous years. They also reveal an increase in the severity of training injuries recorded with concussion the most common full contact training injury (England Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project Steering Group, 2018). It raises the question as to whether the intensity of training, which is designed to protect against injury, is becoming a source of injury itself. Inadequately tested programmes can backfire; the trial of a ban on tackles above armpit height (instead of the customary shoulder height) during the 2018–19 Championship Cup was abandoned. This was because a 67% increase in concussions was observed when both the ball carrier and tackler were bent at the waist (RFU tackle height trial ended after concussions rise in Championship Cup, 2019).

Back from the Sin Bin: The Return of the CMOs Eventually on 26 September 2017 Allyson Pollock was called to a meeting with the four CMOs in Richmond House at the Department of Health to make the case for prevention of rugby injuries. The meeting was brief and it was clear there would be no backing down on the part of the officers. In July 2017 we had sent the four CMOs a summary of the latest evidence on rugby and injury. It was damning and unequivocal, highlighting: high rates of injury in the youth rugby union game with many injuries occurring during the tackle; how youth rugby had a significantly higher rate of concussion than any other contact or collision team sport; how the tackle was responsible for three quarters of concussions in the adult community game; how in the United

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States, rugby injury emergency department attendances were increasing, in particular for head and face injuries; how girls were taking longer to recover from concussion than boys; how head impacts in under 11-year-olds playing rugby league were of a similar severity to those sustained by college American football players; how a history of concussion negatively impacted upon a person’s life chances across a range of social and educational measures; how evidence that concussion was predictive of violent behaviour and subsequent injury in the year following the concussion in 13–14-year-old school children; how head injury was associated with an increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease; and how strong evidence existed from youth ice-hockey that rule changes disallowing collision have a dramatic effect in lowering concussion risk (Sport Collision Injury Collective, 2017a). We posed 36 questions to the CMOs and their physical exercise advisory group (Sport Collision Injury Collective, 2017b). To date we have not received any detailed response to these questions and their position on rugby and children is unchanged.

Entering Stoppage Time The day before the meeting with the CMOs in London we published an opinion piece in the British Medical Journal, again outlining our arguments on why it made sense to remove the tackle and other forms of harmful contact from school rugby (Pollock & Kirkwood, 2017a). Following publication, World Rugby issued a statement saying “World Rugby and its member unions take player safety and welfare very seriously and proactively pursue an evidence-­based approach to reduce the risk of injury at all levels. Contrary to Pollock’s opinion, the systematic published studies where injury has been properly defined and monitored, suggest the risk for pre-teens is not unacceptably high compared to other popular sports. It is well documented that, for most sports injury rates increase with age and yet the research quoted mixes 9–12 with 18–20 age groups" (Study calling for tackling ban in school rugby is ‘extreme and alarmist’ says World Rugby, 2017). World Rugby’s statement was picked up widely by the media: for example, Piers Morgan presenter of the Good Morning Britain morning television programme, in a characteristically unpleasant tirade, accused us of wanting to kill off school sports, ban “tug of war and conkers” and declared that “the whole point of rugby is to collide” (ITV, 2017). Much coverage in the media sought to cast doubt on our article by repeating a prior criticism that, by combining age groups, claims made were not based on like-for-like statistics. In fact, contrary to the claim, no matter how you dice or slice the data, figures showed a high

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rate of injuries within each age group, with the highest rate of injury in the older age groups. For example, for 14–18-year-olds we calculate a one in four chance of being injured over the course of a season and for 14–16-year-olds a one in five chance of being injured seriously enough to require at least seven days away from the game (Pollock et al., 2018). Our findings have since been supported by those in the RFUs own youth rugby surveillance report for 2017–18 (Youth Rugby Injury Surveillance Project (YRISP) Steering Group, 2018). In another sign of behind-the-scenes coordination, before our opinion piece was even published, Professor Alan Carson, Consultant Neuropsychiatrist and Honorary Professor at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences at Edinburgh University, was commissioned by the Scottish Media Centre to write a comment on it (our article was released under embargo 00:01 on Tuesday 26 September 2017 on press release and sent to media outlets a few days earlier) (Pollock & Kirkwood, 2017b). This was then used by a number of media outlets, including Good Morning Britain, as counter argument. In particular Carson took issue with two of the studies we had cited, incorrectly assigning injury-prone behaviour resulting from a child’s personality as the explanation for one set of findings and over-emphasising the role of residual confounding2 in another study of head injury and dementia. We responded to his criticisms pointing out his errors. He did not respond. Again, instead of proper debate, uninformed and inaccurate responses by World Rugby and its associates were being used to deliberately confuse parents, children and the wider public on the dangers of collision rugby played in schools. We wrote one more time to the CMOs on 10 January 2018 in response to their letter and to clear up the inaccuracies over the reporting of our opinion piece. We are yet to receive a reply.

 he Blinkered View from the Stands: T Parliamentary Responses Meanwhile, concerns over sexual abuse of children and safeguarding of sports participants led to a review by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson of duty of care in sport being launched in April 2016. The review included within its remit the topics of concussion and catastrophic injury in sport. The long-awaited  This is the distortion that remains after controlling for confounding in the design and/or analysis of a study. See http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/BS/BS704-EP713_Confounding-EM/ BS704-EP713_Confounding-EM4.html Access 22nd June 2020. 2

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findings, released in April 2017, included recommendations for a Sports Ombudsmen or Sports Duty of Care Quality Commission to be created by government. It would have powers to hold national governing sport bodies to account for the duty of care they provide and a Duty of Care Guardian to be appointed to each sport governing body to oversee the separated duties of the medical and safeguarding teams, moving these responsibilities away from performance coaches. Unfortunately, duty of care is being narrowly interpreted around sexual safeguarding. The review states that sport governing bodies have a duty to respect the advice and guidance of medical experts and to put the safety and welfare of athletes above all concerns. As was seen in Canada, it requires data to drive informed rule changes and for medical experts to make evidence-based recommendations; the duty of care review says nothing about injury data collection except in the extreme case of catastrophic injury. The recommendations of the review appear to have been ignored by government. Catastrophic injuries in rugby are rare but tragic events. An audit of admissions to spinal injury units from rugby injury in under-19-year-olds in Great Britain and Ireland found that between 1996 and 2010 there were 10 cases in Scotland (five of these between 2007 and 2008) and 14 in Ireland and between 2000 and 2010 there were 12 cases in England and Wales. The mechanism of injury was tackle in 47% and scrum in 36% of cases. Injuries from the scrum were more likely to have complete neurological deficit3 (MacLean & Hutchison, 2012). There have been no updates on these injuries since 2010, which is of grave concern. However, anecdotal evidence suggests these injuries have not diminished in number; our team continues to receive contact from parents whose children have been injured. In this campaign, political allies are hard to come by. The Labour MP Chris Bryant met with us and set up a parliamentary group on acquired brain injury. However, despite their report published in September 2018 and containing a chapter on sport-related concussion, there is no reference to concussion prevention,—only to recognition and management (All-party parliamentary group on acquired brain injury, 2018). Why are politicians so reluctant to tackle these issues? One possible explanation could be fear of being seen to be anti-competition. National curriculum guidance on physical education in England aims to build both cooperative and competitive skills in pupils but competition dominates especially in the later stages (Department for Education, 2013). Instead of the broad range of physical activities which could be encouraged in schools in line with current  This refers to any altered function which is due to weaker function of the brain, spinal cord, muscles or nerves. Examples include: abnormal reflexes and the inability to speak. 3

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health guidance, competitive sports take precedence, especially those which command the largest audiences and sponsorship fees. In reality, the physical activity agenda in schools is being used to teach children to compete against each other. This is as much about training them to compete in the world outside when they leave school as it is about, for example, tackling any obesity crisis. In March 2015, shortly after the publication of our systematic reviews on injury and concussion in youth rugby, the House of Commons Health Committee published its report which followed an inquiry into the impact of physical activity and diet on health (House of Commons Health Committee, 2015b). It reported that inactivity in the UK was indeed a major problem with only 21% of boys and 16% of girls aged 5–15 years meeting the national physical activity target in 2012. Figures from Public Health England given in the report said that walking trips had decreased by 30% between 1995 and 2013. In their conclusions and recommendations, the committee stated: “We have heard the hugely positive message that increasing physical activity has significant health benefits and does not necessarily mean playing organised competitive sport three times a week—it encompasses a diverse range of activities, including everyday activities such as walking. The point was made that raising heart rate was the most important thing, but any increase in activity is beneficial” (House of Commons Health Committee, 2015b). Current guidance from the Chief Medical Officers states that children and young people aged 5–18 years should engage in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity at least 60 minutes a day on average which can include physical education, active travel, after-school activities, play and sports. They state that there is “no single way in which children and young people should be active; the focus should be on identifying activities that they find enjoyable, and on creating opportunities to be active” (UK Chief Medical Officers, 2019). It is clear then that sport in general, and organised sport in particular, forms only a small part of the solution to the UK’s high inactivity figures. It was therefore puzzling to see such a short-sighted set of proposals being put forward in the editorial by Calderwood and colleagues—proposals which could be dismissed if they didn’t now constitute the official policy of the four UK Chief Medical Officers. Despite the guidance from the CMOs, current UK government and Sport England policy on increasing physical activity among the population is biased towards competitive sport (HM Government, 2016). In 2012, in the coalition government’s New Youth Sports Strategy, Conservative Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt promised £135m to support sports in UK Schools. “We will work with sports such as Football, Cricket, Rugby Union, Rugby League and

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Tennis”, he said, “to establish at least 6,000 partnerships between schools and local sports clubs by 2017” (Department for Culture Media and Sport, 2012). The government hoped to put in place 1300 links between schools and rugby union organisations and a further 1000 with rugby league. It has done so without regard to the evidence on harms and injuries. The benefits of rugby are constantly being trumpeted, while the harms are downplayed or concealed. Every year tens of thousands of children suffer injuries—some minor, some major and some catastrophic, life-changing or life-ending. All these children are invisible—they are invisible because the data on harms are not being collected on sports injuries in any serious, systematic or routine way. Released in 1980, The Black Report drew attention to the fact that one third of child mortality was from unintentional injury (then termed “accidents”) and that the “most steep gradients in childhood mortality are found with accidents” with little improvement over time. Great strides have been made in road traffic safety assisted greatly by the availability of road traffic collision data collected by the police. No such monitoring of home injuries or sport and leisure activity injuries takes place and consequently prevention of these injuries has been hampered and rates of injury from these activities continue to rise with no proper understanding of the likely causes (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, 2013).

Public Response Public response to our research, our campaign and the publication of our book Tackling Rugby: What every Parent Should Know About (Pollock, 2014) has been mixed. We received harrowing letters and emails of support from parents whose children had sustained devastating injuries which described the silence that had followed from the schools and how the schools closed ranks making it impossible to get proper accounts of the injuries. There were anguished accounts from adults and players, some quite elderly, of the long term physical and psychological impact of playing rugby and being compelled to play it. And then there were the torrents of vile twitter abuse and emails from rugby supporters some of which included threats. The media response was mixed but included Piers Morgan’s memorably hectoring accusations that Prof. Pollock would want to “ban tug of war and kill off school sports” alongside claims of fitness and benefits of rugby (ITV, 2017). Former England rugby player Will Greenwood, delivered another angry response: “keep your stats, your numbers”, he told Professor Pollock, insisting that the benefits of rugby (respect, standing side by side, etc.) were worth “the occasional niggle,

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the occasional scrape” and adding the now-familiar warning of the encroachments of the “cotton wool, nanny state” (www.skysports.com/rugby-union/ news/15723/11056510/the-offload-will-greenwood-debates-tackling-with-­ allyson-­ pollock-mark-lambert-talks-player-welfare). The British state, it might be added, has so far showed no such inclination. Several heads of departments of large independent schools also emailed or telephoned Professor Pollock to express their concerns and frustration that school heads and governors are more interested in maintaining income than protecting children. Rugby is a marketing tool. Parents may be sold the sport not realising the potential harms to their children.

 Different Form of Censorship Operates Within A the Rugby Union Meanwhile informed critics of the game are removed and marginalised. Barry O’Driscoll suffered for speaking out. In France, neurosurgeon Jean Chazal claims that he was dismissed from the federation’s advisory board because he spoke out about the risks of rugby, “they told me: you have to be quiet” (Bull, 2018). Chazal says that the way rugby is structured now makes it unsuitable for a child of 15 years to play; there are too many dangers for bodies not yet fully developed. We in turn are frozen out—the way in which research is funded through grants and networks of patronage means there is no funding for those whose questions might elicit unpleasant findings.

After the Whistle: Concluding Remarks In 2016, America’s National Football League reached a one-billion-dollar settlement over concussion-related brain injuries among its 18,000 retired players, agreeing to compensate victims, pay for medical examinations and underwrite research. The settlement was a result of concealing the harms of injuries from players. Crucially, the out-of-court settlement allowed the NFL to avoid accepting any liability, a tactic also used by tobacco and the pharmaceutical industries, and has resulted in punitive fines and settlements. In 2013 the first suspected rugby CTE case was reported by pathologist Dr Willie Stewart, one of the authors of the couch potatoes editorial, in a retired rugby player who died in his 50s after developing early onset dementia (Rugby ‘linked to early onset dementia’, 2013). Dr Stewart who is still an advocate of

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the tackle in school rugby suggested that “‘one or two’ players competing in the Six Nations every year may go on to develop the condition”. The growth of the professional game means that injured players are now more likely to litigate. In 2016, Cillian Willis of Ireland and Jamie Cudmore of Canada started court proceedings against their respective former clubs, Sale and Clermont Auvergne, over neglecting of player welfare (Anderson, 2017) Both players had suffered multiple concussions during their playing careers and cite several examples of extreme neglect from medical and coaching staff during games in which they were seriously injured. Litigation and parent action might be what it takes to get proper monitoring in place. New Zealand is the only country in the world to have a comprehensive national dataset of rugby injuries, collected since April 1974 by the government’s Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). We would do well to take a leaf from their book. The ACC has a statutory duty to prevent injury, which means it must monitor injuries and work on prevention strategies with relevant parties. The New Zealand system provides financial compensation and support to anyone who suffers an injury irrespective of proof of blame and citizenship. To ensure that legal responsibility for rugby injuries remains with the state, rugby officials have to report any injury to the head or neck that happens on their watch, or any injury requiring hospital admission or an absence from play of eight weeks or more. Since 2001, the ACC has required all coaches and referees to take a compulsory injury prevention course called RugbySmart, to teach them about the most common causes of injury, to show them how to assess the condition and health of a player before he or she goes on to the pitch, and to give them the skills to keep players safe and healthy on the pitch. In the first four years of the programme, injuries to the neck and spine decreased by 24% and knee injuries by 16% (Gianotti et al., 2009). Nothing of comparable sophistication exists in the UK: rugby’s governing bodies in this country are highly resistant to the introduction of comprehensive monitoring and UK lawyers to no fault compensation schemes like the NZ scheme. Most serious injuries in rugby are avoidable and preventable. No one currently counts the number of youth sport concussions occurring every year but it is likely to be substantial. Take the case of rugby. The RFU submitted evidence to the House of Commons Education Committee in April 2013, that by 2019 it expected there to be 2250 rugby playing statefunded secondary schools in England (https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ cm201314/cmselect/cmeduc/164/164vw27.htm), totalling over 900,000 boys aged 11–15 years (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schoolspupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2019). The RFUs Youth Rugby

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Injury Surveillance Project estimates 5.9 concussions per 1000 player hours for the under 15-year-old age group (Youth Rugby Injury Surveillance Project (YRISP) Steering Group, 2018). On the basis of these data, in the absence of major changes to the game, an estimated 30,000–40,000 concussions due to rugby will occur in 11–15-year-old boys in a single term alone. Yet there is no mention from the CMOs, or the medical colleges, of how the risks of concussion can be reduced, only how concussions should be dealt with when they occur. The harms are completely ignored as is prevention. Defenders of full contact collision rugby will say that most injuries are not serious. This is not so. Fractures, dislocations, torn ligaments and dental and maxillofacial4 injuries and concussions are considered run-of-the-mill by the rugby fraternity. But they are not. The BMJ Editor in Chief, Dr Fiona Godlee, wrote in January 2015 “let’s call the current state of monitoring and prevention of rugby injury in schools what it is: a scandal. It needs urgent remedy before more children and their families suffer the consequences of collective neglect.” In 2015, a BMJ poll of doctors confirmed that 72% felt the game should be made safer. As this chapter was going to press, the UK House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee reported on their inquiry into concussion in sport. Recommendations included improved data collection and a single research fund to co-ordinate and fund research (https://committees.parliament.uk/ work/977/concussion-in-sport/news/156748/sport-allowed-to-mark-itsown-homework-on-reducing-concussion-risks/). The report is silent on sports injury in children with no mention of children and concussion. But prevention requires radical changes to the Laws of the game and taking out the collision elements for children, mainly the tackle. World Rugby determines the laws of the game but their interests are in the professional game and in business. Children have little or no representation in the national rugby unions either, their welfare and interests and rights are not paramount (White et al., 2019). By allowing the sport’s own governing bodies to decide what if any information to collect and to determine the Laws of the Game for children, the UK government has abdicated its responsibilities towards children under the UN Convention and exposed itself to potentially costly legal actions in the future. Meanwhile the Chief Medical Officers sit on their hands as thousands of children are injured each year, wasting lives, costing the NHS millions of pounds and their families and carers considerable time off work; their critics are frozen out as the establishment closes ranks to protect the money interests behind the game.  Relating to the jaws and face.

4

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Acknowledgements  We would like to acknowledge Hector Pollock Fraser for his comments and advice and members of the Sport Collision Injury Collective for their supportive work in exposing and highlighting injuries.

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Index1

A

Abbott, Sean, 495n1, 496 Abdullah, Husain, Academy of Royal Medical Colleges, 158, 586 Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), 598 Ackerman, Al (wrestler), 104n72, 107 AC Milan FC, 485 Action to Abolish the Grand National (AAGN), 277 Acton, Joe (wrestler), 90 Adams, Nicola (boxer), 207, 212, 215, 217, 218 Addams, Jane, 125–128, 139 Adidas, 30, 378, 380, 381 Agassi, Andre, xxi Agathos Daimon (boxer), 3 Aikman, Troy, 165, 181 Aintree (racecourse), 270, 276–278 al-Ajoury, Mohammed, Albert, Howie, 256, 522 Albrechtsen, Janet, 498 Alfa Romeo (car manufacturers), 311 Alfaro, Manuel, 255

Ali, Lonnie, 511 Ali, Mahershala, 454 Ali, Moeen, 525 Ali, Muhammad, xvii, 211, 252, 254, 445, 449, 451, 505–512 Allen, Woody, 260 Allen-Collinson, Jacquelyn, 209 All-Union Committee on Physical Culture and Sports Affairs (of the Soviet Union), x Almond, Hely Hutchinson, 80 The Alpine Journal, 187, 196 The Alps, 197 Amateur Swimming Association (ASA), 542, 544 American Alpine Club (AAC), 190, 191 American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), 144, 410, 412, 413 American College of Sports Medicine and National Athletic Trainers Association, 145 American Council on Exercise (ACE), 410, 411

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Wagg, A. M. Pollock (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sport, Politics and Harm, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72826-7

607

608 Index

American Epidemiological Society (AES), 135 American Family Insurance, 380 American football, vii, 99, 115–139, 142, 150, 155, 157–165, 158n1, 168, 169, 173–184, 333, 338, 340, 343, 366, 375, 379, 383, 484, 576–578, 589, 592 American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), 135, 143, 150 American Medical Association (AMA), 133, 145, 216 American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, 397 American Professional Football Association/National Football League (NFL), 135, 165 American Public Health Association (APHA), 118, 135 American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 270 American Sports Medicine Institute, 387, 390 Ammon, Lord, 272 Amnesty International, 517, 520, 527 Amsterdam Olympics (1928), 466 Anatomy Act (1832), 353, 354, 357 Anderson, Benedict, 518 Anderson, Jimmy, 497 Anderson, Prof. Eric, 577, 585 Andress, Ursula, 246 Andrews, David L., xv, 333, 386 Andrews, Dr James, 394, 397, 399 Andrews, Lori, 358 Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis (play by Sir David Lyndsay), 67 Anglo Saxon Chronicle, 18 Animal rights, xiv, 267, 269, 271, 277, 279, 283, 284 Animal Welfare Manifesto, 282 Ann Craft Trust (ACT), 547 Anne, Princess, 248, 574 Annie Hall (film), 260

Antisemitism, 260, 526–527 Apartheid, 526 Al-Araibi, Hakeem, 524 Archer, Fred, 274 Archer, Jofra, 499 Aristotle (philosopher), 13 The Arm (by Jeff Passan), 395 Armstrong, Lance, 295–297, 304, 305 Arrichion, 4–6 Arsenal FC, 246 Arsenal Football Club, 382 Ascari, Alberto, 311 Ascari, Antonio, 311 Ascot (racecourse), 272 Association football, 79, 80, 484, 487 Astle, Jeff, 210, 484, 484n1 Athletic Injuries (by Dr. Augustus Thorndike), 465 Atlanta Braves, 391 Aucoin, Taylor, 38n100, 39 Avai FC, xii Awang, Azizul Hasni, 299 B

Baccolini, Raffaella, 448 Bailes, Dr. Julian, 167 Bailey, Prof. Susan, 586 Baime, A.J., 317 Bairner, Alan, 518 Baker, Dr Champ L., Jr., 397 Balata FC, 519 Baldwin, James, 257 Balfour Declaration (1917), 516 Ballard, William, 46 Baltimore Ravens, 158 Banff Mountain Festival, 198 Banks, Sasha (wrestler), 232, 235 Bannister, Dr Roger, 464 Barbaric Sport (by Marc Perelman), xiii Barbaro (racehorse), 278, 279 Barclay, Alexander, 64, 65

 Index 

Barnes, Michael, 492, 493 Barra, Allen, 335, 336, 341 Barton, Joey, 525 Bartram, William, 46, 47 Baseball Hall of Fame, 389, 391 Baseball Prospectus (website), 391 Bass, Nicole (wrestler), 234 Bata, Ælfric (Benedictine schoolmaster), 22 Bates, Kenneth, 375 Battle of Agincourt, 48 Bauer, Thiebaud (wrestler), 89, 89n8 Baxter-Jones, Roger (climber), 196 Bayley (wrestler), 232 Beaston, Erik, 234, 235 Beck, Ulrich, xiv, 495 Becker, Howard, 367, 367n4, 497 Bell, Le’Veon, 179 Bella, Nikki (wrestler), 235 Bennet, Captain ‘Tuppy, 275 Bennett, Laura (wrestler), 93, 94, 97 Benoist, Robert, 311 Bentham, Jeremy, 357 Berger, Russell, 255, 407, 410, 412 Berlin Olympics (1936), 465, 476 Berlioux, Monique, 472 Bernard, William, 28 Bettembourg, Georges (climber), 196 Beyond the Ring (by Jeffrey Sammons), 249 Bianchi, Jules, 326 Biondetti, Clemente, 311 Birk, Matt, 357 Bisharat, Andrew, 191 The Black Death, 31 Blackheath Rugby Football Club, 76 Black Lives Matter movement, 453 Blair, Tony, viii Blasco, Elmer A., 154 Blatter, Sepp, 483 Blaxploitation, 456 Bliss, Alex (wrestler), 235

609

Blood Brothers (by Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith), 510, 511 Blyth, Thomas, 50 Boardman, Peter (climber), 196, 201 Boatwright, Lesley, 54 Bobridge, Jack, 297 Body Worlds (traveling exhibit), 354, 356 BokSmart (concussion protocols), 587, 591 Bollinger, Doug, 495, 495n1 Bolsonaro, Jair, xii Bordino, Pietro, 311 Borghese, Prince Scipione, 310 Borland, Chris, 158 Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (BMSJ), 122, 124 Botafogo FC, xii Bothner, George (wrestler), 92 Botryght, Dr John, 53 Boxing, vi, xv, xvii, 4–9, 11, 12, 28, 94–96, 99, 100, 100n50, 111, 160, 161, 165, 183, 207–220, 245–247, 249–254, 257–261, 431, 438, 445, 446n2, 473, 484, 505–510, 512, 577 Boycott, Disinvestment and Sections movement (BDS), 516, 524 Boyle, Mike, 411 Brabham, Jack, 318 Brackenridge, Celia, 538, 542, 547, 565 Brady, James, 332 Brady, Tom, 337 Brailsford, Sir David, 295 Brain donation, 350–352, 355–361 Brain injury, v, xvi, 136, 137, 141, 149, 151, 153, 155, 158–161, 158n2, 160n4, 165–168, 174, 175, 183, 349, 351, 352, 357, 359, 506, 576, 582, 594, 597 Brazilian jiu-jitsu, 431 Bridkirk, Roger, 50

610 Index

British Horseracing Authority (BHA), 278, 282–284 British Mountaineering Council (BMC), 187, 191 Brohm, Jean-Marie, ix, x, 248, 446 Brooklands (race track), 314 Brooklyn Nets, 372, 383 Brooks, John, 589 Brooks, Tony, 314, 318 Brookshaw, Stanley ‘Tim, 276, 276n2 Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players, 119 Brown, Cathy (boxer), 219 Brown, Gordon, ix Brown, Sterling, 452 Brundage, Avery, 445 Bryan, Thomas, 49 Bryant, Chris, 594 B’Tselem (Israeli human rights organisation), 517, 521, 527 Bugatti (car manufacturers), 311 Bunn, Matthew, 190 Burbage, William, 45 Burger, Nicholas, 589 Burke and Hare (film), 349 Burnett, Dr Joseph, 142 Burns, Dr. Sir Harry, 581 Burns, Martin ‘Farmer’ (wrestling coach), 95 Bush, George H.W. (President), 509 Buttick, ‘Battling Barbara, 211, 212 C

Caan, James, 449 Cagney, James, 246 Caius, John, 68 Calderwood, Catherine, 584–586, 588, 589, 595 Caldwell, Tommy (climber), 191 California Horse Racing Board (CHRB), 279 Callary, Bettinna, 344

Camp, Walter, 132, 133, 334, 335 Campbell, F.B., 76 Campbell, Francis Maule, vii Campbell-Pascall, Cassie, 352, 356, 357 Camus, Albert, 564, 567, 568 Canadian Concussion Center (CCC), 352 Cantona, Eric, 520 Cantu, Robert (neurosurgeon), 135, 136, 163 Capone, Al, 251, 253, 256 Capslun (paste), 388 Carbo, Frankie, 256 Caret, Robert, 332 Carlos, John, 445, 445n1, 446, 449–451, 456 Carpenter, M., 413 Carpenter, Richard, 54, 55 Carroll, Will, 388, 389 Carson, Prof. Alan, 593 Carter, John Marshall, 28 Carter, Michael, 582 Carvalho, João, 439 Casagrande, Walter, xii Cass Business School, 583 Casson, Ira (neurologist), 167 Castel of helthe (by Sir Thomas Elyot), 67 Castro, Fidel, 255 Catlin, Kelly, 298 Catlin, Mark, 299 Cavendish, Mark, 304 Cedars-Sinai Institute, California, 389 Celaya, Pedro, 296 Chambers, E.K., 69 Chapecoense FC, xii Chapman, Colin, 319 Charles II, King, 268 Chastain, Brandi, 351, 356 Chauvin, Nicolas, 573 Chazal, Jean, 597 Cheltenham (racecourse), 271, 278

 Index 

Cheng, Edward K., 194 Chichester, Sir John, 19 Child Protection in Sport Unit (CPSU), 541, 543–547 Child Sexual Exploitation National Response Unit, 547 Cholmondeley-Tapper, Thomas, 311 Chomsky, Noam, 517, 520 Christian, Linda, 316 Christol, Andre (wrestler), 89 Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), xvi, 158–169, 158n1, 160–161n4, 162n5, 174, 175, 177, 180, 181, 235, 349–352, 359, 484, 508, 509, 576, 577, 597 Cicero (Roman statesman), 12 Civil Rights movement, 246, 516 Clancy, Gil, 256, 257 Clark, Oscar, 60 Clarke, Michael, 497 Class, Gavin, 343 Clift, Montgomery, 257 Climbié, Victoria, 538, 539, 542 Coach Education and Development in Sport (by Bettinna Callary and Brian Gearity), 344 Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis (CWP) or ‘black lung,’ 359 Coca-Cola, 380, 381 Coffey, Maria, 201 Cohen, Eric, 238 Cohen, Lisabeth (historian), 146 Cold War, 476, 477 Collins, Suzanne, 446 Collins, Tony, vii–ix, 68, 73, 78, 80, 269, 386, 574, 575, 579 Collision sport, 143, 155, 349, 352, 575, 580, 589 Colloquies (by Ælfric Bata), 22 Colorado Avalanche, 382 Colson, William, 39 Comana, Fabio, 411

611

Combe, John, 46 Committee on the Regulation of Athletic Sports (Harvard University), 120, 121 The Complete Muhammad Ali (by Ishmael Reed), 505 Concanen, Matthew, 69 Concussion, vin1, xiv, 9, 115–139, 143, 148, 151–155, 157–169, 158n1, 158n3, 161n4, 166n7, 179, 183, 184, 191, 209, 210, 217, 218, 220, 228, 232, 234–236, 276, 293, 299, 349–352, 360, 432, 442, 455, 499, 500, 549, 573, 576, 578–584, 587, 589–595, 598, 599 Concussion (film), 158 Concussion Legacy Foundation, 160, 161n4 Confederação Brasileira de Futebol (Brazilian Football Confederation-CBF), 482 Congress of Physical Education (PE), 465 Connell, Richard, 447 Connelly, Tim, 382, 383 The Conservation of Natural Resources in the United States (by Charles Richard Van Hise), 126 Consortium for Health and Military Performance (CHAMP), 412 Conti, Leonardo, 465 Cook, John, 46, 522 Cook, Robert, 41 Coolidge, President Calvin, 385 Cooper, Henry (boxer), 246 Cooper, Jason, 417 Corbyn, Jeremy, v Corinthians FC, 485 Coriolanus Snow (fictitious character), 453 Corrigan, Edward C., 526

612 Index

Cosby, Bill, 135 Cosgrove, Alwyn, 411 Coulyng, John, 49, 50 Courage, Piers, 319 Court of Arbitration for Sport, 492 Cousins, Norman, 258 Covid 19, xxii, xxiii Cricket Australia, 493, 499 Crofoot, Emory J., 152 Crok, Adam, 29 Cromwell, Oliver, 61 Cromwell, Thomas, 19 Cross, Matthew J., 579, 589 Cross, Randy, 356, 357 CrossFit, xvi, 405–420, 407n1 Cruz, Orlando, 254, 255, 259, 260 Csonka, Larry, 148, 149 Cudmore, Jamie, 598 Curry, Stephen, 370, 372 Curry, Tom, 499 Curvis, Brian, 259 Curwen, Sir Thomas, 40, 41 Cynewulf of Wessex, King, 18 D

Dalager, Charles (wrestler), 87, 88, 112 Dani, King, 301 Dasgupta, Ishan, 359 Davidson, Anthony, 326 Davies, Sharron, x, xi de Angelis, Elio, 323 de Beauvoir, Simone, 213, 215, 471, 559 de Chartres, Renaud, Archbishop of Rheims, 48 de Coubertin, Pierre, 463, 489 de Dion, Jules-Albert, 310 de Farndone, Nicholas, 30 de Grise, Jehan, 57 de La Mettrie, Julien Offray, 355 De Olympische Spelen (documentary), 468

de Portago, Alfonso, 316, 317 de Redworth, Alicia, 39 de Redworth, John, 39 De Sanitate Tuenda (Galen of Pergamum), 67 de Sarum, Adam, 29 de Spalding, Canon William, 28, 95, 144 de Villota Comba, María, 326 de Welton, William, 43 de Wyndhul, Alan, 27 de Wyndhul, Walter, 27 Death Race (film remake, 2008), 446 Death Race 2000 (film, 1975), xvi, 446 Deighton, Lizzie, 296 Del Mar (race track), 279 Dementia, 160, 210, 260, 484, 508, 577, 578, 592, 593, 597 Dementia pugilistica, 160, 162, 484 Demosthenes, 5 Dent, Jim, 341 Denver Nuggets, 382 Depailler, Patrick, 323 Depression, 132, 159, 160, 228, 236, 297, 505, 549, 555–569, 576, 577 Derby, Lord, 273 Descartes, René, 355 Descrulhes, Adrien, 573 Destivelle, Catherine (climber), 192 Dewey, John (philosopher), 127 Diaby, Abou, 520 Dickinson, Thomas (wrestling coach), 92 Dines, Hannah, 302, 390 D’Oliveira, Basil, 252 Don, King, 251 Doping, 295n3, 303, 337, 463, 466, 467, 473–478 Douling, 72 Douoguih, Wiemi, 398 Driveline Baseball (company), 396 Duffeler, Patrick, 323

 Index 

Dundee, Angelo, 253 Dunning, Eric, 70 Durant, Kevin, 372 Durkin, D.J., 332 Dwyer, J.M. (wrestler), 110 Dye, Edward, 144 Dylan, Bob, 261 Dymond, David, 51, 54 E

Earnhardt, Dale Jr., 351, 357, 358 Eberg, George (wrestler), 102 Ecclestone, Bernie, 323–325 Edmundo (footballer), 481, 482 The Ed Sullivan Show, 257 Education Act (1870), 274 Edwards, Prof. Harry, 377, 384, 445, 446 Edwards, Sean, 326 Egolf, Donald B., 509 Eiger (mountain), 197, 198, 201 Eight Belles (racehorse), 278, 279 Einstein, Albert, 246 ElAttrache, Neal, 389 El Captain (mountain), 191 Elias, Norbert, 70 Eliot, Charles W., 115, 116, 118, 119, 121–123 Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL), 368n6, 370 Elkind, Arnold, 147 Elyot, Sir Thomas, 49, 65, 67 Embiid, Joel, 382 Embodiment, 85, 214, 218–219, 357, 508 e-Nabi, Abed el-Fatah Abed, 522 England, Mike, 589 English, Peter, 495, 496 English Reformation, 20 Ensor, Ernest, 82, 83 Entellus (fighter), 12 Epstein, David, 337, 341

613

Ergogenic Aids in Work and Sport (by Peter Karpovich), 473 Eryx (fighter), 12 Escartin, Javier (climber), 187 Eubank, Chris (boxer), 211 Eugenics, 467 European Union (EU), 326 Eurydamas of Cyrene (boxer), 3 Euston, Jeff, 391 Every Child Matters: Change for Children (UK government report, 2003), 539, 540 Exercise is Medicine (EiM), 558 Extractivism, 173 Ezra, Michael, 507 F

Faisal al-Husseini Stadium, 522 Fajfrowski, Louis, 573 Faldo, Nick, 246 Fangio, Juan Manuel, 319, 320 FanGraphs (website), 390, 393 Farhood, Steve, 259 Farred, Grant, 507 Farrell, Paddy, 275, 276 Federal Trade Commission, 147 Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), xiii, xvi, 481, 482, 518–521, 524–526 Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), 323–326 Fédération Internationale de Médecine Sportive (FIMS), 465–470, 472 Fédération Internationale des Associations de Footballeurs Professionnels (FIFPro), 520, 524 Feinstein, Senator Dianne, 280 Femininity, 208, 212, 214, 215, 217, 471 Fenner, Harold, 152 Ferguson, D’Brickashaw, 158

614 Index

Ferrari, Enzo, 312, 313, 315–318, 320, 395 Ferrari, Michele, 304 Ferris, Elizabeth, 472 The Fight (by Norman Mailer), 247 Finklestein, John Jonah, 245 Fitz Stephen, William, 23 Flair, Charlotte (wrestler), 232 Flamengo FC, xii Flat racing, 271, 272, 274, 278–282 Fleisig, Dr Glenn, 387, 390, 394, 397 Flexner Report (1910), 133 Flood, Curt, 449–451, 456 Florentine FC, 310 Flores, Jose Luis (jockey), 280 Fluminense FC, xii Football Association, 76, 484, 542 Football helmets, 141–155 Ford (car manufacturers), 317, 318 Ford, Henry, 309, 317, 318 Foreman, George, 247, 253 Forker, Martin, 81 Formula One Constructors’ Association (FOCA), 323 Fotheringham, William, 298 Foucault, Michel, 207 Fowler, R.C., 45 Fox, Richard Kyle, 101, 101n56, 507 The Frankenstein Chronicles (TV series), 349 Freedman, Dr. Richard, 304 Freidson, Elliot, 430 Freud, Sigmund, 260 Friendship First, Competition Second (Chinese slogan), xi Froch, Charles, 255 Frohlick, Susan, 198, 199 Frontlines (Stevie Wonder), 365, 366 Froome, Chris, 300, 301 Fujimoto, Shun (gymnast), 16 Fuller, Colin, 415, 589

G

Gadzo, Mersiha, 522 Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), 81, 81n41, 82, 85 Gaelic games, 81–85 Galen (physician), 12, 13 Galen of Pergamum, 67 Galileo, 355 Game Plan (UK government report), viii Gamer (film, 2009), 446 Garraway, Prof. W.M., 576 Gaza, Riadi, 521 Gearity, Brian, 344, 415 Geldof, Bob, 254 Gender, vi, ix, xiv, 93, 194, 197–200, 208, 213–215, 217–220, 225, 237–240, 369, 452, 453, 456, 477, 492 General Zaroff (fictional character), 447 German University for Bodily Exercise, 465 Gilbert, Bill, 475 Giles, Harry, 373, 375, 383 Gillmeister, Heiner, 27, 59 Ginsberg, Allen, 257 Givony, Jonathan, 374 Glasgow Celtic FC, 520, 524, 526 Glassman, Greg, 405, 407, 408, 410, 410n2, 411, 411n3, 413, 415, 418–420, 418n6 Godlee, Dr Fiona, 599 Goldberg, Daniel S., 183 Golden Gate (race track), 279 Golden State Warriors, 372 Gold Leaf (cigarettes), 325 Goldstein, Ruby, 257, 258 Goodell, Roger (NFL Commissioner), 163, 167, 168 Gorski, Chris, 393 Gotch, Frank (wrestler), 87, 95, 97, 98, 100–106, 108, 110, 111 Gough, David, 380

 Index 

Govertis, Dr Albert, 469 Grand National, 261, 270–272, 275–278 Grand Prix Drivers Association (GPDA), 320–322, 327 Grant, Bruce (climber), 187 Graziano, Dan, 177 Great Britain Cycling, 304 Great March of Return, 522 Green, Benny, 249 Green Brigade (of Glasgow Celtic FC), 520 Green, Dalls, 387 Green, Hugh (Catholic priest), 20 Greenwell, D.M., 406, 417 Greenwood, Will, 596 Grier, David Alan, 507 Griffith, Emile, xv, 245–261 Gronkowski, Rob, 158, 180, 344n2 Guiterriez, Izzy, 344 Gunn, Steven, 49 Gustafson, Charles (wrestler), 109 H

Habeler, Peter (mountaineer), 196 Hackenschmidt, George (wrestler), 110, 110n99, 111 Hacking, vii, 72–79 Halabiya, Adam Abd Al-Raouf, 522 Halle, John, 27n32, 45 Hallowell, Frank (football player), 116 Hamed, ‘Prince’ Naseem, 254 Hamilton, Tyler, 90, 296, 304 Hanne, Dr Nora, 471 Haramosh II (mountain), 187 Hardgrave, John, 41, 42 Hargreaves, Alison, xv, 187–203 Hargreaves, Kate, 188, 200 Hargreaves, Tom, 188, 200 Harlin, John III (climber), 201 Harry, Prince, 574 Harvard University, 115, 465

615

Harvey, David, 332, 448 Harvey, Matt, 391 Harvey, William, 132 Hasapote, John, 50 Hauser, Thomas, 248, 508 Hawthorn, Mike, 315, 316 Hay, Dr. Eduardo, 471 Hay, William, 50 Haynes, Desmond, 248 Hegemonic masculinity, 202, 207, 213 Heidegger, Martin, 561, 562, 564 Hendricks, Sharief, 589 Henry IV, King (Henry Bolingbroke), 47 Henry V (by William Shakespeare), 48 Henry VI, King, 43, 46 Henry VII, King, 46, 48, 49 Henry VIII, King, 19, 48, 49, 60 Henry, Lenny, 246 Hermaphroditism, 472 Hernandez, Aaron, 164 Herz, J.C., 405, 406, 408, 414, 419 Heterosexual family, 189, 200 Hicks, Thomas, 473 Hickson, Paul, 542–544 Highbury Stadium, 246 Hill, Phil, 315 Hinkes, Alan (mountaineer), 193, 199 Hinkes, Fiona, 199 Hitler, Adolf, 312 Hobbs, David, 313 Hoberman, John, x, 332, 337, 338, 355, 385, 430, 437, 441, 473, 474 Hobsbawm, Eric, 518, 528 Hoccleve, Thomas, 63 Hodges, Prof. Stewart, 583 Hodgson, Voigt R., 154 Holford, Matthew, 45 Hollywood (race track), 279, 316, 446, 450–452, 455 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 91, 91n14 Homophobia, 251, 558

616 Index

Homosexuality, 254, 259 Honnold, Alex (climber), 192 Hoover, Herbert, 130 Hoppner, Manfred, 476 Horling/hurling, 13, 30, 36, 49, 60, 61, 81, 81n41, 84 Horman, William, 65 Hotten, Russell, 325 Houseman, John, 449 Hoy, Sir Chris, 296, 299n10 Hubbard, Alan, 259 Hudson, Rock, 257 Hugh of Lincoln, 58 Hughes, Greg, 488 Hughes, Phillip Joel, xvi, 487–500 Hughes, Thomas, 73 Hulette, Elizabeth Ann (wrestler), 234 Human Rights Watch, 517, 527 The Hunger Games (films, book), xvi, 446–448, 452–457 Hunt, James, 322–323, 322n72 Hunt, Jeremy, 595 Hunt, Tom, 85, 474, 476, 477 Hurley (stick), 82, 84 Hygiene des Sports (by Dr Seigfried Weissbein), 465 Hyper-competition, 568 Hypertrophy, 466 I

Iacocca, Lee, 317, 318 Igor the Pianist (boxer), 254 Indianapolis Colts, 157, 344n2 Infantino, Gianni, 525 Ingram, William (monk), 58 In Living Color (TV show), 507 Inter Milan FC, 485 International Amateur Athletic Federations (IAAF), 215, 468, 469, 474

International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF), 214–215 International Concussion and Head Injury Research Foundation (ICHIRF), 217 International Conference for Health, Safety and Welfare of Jockeys, 276 International Cricket Council (ICC), 499 International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), 526, 527 International Olympic Committee (IOC), 215, 445, 463, 464, 464n1, 466, 468, 469, 471, 472, 475, 478, 524 IOC Medical Commission, 463, 472 Ireland, Innes, 314, 321 Irvine, Robert ‘Bulldog,’ 78 Irving, Kyrie, 373, 383 Israel Football Association (IFA), 520, 524 Israeli Civil Administration (ICA), 517 Israeli Defence Force (IDF), xvii, 515–528 J

Jaane, Nicholas, 49 Jack, R.A., 390 Jackson, Dr. Paul D., 585, 586, 589 Jacobs, Melissa, 398 Jaggi, Ruchi Kher, 230 Jaguar (car manufacturers), 317 James I, King, 48 James IV, King, 48, 49 James, LeBron, 181, 370, 376, 378 James, William (philosopher), 127, 129, 130 Jarrott, Charles, 310 Jawhar, Johhar Nasser, 522 Jax, Nia (wrestler), 232 Jeff Astle Foundation, 210, 484 Jenkins, Tom (wrestler), 100, 102, 105, 323

 Index 

Jenkinson, Denis, 321 Jensen, Knud Enemark, 475 Jewison, Norman, 448, 450 Jobe, Frank, 388, 389, 399 Jockey Club, 269–275 John Player (cigarettes), 325 John, Tommy, xvi, 385–400 John, Tommy III, 394, 395 Johnson, Jack, 246, 254 Johnson, President Lyndon, 318, 341 Johnson, W.B., 69 Jokl, Dr. Ernst, 465, 466, 470, 471 Jonathan E. (fictional character), 449–452, 455, 456 Jones, Charles, 254, 255 Jordan Chris (wrestler), 104n72, 107 Jorgensen, Oluf, 475 Jorgeson, Kevin (climber), 191 Journal of Forensic Nursing, 162 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 122, 131, 133, 164 Joyce, Dr Daniel L., 143 The Junction Boys (book by Jim Dent), 341 The Junction Boys (film), 341 K

Kaepernick, Colin, 177, 178, 456 Kamuli, Dr Jeno, 467 Kanchenjunga (mountain), 188, 199 Kanouté, Frédéric, 520, 525 Kansas City Chiefs, 360 Kareem, Mohammed, 522 Karpovich, Peter, 473, 474 Kartereia (toughness), 13 Katniss Everdeen (fictional character), 446, 453–456 Keatsen (ball game), 22 Keep Fitness Legal CrossFit (web site), 410 Kemp, Dr. Simon, 579

617

KemperLesnik (PR and Sports Marketing Agency), 380 Kenealy, Dr Arabella, 468 Kennedy, President John F., 146 Kentucky Derby, 278, 279 Kerlan, Dr Robert, 388, 389 Kessler, Mikkel, 255, 416 Khadamat Rafah FC, 519 Khalil, Mohammed, 522 Khan, Amir, 212 Kickboxing, 431 Kimbrell, Andrew, 355 King Lear (by William Shakespeare), 58 King-White Ryan, xv Kish, Jen, 352 Kitchener, ‘Little’ Sam, 272 Klores, Dan, 255–257 Klug, Brian, 527 Kolven (ball game), 22 Kom, Mary (boxer), 212 Konuwa, Alfred, 227 Kotarba, Joseph, 431, 440 Koufax, Sandy, 387, 388 Kravitz, Lenny, 454 Kremchek, Dr Timothy, 389 Krieger, Heidi, 477 Kroenke, Ann Walton, 382 Kroenke, Josh, 383, 384 Kroenke, Stan, 382, 383 K2 (mountain), xv, 187–189, 194, 197–202 Kublak, Thomas, 192 Kukuczka, Jerzy (climber), 195, 196 Kurchak, Sarah, 507 Kushner, Jared, 525 Kynge, William, 50 L

La Cava, Dr Guiseppe, 467, 469 La Motta, Jake, 250, 251 Labeling theory, 367–368 Labuschagne, Marnus, 499

618 Index

Lamb, Dr Arthur, 469 Lambrecht, Bjorg, 298 Lamm, John, 313 Landim, Rodolfo, xii Landis, Floyd, 304 Lang, Hermann, 311 Langbern, John, 50 Langton, Christopher, 67–68 Larson, Peter, 40 Lasix (drug), 281 Lauda, Niki, 322, 322n71, 322n72 Laurer, Joan Mari (wrestler), 234, 235n64 Lautenschlager, Christian, 311 Lawler, Jerry ‘The King, 231, 231n46 Lawrence, Jennifer, 434, 446, 452 Lawrence, John, 269 Lawson, Nigella, 189, 200 Lazaro, Francisco, 473 Le Batard, Dan, 344 Le Batard, Gonzalo, 344 Le Mans 24 Hour race, 316 Le Tailor, Stephen, 27 League Against Cruel Sports, 283 League of Denial (by Mark Fainaru-­ Wada and Steve Fainaru), 175, 359 Lee-Gartner, Kerrin, 352 Lees Gaelic Football Club, 85 Leitch, Will, 387, 396 Leiter, Al, 387 Leonard, Hugh (wrestler), 92, 92n17, 96 Leonard, Sugar Ray, 507 Leontiskos (ancient Olympian), 8 Levy, Maximilian, 305 Lewis, Evan (wrestler), 90, 103, 104n71 Lewis, Michael, 390 Lhotse (mountain), 195, 196 Liberace, 254, 257 Lieberman, Avigdor, 523 Liebling, A.J., 247, 249, 250

Light Weight Racing Bill, 273 Ligtlee, Elis, 302 Lillee, Dennis, 498 Lindner, Katharina, 212 Linebaugh, Peter, 353 Lineker, Gary, 484 Ling, Pehr Henrik, 464 Linke, Uli, 356, 358 Liston, Sonny, 247, 248, 252, 252n4, 253, 256, 509 Litherland, Benjamin, 230, 237, 238 Loach, Ken, 520 Loh, Wallace, 332 London Olympics (2012), 207 Long Reformation, 20, 68, 70 Long, Terry, 162, 164 Lore (TV series), 349 Loretto School, 80 Los Angeles Clippers, 176 Los Angeles Olympics (1932), 466 Los Angeles Rams, 382 Lotus (motor racing team), 319, 324 Louis, Joe, 246 Love Rules (racehorse), 280 Loy, John, 334, 341 Lucillius (epigrammatist), 10 Luck (TV drama), 279 Luck, Andrew (quarterback), 157, 158, 344, 344n2 Lundin, Hjalmir (wrestler), 111 Lurich, Georg (wrestler), 108 Lydgate, John, 63 Lynch, Becky (wrestler), 232, 238 Lyndsay, Sir David, 60, 67 Lyon, Nathan, 497 Lystedt laws, 136 M

Maastricht Treaty (1992), 326 MacDonald, Dave, 317 MacDonald, David ‘Dunlop Mac,’ 314 MacIntyre, Alex (climber), 195, 196

 Index 

Madison Square Garden, 89n8, 215, 255 Magné, Frédéric, 299 Magnus, Albertus, 66 Magnuson, Senator Warren, 146, 147 Maguire, Edmund Mac Hugh, 19 Mailer, Norman, 247, 257 Major, John, viii, ix Major League Baseball (MLB), 386, 387, 389, 390, 392–395, 399, 449 Malcolm, Dominic, 429, 430, 437, 441, 442 Malhotra, Hans, 230 A Man Must Fight (by Gene Tunney), 249 Mapping the Medieval Countryside project, 44 Maracineanu, Roxana, 573 Marciano, Rocky, 246 Marlboro (cigarettes), 325 Marqusee, Mike, 211, 249 Marsh, Terry (boxer), 253 Marshall, Frank, 83 Martin, Joe, 380 Martland, Dr Harrison S., 160, 508 Marx, Groucho, 246 Marx, Karl, ix, 360, 451 Mary, Queen of Scots, 57, 59 Masculinization, 470 Maserati (car manufacturers), 311, 318 Masetti, Giulio, 310 Massaro, Ashley, 225, 234–236, 234n62 A match at foot-ball (poem by Matthew Concanen), 69 Materassi, Emilio, 313 Matthews, Shailer (theologian), 124, 126 Matza, David, 303 Maxwell, Robert, 253 McBee, Thomas Page, 207, 214, 215 McCarthy, J.J., 83

619

McCaskill, Jessica (boxer), 217 McCloy, Prof. Charles, 470 McCorcan, John, 28 McCoy, Ernest, 145 McDonaldization, 338–340 McDonalds, 371, 379, 380 McIlvanney, Hugh, 247, 249 McIlvanney on Boxing (by Hugh McIlvanney), 247 McKee, Ann, 163–165, 169 McKenzie, R. Tait (Professor), 128 McLelland, Dorothy Mrs., 149 McLelland, Thomas Mr., 149 McLeod, Dan (wrestler), 90 McMahon, Stephanie, 231–233, 237, 237n73 McMahon, Vince, 224, 225, 232, 236 McManaman, Bob, 395, 399 McNair, Bob, 177 McNair, Jordan, xv, 331–345 McNally, David, 353–355, 360 Meadow, Marquese, 343 Meadowbank Mile, 299 Meares, Anna, 300 The Mediaeval State (by E.K. Chambers), 69 Medical Aid for Palestine, 516 Medieval Games (by John Marshall Carter), 28 Meggyesy, David, 178 Meldrum, William, 60 Menstruation, 467, 470, 471 Mental illness, 560 Mercedes Benz (car manufacturers), 312, 315, 317, 320, 380 Merten, William, 50 Messerli, Dr. M., 468–470 Messner, Reinhold (mountaineer), 196 Metcalf, Leonard, 40 Mexico City Olympics (1968), 445, 472, 475, 476 Meyers, John C. (wrestler), 92 Meyersohn, Nathaniel, 227

620 Index

Miami Dolphins, 148, 149 Michelle, Candice (wrestler), 235 Millar, David, 294, 300, 303, 305 Millar, Robert, 294 Mille Miglia (race), 310, 316, 317 Miller, Walter (wrestler), 109 Miller, William (wrestler), 89 Millington, Brad, 334, 336, 337 Millington, Rob, 334, 336, 337 Miltiades (general), 14 Mintz, Morton, 147, 148 Mitchell, Glenn, 494 Mitchell, Kevin, 249 Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), xvi, 6, 112, 112n108, 207, 211, 213, 216, 429–442, 431n2, 545 Mockingjay Part 2 (film, 2015), 446, 454, 455 Moi, Toril, 213, 214 Momberger, August, 311 Monaco, J., 450 Monbiot, George, 333 Moneyball (by Michael Lewis), 390, 390n2 Mongolian Groom (racehorse), 267, 280 Montreal Olympics (1976), 16, 471 Monza (race track), 311, 313, 315, 318, 321 Moore, Jack, 390 More, Sir Thomas, 67 Morey, Sean, 356, 357 Morgan, Julie, 218 Morgan, Piers, vi, 592, 596 Morgan State University, 343 Morrison, Van, 246 Morse, Dr Michelle, 138 Mortal Engines (by John Hoberman), 355, 385 Moscow Olympics (1980), x Mosley, Max, 315, 323–326 Mosport International Raceway, Ontario, 322

Moss, Stirling, 314, 315, 318, 320 The Most Dangerous Game (by Richard Connell), 447, 448 Motherhood, 187–203, 248 Motus Global (company), 397 Mount Everest, 188, 193, 196–198, 201, 487 Moylan, Tom, 448 Mr. Bartholomew (fictional character), 449 Mufarrej, Nelson, xii al-Mughrabi, Khalil, 521 Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times (by Thomas Hauser), 248 Muhammad, Elijah, 505, 510, 511 Muldoon, William (wrestler), 89, 89n8, 111 Murphy, Jimmy, 311 Murray, Andrew Duncan, 584 Murrayfield stadium, 581 Muscular Christianity, 72 Mussolini, Benito, 312 Myrc, John, 66 N

Nadal, Rafael, 337 Nader, Ralph, 317, 318 Nama, Adilifu, 447, 450, 451 National Basketball Association (NBA), 176, 179, 181, 368–371, 373, 374, 376, 382 National Child Protection in Sport Task Force, 542, 543 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), 121, 144, 145, 154, 158n3, 167, 341, 380 National Commission on Product Safety (NCPS), 141–155 National Cycling Centre, Manchester, 304

 Index 

National Federation of State High School Athletic Associations (NFHS), 143, 145 National Hockey League (NHL), 349, 350, 359 National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), 154 National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE), 154, 155 National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), 543 National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), 410, 412, 412n5, 413 National Yachting Association, 542 Nation of Islam, 510, 511 Navarro, Vicente, 358–361 Nelkin, Dorothy, 358 Nelson, Edmund, 317 Neoliberalism, 332–334, 448 Nepalese Himalayas, 194 Neubauer, Alfred, 315 Neurodegenerative disease, 158, 159, 351 Neurosurgery (journal), 162, 166 Newby, Thomas, 40 New England Patriots, 158, 344n2 New Japan Pro Wrestling, 227 New Orleans Pelicans, 383 New Right, 189 Newsom, Governor Gavin, 280 New York Athletic Club, 92, 96 New York Giants, 166 New York Jets, 158 New York Mets, 387, 391 Nichols, Dr E.H., 124, 131–133 Nicholson, Paul, 519, 525 Nicol, Dr Alastair, 581, 582 Nike, xvi, 370, 378, 381, 381n39, 482, 483 Nine Years War, 19

Nixon, Howard L.II, xiv, 430 Nixon, Richard (President), 318 Nordby, Karl, 194, 195 Nowinski, Chris, 163 Nox, Tegan (wrestler), 235 Nugent, Tom (football coach), 144 Nunn, Paul (climber), 187, 188 Nurburgring (race track), 321, 322 Nuremberg trials (1945), 465 Nureyev, Rudolf, 246 Nuvolari, Tazio, 311, 312 O

Oastler, R.R., 124 Obama, Barack (President), 137 Obeid, Mohammad, 522 Occupational Health and Safety Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), 146 Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), 516–520, 522–525, 527, 528 Occupy movement, 453 O’Connor, Dan, 359 O’Driscoll, Barry, 575, 590, 597 Oestriecher, Blake, 238 The Ogre (by Doug Scott), 195 Oldfield, Barney, 310–311 Olivar, Javier (climber), 187 Oliver, John, 225 Olympic Book of Sports Medicine: Volume I of the Encyclopedia of Sports Medicine, 466 Olympic Games, ix, 445, 463, 467–469, 473 Olympic industry, xvi, 463, 464, 478 Olympic Lifts, 407, 415 Olympic Medical Archives, 466 Olympic Project for Human Rights, 445

621

622 Index

Olympic Review (OR), 464, 464n1, 466, 467, 469–472, 478 Omalu, Bennet (neuropathologist), 158n2, 160–167, 161–162n5, 163n6, 175, 181, 509 One Day As A Tiger (by John Porter), 195 Ontario Women’s Hockey Association, 352 Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), 519, 521 Operation Protective Edge (2014), 521 O’Pharrow, Jimmy, 259 O’Reilly, Emma, 296, 305, 306 Oral-Turinabol (anabolic steroid), 476 Orestes (chariot driver), 7 Organ donation, 349, 351, 352, 354, 355, 357, 361 Oriard, Michael, viii, 335 Original Musiquarium (album by Stevie Wonder), 365 Orme, Nicholas, 64 Ortiz, Lorenzo (climber), 187, 392 Osgerby, Ann, x, xi Osmund, Bishop, 46 O’Sullivan, Dan, 229 Otto, Tyson, 495, 498 Ottoman Empire, 516 P

Paige (wrestler), 235 Palermo, Blinky, 256 Palestine Football Federation/Palestine Football Association (PFA), 518, 519 Palestine Solidarity Campaign, 516 Palestinian Authority (PA), 517, 518 Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, 516 Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), 521

Paletti, Riccardo, 323 Palmeiras FC, xii PanAm Games (1979), 471 Panem (fictitious country), 453, 454 Pankration/pankratiasts, 4–6, 8, 10, 13 Pantani, Marco, 304 Parekh, Dr Nikesh, 583 Paret, Benny ‘Kid,’ xv, 255–258, 261 Paris-Madrid race, 309 Paris Rouen race, 309, 310 Parkinson’s disease, xvii, 484, 505–512 Parton, Nigel, 537, 540 Passan, Jeff, 395–398, 400 Patricios, Jon, 587 Patterson, Floyd, 253 Paul, Chris, 370 Pearce, Charles Sanders, 130 Pecock, Reginald, 66 Pellman, Dr Elliot, 166, 166n7, 167 Pendleton, Victoria, 299, 300, 304, 305 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), 279, 280 Perelman, Marc, xiii Perfect Game (company), 395, 396 Performance enhancing drugs (PED), 281, 282, 295, 463, 473–477, 492 Pertschuk, Michael, 147 Petty, Damon, 398 Philadelphia 76ers, 382 Philip Morris (tobacco company), 323 Philo, Harry, 150, 151 Philostratos, 4 Phoenix, Beth (wrestler), 235 The Physio Company, 217 Piggin, Joe, 587, 588 Pilkington, Robert, 40 Pindar (poet), 4, 7, 15 Pingeton, Robin, 369 Pink Floyd, 525 Pitch-Side Concussion Assessment (PSCA), 590

 Index 

Pitch Smart (throwing guidelines for pitchers), 394 Pitt, Nick, 253, 254 Pittsburgh Steelers, 160, 162, 179 Plato (philosopher), 5, 11 Play 60 campaign, 181, 182n32 Plutarch, 11 Pocock, Tony, 248 Pollard, Luke, 283 Pollock, Prof. Allyson, v, vi, xvii, 499, 548, 576n1, 577, 581–584, 586–588, 590–593, 596, 597 Porsche (car manufacturers), 312, 326 Porter, Bri, 369n8, 370 Porter, Cierra, 369n8, 370 Porter, John (climber), 195 Porter, Jontay, 370, 376 Porter, Lisa, 369, 370 Porter, Michael Jnr, 369, 371n11, 371n13, 372, 374, 383, 384 Porter, Michael Snr, 369, 370 Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA), 398 Powerade, 380 Powers, Devon, 406, 417 Pragmatists, 130 The Prince and The Paddy (by Nick Pitt), 254 Princeton University, 119 Principles of Psychology (by William James), 131 Principles of Scientific Management (by Frederick Taylor), 334 Prior, Matt, 497 Prison Industrial Complex, 366 Progressives/progressive movement, xi, xiv, 93, 116–122, 124–128, 130, 138, 190, 318, 455–457, 470, 478, 577 Protecting Children From Abuse: A Guide For Everyone Involved in Children’s Sport (report, 1996), 543 Pukie the Clown (mascot), 419

623

Pulayn, Beatrice, 40 Purdy, Jedediah (historian), 126 Pythian games, 7 Q

Quarrie, Ken, 587, 589 Queally, Jason, 299 Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, 272, 276 Queensland Raceway, 326 R

Race/racism, xiii, xiv, xvi, 8, 59, 82, 92, 111, 138, 163n6, 173–184, 183n36, 210, 214, 247, 251, 252, 267, 269–272, 274–280, 283, 294–301, 303, 303n18, 305, 309–317, 317n40, 319, 322–324, 366, 369–371, 377–379, 384, 386, 445–457, 466, 468, 469, 471, 473, 505, 506, 512, 558, 563, 564 R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, Baltimore, 331 Rafah National Stadium, 519 Raftery, Martin, 589 Ranger, Terence, 518 Ratzenberger, Roland, 324 Real Madrid FC, 485 Red Card Israeli Racism, 516, 526 Redemption Song (by Mike Marqusee), 249 Redesdale, Lord, 273 Reed, Ishmael, 505, 506, 510 Reich Committee for the Scientific Research of Sport and Physical Exercise, 465 Reinisch, Rica, 477 Reiser, Dr Otto, 474 Rhabdomyolysis, 409, 418, 419 Rhoden, Bill, 378

624 Index

Richard II, King, 34 Richardson, Ruth, 342, 354–356 Rider, Fran, 352 Ridgard, John, 38 Rigauer, Bero, 355 Rindt, Jochen, 321 Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story (film), 255 Riot Act, 18 Ripley, Josephine, 147 Ritzer, George, 332, 338 Roberts, Randy, 510 Roberts, Simon, 589 Robinson, Jackie, 259, 505 Robinson, Peter, v, vin1 Robinson, Sugar Ray, 246 Robles, Anthony, 232, 233 Rockefeller, Nelson, 258 Rocky films, 451, 452 Rodrigo, Luis, 260 Roeber, Ernst (wrestler), 93n19, 94, 103 Roediger, David R., 452 Roegele, Joe, 393 Rokeby, Wiliam, Archbishop of Dublin, 36 Roller, Dr. Benjamin Franklin, 106, 106n84, 107, 110, 111 Rollerball (film remake, 2002), 446 Rollerball (film, 1975), xvi, 445–457 Romar, Lorenzo, 370 Ronaldo, Christiano, 481–485 Ronaldo, Nazario, xvi, 481–485 Roosevelt, Theodore, viii, 110, 127, 130 Rosemeyer, Bernd, 312 Ross, Duncan C. (wrestler), 89 Ross, Gary, 446 Ross, Ron, 260 Rothmans (cigarettes), 325 Rousey, Ronda (wrestler), 232 Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), 585

Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), 270n1, 271, 282, 283 Royston, Andrew, 50 Rugby Football Union (RFU), 78, 574–576, 580, 588, 591, 593 Rugby School, vii, 72, 73, 78 Rugby’s Great Split (by Tony Collins), 574 RugbySmart initiative, 591, 598 Rugby Union, 73, 576, 577, 579, 583, 589–593, 595, 597 Rugby World Cup 1995 (in South Africa), 575 Rugby World Cup 2015 (in England), 575 Rugby World Cup 2019 (in Japan), 499 The Running Man (film, 1987), 446 Rush University Medical Center, 393, 394 Rust, David, 151, 152 Ryan, Allan J., 144, 465 S

Saban, Nick, 342 Sable (wrestler), 235, 235n64 Sachs, Eddie, 317 Sacramento Kings, 375 Safai, Parissa, 337, 340, 343, 344, 429, 430, 437 SafeWork NSW, 493 Sage, George, 335 Said, Edward, 451 St. Louis Cardinals, 178 St Louis Olympics (1904), 473 St Louis Rams, 383 St Moritz Winter Olympics (1928), 465 Al-Salah FC, 522 Salkeld, Thomas, 40–41 Samford University, 393

 Index 

Sammons, Jeffrey, 249 San Francisco 49ers, 158, 177 Sanger Rainsford (fictional character), 447 Santa Anita Park, 267 Sao Paulo FC, xii, 485 Sapp, Warren, 356, 357 Sappol, Michael, 354, 357, 358 Sarsak, Mahmoud, 520, 524 Sartre, Jean Paul, 559, 562–564, 567 Scheider, Petra, x, xvi Schneider, Richard (neuroscientist), 144 Schöffl, Volter, 194 Schrull, Sherri (wrestler), 234 Scott, Doug (climber), 195, 216 Scottish Rugby Union (SRU), 574, 575, 581, 582 Scuderia (motor racing team), 316 Seaman, Dick, 314 Seau, Junior, 164, 356, 558 Second Doping Victims Assistance Act, 477 Second Intifada, 521 The Secret Race (by Tyler Hamilton), 296 Secrets of the Dead: The Rise of the Body Snatchers (TV series), 349 Senna, Ayrton, 322–326 Sex tests/’femininity tests, 472 Shalabi, Susani, 525 Sharp, Lesley, 355, 356 Shaughnessy, Clark (football coach), 145 Shaw, George Bernard, 251 Shaw’s Champions (by Benny Green), 249 Shearer, Alan, 484 Sheffield Shield, xvi, 487 Sherpa, Chhurim, 193, 196, 487 Shinning, 72, 75 Shrewsbury School, 72 Siddique, Imran, 453, 455

625

Silver, Adam (NBA Commissioner), 176 Silvers, Phil, 246 Simpson, Joe (climber), 195 Simpson, Tommy, 294, 298, 304 Sing, Rhonda Ann (wrestler), 234 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 18 Sivocci, Ugo, 311 Skamma (sand surface), 13 Skehill, Caroline, 538 Slabaugh, Larry, 141 Slamball, 448 Slater, Rob (climber), 187 Smith, Dr Ronald A., 361 Smith, Gary, 257 Smith, Johnny, 510 Smith, Steve, 499 Smith, Thomas Southwood, 354 Smith, Tommie, 445, 449 Smoltz, John, 391 Snively, George, 152, 153 Snuka, Tamina (wrestler), 235 Social Darwinism, 119 Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), 390 Society for Epidemiologic Research, 135 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), 270 Sollen (ball game), 22 Sonny Boy: The Life and Strife of Sonny Liston (by Rob Steen), 248, 251–254 Sophocles, 7 Soule (ball game), 22, 29, 51 Spa (race track), 313, 321 Spalding (sports goods company), 95, 144 Sphairai/episphairai (boxing gloves), 11 Sport: A Prison of Measured Time (by Jean-Marie Brohm), ix Sport Collision Injury Collective, 578, 588, 592

626 Index

Sport dystopian films, 445–457 Sport England, 538, 541–543, 545–547, 595 Sport: Raising the Game (UK government report, 1995), viii The Sports Gene (by David Epstein), 337 Sports Under Siege: Israeli Transgressions against Palestinian sports (PFA document), 519 Springs, Shawn, 356, 358 Spring, Summer, Autumn: Three Cricketers (by Rob Steen), 248 Stade de France, 481, 484 Stade Français, 573 Standards for Safeguarding and Protecting Children in Sport (report, 2018), 541, 545 Stanford Business School, 398 Stanford University, 127, 298 Stasi (Ministry of State Security, German Democratic Republic-­ GDR), 471, 476 Statute of Galway, 36 Statute of Kilkenny (1367), 36 Steeplechasing, 270–272 Steris, Richard, 41 Sterling, Donald, 176, 176n12 Stern, Robert, 163 Stevenson, Bryan, 367, 367n3 Stewart, Alex (wrestler), 109 Stewart, Jackie, 319 Stirchup, William, 27 Stockholm Olympics (1912), 473 Stogg, Richard, 38 Stokes, Keith, 589 Stommelen, Rolf, 322 Stowne, Thomas, 38 Strasburg, Stephen, 391, 392 Stratophon (boxer), 11 Stratus, Trish (wrestler), 235 Stronach Group (race track owners), 280

Sundberg, Ernie (wrestler), 87, 88, 109, 112 Susser, Mervyn (epidemiologist), 136 Sutherland, Donald, 453 Swan, Kate, 93, 97 Syda, Alexander, 55 Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG), 487, 488, 492, 495 Syed, Matthew, 258, 260 Sykes/Picot agreement (1916), 516 T

Tackling Rugby: What Every Parent Should Know about Injuries (by Allyson Pollock), v, 583, 585, 596 Tagliabue, Paul, 166 Tales from the Old Bailey—The Grave Robber (TV drama), 349 Targa Floria (race), 310 Tasker, Joe (climber), 196, 201 Taunton, Dr Jack, 467 Taylor, Frederick, 334, 335 Taylor, Katie (boxer), 212, 217 Taylorism, 94, 332, 334–336 Team Ineos (cyclists), 300 Team Sky (cycling team), 295, 301, 304 Teixeira, Ricardo, 482 Thamel, Pete, 371 Thiam, Dr Amadou, 471 This I Believe (radio programme), 511 Thomas, Earl, 179 Thomas, Geraint, 299, 301, 304 Thomas, L. Murray, 154 Thompson, Jim, 398 Thomson, Jeff, 498 Thorndike, Dr Augustus, 465 Three Champs and a Baby (comedy skit), 507 Three Men and a Baby (film), 507 Thuram, Lilian, 520

 Index 

Tiberius Claudius Rufus of Smyrna, 4 Tier, Geoff (climber), 187, 188 Toccata and Fugue (by Bach), 450 Tom Brown’s Schooldays (by Thomas Hughes), 73 Tommy John surgery (TJ)/ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) reconstruction, xvi, 385–400 Toombs, Frederick, 95, 102 Torres, Jose, 259 Total Divas (TV programme), 231, 232 Touching the Void (by Joe Simpson), 195 Tour de France (TdF), xiii, 298, 301, 305, 306 The Tournament (film, 2009), 446 Towson University, 343 Toynbee, Polly, 189, 200 Trewartha, Grant, 589 Trott, Jonathan, 497 Trott, Laura, 296 Trump, Donald (President), 137, 138, 525 Tsai, Dr Jennifer, 138 Tubman, Harriet, 507 Tucker, Ross, 586–589 Tuckner, Howard, 258 Tullis, Julie, 197, 200 Tunney, Gene, 249, 251, 252 Tunnicliffe, Neil, 248 Turfway (race track), 279 Turnbull, Malcolm, 500 Turner societies, 464 Tyson, Mike, 253, 254, 507, 508 U

UK Care Act 2014, 547 UK Children Act 1989, 539, 540 UK Children Act 2004, 539–541, 543, 544, 546 UK Coaching, 542–543

627

UK Physical Activity Expert Group, 586, 587 Ultimate Fighting, 208, 211 Uncle Rhabdo (mascot), 419, 420 Under Armour (apparel company), 370, 378 Underdown, David, 68 Underhill, Sam, 499 Unforgivable Blackness of Being: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (by Geoffrey C. Ward), 249 UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (1948), 516 Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), 520, 524–526 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), 549 United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 181 United States of America Standards Institute (USASI), 152 University College London, 357 University of Alabama, 342 University of Edinburgh, 584 University of Glasgow, 584 University of Maryland, 144, 331, 333, 339, 340, 343 University of Missouri, 369, 383 University of Pennsylvania, 99, 119, 128 University of Washington, 370 University of Winchester, 577, 585 University of Witwatersrand, 587 Unsafe at Any Speed (by Ralph Nader), 317–318 Urschel, John, 158 U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), 146, 153 Use of the Dead to the Living (pamphlet by minister Thomas Southwood Smith), 354

628 Index

US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA), 297 US Horseracing Integrity Act of 2019, 267, 280 US National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (1966), 146, 153, 318 US Postal Team (cyclists), 296 V

Van Court, Eugene (wrestler), 99, 101 Van Hise, Charles Richard, 126 VEB Jenapharm (state controlled pharmaceutical company in GDR), 476 Venables, Stephen (climber), 196–198 Venerando, Dr Antonio, 466 Vidal, Gore, 257 Viesturs, Ed, 194 Villeneuve, Gilles, 323 Viner, Prof. Russell, 585 Virenque, Richard, 306 Virgil (poet), 12 Voet, Willy, 306 Vogel, Kristina, 305 Voigt, Jens, 297 Von Hagens, Gunther, 354 Von Trips, Count Wolfgang, 313 Vonn, Lindsey, 15 W

Wagg, Stephen, v, viin3, ix, xv, xvi, 285, 493, 518 Walcott, Henry P., 118, 120 Walker (theatre, Winnipeg), 88 Walker, Murray, 318 Walsh, David, 305 Walsh, George, 141, 142 Walsingham, Thomas (monk), 19 Ward, Geoffrey C., 249

Warren, Frank, 218 Washington Nationals, 391, 398 Waters, Andre, 162, 163 Waters, Roger, 525 Watkins, Prof. Sid, 323, 325, 326 Watson, Michael (boxer), 211, 216 Waugh, Steve, 497 Webster, John, 18 Webster, Mike, 160–162, 162n5, 164–166 Weinbruch, Stefan, 194, 195 Weissbein, Dr Seigfried, 465 Wendlinger, Karl, 324 Werner, Christian, 311 Wesley, John, 269 Westaway, Jonathan, 193 West Bank Premier League (WBPL), 518 West Bromwich Albion FC, 210, 484, 484n1 West Point Military Academy, 100 When We Were Kings (film), 247 White, Darin, 392, 393 The White Devil, 18 Whiteness, 373, 446, 452, 454–457 Whitford, Richard, 67 Wickenheiser, Hayley, 351, 356 Wiggins, Sir Bradley, 304 Wilkinson, Gertrude Elizabeth (wrestler), 234 Williams, Serena, 337 Williamson, Chris, 282 Williamson, Victoria, 302 Williamson, Zion, 373, 383 Willis, Captain Humphrey, 19 Willis, Cillian, 598 Wilson, Jim, 223 Wilson, President Woodrow, 128 Winchester College, 72 Winston, Eric, 356 Wohjn, Dr Smodlaka, 470 Wolfe, Janet Boyer, 225

 Index 

Wolsey, Cardinal Thomas, 34 Women’s boxing, 207, 211–213, 217–219 Women’s Olympics, 468, 469 Wonder, Stevie, 365 Wood, Rachel, 230, 237, 238 Working Together to Safeguard Children (UK government report, 2018), 539–541 World Cup Final (Paris, 1998), 481–485 World Rugby, 575, 577, 580, 582, 586–588, 590–593, 599 World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), xv, 163, 337 Wrestling, 4, 6, 8, 28, 30, 34, 67, 87–112, 161, 165, 223–240, 247, 449 Wright, Juanita (wrestler), 234 Writhington, Edgar (football player), 116 WWE 24: Women’s Evolution (documentary), 230, 236

629

X

X, Malcolm, 505, 510, 510n1, 511 Y

Yale University, 119 Young, Iris Marion, 214, 215 Young Minds Inspired (YMI), 182 Young, Steve, 165 Youth1 (sports media company), 396 Youth Rugby Injury Surveillance Project Season Report 2017–18, 577 Z

Zagallo, Mario, 482, 483 Zaqout, Ahed, 521 Zidane, Zinedine, 483 Zimmermann, Jordan, 391 Zionism, 526, 527 Zirin, Dave, 340, 360, 455, 515, 520, 521, 525