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HISTORY 2172B (670)

The History of Sport

Fall/Winter 2025 - 2026

Course Information

Calendar Description:

This course offers an overview of a growing field of study. Drawing on a series of historical examples from antiquity to the present, the course examines the relationship of sport to nationalism, race, class, gender, politics and war, consumer culture, and economics.

Prerequisite(s):

Antirequisite(s): History 1820F if taken 2018-19, 2019-20.

Extra Information: 2 lecture hours. Cannot be used towards completion of a Kinesiology module.

Course Weight: 0.50

Breadth: Category A

Subject Code: History

Notice: Unless you have either the requisites for this course (fulfilment of pre-requisites, no anti-requisite conflicts), or special permission from your Dean to enrol in it, you may be removed from this course and it will be deleted from your record. This decision may not be appealed. You will receive no adjustment to your fees in the event that you are dropped from a course for failing to have the necessary prerequisites.

Le Chandail de Hockey (The Hockey Sweater) by Roch Carrier is an auto-biographical story of growing up in Quebec. An obsessive fan of the Montreal Canadians and Maurice Richard, like most young boys in the province in the 1930s, a mix up ordering from Eaton’s English-only catalogue leads to the arrival of a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey instead of a Montreal Canadians jersey. Turned into an animated feature by the National Film Board in 1980, the story speaks to questions of national identity and sport within 20^th Century Canada. Source: Roch Carrier, The Hockey Sweater, Tundra Books, 1985. Art by Sheldon Cohen.

HISTORY 2172B

The History of Sport

Winter 2026

Asynchronous Online Course

Academic Calendar Description

This course offers an overview of a growing field of study. Drawing on a series of historical examples from antiquity to the present, the course examines the relationship of sport to nationalism, race, class, gender, politics and war, consumer culture, and economics.

Course Overview

This course charts the progression of “organized” sport, from the time of the Ancient Greeks and Ancient Romans, towards the “professionalization” and “globalization” of sport after the Industrial Revolution. A growing and interdisciplinary field of historical study, this course examines the historical impact of sports and sports culture, with emphasis placed on how athletics intersects with sociocultural influences such as religion, class, political control, gender, and nationalism -from the “premodern” to “modern” eras.

Learning Outcomes

1. Explore the historiographical foundations of sports and sports culture.

2. Analyze, reflect, and synthesize lecture/reading content through weekly assignments.

3. Engage with primary and secondary sources, to form a complex understanding of the past.

4. Utilize both research and communication skills to generate a lecture presentation.

Course Materials:

All readings and materials for this course will be provided on OWL Brightspace.

Grade Breakdown

Short Quizzes x 5 (35%) & Written Precis x 5 (35%)

Throughout this course, you will complete ten alternating short quizzes and written precis reflections, which are meant to assess your knowledge and comprehension of the week’s material. These weekly assignments will expect you to engage with both the information from both your lectures and weekly readings. They will be due on OWL Brightspace at the end of each week (Sundays by 11:59 PM).

Final Presentation – 30%

This assignment will see students produce a mini-lecture (via Zoom or Powerpoint) on a topic of interest to them. Students are free in their choice of topic selection, as long as it is within the realm of “sports” and is relevant to the course content and applies course themes. Please note, that because this is a history course, it is expected that a large portion of the presentation be devoted to the historical significance of the topic selected. These presentations are due on OWL Brightspace: April 9^th, 2026 (last day of classes)

Please Note: The final presentation in this course is designated as the assessment that requires formal supporting documentation for academic consideration.

Late Policy

Assignments (including precis and quizzes) submitted after their cut-off deadlines, without accommodation, will receive a penalty of 2% per day, including weekends and holidays.

Please note: Under King’s new policy on Academic Consideration students are required to submit a request for consideration and any supporting documents to the Academic Advising Office of the student’s Faculty of Registration.

For more information, please see the attached “Course Outline Policies.”

Academic Integrity and Artificial Intelligence

Please note that the use of ChatGPT and other AI programs to complete all coursework is strictly prohibited. The use of these programs constitutes a Scholastic Offence. For more information, please see the attached “Course Outline Policies.”

Please note: This does not include spellcheck and grammar programs. If you are uncertain, please check with your course professor prior to using a program.

Weekly Checklist

Course operates on a Monday to Sunday schedule, with each week being the start of a new topic.

1. Watch the weekly lecture (posted by 8 AM on Mondays)

2. Do the weekly reading(s) (available on OWL Brightspace)

3. Complete and submit your weekly precis or quiz (due Sundays at 11:59 PM)

Course Outline and Weekly Readings

Week 1 (Jan 5^th to 11^th) - Introduction and “What Is Sport’s History?”

Video: “A Visual History of Sports,” The Atlantic, February 9, 2018

· https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/552878/history-of-sports/

Question: Are there any sports that look familiar to you, but appear under another name?

Introductory Assignment: Pick one of these seemingly familiar sports (i.e. “Cuju”) and conduct some internet research. In the discussion forum, after introducing yourself, introduce the ancient sport you chose, describe it, and note if it has a modern equivalent.

Advice: As there is not a lot of course work this week, please use this time to read ahead.

Week 2 (Jan 12^th to 18^th)  - Ancient Greece and Aretē (Quiz #1)

Heather Reid, “Athletic Beauty in Classical Greece,” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 39, no. 2 (2012): 281-97.

Stephen G. Miller, “Arete: Greek Sports From Ancient Sources,” Third Edition (Los Angeles: University of California, 2012)

· Chapter Three: “Events At A Competition,” pp. 23-62.

o Note: It is not necessary to read the entire chapter. Browse the sections and read a couple of the stories to help gain a better idea of the Greek concept of arete.

Week 3 (Jan 19^th to 25^th) – Ancient Rome & the Spectacle of the Gladiator (Precis #1)

Heather Reid, “Was The Roman Gladiator an Athlete?” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 33, no. 1 (2006): 37-49.

Alison Futrell, The Roman Games: A Sourcebook (Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell, 2006)

· Chapter Four: “The Life of a Gladiator” (pp. 120-59)

Artifact: “Marble Relief Featuring Female Gladiators,” British Museum, 1847.0424.19

· Link: https://www.bmimages.com/preview.asp?image=00147502001

Week 4 (Jan 26^th to Feb 1^st)  – Mesoamerican Ball Games (Quiz #2)

Mary Miller, “The Maya Ballgame: Rebirth in the Court of Life and Death,” in The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2001), 79-87.

“The Aztec Ballgame Where The Losers Were Sacrificed,” Simple History, YouTube.

· https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LsE6LQDryQ

· Note: There may be some overlap information with the reading, but this short history does a really good job of providing animated visualizations of Mesoamerican ballgames

Week 5 (Feb 2^nd to 8^th) – The Medieval Tournament (Precis #2)

Jacques Bretel, “The Tournament at Chauvency,” translated by Nigel Bryant, 2022.

Note: This is a primary source, dating to the late 13^th Century. Written by Jacques Bretel, originally in French, it provides an eyewitness account to a tournament gathering in Chauvency, near the French border, between French and German nobility. It is one of the most complete historical sources that we have describing a medieval tournament. As the source is rather long, please skim to the parts involving jousting.

Week 6 (Feb 9^th to 15^th) - Indigenous Sport in North America (Quiz #3)

Allen Downey, The Creator’s Game: Lacrosse, Identity, and Indigenous Nationhood (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018), Chapter One: “Tewaá:rathon/The Canadian Appropriation of Lacrosse and ‘Indian’ Performances,” pp. 33-84.

*** Reading Break ***

February 14^th to February 22^nd, 2026

Week 7 (Feb 23^rd to Mar 1^st) – The Origins of Football (aka Soccer) (Precis #3)

Tony Collins, How Football Began (London: Routledge, 2018)

· Chapter 3: “The Gentleman’s Game” (pp. 17-23)

· Chapter 5: “The End of the Universal Game” (pp. 31-37)

· Chapter 6: “From The Classes to the Masses” (pp. 38-45)

· Chapter 8: “The Coming of Professionalism” (pp. 53-64)

Week 8 (Mar 2^nd to 8^th) – Sport and National Identity: Two Case Studies (Quiz #4)

Stephen Hardy and Andrew C. Holman, Hockey: A Global History (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2018)

· Chapter 9: “Whose Game? Class, Language, Race, Sex, and Nation,” pp. 118-33.

Warren Jay Goldstein, Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball, 20^th Anniversary Edition (2009; Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989))

· Chapter 6: “The National Game,” pp. 101-119.

Sheldon Cohen, “The Sweater,” NFB, 1980 (optional – but recommended)

· Link: https://www.nfb.ca/film/sweater/

Week 9 (Mar 9^th to 15^th) – Sport As Propaganda: 1936 Berlin Olympics (Precis #4)

First, read and watch the videos from the USHMM digital exhibit on “The Nazi Olympics”

· Link:https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nazi-olympics-berlin-1936?series=22

· Note: There are four sections (there is a guide at the bottom of each page)

Keith Rathbone, “Antifascist Athletes? A Reappraisal of the 1936 Berlin Olympics,” Fascism 9 (2020): 195-220.

Week 10 (Mar 16^th to 22^nd) – The Intersection of Boxing and Civil Rights (Quiz #5)

Three chapters in The Cambridge Companion to Boxing (Cambridge University Press, 2019):

· Colleen Aycock, “Joe Gans and His Contemporaries” (pp. 69-77)

· Randy Roberts, “Joe Louis: ‘You Should Have Seen Him Then’” (pp. 173-84)

· Lewis Erenberg, “Echoes from the Jungle: Ali in the Early 1970s” (pp. 194-204)

Week 11 (Mar 23^rd to 29^th) – Title IX: Women and Sport in the United States (Precis #5)

Susan Ware, Title IX: A Brief History With Documents (Bedford: St Martins, 2007)

· Introduction: “Title IX – Thirty-Seven Words That Changed American Sports” (pp. 1-27)

Maggie Mertens, “50 Years of Title IX: How One Law Changed Women’s Sports Forever,” Sports Illustrated, May 19, 2022.

· https://www.si.com/college/2022/05/19/title-ix-50th-anniversary-womens-sports-impact-daily-cover

Week 12 (Mar 30^th to April 5^th) – Sport and Representation: LGBTQ+ Athletes

Vikki Krane, editor, Sex, Gender and Sexuality in Sport: Queer Inquiries (London: Routledge, 2018)

· Introduction (pp. 1-9)

· Chapter 5 – “Inclusion or Illusion? Lesbian Experiences in Sport” (pp. 69-83)

· Chapter 6 – “Conceptualizing Gay Men in Sport” (pp. 87-101)

· Chapter 9 – “Making Space: Transgender Athletes” (pp. 145-59)

Macintosh Ross and Matthew R. Holder, “U.S. anti-trans laws won’t ‘save women’s sports,” Western News, originally published in The Conversation, July 2022.

· https://news.westernu.ca/2022/07/expert-insight-u-s-anti-trans-laws-wont-save-womens-sports/