The Journal of Sport History Article Award

The Journal of Sport History Article Award is given annually to the best article of the year (per volume), as determined by the Journal of Sport History senior staff. We evaluate the originality and significance of the article’s thesis; the excellence and rigor of its research; its effective use of primary and secondary sources; its historiographical or theoretical contribution; and the clarity, organization, and quality of writing. Preference is given to work that challenges conventional interpretations, opens new avenues of inquiry, and/or brings fresh perspectives, methods, sources, or forms to sport history. The winning article should demonstrate scholarly rigor while also possessing a distinctive voice, creativity, and the capacity to engage readers.  

Past Winners

2025: John Zilcosky, “Wrestling with My Father,” 52, no. 1 (Spring 2025), 62-68.

2024: Malcolm McLaughlin, “Reel Adventures: Fishing, Fantasy, and Sportswriting, 1890-1910,” 51, no. 3 (Fall 2024), 1-17.

2023: Brian M. Ingrassia, “Annihilating Space: Motor Sport and the Commodification of Movement,” 50, no. 1 (Spring 2023), 17-31.

2022: Aram Goudsouzian, “House of Cards: Leisure, Freedom, Authority, Revolution, and the Diary of Landon Carter,” 49, no. 1 (Spring 2022), 1-19.

2021: Howard P. Chudacoff, “AAU v. NCAA: The Bitter Feud That Altered the Structure of American Amateur Sports,” 48, no. 1 (Spring 2021), 50-65.

2020: Ben Andrews and Craig Greenham, “‘National Responsibility’: A History of Willful Nostalgia in the Canadian Football League,” 47, no. 3 (Fall 2020), 226-242.

2019: Gary Osmond, “Decolonizing Dialogues: Sport, Resistance, and Australian Aboriginal Settlements,” 46, no. 2 (Summer 2019), 288-301.

2018: Johnny Smith, “‘The Magnitude of Me’: Reggie Jackson, Baseball, and the Seventies,” 45, no. 2 (Summer 2018), 145-164.

2017: Jennifer Guiliano, “Toward a Praxis of Critical Digital Sport History,” 44, no. 2 (Summer 2017), 146-159.

2017: Patricia Vertinsky and Bieke Gils, “‘Watch Britain’: Movement Education, Transnational Exchanges, and the Contested Terrain of Physical Education in Mid-Twentieth-Century Canada,” 44, no. 3 (Fall 2017), 456-475.

2016: Douglas Booth, “Origins in History and Historiography: A Case Study of the First Swimmer at Bondi Beach,” 43, no. 1 (Spring 2016), 21-36.

2015: Christine O’Bonsawin, “From Black Power to Indigenous Activism: The Olympic Movement and the Marginalization of Oppressed Peoples (1968-2012),” 42, no. 2 (Summer 2015), 200-219.

2014: Patricia A. Vertinsky, “Yoga Comes to American Physical Education: Josephine Rathbone and Corrective Physical Education,” 41, no. 2 (Summer 2014), 287-311.

2014: Nathan Titman, “Taking Punishment Gladly: Bill Tilden’s Performances of the Unruly Male Body,” 41, no. 3 (Fall 2014), 447-466.

2013: Amanda Shuman, “Elite Competitive Sport in the People’s Republic of China 1958-1966: The Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO),” 40, no. 2 (Summer 2013), 258-283.

2012: Matthew Llewellyn, “Dominion Nationalisms or Imperial Patriotism? Citizenship, Race, and the Proposed British Empire Olympic Team,” 39, no. 1 (Spring 2012), 45-62.

2011: John Gleaves, “Doped Professional and Clean Amateurs: Amateurism’s Influence on the Modern Philosophy of Anti-Doping,” 38, no. 2 (Summer 2011), 237-254.

2010: Gary Osmond, “Photographs, Materiality and Sport History: Peter Norman and the 1968 Mexico City Black Power Salute,” 37, no. 1 (Spring 2010), 119-137.

2009: John Matthew Smith, “‘It’s Not Really My Country’: Lew Alcindor and the Revolt of the Black Athlete,” 36, no. 2 (Summer 2009), 223-244.

2008: Matthew Taylor, “From Sources to Subject: Sport, History, and Autobiography,” 35, no. 3 (Fall 2008), 469-491.

2007: Mike Cronin, “Not Taking the Medicine: Sportsmen and Doctors in Late Nineteenth-Century Britain,” 34, no. 1 (Spring 2007), 23-35.

2006: Thomas M. Hunt, “American Sport Policy and the Cultural Cold War: The Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Years,” 33, no. 3 (Fall 2006), 273-297.

2005: Michael H. Carriere, “‘A Diamond is a Boy’s Best Friend’: The Rise of Little League Baseball, 1939-1964,” 32, no. 3 (Fall 2005), 351-378.

2004: Mark Dyreson, “The Foot Runners Conquer Mexico and Texas: Endurance Racing, Indigenismo, and Nationalism,” 31, no. 1 (Spring 2004), 1-31.

2003: Donald Kyle, “The Only Woman in All Greece: Kyniska, Agesilaus, Alcibiades and Olympia,” 30, no. 2 (Summer 2003), 183-203.

2002: Patricia A. Vertinsky, “Embodying Normalcy: Anthropometry and the Long Arm of William H. Sheldon’s Somatotyping Project,” 29, no. 1 (Spring 2002), 95-133.

2001: Murray Phillips, “Deconstructing Sport History: The Postmodern Challenge,” 28, no. 3 (Fall 2001), 327-343.

2000: Gertrud Pfister, “Doing Sport in a Headscarf? German Sport and Turkish Females,” 27, no. 3 (Fall 2000), 497-524.

1999: Roni Gechtman, “Socialist Mass Politics through Sport: The Bund’s Morgnshtern in Poland, 1926-1939,” 26, no. 2 (Summer 1999), 326-352.

1998: Patricia Vertinsky and Gwendolyn Captain, “More Myth than History: American Culture and Representations of the Black Female’s Athletic Ability,” 25, no. 3 (Fall 1998), 532-561.

1997: David B. Welky, “Viking Girls, Mermaids and Little brown Men: U.S. Journalism and the 1932 Olympics,” 24, no. 1 (Spring 1997), 24-49.

1996: Norman Baker, “Going to the Dogs- Hostility to Greyhound Racing in Britain: Puritanism, Socialism, and Pragmatism,” 23, no. 2 (Summer 1996), 97-119.

1995: John Hoberman, “Toward a Theory of Olympic Internationalism,” 22, no. 1 (Spring 1995), 1-37.

1994: Patricia A. Vertinsky, “Gender Relations, Women’s History and Sport History: A Decade of Changing Enquiry, 1983-1993,” 21, no. 1 (Spring 1994), 25-58.

1993: Jim Riordan, “Rewriting Soviet Sports History,” 20, no. 3 (Winter 1993), 247-258.

1992: Jack E. Davis, “Baseball Reluctant Challenge: Desegregating Major League Spring Training Sites, 1961-1964,” 19, no. 2 (Summer 1992), 144-162.

1991: Roberta J. Park, “Physiology and Anatomy are Destiny!?: Brains, Bodies and Exercise in Nineteenth Century American Thought,” 18, no. 1 (Spring 1991), 31-63.

1991: Patricia A. Vertinsky, “Old Age, Gender, and Physical Activity: The Biomedicalization of Aging,” 18, no. 1 (Spring 1991), 64-80.

1990: Gertrud Pfister, “The Medical Discourse on Female Physical Culture in Germany in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries,” 17, no. 2 (Summer 1990), 183-198.

1989: David K. Wiggins, “‘Great Speed But Little Stamina’: The Historical Debate Over Black Athletic Dominance,” 16, no. 2 (Summer 1989), 158-185.

1988: David K. Wiggins, “‘The Future of College Athletics is at Stake’: Black Athletes and Racial Turmoil on Three Predominantly White University Campuses,” 15, no. 3 (Winter 1988), 304-333.

1987: Roberta J. Park, “Physiologists, Physicians, and Physical Educators: Nineteenth Century Biology and Exercise, Hygienic and Educative,” 14, no. 1 (Spring 1987), 28-60.

1986: Stephen Hardy, “Entrepreneurs, Organizations and the Sport Marketplace: Subjects in Search of Historians,” 13, no. 1 (Spring 1986), 14-33.

1986: Nancy L. Struna, “The Formalizing of Sport and the Formation of an Elite,” 13, no. 3 (Winter 1986), 212-234.

1985: Dennis Brailford, “Morals and Maulers: The Ethics of Early Pugilism,” 12, no. 2 (Summer 1985), 126-142.

1984: Steven M. Gelber, “‘Their Hands Are All Out Playing’: Business and Amateur Baseball, 1845-1917,” 11, no. 1 (Spring 1984), 5-27.

1983: David K. Wiggins, “Wendell Smith, the Pittsburgh Courier-Journal and the Campaign to Include Blacks in Organized Baseball, 1933-1945,” 10, no. 2 (Summer 1983), 5-29.

1982: Gary Ross Mormino, “The Playing Fields of St. Louis: Italian Immigrants and Sports, 1925-1941,” 9, no. 2 (Summer 1982), 5-19.

1981: Allen Guttmann, “Sports Spectators from Antiquity to the Renaissance,” 8, no. 2 (Summer 1981), 5-27.

1981: Steven A. Riess, “Power Without Authority: Los Angeles’ Elites and the Construction of the Coliseum,” 8, no. 1 (Spring 1981), 50-65.

1980: David K. Wiggins, “The Play of Slave Children in the Plantation Communities of the Old South, 1820-1860,” 7, no. 2 (Summer 1980), 21-39.

1979: Patricia Vertinsky, “Sexual Equality and the Legacy of Catharine Beecher,” 6, no. 1 (Spring 1979), 38-49.

1978: Roberta J. Park, “‘Embodied Selves’: The Rise and Development of Concern for Physical Education, Active Games and Recreation for American Women, 1776-1865,” 5, no. 2 (Summer 1978), 5-41.

1977: David K. Wiggins, “Good Times on the Old Plantation: Popular Recreations of the Black Slave in Antebellum South, 1810-1860,” 4, no. 3 (Fall 1977), 260-284.

1976: Joe D. Willis and Richard G. Wettan, “Social Stratification in New York City Athletic Clubs, 1865-1915,” 3, no. 1 (Spring 1976), 45-63.

1975: Ellen Gerber, “The Controlled Development of Collegiate Sport for Women, 1923-1936,” 2, no. 1 (Spring 1975), 1-28.

1974: Steven A. Riess, “The Baseball Magnates and Urban Politics in the Progressive Era: 1895-1920,” 1, no. 1 (Spring 1974), 41-62.