Category: Sports
How (Not) to Watch the Beautiful Game
Growing up Monday mornings were either a delight or a dread depending on which football — what a minority of the world calls soccer — team you supported. If your team had lost over the weekend, you were in for...
Saturday Night Lights
This piece was originally published in 2015 with Fare Forward. I’m republishing it here ahead of Saturday’s kick off and because it is no longer online elsewhere. Any Nebraskan can describe the scene to you: It’s a fall Saturday in Lincoln,...
On Loving Newcastle
Michael Chaplin. Newcastle United Stole My Heart: Sixty Years in Black and White. London: Hurst and Co, 2021. 280pp, $25.00. The first thing to say is that Michael Chaplin’s Newcastle United Stole My Heart is one of the most delightfully...
The Unexpected Virtue of Arbitrary Sports Allegiances
I live in a baseball town. I know this because in the fall of 2011, I found myself in a divey pizza joint with a bunch of other transplants from other parts of the country watching one of the most...
Effectively Work for Justice Without Leaving Your Couch on a Sunday Afternoon in Six Steps
I’m pleased and amused to publish this brief guest post from Colin Redemer. Don’t watch the racist, patriarchal, and evil NFL. Browse Twitter to pass the time. Oh, @realDonaldTrump said what?! Turn on the NFL and watch to show support...
On Blood Sport and the Image of God
I’m pleased to publish this guest essay from Brad Williams.
The Liturgies of Soccer
In the summer of 2013 a Bosnian man named Vahid Cehaja went on a long walk—a 600 mile walk, to be exact. He walked from his home in the town of Bugojno to the Allianz Arena, home to German soccer...
What Zlatan Ibrahimovic Taught Me About Enchantment
It’s a commonplace amongst a certain type of trad conservative to talk about the need to “re-enchant” our understanding of the world. What they usually mean by this is some version of an argument, influenced deeply by Charles Taylor, that...
The Bobby Petrino Dilemma and our Idolatry of College Football
The demise of Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino that began in the beginning of April has unfortunately become emblematic of BCS college football in the 21st century. For those who don’t click through, Petrino lied to police and university officials...
World Series Champs: Boston Red Sox
The Red Sox have won the World Series. That’s not the real story, though. The real story is that I was 4-7 in my playoff predictions this year (I actually got caught up in politics and missed making a prediction...