The Sports Revolution: How Texas Changed the Culture of American Athletics

In this illuminating survey, Guridy, a Columbia University history professor, details how oil money, racial integration, and feminism transformed sports in the Lone Star State and, later, the whole country. He sets the stage by spotlighting star athletes from Texas, such as 1950s football All-American Doak Walker and 1932 Olympic medalist Mildred Didrickson, and their embodiment of pre-integration and pre-feminism sports in the state. He then details how the flow of oil money into professional and college athletics inspired construction of state-of-the-art sports arenas such as the Astrodome and Texas Stadium, and how the University of Houston and Southern Methodist University were early to integrate their sports teams, an example followed by other schools across the nation as a “seemingly natural segregationist order gave way to a seemingly normal world of racially integrated football,” Guridy notes. The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, meanwhile, created a retrograde-yet-empowering paradox by sexualizing cheerleading while leading the way toward making cheerleaders “genuine national celebrities.” This is a fascinating and meticulously researched gem for sports buffs. (Mar.)