Book Series
Terry and Jan Todd Series
The Todd Book Series, in partnership with The University of Texas Press, aims to publish quality books in the field of physical culture and sports for both the popular and academic markets. Although we expect that many of the books in the series will be works of history, we welcome submissions from all academic disciplines in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. UT Press has won numerous awards for the superior design and high quality of their publications, and we are very pleased to have them as our partner for this new series. The endowment supporting the series will result in the publication of up to three books each year, in perpetuity.
Astros and Asterisks
Houston’s Sign-Stealing Scandal Explained
Edited By Jonathan Silverman
In 2017 the Houston Astros won their first World Series title, a particularly uplifting victory for the city following Hurricane Harvey. But two years later, the feel-good energy was gone after The Athletic revealed that the Astros had stolen signs from opposing catchers during their championship season, perhaps even during the playoffs and World Series. Their methods were at once high-tech and crude: staff took video of opponents’ pitching signals and transmitted the footage in real time to the Astros’ dugout, where players banged on trash cans to signal to their teammates at bat which pitches were coming their way. Wry observers labeled them the Asterisks, pointing to the title that no longer seemed so earned.
The Olympics that Never Happened
Denver ’76 and the Politics of Growth
By Adam Berg
If you don’t recall the 1976 Denver Olympic Games, it’s because they never happened. The Mile-High City won the right to host the winter games and then was forced by Colorado citizens to back away from its successful Olympic bid through a statewide ballot initiative. Adam Berg details the powerful Colorado regime that gained the games for Denver and the grassroots activism that brought down its Olympic dreams, and he explores the legacy of this milestone moment for the games and politics in the United States.
Roller Derby
The History of an American Sport
Since 1935, roller derby has thrilled fans and skaters with its constant action, hard hits, and edgy attitude. However, though its participants’ athleticism is undeniable, roller derby has never been accepted as a “real” sport. Michella M. Marino, herself a former skater, tackles the history of a sport that has long been a cultural mainstay for one reason both utterly simple and infinitely complex: roller derby has always been coed.
The Myth of the Amateur
A History of College Athletic Scholarships
By Ronald A. Smith
In this in-depth look at the heated debates over paying college athletes, Ronald A. Smith starts at the beginning: the first intercollegiate athletics competition—a crew regatta between Harvard and Yale—in 1852, when both teams received an all-expenses-paid vacation from a railroad magnate. This striking opening sets Smith on the path of a story filled with paradoxes and hypocrisies that plays out on the field, in meeting rooms, and in courtrooms—and that ultimately reveals that any insistence on amateurism is invalid, because these athletes have always been paid, one way or another.
Strength Coaching in America
A History of the Innovation That Transformed Sports
By Jason P. Shurley, Jan Todd, and Terry Todd
The first comprehensive history of the social shifts and scientific discoveries that transformed weight lifting from a scorned folly to the ultimate game changer for professional athletes.
Mr. America
The Tragic History of a Bodybuilding Icon
Drawing on unique archival documents and fascinating interviews, an acclaimed sports historian delivers the first comprehensive examination of Mr. America, the iconic bodybuilding contest that honored ancient ideals while defining masculinity during the competition’s heyday in the 1950s.
No Way but to Fight
George Foreman and the Business of Boxing
The first biography of the heavyweight boxing champion, preacher, and celebrity pitchman who fought his way out of urban poverty and through the venal world of prizefighting to make it in America.
Harvey Penick
The Life and Wisdom of the Man Who Wrote the Book on Golf
This biography of legendary golf pro Harvey Penick, which won the USGA Herbert Warren Wind Book Award, reveals how he distilled a lifetime of coaching on and off the course into the best-selling sports book of all time, Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book.
Dopers in Uniform
The Hidden World of Police on Steroids
Breaking down the “Blue Wall of Silence,” this landmark book investigates the widespread, illegal use of anabolic steroids in major urban police departments and how it contributes to excessive violence in American policing.
Drug Games
The International Olympic Committee and the Politics of Doping, 1960–2008
By Thomas M. Hunt; foreword by John Hoberman
Based on research in both American and foreign archives, this first book-length study of doping in the Olympics connects the use and regulation of performance-enhancing drugs to developments in the larger global environment.
Sports through the Lens
Essays on 25 Iconic Photographs
Edited by Maureen M. Smith, Daniel A. Nathan and Sarah K. Fields
The stories behind and legacies of important sports photos from the last 130 years. Ever since photography and professional sports originated in the nineteenth century, photographers have shaped how we perceive sports. Sports through the Lens collects essays by twenty-five historians that consider what it means to capture and revisit a moment of cultural significance in sports, looking at each photo’s creation, its contexts, and how its meaning has shifted over time.
The Architecture of the Playing Field
Shaping Space in Sport
Richard L. Cleary
A novel exploration of playing fields as aesthetic and architectural spaces that frame athletes’ creativity and spectators’ evolving experiences of sport.
