Don't Stick to Sports

The intersection of sports and politics has been making headlines over the last few years, but the reality is that this clash has been going on for decades. This book examines the history of sports as a means to advance social change and connects that history to today’s world.

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A significant examination of how athletes have fought for inclusion and equality on and off the playing field, despite calls for them to “stick to sports.”

There is a common cry in many public discussions that athletes should just “stick to sports,” that sports and politics are somehow sealed off from one another, even while team owners, directors, managers, and entire leagues insist on using patriotic displays such as the playing of the National Anthem in order to project a sense of unity. The truth, however, is that unity in sports and American society is far from the reality, and that athletes have as much a right as anyone to fight for a more inclusive world.

In Don't Stick to Sports: The American Athlete’s Fight for Inclusion, Derek Charles Catsam carefully explores this disparity. He examines how, throughout sports history, minority athletes have had to fight every step of the way for their right to compete, and continue to fight for equity today. From African Americans and women to LGBTQ+ and religious minorities, Catsam shows how these athletes have taken a stand to address the underlying injustices in sports and society despite being told it’s not their place to do so.

While it’s impossible for a single book to tell the entire history of exclusion in sports in the United States, Don’t Stick to Sports illustrates the ways in which both exclusion and the fight against that exclusion have helped to define a system that often claims to be based on meritocracy but has proven to be far from the truth.