Next spring I’ll be teaching History and Politics of Sports for the second time. It’s hard to know how much change to make, given that the inaugural class was forced online halfway through semester by a global pandemic. But one difference is already evident: I’ll be leading the course by myself, since my friend and … More Thursday’s Podcast: The Politics of the Olympics
It’s been a few months since the last time we shared an episode of our sports podcast, The 252. So I was glad when Chris Moore stuck his head in my office earlier this week and asked if we could record a “micropod” about the latest iterations in the debate over sports, protest, and the … More Wednesday’s Podcast: The National Anthem
Yesterday I mentioned that I’ve recorded 21 podcasts this year, including a limited-run series with Amy Poppinga called Pandemics and the Liberal Arts and new episodes of my sports podcast with Chris Moore and Sam Mulberry, The 252, and Nothing Rhymes with Gehrz, the odd little show in which Sam and I simply talk about … More Thursday’s Podcast: A 2020 Time Capsule
Even as he grieves over the loss of Ohio State football for the fall, Chris Moore joined Sam Mulberry and me for a new episode of The 252, “sports talk radio as done by academics.” While Chris and I won’t be teaching our History and Politics of Sports class again until 2022, we mean to continue producing occasional … More Saturday’s Podcast: Checking In on Sports under COVID
On the 2019-20 season finale of The 252, Chris Moore and I reflected on what we learned from our first time teaching History and Politics of Sports at Bethel. Then Sam Mulberry joined us to talk about how different professional and college sports are planning to resume play — or already have done so. We talked about everything … More Thursday’s Podcast: The Return of Sports (?)
As we reach the last week of spring classes at Bethel, Chris and I devoted part of this week’s episode of The 252 to talking our students through their final exam. But the rest of you will want to listen in for what follows: a conversation about e-sports with our Bethel colleague Adrian Smithee, who has … More Thursday’s Podcast: E-Sports
Apart from debating the wisdom and likelihood of baseball returning by July, this week on The 252 we primarily talked about the two topics that students in History and Politics of Sports encountered in this second-to-last week of spring classes. 1. Chris talked about the history and (complicated!) politics of sports gambling, and how it’s being affected … More Thursday’s Podcast: The Future of Sports Media
On this week’s episode of The 252, Chris, Sam, and I kept talking about the Olympics: analyzing an assignment that had students draft a “fantasy team” of nations competing in the Olympics (and what medal counts do and don’t signify about countries); considering what effect the 2008 Olympics had on Chinese politics; and predicting what the … More Thursday’s Podcast: Fantasy Olympics
A bright spot in a pretty dismal week: having the chance to record a new episode of The 252 with Chris Moore and Sam Mulberry. This week we talked about student responses to our hypothetical scenario of Bethel leaving Division III for Division I of the NCAA, but most of our attention focused on the Olympic Games, … More Thursday’s Podcast: The History of the Olympics
Perhaps because we’re taking next week off, this week’s episode of The 252 is bursting at the seams with interesting conversation. • Chris Moore and I started by reporting on the results of a public policy simulation we just finished in our History and Politics of Sports class at Bethel: students played different roles in a fictional … More Thursday’s Podcast: Stadium Funding, the NCAA, and More
