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
This week in our History and Politics of Sports class, we’ve been looking at African American history through the lens of sports. To wrap up the week, students submitted questions and ideas for Chris, Sam, and I to discuss on the newest episode of The 252. We started with some questions about race and sports in the present … More Thursday’s Podcast: Race and Sports
What does the spread of the coronavirus mean for sports? We started to talk through that big question on this week’s extended spring break episode of The 252. In our first segment, we briefly discussed the postponement of the Olympics, how the absence of sports changes our perception of the passage of time, and Paul … More Wednesday’s Podcast: Sports in the Age of COVID-19
Yesterday I started thinking out loud about my plans for converting my courses at Bethel University into online offerings. Part one summarized some basic principles I’m trying to follow, then explained my plans for a 100-level gen ed survey. Today: my two 200-level History courses… HIS/POS252L History and Politics of Sports Course description and students: … More How I’m Planning to Teach Online (part 2)
As usual, this week’s episode of The 252 touches several bases, including the impact of COVID-19 on college and professional sports and the historic rise and fall of boxing’s popularity. But this week we were most excited to talk to our special guest, Jason Jennings of Mortenson Construction. In our History and Politics of Sports class, students are starting … More Wednesday’s Podcast: Building Sports Stadiums
Congratulations to the Bethel University Royals, winners of the 2019-2020 women’s basketball championship in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. We were there this afternoon at a packed Robertson Center, where Bethel eked out the victory over the Augsburg University Auggies, 72-70. Bethel gets the MIAC’s automatic bid to the NCAA Division III tournament. Since Chris … More Saturday’s Podcast: Live from a Basketball Championship Game!
On this month’s episode of The 252, our two main segments found Chris, Sam, and me discussing two vastly different topics from the world of sports: 1. Watching the NHL and NBA play around with the format of their all-star games got us thinking about the significance of rules changes in sports — and how they … More Wednesday’s Podcast: Rules Changes and Sports Entertainment
On this week’s special episode of The 252 (“Sports talk radio as done by academics”), Chris, Sam, and I talked about baseball’s cheating scandal and the Mennonite college graduate who’s making history at the Super Bowl. But mostly, this episode exists for the sake of a long interview we recorded with Greg Jennings, a two-time Pro Bowl … More Wednesday’s Podcast: Inside the Life of an NFL Player
Today’s episode marks the end of our second season at The 252, “talk radio as done by academics.” So Chris, Sam, and I started by looking back at what we thought were the most memorable and most significant sports moments of 2019. Remarkably, we talked a lot about horse racing, golf, soccer, and basketball, but … More Wednesday’s Podcast: The Best Sports Moments of 2019
The Pietist Schoolman 