Let me put my Historian Hat on

This a rambling episode reflecting on the 2024 Presidential Election, how we got here and what it says about us, plus how questions are key for us to connect and find community. I want to hear from you, please share your thoughts on the elections and this episode in the comments bellow.

I referenced a post by a fellow historian written 8-years ago but published today. You can read it here: https://www.thepublicprofessor.com/this-is-not-eight-year-ago/

This is the fourth in a series of episodes exploring the life and career of Billy Mills, the Gold Medal winner at 10,000m the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation as well as the only American to have ever won Gold in the 10,000m. In Part 4, I looked beyond the 1964 Olympics to share the untold story of his attempted comeback in 1968. Relying on a 2022 interview as well as media coverage, I explain why Mills did not make the U.S. Olympic team and how his experience in 1968 both shaped and inspired his career as activist.

This is the third in a series of episodes exploring the life and career of Billy Mills, the Gold Medal winner at 10,000m the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation as well as the only American to have ever won Gold in the 10,000m. In Part 3, I discuss how his time in the Marines impacted his training and preparation for the 1964 Olympics as well as factored into media coverage of his victory. This episode also shares the story of 1964 Olympic 10,000m race.

This is the second of a series of episodes exploring the life and career of Billy Mills, the Gold Medal winner at 10,000m the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation as well as the only American to have ever won Gold in the 10,000m. In Part 2, I discuss Mills’ upbringing, the influence of his father and brothers, as well as key figures in his life during high school at the Haskell Institute and college at the University of Kansas. I note how these experiences were shaped by the attitudes and policies towards Native Americans.

This is the first of series episodes exploring the life and career of Billy Mills, the Gold Medal winner at 10,000m the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation as well as the only American to have ever won Gold in the 10,000m. In Part 1, I set the stage for Mills’ career by situating him in the larger context of Native American history, providing an overview of U.S. policies and attitudes towards indigenous people and connecting his family history to significant events and developments.

In this episode I introduce Human Rights Dallas, a new non-profit that I work with, and discuss some of its goals. I note that the organization intends to help with preparations for the 2026 FIFA World Cup as a way to help make Dallas a human rights city. Following this introduction, I share the story of the Olympic Project for Human Rights and its efforts that ultimately led to Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s iconic “Human Rights Salute” on the 200m medal stand at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

As promised I return to the topic of college football to discuss recent developments,particularly preliminary approval of the House Settlement and recent Top 10 upsets. Then, I turn to discuss the annual Red River Rivalry game between the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas’s Fair Park.

This Saturday’s game will be the 12th time that one of the two teams enters ranked #1 in the AP poll. The last time was 2008, when Texas upset Oklahoma. The last time Texas entered the game ranked #1 was 1984. That edition featured Mack Brown as an Oklahoma assistant coach and ultimately ended in a 15-15 tie. OU is 6-2 in Red River Rivalry Games when ranked #1; Texas is 2-0-1.

Some of my OU-Texas commentary come from my 2021 Op-Ed on the game: “The Red River Showdown reminds us that Oklahoma and Texas are inseparable,” Made by History Blog, Washington Post, 9 October 2021.

Corrections:

I incorrectly identified Vernon Parrington’s Pulitzer Prize winning book. It was Main Currents in American Thought.

The Texas Longhorns did in fact win the 1963 National Championship after upsetting #1 OU while ranked #2 in the only 1 vs. 2 matchup in Red River Rivalry History.

Oklahoma won the 1948 Red River Shootout, the first college football game broadcast-live in Texas on Amon Carter’s WBAP-TV.

I incorrectly stated Texas went on to the championship game following their upset of #1 OU in 2008. Oklahoma rebounded and made the 2009 BCS Championship game, where the Sooners lost to Tim Tebow’s Florida Gators.

To celebrate former President Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday (it was October 1st) this episode briefly discusses his life and career, before turning to a discussion of his book The Virtues of Aging.

In this episode I look at a few historic antecedents to the chaos in college sports under the NIL system. I discuss postwar recruiting and the development of booster clubs and slush-fund recruitment. I share the story of how OU tried to “ransom” a recruit from a rival and discuss the similarity to our current moment. The NCAA stepped in becoming a regulatory body in the mid-1950s, resulting in amateur hypocrisy (sorry SMU) until recent lawsuits have opened the gates for paying players. I suggest that after these losses the NCAA now seems reluctant to involve itself, resulting in a confusing and chaotic landscape today.

Note: I incorrectly say that Missouri and Iowa Pre-Flight Coach Don Faurot’s name is Jim.

Books I mention:

Randy Roberts, A Team For America: the Army-Navy Game That Rallied the Nation, (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).

Wilbur D. Jones, Jr. “Football! Navy! War!” How Military “Lend-Lease” Players Saved the College Game and Helped Win World War II, (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2009).

David Whitfield, A Payroll To Meet: A Story of Greed, Corruption, and Football at SMU, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013).

“THE LEAD1 ANGLE” EPISODE 14: DR. ANDREW MCGREGOR: https://lead1association.com/the-lead1-angle-episode-14-dr-andrew-mcgregor-dallas-college/

In this episode I return to the topic of sports and college football. I outline how sport became socially acceptable during the 19th Century thanks to Muscular Christians and political leaders, operating as a form of character development. And then I turn to how coaches and political leaders worked hand-in-hand to position the cultural values of college football as essential to Cold War America, and maintaining order amidst the upheaval of the New Left in the late-1960s and into the Culture Wars of the last 40-years.

In this episode I mention a few things I have published. The citations are below:

“The Anti-Intellectual coach: The Cultural Politics of Coaching from the New Left to the present,” Journal of Sport and Social Issues (May 2022). https://doi.org/10.1177%2F01937235221098915

“Emissaries of Toughness: How Coaches Teamed with U.S. Presidents to Politicize College Football during the Cold War” in: Sports and the American Presidency: From Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump, eds. Adam Burns and Rivers Gambrell, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022).

 “College football gives conservatives their own safe space on campus,” Made By History Blog, Washington Post, 1 September 2017.