Oral histories conducted by students in the course HIST 1852 The Game: College Sports as History

Lecturer Zachary Nowak taught the course HIST 1852 The Game: College Sports as History in fall 2020. It was a historical methods course designed for first-generation students, first year students, sophomores, and those who had never taken a college history course. In this introductory level class, students used the lenses of race, class, and gender to examine events in American sports history. According to the course syllabus, “College gyms, fields, stadiums, and rinks have been the scenes of both delightful distraction and the battlegrounds for all sorts of controversies. College sports, in other words, are an integral part of American cultural and social history. The course uses the lens of college sports, and Harvard College athletics, in particular, to gain insights into the “Game” and the ways athletics both was impacted by and, in turn, shaped wider currents of cultural and social change in American history.” Topics discussed in the course included the place of gender in college sports; amateurism and class distinction as seen through the Harvard-Yale rowing regatta of 1852 (the country’s first intercollegiate sports competition): the codes of masculinity present throughout the history of college football; and evaluating the complexities of the “color line” story of professional baseball. Students used primary sources, including back issues of The Crimson and the Harvard Alumni Bulletin, and scanned archival materials relating to Harvard and Radcliffe athletic teams to write several archivally-based research papers.

One course assignment required students to conduct an oral history interview with a former scholar-athlete from Radcliffe College. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Harvard courses were held remotely during the 2020-2021 academic year, and the oral histories were conducted over remotely over Zoom or phone. Following the interview, students were required to create transcriptions of the content. Sports in the interviews discussed include basketball, crew, diving, fencing, field hockey, football, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, rugby, sailing, soccer, softball, skiing, squash, tennis, track and field, volleyball, water polo, and wrestling. Topics discussed including Title IX, feminism, intramural and club sports, co-ed dorms, the Harvard-Radcliffe merger, ROTC, mental health, women in sports, gender equity, support for scholar-athletes, and the experiences of LGBTQ+ and Native American scholar-athletes.