More Than Just a Game PDF Download

Author: Chuck Korr
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429922761
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
Timed perfectly for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Chuck Korr and Marvin Close's More Than Just a Game tells the timeless true story of how political prisoners under apartheid found hope and dignity through soccer. In the hell that was Robben Island, inmates united courageously in an act of protest. Beginning in 1964, they requested the right to play soccer during their exercise periods. Denied repeatedly, they risked beatings and food deprivation by repeating their request for three years. Finally granted this right, the prisoners banded together to form a multi-tiered, pro-level league that ran for more than two decades and served as an impassioned symbol of resistance against apartheid. Former Robben Island inmate Nelson Mandela noted in the documentary FIFA: 90 Minutes for Mandela, "Soccer is more than just a game.... The energy, passion, and dedication this game created made us feel alive and triumphant despite the situation we found ourselves in."

Author: Richard Menkis
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442620528
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Held in Germany, the 1936 Olympic Games sparked international controversy. Should athletes and nations boycott the games to protest the Nazi regime? More Than Just Games is the history of Canada’s involvement in the 1936 Olympics. It is the story of the Canadian Olympic officials and promoters who were convinced that national unity and pride demanded that Canadian athletes compete in the Olympics without regard for politics. It is the story of those Canadian athletes, mostly young and far more focused on sport than politics, who were eager to make family, friends, and country proud of their efforts on Canada’s behalf. And, finally, it is the story of those Canadians who led an unsuccessful campaign to boycott the Olympics and deny Nazi Germany the propaganda coup of serving as an Olympic host. Written by two noted historians of Canadian Jewish history, Richard Menkis and Harold Troper, More than Just Games brings to life the collision of politics, patriotism, and the passion of sport on the eve of the Second World War.

Author: Kathryn Jay
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023150070X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
More Than Just a Game tracks the explosion of the sports industry in the United States since 1945 and how it has shaped class, racial, gender, and national identities. By examining both professional and intercollegiate sports such as baseball, football, basketball, golf, tennis, and stock car racing, Kathryn Jay looks at the impact of packaging, salary, hype, corporate sponsorship, drug use, and the presence of women and African American players. Jay also considers the persistent belief that sports encourage good citizenship and morality despite a rise in cheating and violent behavior and an unabashed emphasis on financial gain. More Than Just a Game is a fascinating exploration of a phenomenon that has engaged the American imagination and thrilled fans for decades.

Author: Tracy J. Trothen
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030029972
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 95

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Book Description
This book explores the deeper meaning of sports. Drawing on contemporary research, the author makes a strong case for why we should see sport not only in terms of religion but--more importantly-as a possible location for spiritual meaning. Taking this a step farther, she considers how gene editing, robotics, and other biomedical technological enhancements affect not only sports performances but experiences of sport as sacred. In addition, the author explores what difference it might make to the enhancement debate if sports’ spirituality is taken seriously. The author is not afraid to explore the issue in all its complexity. Yet, the argument she presents is both meaningful and accessible. This investigation applies insights from Christian theology, applied ethics, psychology, and sports studies. From lightweight tennis racquets to anabolic steroids, athletes have long used technology and science to improve their performances. But, until now, no one has asked how biomedical technological enhancements might affect the undervalued spiritual dimension of sport. This book presents rich insights into the connection between sports, spirituality, and human enhancement technologies. It will appeal to researchers, athletes and sports followers, and undergraduate and graduate students in ethics, sport, religion or theology.

Author: Oliver Roeder
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324003782
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
A group biography of seven enduring and beloved games, and the story of why—and how—we play them. Checkers, backgammon, chess, and Go. Poker, Scrabble, and bridge. These seven games, ancient and modern, fascinate millions of people worldwide. In Seven Games, Oliver Roeder charts their origins and historical importance, the delightful arcana of their rules, and the ways their design makes them pleasurable. Roeder introduces thrilling competitors, such as evangelical minister Marion Tinsley, who across forty years lost only three games of checkers; Shusai, the Master, the last Go champion of imperial Japan, defending tradition against “modern rationalism”; and an IBM engineer who created a backgammon program so capable at self-learning that NASA used it on the space shuttle. He delves into the history and lore of each game: backgammon boards in ancient Egypt, the Indian origins of chess, how certain shells from a particular beach in Japan make the finest white Go stones. Beyond the cultural and personal stories, Roeder explores why games, seemingly trivial pastimes, speak so deeply to the human soul. He introduces an early philosopher of games, the aptly named Bernard Suits, and visits an Oxford cosmologist who has perfected a computer that can effectively play bridge, a game as complicated as human language itself. Throughout, Roeder tells the compelling story of how humans, pursuing scientific glory and competitive advantage, have invented AI programs better than any human player, and what that means for the games—and for us. Funny, fascinating, and profound, Seven Games is a story of obsession, psychology, history, and how play makes us human.

Author: Brian Billick
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439124981
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Today's National Football League is more successful, more exciting, and more popular than ever. But the game in the twenty-first century is also ruled by a constant quest for more money. Super Bowl-winning head coach Brian Billick's More Than a Game examines how the relentless competition off the field affects the game on the field, and what it means for the future of America's most popular sport. One of the NFL's most successful leaders, Billick coached the Baltimore Ravens from 1999 to 2007, leading his team to victory in Super Bowl XXXV in 2001. With nearly two decades in the league, and now a Fox game analyst and NFL Network contributor, Billick has experienced the league's enormous pressure to win as well as seen what happens to those who don't. Following the 2007 season, he took a step back from the coaching life and decided to spend a season examining the game he loved so much from other perspectives. Collaborating with Michael MacCambridge (whose book America's Game is regarded as the definitive modern history of the NFL), he delved into the NFL from every possible angle, spending time with people at every level of the game. More Than a Game explains how the spectacle that dominates fall weekends in America works, and why it has served all of football's interest groups -- owners players, and fans alike -- so well over the years. We get a glimpse of the changing profile and increased influence of the league's owners. We come to better understand the pressure that players are under to perform for their team and for themselves and their future contracts. We see the challenge facing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who must balance the concerns of owners, players, sponsors, the league's television network "partners," and the fans, whose devotion and dollars make the entire enterprise possible. Along the way, we see how the financial forces are exerting themselves on every level, working their way into the essence of the game itself. Billick takes the measure of new offensive and defensive strategies, explains refined scouting and team-building methods, and focuses on the elusive quest for the franchise quarterback that can make or break careers. Packed with the privileged knowledge that comes from a true NFL insider, More Than a Game is more than a look inside the complex system that is pro football. It's an attempt to understand why the game is so compelling, and what it will take to keep it that way. Complete with important developments in the 2009 off-season, the book stands as an absolute must-read for NFL fans.

Author: Barry Atkins
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1847795587
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. The first academic work dedicated to the study of computer games in terms of the stories they tell and the manner of their telling. Applies practices of reading texts from literary and cultural studies to consider the computer game as an emerging mode of contemporary storytelling in an accessible, readable manner. Contains detailed discussion of narrative and realism in four of the most significant games of the last decade: 'Tomb Raider', 'Half-Life', 'Close Combat' and 'Sim City'. Recognises the excitement and pleasure that has made the computer game such a massive global phenomenon.

Author: Wray Vamplew
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1789144574
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
"Games People Played is, surprisingly, the first global history of sport. Wray Vamplew assesses how sports have developed and diffused across continents and centuries, exploring topics such as emotion, discrimination and conviviality; politics, nationalism and protest; and how economics has turned sport into a huge consumer industry. Sport is sociable, charitable and health-giving, but this book also examines its dark side: its impact on the environment, players' use of performance-enhancing drugs and the repercussions of match fixing. Covering everything from curling to baseball, boxing to motor racing, Games People Played will appeal to anyone who plays, watches and enjoys sport."--Publisher's description

Author: Barbara Law
Publisher: Portage & Main Press
ISBN: 1553792327
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
This revised and expanded edition of the 1990 bestseller includes the latest research in language acquisition: how to teach reading and writing and how to develop listening and speaking skills. It is filled with the authors' trademark anecdotes and practical advice, based on their many years of experience working with ELL students. Strategies for teaching the four literacy skills-reading, writing, speaking, and listening-are enhanced by student examples and illustrations. To help you personalize the theory discussed, each chapter includes a section with questions and case studies so you can apply the information to your own school and issues. In this new edition, you'll find great suggestions on how to familiarize your ESL students with the school and classmates measure reading, writing, speaking, and listening fluency recognize and help students cope with culture shock enrich your reading and writing programs recognize the different needs of your students-with effective strategies for each level of literacy teach language through content help ESL students succeed in the content areas tap the resources of your school and community

Author: Kristine Toohey
Publisher: CABI
ISBN: 1845933559
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
This 2nd edition of a highly successful book (published in 2000) provides a comprehensive, critical analysis of the Olympic Games using a multi-disciplinary social science approach. This revised edition contains much new data relating to the Sydney 2000 Games and their aftermath; and preparations for Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 Games. The book is broad-ranging and independent in its coverage, and includes the use of drugs, sex testing, accusations of power abuse among members of the IOC, the Games as a stage for political protest, media-related controversies, economic costs and benefits of the Games and historical conflicts between organizers and host communities.