Sporting lives : metaphor and myth in American sports autobiographies

Resource Information

The work Sporting lives : metaphor and myth in American sports autobiographies represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri-St. Louis Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Sporting lives : metaphor and myth in American sports autobiographies

Title remainder

metaphor and myth in American sports autobiographies

Statement of responsibility

James W. Pipkin

Creator

• Pipkin, James W., 1944-

Contributor

• University of Missouri Press

Subject

• Autobiographies -- United States
• Biographies
• Sports -- United States -- Biography
• Athletes -- United States -- Biography

Genre

• Biography
• Biographies

Language

eng

Summary

• "Examines autobiographies by athletes such as Wilt Chamberlain, Babe Ruth, Martina Navratilova, and Dennis Rodman, and analyzes common themes and recurring patterns in the accounts of their lives and sporting experiences"--Provided by publisher
• "Sometimes the crack of the bat or the roar of the crowd fails to capture the meaning of sports as athletes themselves understand it. Books about sports have ignored this dimension of the subject, particularly the athletes{u2019} own autobiographical accounts. In Sporting Lives, the first book to examine the two popular realms of sports and autobiography, James Pipkin looks at recurring patterns found in athletes{u2019} accounts of their lives and sporting experiences, examining language, metaphor, rhetorical strategies, and other elements to analyze sports from the inside out. Sporting Lives takes a fresh look at memoirs from baseball, football, basketball, golf, and other sports to explore how American athletes see themselves: not only how those images mesh with popular perceptions of them as heroes or celebrities but also how their accounts differ from those of sports journalists and other outsiders. Drawing on the life stories of such well-known figures as Wilt Chamberlain, Babe Ruth, and Martina Navratilova{u2014}both as-told-to and self-authored works{u2014}Pipkin follows players from the 2echoing green3 of eternal youth to the sometimes cultlike and isolated status of fame, interpreting recurring patterns both in the living of their lives and in the telling of them. He even considers Dennis Rodman{u2019}s four autobiographies to show how the contradictions of his self-portrayals reflect the Janus-faced quality of sports in the era of celebrity culture. As Pipkin shows, the life of the athlete involves more than mere athleticism; it is also a world of nostalgia and sentiment, missed opportunities and lost youth. He sheds light on athletes{u2019} common obsession with youth and body image{u2014}including gender and racial considerations{u2014}and explores their descriptions of being 2in a zone,3 that transcendent state when everything seems to click. And he considers the time that all athletes dread, when their bodies begin to betray them . . . and the cheering stops. While the lives of athletes may often suggest the magic of Peter Pan, Pipkin{u2019}s engaging study reveals that they are in many ways more like the Lost Boys. Sporting Lives shows that the meaning of sports is intertwined with the telling. It is both an eminently readable book for fans and a critically sophisticated analysis that will engage scholars of literature, sports or media studies, and American popular culture."--Publishers website

Member of

• Sports and American culture series

Biography type

collective biography

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

• 796.092/273
• B

Index

index present

LC call number

GV697.A1

LC item number

P475 2008

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Series statement

Sports and American culture series