Colorado: A Sports History

About this book

One of only a handful of states with four major league teams Colorados history can be traced through its relationship with sports. In Colorado: A Sports History James Whiteside uses athletics as a historical lens to view the people culture business and politics of Colorado from its original American Indian occupants to the Broncos Super Bowl victories. This unique new volume demonstrates how sports history can illuminate the business politics class race gender mores and values of a society. Whiteside divides Colorado athletics into three categories to show how they reflected and affected their environment. In pre-industrial Colorado sports and games in Indian villages and early mining towns were shaped by work community life and even religion. As leisure time increased for many in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries sport evolved into a more popular recreational activity. The progression of the twentieth century has changed many sports from small-town pastimes into profitable businesses as exemplified by the growth of the recreational industry and by college footballs transformation from a young gentlemans game into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. Whiteside also examines the politics behind certain athletic events in Colorados history including the states rejection of the 1976 Winter Olympics. Colorado: A Sports History is enhanced with a fine selection of historical photographs depicting Colorado sports and their participants. This meticulously researched book offers scholars a new perspective for studying the states fascinating history while also appealing to the general reader interested in sports or the state of Colorado. James Whiteside is a member of the history faculty at the University of Colorado at Denver.