Champions Cheaters And Childhood Dreams

With some scrap lumber and a dream, young Bob Turner became the first All-American Soap Box Derby world champion in 1934. Over the next 40 years, pushed by curiosity, ingenuity, determination and sometimes an overbearing father, thousands more would follow in his footsteps to try--for at least one day--to become the most famous boy in America. Covering the glory years of the Soap Box Derby, Champions, Cheaters, and Childhood Dreams provides a history of the race from its beginnings on a hillside in Dayton, to the corporate-sponsored star-studded event it became in the 1950s and 1960s, and to its near-obscurity after it was rocked by withdrawal of its major corporate sponsor and a legendary cheating scandal. Through first person accounts and historical narrative, Champions, Cheaters, and Childhood Dreams demonstrates how the Soap Box Derby mirrored American society. The hard scrapple Depression years, the patriotism of the war years, the idealism of post-World War II America, the hope and prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s and the breakdown of institutions and values during the Vietnam-war era, are told through the stories of the people who raced in and ran the All-American Soap Box Derby.

Near the end of a long season, fourteen-year-old baseball pitcher Ben Hyman approached his father with disappointing, if not surprising, news: his pitching shoulder was tired. With each throw to home plate, he felt a twinge in his still maturing arm. Any doctor would have advised the young boy to take off the rest of the season. Author Mark Hyman sent his son out to pitch the next game. After all, it was play-off time. Stories like these are not uncommon. Over the last seventy-five years, adults have staged a hostile takeover of kids' sports. In 2003 alone, more than 3.5 million children under age fifteen required medical treatment for sports injuries, nearly half of which were the result of simple overuse. The quest to turn children into tomorrow's superstar athletes has often led adults to push them beyond physical and emotional limits. In Until It Hurts, journalist, coach, and sports dad Mark Hyman explores how youth sports reached this problematic state. His investigation takes him from the Little League World Series in Pennsylvania to a prestigious Chicago soccer club, from adolescent golf and tennis superstars in Atlanta to California volleyball players. He interviews dozens of children, parents, coaches, psychologists, surgeons, sports medicine specialists, and former professional athletes. He speaks at length with Whitney Phelps, Michael's older sister; retraces the story of A Very Young Gymnast, and its subject, Torrance York; and tells the saga of the Castle High School girls' basketball team of Evansville, Indiana, which in 2005 lost three-fifths of its lineup to ACL injuries. Along the way, Hyman hears numerous stories: about a mother who left her fifteen-year-old daughter at an interstate exit after a heated exchange over her performance during a soccer game, about a coach who ordered preteens to swim laps in three-hour shifts for twenty-four hours. Hyman's exploration leads him to examine the history of youth sports in our country and how it's evolved, particularly with the increasing involvement of girls and much more proactive participation of parents. With its unique multiple perspective-of history, of reporting, and of personal experience-this book delves deep into the complicated issue of sports for children, and opens up a much-needed discussion about the perils of youth sports culture today. Hyman focuses not only on the unfortunate cases of overzealous parents and overly ambitious kids, but also on how positive change can be made, and concludes by shining a spotlight on some inspirational parents and model sports programs, giving hope that the current destructive cycle can be broken.

Why do billions of people around the world love sports? The popular media is increasingly dedicated to the heated rivalries of sports teams, academic institutions are held in its thrall, sports metaphors are commonplace in our language, and most individuals participate in athletics or follow a team sport in some variation. This entertaining and informative book attempts to find out why—by examining sports in all its facets. The authors provide an overview of the history of sports, with a constant focus upon the social conditions through which sport arises and by which it continues to thrive.

Money and privilege no longer describe college students who, books in hand, stroll across fair campuses. Changes in American college life since the 1960s make the previous 300 years-from the founding of Harvard in 1636-benign by comparison. Today, universities in gritty downtowns admit welfare mothers who struggle to escape grinding poverty. Sometimes they have to take their babies to class with them. Felons from prison enroll through special programs hoping for training that will enable them to surmount previous misdeeds. Men and women in low-paying jobs enroll part-time. They head families, struggle with car and rent payments, and are always tired. But they attend college classes, struggling to stay awake, preparing themselves for better jobs. John A. Flower takes us on an extraordinary professional and personal odyssey in this new book. As dean at Kent State University he was engulfed in the Vietnam War protests and witnessed the shattering events of May 4, 1970. During 20 years as vice president, then president, of Cleveland State University he was the target of racial protests that took place on campus. At the same time a lurid scandal involving the high-profile basketball coach required Flower to dismiss him. For more than 50 years he participated from the inside as profound changes across the nation caused ivory towers to crumble. Flower writes eloquently and powerfully, helping readers to understand how forces for change reshape colleges and universities. He illustrates how external special-interest groups influence campus affairs, and analyzes their influence on curriculum, affirmative action, contract issuance, land acquisition, unionism, and a multitude of other issues. He uses his experience to present ways in which concerned citizens and community leaders can address change in positive ways. Downstairs, Upstairs is a must-read for all Americans who recognize the imperative for higher learning.

"Women's clubs and organizations have always been vitally important to the health and well-being of the city of Akron, Ohio. They brought much-needed services to the city, created health institutions that continue today, and built Akron's cultural and literary foundations." "The story of women and their organizations is not told in typical histories of the city. Those historics of Akron have concentrated on the industrial, business, and government/political foundation of the city, the rubber barons, and the well-known, affluent men. Yet Akron women and their accomplishments cannot be overlooked. Over the decades, women, usually working through their clubs and organizations, have transformed the city."--BOOK JACKET.

Mentored by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis and published under the renowned Scribner editor Maxwell Perkins, Thomas Boyd attained only modest success as a novelist and biographer. He is known most widely for his World War I novel Through the Wheat, which critics, praising its realistic depiction of war and battle, compared to the Red Badge of Courage. How does a writer like Boyd, with his prominent literary friends, political ideals, professional aspirations, complicated personal life, and early death, fall so easily into obscurity? In this first full biography of Thomas Boyd, Brian Bruce explores the events of Boyd's life and rescues him from the realm of insignificance. The 1920s were a magical and very attractive time for critics and historians of American literature. Hollywood and the radio would soon end the careers enjoyed by many writers, like Boyd, and the nature of the book market would change forever in ways that mark the novel's descent from a privileged position of cultural importance or influence. Richly based on correspondence, this book not only illuminates a forgotten writer, but also captures the publishing world at a mercurial peak.

The late Heinz Poll is best known as the founder, choreographer, and artistic director of Ohio Ballet, a dance company that flourished for more than thirty years and was called a gem and the best news in dance by critics in Boston and New York. Based at the University of Akron, Ohio Ballet toured forty-four states and several countries, including Italy and Mexico, often performing some of the sixty-plus works that Heinz Poll created for his dancers.

During the four-plus years that Robin Yocum was the police reporter for the Columbus Dispatch, he covered more than 1,000 deaths. Some were flukes; some were deserved. He interviewed decorated cops and transvestites, pimps, prostitutes, and pushers, killers, and child molesters. He went on drug, porn, and moonshine raids. He waded through cornfields looking for missing planes and children, a county landfill in a vain search for child pornography, through a squalid home with knee-high trash and a flooded basement where a family of ducks had taken up residence. He ruined so many slacks and shoes that he began wearing Sansabelt and cowboy boots because he needed something he could hose off at the end of his shift. Dead Before Deadline...and Other Tales from the Police Beat chronicles Yocum's years on the police beat for the Dispatch. The tales are sometimes sad, and sometimes funny, and sometimes in odd combination of both. Yocum takes the reader into the life behind the pyline and into the gritty world of crime reporting. It is not a rehash of old headlines, but Yocum explores his interactions with people who made headlines for all the wrong reasons. He tells of a prison interview with a 17-year-old who had murdered both parents; recounts the words of a mother who lost her son to senseless violence; and details a grieving father's plan to kill his former son-in-law. The police beat is not without its humor, and Yocum captures the personalities of the oddball set of characters. Yocum has woven together these vignettes into a compelling book that will fascinate and enthrall readers.