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ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST

The cover image, His Effort, is a painting by the late Ernie Barnes (1938–2009),
an internationally known artist, a former professional football player, and an
unforgettable friend.
Barnes is best known for his unique figurative style of painting, and he
is widely recognized as the foremost African American artist of his genera-
tion. His paintings first became known to millions of people when used as
the cover theme for the hit television show Good Times and as the cover art
on such popular albums as Marvin Gaye’s I Want You, Donald Byrd’s Donald
Byrd and 125th Street, NYC, and B. B. King’s Making Love Is Good for You.
Barnes’s ability to capture the powerful energy and movement of sports
earned him recognition as “America’s Best Painter of Sports” by the American Sports Museum. In 1984
he was appointed official artist for the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. His sports commis-
sions include paintings for the Los Angeles Lakers, Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints, Oakland
Raiders, and New England Patriots, as well as a painting displayed at the Naismith Memorial Basketball
Hall of Fame to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the National Basketball Association.
One of the remarkable features of Barnes’s work is his use of elongation and distortion to represent
energy, power, grace, intensity, and fluidity in his art. His sports background provided a distinct vantage
point for observing bodies in movement, and he used his unique understanding of the human anatomy
to portray not only athletes but everyday mannerisms in delayed motion. As a result, his images com-
municate an intimate sense of human physicality.
For many people, Ernie Barnes captures the spirit and determination of athletes as they express
themselves through movement. His images present to us the kinesthetic soul of sports.
This is the sixth consecutive cover of Sports in Society that presents the art of Ernie Barnes. When
Ernie spoke to students in Los Angeles, he usually brought copies of the book with him to show that
art, sport, and academic learning could come together in their lives. This particular cover image was
chosen to represent Barnes’s legacy based on his effort to represent the wonder and endurance of the
human spirit.
Much of Barnes’s work can be viewed at ErnieBarnes.com. My thanks go to Ernie’s longtime friend
and assistant, Luz Rodrigues, and his family for sharing His Effort for this edition of Sports in Society.

vii
CONTENTS

Preface xi
How Do Sports Affect Our Lives? 68
Summary: Who Plays and What Happens? 77

1 The Sociology of Sport: What Is It

and Why Study It? 2
About This Book 4 4 Sports for Children: Are Organized
Programs Worth the Effort? 80
About This Chapter 4 Origin and Development of Organized Youth
Using Sociology to Study Sports 4 Sports 82
Defining Sports 6 Major Trends in Youth Sports Today 86
What Is the Sociology of Sport? 9 Informal, Player-Controlled Sports: A Case of the
Generation Gap 93
Why Study Sports in Society? 13
Youth Sports Today: Assessing Our Efforts 95
Summary: Why Study the Sociology of Sport? 21
The Challenge of Improving Youth Sports 98
Recommendations for Improving Youth Sports 100

2 Producing Knowledge About

Sports in Society: What Is the Role
of Research and Theory? 24
Summary: Are Organized Programs Worth the
Effort? 102

Producing Knowledge in the Sociology of Sport

Doing Research and Using Theory in the Sociology
of Sport: A Case Study 28
26
The Impact of Sociology of Sport Knowledge 42
Using a Critical Approach to Produce Knowledge 44
Summary: How Is Knowledge Produced in the
Sociology of Sport? 48
5 Deviance in Sports: Is It Out of
Control? 106
Defining and Studying Deviance in Sports 108
Challenges Faced When Studying Deviance in
Sports 108
Research on Deviance in Sports 119
Performance-Enhancing Substances: A Case Study of
Deviant Overconformity 130

3
Summary: Is Deviance in Sports Out of Control? 142
Sports and Socialization: Who Plays
and What Happens to Them? 50
What Is Socialization? 52
Becoming and Staying Involved in Sports
Changing or Ending Sport Participation
54
58
6 Violence in Sports: Does It Affect
Our Lives? 146
What Is Violence? 148
Being Involved in Sports: What Happens? 62 Violence in Sports Throughout History 149

viii
 Contents ix

Violence on the Field 150 Global Inequalities and Sports 284

Violence off the Field 162 Economic and Career Opportunities in Sports 286
Violence Among Spectators 165 Sport Participation and Occupational Careers
Terrorism: Planned Political Violence at Sport Among Former Athletes 293
Events 173 Summary: Do Money and Power Matter in Sports? 298
Summary: Does Violence in Sports Affect Our
Lives? 175

10 Age and Ability: Barriers

to Participation and

7 Gender and Sports: Is Equity

Possible? 178
Cultural Origins of Gender Inequities 180
Inclusion? 302
What Counts as Ability? 304
Constructing the Meaning of Age 308
Orthodox Gender Ideology and Sports 184 Constructing the Meaning of Ability 315
Mainstream Sports Reaffirm Orthodox Gender Sport and Ability 326
Ideology 188
Disability Sports 331
Progress Toward Gender Equity 195
Technology and Ability 340
Gender Inequities Remain 199
To “Dis ” or Not to “Dis ” 345
Barriers to Equity 209
Summary: Are Age and Ability Barriers to
Gender Equity and Sexuality 213 Participation? 346
Strategies to Achieve Equity 217
Summary: Is Equity Possible? 222

11 Sports and the Economy:

What Are the Characteristics

8 Race and Ethnicity: Are They

Important in Sports? 224
Defining Race and Ethnicity 226
of Commercial Sports? 350
Emergence and Growth of Commercial Sports
Commercialization and Changes in Sports 362
352

Creating Race and Racial Ideologies 227
Sport Participation Among Ethnic Minorities in the
United States 240
Race, Ethnicity, and Sport in a Global Perspective 254
The Dynamics of Racial and Ethnic Relations in
Sports 257
Summary: Are Race and Ethnicity Important in
Sports? 261
The Organization of Professional Sports in North
America 367
The Organization of Amateur Sports in North
America 375
Legal Status and Incomes of Athletes in Commercial
Sports 377
Summary: What Are the Characteristics of
Commercial Sports? 385

9 Social Class: Do Money and Power

Matter in Sports? 264
Social Class and Class Relations 266
12 Sports and the Media: Could
They Survive Without Each
Other? 388
Sports and Economic Inequality 267 Characteristics of the Media 390
Social Class and Sport Participation Patterns 273 Sports and Media: A Two-Way Relationship 400
x SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies www.mhhe.com/coakley11e

Images and Narratives in Media Sports 410 High School and College Sports Face
Experiences and Consequences of Consuming Media Uncertainty 488
Sports 419 Summary: Do Competitive Sports Contribute to
Sport Journalism 423 Education? 503
Summary: Could Sports and the Media Survive
Without Each Other? 425

15 Sports and Religions: Is It a

Promising Combination? 506

13 Sports and Politics: How Do

Governments and Global
Political Processes Influence
How Do Sociologists Define and Study
Religion? 508
Similarities and Differences Between Sports and
Sports? 428 Religions 510
Modern Sports and Religious Beliefs and
The Sports–Government Connection 431
Organizations 513
Sports and Global Political Processes 443
The Challenges of Combining Sports and Religious
Politics in Sports 458 Beliefs 530
Summary: How Do Governments and Global Summary: Is It a Promising Combination? 535
Political Processes Influence Sports? 460

14 Sports in High School and

College: Do Competitive
16 Sports in the Future: What Do
We Want Them to Be? 538
Envisioning Possibilities for the Future 540
Sports Contribute to
Current Trends Related to Sports in Society 542
Education? 462
Factors Influencing Trends Today 546
Arguments for and Against Interscholastic
Becoming Agents of Change 551
Sports 464
The Challenge of Transforming Sports 555
Interscholastic Sports and the Experiences of High
School Students 464 Summary: What Do We Want Sports to Be? 558
Intercollegiate Sports and the Experiences of College References 561
Students 472 Name Index 648
Do Schools Benefit from Varsity Sports? 481 Subject Index 663
PREFACE
PURPOSE OF THIS TEXT
The eleventh edition of Sports in Society: Issues
and Controversies provides a detailed introduc-
tion to the sociology of sport. It uses sociological
concepts, theories, and research to raise critical
questions about sports and explore the dynamic
relationship between sports, culture, and society.
The chapters are organized around controver-
sial and curiosity-arousing issues that have been
systematically studied in sociology and related
fields. Research on these issues is summarized so
that readers can critically examine them.
Chapter content is guided by sociological
research and theory and based on the assump-
tion that a full understanding of sports must take
into account the social and cultural contexts in
which sports are created, played, given mean-
ing, and integrated into people’s lives. At a time
when we too often think that a “website search”
provides everything we need to know, I intend
this text as a thoughtful scholarly work that
integrates research on sports as social phenom-
ena, makes sense of the expanding body of work
in the sociology of sport, and inspires critical
thinking.
FOR WHOM IS IT WRITTEN?
Sports in Society is written for everyone taking
a first critical look at the relationships between
sports, culture, and society. Readers don’t need
a background in sociology to understand and
benefit from discussions in each chapter; nor do
they need detailed knowledge of sport jargon
and statistics. My goal is to help readers iden-
tify and explore issues related to sports in their
personal experiences, families, schools, commu-
nities, and societies.
The emphasis on issues and controversies
makes each chapter useful for people concerned
with sport-related policies and programs. I’ve
always tried to use knowledge to make sports
more democratic, accessible, inclusive, and
humane, and I hope to provide readers with the
information and desire to do the same.
WRITING THIS REVISION
As soon as the tenth edition of Sports in Society
went to press I began research for this edition.
This involves reading six newspapers each day,
including USA Today, The New York Times, The
Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times. I
also read two sports magazines—Sports Illus-
trated and ESPN The Magazine—and three or
four other magazines that often carry articles
about sports. But most of my research involves
reading every abstract for every article published
in the major journals dealing with sports as
social phenomena. I regularly survey the tables
of contents of a few dozen journals in sociology
and related fields to find articles on sport-related
topics. Although I do not read every article or
every book in the field, I read many and take
notes as I do.
Finally, I track photos that I might buy for the
edition, and I take thousands of photos myself,
xi
xii SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
always hoping to have ten to twenty new ones for
each new edition. I regularly ask friends to take
photos if they are in unique sport settings. In the
final photo selection I usually review 250 photos
for every one I choose to include in the book.
In all, this amounts to thousands of hours of
research, writing, and discussing issues with peo-
ple from many walks of life in the United States
and other parts of the world I’ve had opportu-
nities to visit.
CHANGES TO THIS ELEVENTH EDITION
This edition is new in many respects, and most
sections of the book, including tables and fig-
ures, have been updated. However, as new mate-
rial was added, other material had to be deleted
or put in the Online Learning Center. New
chapter-opening quotes, photos, and examples
maintain the timeliness of content. This edition
also is more carefully and clearly linked with
the corresponding website (www.mhhe.com/
coakley11e), and the Online Learning Center
contains additional substantive materials related
to each chapter topic.
New research and theoretical developments
are integrated into each chapter. There are about
1400 new references included in this edition—
nearly 2200 references in all—to assist those
writing papers and doing research. Most new
references identify materials published since the
manuscript for the previous edition left my hands.
The sociology of sport has expanded so much
in recent years that Sports in Society is now an
introduction to the field more than a compre-
hensive overview.
Revision Themes and New Materials
This edition presents reorganized chapter open-
ers consisting of a photo, provocative quotes
from popular sources, a brief Chapter Outline,
and Learning Objectives. At the end of each
chapter are new lists of Supplemental Readings
www.mhhe.com/coakley11e
that are featured in the Online Learning Center
(OLC), along with selected sport management
discussion issues related to the chapter content.
The most significant change in this edition is
a new chapter on age and ability. Research and
knowledge about variations in sport participa-
tion patterns by age and abilities have increased
dramatically over the past decade. This serves
as a foundation for discussions of how and why
participation declines after early adolescence and
is consistently low among people with specific
physical or intellectual impairments. There are
detailed discussions of age- and ability-segregated
events, such as Masters competitions for older
people and the Paralympics and Special Olympics
for people with impairments currently defined as
performance-limiting in sports. The chapter con-
cludes with a discussion of the use of movement
enabling technologies in sports.
Another major change is that the chapter
on gender is rewritten so the coverage of ideo-
logical issues and structural inequities (for girls
and women) matches the sequence used in the
chapters on race and ethnicity, social class, and
age and ability. This continuity enables readers
to see similarities in the dynamics of exclusion
and inclusion across these socially significant
attributes.
Chapter 1 now introduces “the great sport
myth”—the widespread belief that all sports are
essentially pure and good, and that their purity
and goodness are transferred to those who par-
ticipate in or watch sports. This concept helps
readers understand how and why sports are per-
ceived in such positive terms worldwide and why
it is difficult to promote critical thinking about
sports in society. References to the great sport
myth appear in most of the chapters. Chapter 1
also has a new explanation of ideology to give
readers a clearer idea of how sports are cultural
practices linked with our everyday lives and
other spheres of society.
Chapter 2 contains new figures on the
knowledge production process and the primary
data collection methods in sociology of sport

research. There is a new explanation of gender
as meaning, performance, and organization in
social worlds, and new discussions of the dif-
ferences between quantitative and qualitative
research and the use of the telephone for con-
ducting interviews. There is a new section, “The
Impact of Sociology of Sport Knowledge,” that
explains why we do research and produce knowl-
edge about sports in society. A new Reflect on
Sports box focuses on “Critical Feminist Theory
Today: From the Margins to Mainstream.”
The history chapter from the tenth edition is
now accessible through the OLC, and the chap-
ter on socialization is now Chapter 3, following
the knowledge production chapter. It contains a
new section on “Family Culture and the Sport
Participation of Children,” which examines fam-
ilies as the immediate contexts in which socializa-
tion into sports is initiated and nurtured. There
also are new discussions of the transition out of
competitive sports careers, of recent research on
the sport experiences of gay and lesbian athletes,
and current approaches to sports and socializa-
tion as a community process.
Chapter 4, on youth sports, presents a new
discussion of how the culture of childhood play
has nearly disappeared in most segments of
post-industrial society. There’s also an expanded
discussion of the possibility that in the United
States some upper-middle-class parents use
youth sports as a way to create mobility opportu-
nities and reproduce privilege for their children.
Finally, there is a discussion of how and why
youth sports in the United States are program-
matically fragmented and exist independently
of any theory-based approach to teaching age-
appropriate physical skills and promoting life-
long involvement in sports and physical activities.
Chapter 5, on deviance, contains a new dis-
cussion of the relationship between deviant
overconformity and injuries, concussions, and
repetitive head trauma in sports. There’s also
an explanation of how widespread acceptance
of the great sports myth leads people to deny or
ignore certain forms of deviance in sports and
Preface xiii
use punitive social control methods that focus
on individuals rather than the systemic prob-
lems that exist in various forms of sport. This
is followed by a discussion of new surveillance
technologies being used to police and control
athletes, especially in connection with the use of
performance-enhancing substances.
Chapter 6, on violence in sports, contains
new discussions of the NFL’s investigation of
players’ and coaches’ alleged use of bounties as
incentives to injure opponents and why violent
sports have become commercially successful in
certain cultures. The issue of concussions and
head trauma is also discussed in connection with
the culture of violence that is widely accepted
in heavy-contact sports. The highly publicized
violent sexual assault involving members of the
high school football team in Steubenville, Ohio,
is also discussed relative to issues of gender and
violence. Finally, there is an expanded discussion
of how the threat of terrorism is perceived and
how it influences the dynamics of social control
at sport events.
Chapter 7, on gender and sports, introduces
the concept of orthodox gender ideology to help
readers understand the cultural origins of gen-
der inequality and why sports are one of the
last spheres of social life in which the two-sex
approach is accepted in a way that normalizes
gender segregation. The term orthodox is used
to show that this view of gender represents a
way of thinking that many people have inter-
nalized as unchanging “truth” and often link to
their religious beliefs or an overall sense of right
and wrong. This chapter also contains a new
section on “Progress Toward Gender Equity,”
which identifies girls’ and women’s increased
participation as the single most dramatic change
in sports over the past two generations. There
is an updated Reflect on Sports box that examines
Title IX compliance and “what counts as equity
in sports.” A new Reflect on Sports box deals
with how football impacts policies and prog-
ress toward gender equity. A new table pres-
ents data on female and male athletes at recent
xiv SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
Paralympic Games, and a new section, “The
Global Women’s Rights Movement,” discusses
the belief that girls and women are enhanced as
human beings when they develop their intel-
lectual and physical abilities. New discussions
of the media coverage of women in sports and
the impact of budget cuts and the privatization
of sports are presented to show that programs
for women and girls remain vulnerable to cuts
because they lack a strong market presence and
have not been profit producing.
Chapter 8, on race and ethnicity, presents a
revised discussion of how racial ideology influ-
ences sports participation. There is a new Reflect
on Sports box dealing with “Vénus Noire: A legacy
of Racism After 200 years,” and a new discussion
of the isolation often experienced by women of
color participating in or coaching college sports.
New research is presented to show the ways that
some Japanese parents use youth sports leagues
to establish relationships with other Japanese
families and connect their children with Asian
American peers. Finally, there is a new section
on race, ethnicity, and sports in a global perspec-
tive in which efforts to control the expression of
racism at sport events is discussed.
Chapter 9, on social class, has expanded dis-
cussions of whether building a new stadium trig-
gers new jobs for the surrounding community
and how the economic downturn has impacted
sports participation in the United States. There
is a new discussion of research on whether local
boxing gyms help participants bond with one
another and acquire forms of social capital that
alter their structural position in society, as well
as a new discussion of data on the impact of
wealth, as opposed to income, on sport partici-
pation patterns.
Chapter 10, written with Elizabeth Pike, my
colleague from the University of Chichester in
England, is new and focuses on issues and con-
troversies related to age and ability in sports. The
framework of this chapter is built on research
showing how social definitions of age and abil-
ity impact the provision of sport participation
www.mhhe.com/coakley11e
opportunities and the decisions made by people
to become involved and stay involved in sports.
The sections on masters events, the Paralympics,
the Special Olympics, and related forms of sport
provision illustrate the complexity of sports
when they are viewed in a general social and cul-
tural context in which age and ability influence
how people are perceived and they include phys-
ical activities in their lives.
Chapter 11 deals with the commercialization
of sports. It contains a new section on how the
NFL and other major sport organizations have
used their nonprofit status to avoid paying taxes
while they generate billions of dollars in income
and pay executives up to $30 million per year.
There also is a discussion of how the great sport
myth is used to appropriate public money to
build sport venues and subsidize sport teams.
Labor relations in sports are discussed in more
depth, with explanations of collective bargaining
agreements, lockouts, and the role of players’
associations.
Chapter 12, on sports and the media, contains
much new material on the changing media land-
scape and how it is related to sports. There is a
new discussion of fantasy sports as an arena in
which participation is influenced by gender and
the quest to sustain white male privilege. There’s
also new material on how social media are used
by established sport organizations and by ath-
letes practicing parkour and other emerging
sport activities around the world. A new section
focuses on the rapid escalation of media rights
fees and how they are driving up the costs for
cable and satellite TV providers and consumers.
Changes in media coverage are discussed, with
attention given to how masculinity and sexuality
are presented in sports media. Finally, there is a
new discussion of how entertainment journalism
has replaced investigative journalism in sports
media.
Chapter 13, on politics, government, and
global processes, is updated in its coverage of
sport and national identity in global relations,
and how the Olympics and men’s World Cup

have become tools for generating profits for the
International Olympic Committee and FIFA
at the same time that the countries hosting
these games incur increasing debt for debat-
able returns. Research on recent sport mega-
events is used to discuss the challenges and the
pros and cons of hosting such events. There
is an expanded discussion of the new political
realities of sports—where team ownership and
event sponsorship have become global in scope,
where athletes seek opportunities worldwide,
where global media make it easy to follow the
sporting events of teams from all over the world,
and where fans’ loyalties are no longer limited
to teams from their own regions or countries.
Research is presented to show that these realities
are linked with corporate expansion, the global
flow of capital, the business strategy of global
media companies, and processes of glocalization
through which global sports are integrated into
people’s everyday lives on a local level.
Chapter 14, on high school and college
sports, includes new research findings related
to issues such as the rising costs of sport pro-
grams, who benefits from the revenues gener-
ated by certain sports, the dramatic increase of
inequality between programs at both the high
school and college levels, and young people’s
perceptions of athletic and academic achieve-
ment in schools with high-profile sport pro-
grams. There also are new sections on budget
issues and the uncertainty that faces school
sports today, and the issues currently faced by
the NCAA as it tries to control a college sport
system that is increasingly unmanageable and
inconsistent with the goals of higher education.
Chapter 15, on religion and sports, presents
new information on world religions and how
they influence conceptions of the body, evalu-
ations of physical movement, and sport partici-
pation. There also is updated information about
the ways in which individuals and organizations
combine sport with religious beliefs, and how
this has spread beyond the United States in
recent years.
Preface xv
Chapter 16 has been shortened and now
focuses primarily on the process of making
change in sports rather than describing what the
future of sports might be. This is because there
is a need for us to acknowledge the power of
corporations in shaping sports to fit their inter-
ests and to develop strategies for creating sport
forms that directly serve the needs of individuals
and communities.
Supplemental Readings and New Website
Resources
Each chapter is followed by a list of Supplemen-
tal Readings that provide useful information
about topics in the chapters. The Supplemental
Readings have been expanded for each chapter
and can be found in the Online Learning Center
(OLC).
New Visual Materials
There are 120 photos, 20 figures, and 31 car-
toons in this edition; 61 of the photos are new.
These images are combined with new diagrams,
figures, and tables to illustrate important sub-
stantive points, visually enhance the text, and
make reading more interesting.
Online Learning Center
The website www.mhhe.com/coakley11e is an
important feature associated with the eleventh
edition of Sports in Society. The site contains gen-
eral information about this edition, along with
links to supplemental materials associated with
each chapter. Those materials include
• Supplemental Readings that add depth and
background to current chapter topics
• Group projects
• Previous chapters on coaches, competition,
history (from the 10th edition), and social
theories (from the 9th edition)
• True/false self-tests for each chapter
xvi SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
• A cumulative 230-page bibliography that
lists all references from this and the last six
editions of Sports in Society
• A complete glossary of key terms integrated
into the index
ANCILLARIES
Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank
An instructor’s manual and test bank are avail-
able to assist those using Sports in Society in col-
lege courses. It includes the following:
• Chapter outlines. These are full outlines that
provide a section-by-section topic list for
each chapter. They are useful for test reviews
and organizing lectures, and they may be
reproduced and given to students as study
guides.
• Test questions (multiple choice). These
questions are designed to test students’
awareness of the central concepts and ideas
in each chapter. For the instructor with large
classes, these questions are useful for creating
chapter and midterm tests, as well as final
exams.
• Discussion/essay questions. These questions
can be used for tests or to generate
classroom discussions. They’re designed to
encourage students to synthesize and apply
materials in one or more of the sections in
each chapter. None of the questions asks
the students to simply list points or give
definitions.
Computerized Test Bank
A computerized version of the test bank for the
instructor’s manual is available in both IBM and
Macintosh formats to qualified adopters. This
software provides a unique combination of user-
friendly aids and enables the instructor to select,
edit, delete, or add questions and to construct
and print tests and answer keys.
www.mhhe.com/coakley11e
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book draws on ideas from many sources.
Thanks go to students, colleagues, and friends
who have provided constructive criticisms over
the years. Students regularly open my eyes to new
ways of viewing and analyzing sports as social
phenomena. Special thanks go to friends and col-
leagues who influence my thinking, provide valu-
able source materials, and willingly discuss ideas
and information with me. Elizabeth Pike, Chris
Hallinan, and Cora Burnett influenced my think-
ing as I worked with them on versions of Sports
in Society for the United Kingdom, Australia/
New Zealand, and Southern Africa, respectively.
Peter Donnelly, co-author of past Canadian ver-
sions, has provided special support for this edi-
tion and influenced my thinking about many
important issues. Laurel Davis-Delano deserves
special thanks for her constructive critiques of
recent past editions. Thanks also go to photog-
raphers and colleagues, Lara Killick, Barbara
Schausteck de Almeida, Elizabeth Pike, Bobek
Ha’Eri, Becky Beal, Kevin Young, Jay Johnson
Michael Collins, Tim Russo, Basia Borzecka
and my daughter, Danielle Hicks, for permission
to use their photos. Once again, I thank Ossur
(www.ossur.com)—a company that designs and
manufactures prosthetics and orthotics—for
photos used in this and previous editions. Rachel
Spielberg, a recent Smith College grad, coach,
and artist contributed new cartoons to this edi-
tion; thanks to her for working with me.
Thanks also to Nicole Bridge, who organized
my often heavily revised drafts for production,
and to Jessica Portz and Sara Jaeger who coor-
dinated this edition through a slalom-like course
of deadlines.
Finally, thanks go to Nancy Coakley, my life
partner and best friend, who has lived through
eleven editions of Sports in Society and assisted with
each one in more ways than I can list here. She keeps
me in touch with popular culture sources related
to sports, and tells me when my ideas should be
revised or kept to myself—a frequent occurrence.

My appreciation also goes to the following
reviewers, whose suggestions were crucial in
planning and writing this edition:
Maureen Smith, California State University–
Sacramento State
Brooke Estabrook–Fishinghawk, Texas Tech
University
Mark Vermillion, Wichita State University
Thomas Rotolo, Washington State University
Andrew Meyer, Baylor University
Preface xvii
Marc Postiglione, Union County College
Gary Sailes, Indiana University
Finally, thanks to the many students and col-
leagues who have e-mailed comments about
previous editions and ideas for future editions.
I take them seriously and appreciate their
thoughtfulness—keep the responses coming.
Jay Coakley
Fort Collins, CO
This page intentionally left blank
SPORTS IN SOCIETY
chapter
1
THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT
What Is It and Why Study It?
Our sports belong to us. They came up from
the people. They were invented for reasons
having nothing to do with money or ego. Our
sports weren’t created by wealthy sports and
entertainment barons like the ones running
sports today.
—Ken Reed, Sport Policy Director,
League of Fans (2011).
HOW DO YOU distinguish sports from
entertainment, fakery from reality, when the two
are so inseparable?
—Selena Roberts , sports journalist,
The New York Times (2007)
(Source: Jay Coakley)
Competitive cheer may, some time in the future,
qualify as a sport under Title IX. Today, however,
the activity is still too underdeveloped and
disorganized to be treated as offering genuine
varsity athletic participation opportunities for
students.
—U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill
(in Moltz, 2010)
Sports is real. . . . Sports is Oprah for guys. . . .
Sports is woven deeper into American life than
you know. You may change religion or politics, but
not sport teams.
—Rick Reilly (2009)
Chapter Outline

About This Book

About This Chapter
Using Sociology to Study Sports
Defining Sports
What Is the Sociology of Sport?
Why Study Sports in Society?
Summary: Why Study the Sociology of Sport?

Learning Objectives

• Explain what sociologists study about
sports and why sociology of sport
knowledge is different from information in
sports media and everyday conversations.
• Understand issues related to defining
sports and why a sociological definition
differs from official definitions used by high
schools and universities.
• Explain what it means to say that sports are
social constructions and contested activities.
• Explain why sociology of sport knowledge
may be controversial among people
associated with sports.
• Understand the meaning of “ideology” and
how ideologies related to gender, race, social
class, and disability are connected with sports.

3
4 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
ABOUT THIS BOOK
If you’re reading this book, you have an inter-
est in sports or know people who play or watch
them. Unlike most books about sports, this one
is written to take you beyond scores, statistics,
and sports personalities. The goal is to focus on
the “deeper game” associated with sports, the
game through which sports become part of the
social and cultural worlds in which we live.
Fortunately, we can draw on our emotions
and experiences as we consider this deeper
game. Take high school sports in the United
States as an example. When students play on a
high school basketball team, we know that it can
affect their status in the school and the treat-
ment they receive from both teachers and peers.
We know it has implications for their prestige
in the community, self-images and self-esteem,
future relationships, opportunities in education
and the job market, and their overall enjoyment
of life.
Building on this knowledge enables us to
move further into the deeper game associated
with high school sports. For example, why do so
many Americans place such importance on sports
and accord such high status to elite athletes? Are
there connections between high school sports
and widespread beliefs about masculinity and
femininity, achievement and competition, plea-
sure and pain, winning and fair play, and other
important aspects of U.S. culture?
Underlying these questions is the assump-
tion that sports are more than games, meets, and
matches. They’re important aspects of social life
that have meanings going far beyond scores and
performance statistics. Sports are integral parts
of the social and cultural contexts in which we
live, and they provide stories and images that
many of us use to evaluate our experiences and
the world around us.
Those of us who study sports in society are
concerned with these deeper meanings and sto-
ries associated with sports. We do research to
increase our understanding of (1) the cultures
www.mhhe.com/coakley11e
and societies in which sports exist; (2) the social
worlds created around sports, and (3) the experi-
ences of individuals and groups associated with
sports.
ABOUT THIS CHAPTER
This chapter is organized to answer four questions:
1. What is sociology, and how is it used to
study sports in society?
2. What are sports, and how can we identify
them in ways that increase our understand-
ing of their place and value in society?
3. What is the sociology of sport?
4. Who studies sports in society, and for what
purposes?
The answers to these questions will be our
guides for understanding the material in the rest
of the book.
USING SOCIOLOGY TO STUDY SPORTS
Sociology provides useful tools for investigat-
ing sports as social phenomena. This is because
sociology is the study of the social worlds that people
create, maintain, and change through their relation-
ships with each other.1 The concept of social world
refers to an identifiable sphere of everyday actions
and relationships (Unruh, 1980). Social worlds are
created by people, but they involve much more
than individuals doing their own things for their
own reasons. Our actions, relationships, and col-
lective activities form patterns that could not be
predicted only with information about each of us
as individuals. These patterns constitute identi-
fiable ways of life and social arrangements that
1
Important concepts used in each chapter are identified in
boldface. Unless they are accompanied by a footnote that
contains a definition, the definition will be given in the text
itself. This puts the definition in context rather than sepa-
rating it in a glossary. Definitions are also provided in the
Subject Glindex.

are maintained or changed over time as people
interact with one other.
Social worlds can be as large and impersonal
as an entire nation, such as the United States or
Brazil, or as personal and intimate as your own
family. But regardless of size, they encompass
all aspects of social life: (a) the values and beliefs
that we use to make sense of our lives; (b) our
everyday actions and relationships; and (c) the
groups, organizations, communities, and soci-
eties that we form as we make choices, develop
relationships, and participate in social life.
Sociologists often refer to society, which is a
relatively self-sufficient collection of people who main-
tain a way of life in a particular territory. In most
cases, a society and a nation are one and the
same, such as Brazil and Brazilian society. But
there are cases where a society is not a nation,
such as Amish Mennonite society as it exists
in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other parts of the
United States.
The goal of sociology is to describe and explain
social worlds, including societies—how they
are created, re-created, and changed; how they
are organized; and how they influence our lives
and our relationships with each other. In the
process of doing sociology we learn to see our
lives and the lives of others “in context”—that
is, in the social worlds in which we live. This
enables us to identify the social conditions that
set limits or create possibilities in people’s lives.
On a personal level, knowing about these influ-
ential conditions also helps us anticipate and
sometimes work around the constraints we face
at the same time that we look for and take advan-
tage of the possibilities. Ideally, it helps us gain
more control over our lives as well as an under-
standing of other people and the conditions that
influence their lives.
Key Sociology Concepts
Sociologists use the concepts of culture, social
interaction, and social structure to help them
understand sports as social activities.
CHAPTER 1: The Sociology of Sport 5
Culture consists of the shared ways of life and
shared understandings that people develop as they live
together. Once a culture exists, it influences rela-
tionships and social interaction.
Social interaction consists of people taking
each other into account and, in the process, influ-
encing each other’s feelings, thoughts, and actions.
Through interaction we learn to anticipate the
thoughts and actions of others and predict how
others may respond to what we think and do.
Social structure consists of the established pat-
terns of relationships and social arrangements that
take shape as people live, work, and play with each
other. This is the basis for order and organization
in all social worlds.
These three concepts—culture, social inter-
action, and social structure—represent the cen-
tral interconnected aspects of all social worlds.
For example, a high school soccer team is a
social world formed by players, coaches, team
parents, and regular supporters. Over time every
team creates and maintains a particular culture or
a way of life consisting of values, beliefs, norms,
and everyday social routines. Everyone involved
with the team engages in social interaction as they
take each other into account during their every-
day activities on and off the playing field. Addi-
tionally, the recurring actions, relationships, and
social arrangements that emerge as these people
interact with each other make up the social struc-
ture of the team. This combination of culture,
social interaction, and social structure comprises
the team as a social world, and it is connected
with the larger social world in which it exists.
Peer groups, cliques, and athletic teams are
social worlds in which participants are known
to one another. Communities, societies, concert
crowds, and online chat rooms are social worlds
in which participants are generally unknown to
each other. This means that the boundaries of
social worlds may be clear, fuzzy, or overlap-
ping, but we generally know when we enter or
leave a social world because each has identify-
ing features related to culture, social interaction,
and social structure.
6 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
We move back and forth between famil-
iar social worlds without thinking. We make
nearly automatic shifts in how we talk and act
as we accommodate changing cultural, inter-
actional, and structural features in each social
world. However, when we enter or participate
in a new or unfamiliar social world, we usually
pay special attention to what is happening. We
watch what people are doing, how they inter-
act with each other, and we develop a sense of
the recurring patterns that exist in their actions
and relationships. If you’ve done this, then
you’re ready to use sociology to study sports
in society.
Sociological Knowledge Is Based
on Research and Theory
My goal in writing this book is to accurately
represent research in the sociology of sport and
discuss issues of interest to students. At a time
when online searches provide us with infinite
facts, figures, and opinions about sports, I am
primarily interested in the knowledge produced
through systematic research. I use newspaper
articles and other media as sources for examples,
but I depend on research results when making
substantive points and drawing conclusions.
This means that my statements about sports
and sport experiences are based, as much as
possible, on studies that use surveys, question-
naires, interviews, observations, content analy-
ses, and other accepted methods of research in
sociology.
The material in this book is different than
material in blogs, talk radio, television news
shows, game and event commentaries, and most
of our everyday conversations about sports. It is
organized to help you critically examine sports
as they exist in people’s lives. I use research find-
ings to describe and explain as accurately as pos-
sible the important connections between sports,
society, and culture. I try to be fair when using
research to make sense of the social aspects of
sports and sport experiences. This is why over
www.mhhe.com/coakley11e
1700 sources are cited as references for the
information and analysis in this book.
Of course, I want to hold your attention
as you read, but I don’t exaggerate, purposely
withhold, or present information out of con-
text to impress you and boost my “ratings.” In
the process, I hope you will extend your critical
thinking abilities so you can assess what people
believe and say about sports in society. This will
enable you to make informed decisions about
sports in your life and the social worlds in which
you live.
DEFINING SPORTS
Most of us know enough about the meaning of
sports to talk about them with others. How-
ever, when we study sports, it helps to precisely
define our topic. For example, is it a sport when
young people choose teams and play a base-
ball game in the street or when thirty people of
various ages spend an afternoon learning and
performing tricks at a skateboard park? These
activities are sociologically different from what
occurs at major league baseball games and X
Games skateboard competitions. These dif-
ferences become significant when parents ask
if playing sports builds the character of their
children, when community leaders ask if they
should use tax money to fund sports, and when
school principals ask if sports are valid educa-
tional activities.
When I say that I study sports, people ask if
that includes jogging, double-dutch, weight lift-
ing, hunting, scuba diving, darts, auto racing,
chess, poker, ultimate fighting, paintball, piano
competitions, ballroom dancing, skateboarding,
Quidditch, and so on. To respond is not easy,
because there is no single definition that pre-
cisely identifies sports in all cultures at all times.
According to definitions used widely in
North America and much of Europe, sports are
physical activities that involve challenges or competi-
tive contests. They are usually organized so that
Another random document with
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 Indeed, we need no Marshall to make us fully understand that
when human beings constitute a government, the one important
thing which they do is to grant government power to interfere, within
a limited discretion, with their own individual freedom by issuing
commands in restraint of the exercise of that freedom. Anything else
that the government is authorized to do is a mere incident of its
existence as a government. The power to issue commands
interfering with human freedom is the substance and essence of
government. That is why all the national powers of any American
government are included in whatever ability its legislature has to
make valid commands of that kind. The letter which went from the
Philadelphia Convention, with the proposed Constitution, accurately
expresses this fact in the words, “Individuals entering into society
must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest.” (1 Ell. Deb. 17.)
By surrender of some of their liberties is meant their grant of power
to make commands or laws interfering with those surrendered
liberties. Whenever government is constituted, “the people must
cede to it some of their natural rights, in order to vest it with requisite
powers.” (Jay, Fed. No. 2.)
We thus know for a certainty that the First Article of our
Constitution is the only one which purports to vest in government any
national powers.
The Second Article deals entirely with the executive department,
the authority of the president and that department to enforce valid
laws, the election of the president and vice-president, etc. The Third
Article deals with the authority of the judicial department [including
authority to declare what laws have been validly passed, etc.] and
with the manner of the appointment of the members of that
department, etc. The Fourth Article contains miscellaneous
declaratory statements of certain things which the citizens of
America make the fundamental law of America. The Sixth Article
contains other declaratory statements of what is also made the
fundamental law of America.
This leaves to be considered only the Fifth and the Seventh
Articles. Like the First Article, they relate to the vesting of national
power in our American national government; but, unlike the First
Article, neither of them purports to grant any such power to any
government. They deal with the manner of its grant by the only
competent grantors of power of that kind, the “conventions” of the
American people, called by that name, “conventions,” in the Fifth and
Seventh Articles. As the Seventh Article was intended by those who
worded it to accomplish its purpose simultaneously with and by
reason of its ratification, and as its purpose was the main object of
the Convention which framed all the Articles, we will consider it
before the Fifth.
The Seventh is merely the explicit declaratory statement of those
whose “expressed authority ... alone could give due validity to the
Constitution,” the Americans themselves assembled in their
conventions, that when the Americans, assembled in nine of those
thirteen conventions, have answered “Yes” to the entire proposed
Constitution, the American nation shall instantly exist, all Americans
in those former nations where those nine conventions assembled
shall instantly be the citizens of the new nation, and all the grants of
national power, expressed in the First Article of that Constitution,
shall have been validly made as the first important act of that
collective citizenship.
We now consider for a moment the Fifth Article, the only remaining
one which relates to grant of national power. That Fifth Article does
not relate to grant of national power alone. It also relates to grant of
federal power. It relates to the future grant of either of those vitally
distinct kinds of power. It is further proof of the logical mind of the
man who wrote that extraordinary letter of April, 1787, and who
largely, in substance, planned the entire system of a constitution of
government, both federal and national, which is embodied in our
Constitution. Madison and his associates, in The Federalist and in
the Philadelphia Convention and in the various ratifying conventions,
repeatedly stated their knowledge that the proposed Constitution
could not possibly be perfect. With the utmost frankness, they
expressed the sane conviction that it would be contrary to all human
experience, if it were found perfect in the working out of an entirely
new and remarkable dual system of government of a free people by
themselves, For this reason, the Fifth Article was worded so as to
prescribe a constitutional mode of procedure in which the existing
ability of the American citizens to make any kind of Article, whether
national or federal, could thereafter be invoked to exercise and be
exercised. It was also worded so as to provide a constitutional mode
of procedure in which there could be likewise invoked to exercise
and be exercised the existing limited ability of the state legislatures
to make articles which were not national. As a matter of fact, it was
only at the last moment, in the Convention, that Madison and
Hamilton, remembering this limited ability of those legislatures, wrote
into Article V any mention of it and its future constitutional exercise.
As the story of the First, Fifth and Seventh Articles, at Philadelphia in
1787, will be more fully treated hereinafter, we leave them now to
continue the brief story of the voluntary and direct action of the
Americans themselves, by which they created the nation that is
America, became its citizens and, as such, vested its only
government with its enumerated national powers.
When the Philadelphia Convention, on September 17, 1787, had
completed its voluntary task of wording the proposed Constitution of
a nation and its supreme government of enumerated powers, the
proposed Constitution was referred to the American people, for their
own approval or rejection, assembled in their conventions.
In many respects, the Philadelphia ascertainment of the legal
necessity that it must be referred to those people themselves and
the Philadelphia decision to that effect, following that ascertainment,
constitute the most important and authoritative legal reasoning and
decision ever made in America since July 4, 1776. Both reasoning
and decision were naturally based upon the fact that the First Article
purports to give national powers to Congress to make laws,
interfering with the individual freedom of the citizens of America. In
the face of that decisive fact, it was impossible for the Americans at
Philadelphia, who had worded that proposed Article with its grant of
enumerated powers of that kind, to have made any other legal
decision than a reference of such an Article to the American people
themselves assembled in their conventions, as the only competent
grantors of any national power.
 The Americans at Philadelphia were human beings of exactly the
same type as all of us. They had their human ambitions and
differences of opinion and jealousies. They were not supermen any
more than we are. They were grappling with tremendous problems
along an uncharted way in the comparatively new science of self
government by a free people, sparsely settled along the extensive
easterly coast of a continent and, at the time, citizens of thirteen
distinct and independent nations. Their personal ambitions and
differences of opinion and jealousies, for themselves and their
respective nations, made the problem, which they set themselves to
solve, one almost unparalleled in history. If they had wholly failed in
their effort, as men with any other training and dominant purpose in
life would certainly have failed, no just historian would ever have
attributed such failure to any lack of intelligence or ability or
patriotism on their part.
It was, however, their fortune and our own that their training and
dominant purpose in life had been unique in history. Among them
were men, who only eleven years earlier, at that same Philadelphia,
in the name and on behalf of the American people, had enacted the
Statute of 1776. As their presiding officer, in their effort of 1787, sat
the man who had led the same American people in their successful
effort, by the sacrifices of a Valley Forge and the battlefields of the
Revolution, to make the declarations of that Statute the basic
principle of American law. Prominent in the Convention was
Hamilton, who had left college at seventeen to become a trusted
lieutenant of the leader in that war which did make that Statute our
basic law. Among the delegates were quite a few others who had
played similar parts in that same war for that same purpose. Most of
the delegates had played some part, entailing personal sacrifice and
effort, in that same war and for that same purpose. With such an
education in the school whose training men find it impossible to
ignore, the school of actual life, it was mentally impossible that this
body of men could either forget or ignore or disobey the basic
American law, which then commanded them and still commands us,
that no government in America can ever have or exercise any valid
national power to interfere with human freedom except by direct
grant from its citizens themselves. If the education of the leaders of
the present generation had been the same, American history of the
last five years could have been differently written in a later chapter
herein.
Because the Convention was educated to know the Statute of ’76,
the proposed grant of enumerated national powers in the First Article
was necessarily referred to the only competent grantors, the
American people themselves, assembled in their conventions.
Familiar as we are with the result of their effort to solve their great
problem, a result told in the history of the ensuing one hundred and
thirty-five years in America, it seems fitting here to have Madison
describe the closing moment of that Philadelphia Convention, in his
own words: “Whilst the last members were signing, Dr. Franklin,
looking toward the president’s chair, at the back of which a rising sun
happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that
painters had found it difficult to distinguish, in their art, a rising from a
setting sun. ‘I have,’ said he, ‘often and often, in the course of the
session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue,
looked at that behind the president, without being able to tell whether
it was rising or setting; but now, at length, I have the happiness to
know that it is a rising, and not a setting sun.’” (5 Ell. Deb. 565.)
The story of the actual making of that Constitution by the people of
America, assembled in their conventions, is a marvelous story. No
American can fully grasp what an American really is unless he
personally reads that story, not as told even by the most gifted writer,
but as told by the recorded debates in the very conventions
themselves of the very Americans who created the nation which is
America, made themselves its citizens and, as its citizens, made the
only valid grants of enumerated national power, the grants in the
First Article. In a later chapter, somewhat of that story will be told,
mostly in the very words of those who made those grants. At this
point, we are concerned only to set out the hour and the moment
when American human beings, as such, in their greatest Revolution,
exercised their exclusive ability to give their one government some
national power to interfere with individual freedom.
 Each of them was already a citizen of one of the existing nations.
It was, however, as American human beings, always collectively the
possessors of the supreme will in America, and not as citizens of any
nation, that they assembled in the conventions and, in the exercise
of that supreme will, created a new and one American nation, by
becoming its charter members and citizens. That was the first and
immediate effect of the signing of that Constitution in the ninth
convention of the American people, the convention in New
Hampshire, on June 21, 1788. That is the actual day of the birth of
the American nation as a political entity. It is the day on which the
American citizen, member of the American nation, first existed. While
it is true that there yet was no actual government of the new nation, it
cannot be denied that legally, from that June 21, 1788, there did
exist an American nation, as a political society of human beings, and
that its members were the human beings in the former nations of
Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and New Hampshire. The
very moment the Americans in those nine former nations had signed
that Constitution of government, they had constituted themselves a
nation and had become its citizens.
Simultaneously therewith, as its citizens, they had made their
grant of enumerated national powers to interfere with their own
human freedom. Simultaneously therewith, they had destroyed
forever the absolute independence of their nine nations; they had
kept alive those nations, as partially independent political societies,
each to serve certain purposes of its members who still remained
citizens of that political society as well as citizens of the new nation;
they had taken from the government of each of those nations much
of its national power, had given to each such government no new
power whatever, but had left with it much of its former national power
over its own citizens; they had kept alive the federation of nations,
now a federation of partially independent states; they had made their
own new national government also the federal government of that
continuing federation and their own national Constitution also the
federal Constitution of that continued federation; they had
subordinated all those nine states and the government of each and
of the federation to their own supreme will, as the citizens of the new
nation, expressed in its Constitution. This was the meaning of the
second section of the Sixth Article in the document, which they had
signed, which reads: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United
States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all Treaties
made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United
States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in
every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or
Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
The makers of the new nation are identified by the opening words
of the document: “We the People of the United States, in Order to
form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic
Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general
Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our
Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United
States of America.”
It would be diverting, were it not somewhat pathetic, to hear that
the Constitution was made by the states. From that quoted Preamble
alone, volumes might be written to show the absurdity of such
thought. It identifies the makers as “people” and not as political
entities. It expressly says that its makers, “the people,” ordain it “in
order to form a more perfect Union.” The states already had a
perfect union of states. But the human beings or “people” of all
America had no union of themselves. The only “people” in America,
who had no union of themselves, identify themselves unmistakably
when they say, “We the people of the United States, in Order to form
a more perfect Union, etc.” They are the “people” or human beings of
America, the whole people of America, the collective possessors of
the supreme will which had enacted the Statute of ’76.
If this fact had been kept clearly in mind by our modern leaders
and lawyers, the history of the supposed Eighteenth Amendment
would never have been written. When the whole American people
assembled in their conventions in their respective geographic states,
they did not assemble therein as the citizens of their respective
states. It is true that the Americans, who assembled in any particular
convention, happened to be citizens of a particular state. But they
were also part of the whole American people, whose act as a whole
people had freed all the colonies and had permitted the Americans in
each colony to constitute a nation for themselves. And, when the
Americans in each convention assembled, it was to decide whether
that part of the American people, which resided in that state, would
agree with the American people residing in other states to become
members and citizens of an entirely different society of men and
grant to the government of the new society power to interfere with
the individual rights of the members of the new society.
How could the “citizens” of an independent nation, in their capacity
as such citizens, become “citizens” of an entirely different nation,
with an entirely different human membership or citizenry? If the
individual members of a large athletic club in the City of New York
should assemble in its club house to determine whether they, as
individual human beings, should join with the human members of a
number of other athletic clubs and create a large golf club, with a
large human membership, and become members of that large golf
club, would any of them entertain the absurd thought that he was
becoming a member of the golf club in his capacity as a member of
his existing and smaller athletic club? This is exactly what happened
when the American people as a whole assembled in their
conventions and decided to become members or citizens of the new
and larger political society of men, while still remaining members and
citizens of their respective smaller societies of men.
The vital distinction between the citizen of America and the citizen
of a state, although oftentimes one is the same human being, is
probably known to many of the modern leaders and lawyers who
have considered and argued about the supposed Eighteenth
Amendment. But it has been wholly ignored in every argument for or
against the existence of that Amendment. As a matter of fact, that
vital distinction has always been so important a part of our American
institutions that it has been the subject-matter of repeated decisions
in the Supreme Court. It is a distinction amazingly important, in
substance, to individual freedom in America. So true is this that one
of the most important Amendments ever made to the federal part of
our Constitution was primarily intended to require that every state
must extend to the “privileges or immunities of citizens” of America
the same respect and protection which the American Constitution
had previously only required that each state must extend to the
citizens of the other states.
When the conventions made the original constitution, Section 2 of
Article IV commanded that “The Citizens of each State shall be
entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several
States.” After the Civil War had closed, it quickly was realized that
this federal command of the Constitution did not protect the citizens
of America in any state. And so this command was added to the
federal part of the Constitution by the Fourteenth Amendment,
namely, that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens” of America.
It would be idle to repeat here the famous Supreme Court
decisions in which that Court has been obliged to dwell upon the
important result accomplished by this vital change in the federal part
of our Constitution. In such cases as the Slaughter House Cases, 16
Wall. 36, Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, Re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436,
U.S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, Blake v. McClung, 172 U.S. 239,
Maxwell v. Sow, 176 U.S. 581 and numerous other cases the
important decisions have turned entirely upon the vital distinction
between a citizen of America and a citizen of a particular state, even
though the same man had the two capacities. Each decision turned
upon the fact that the protection given to him in one capacity, by
some constitutional provision, did not extend to him in the other
capacity.
If all this had not been forgotten and ignored during the five years
which began in 1917, the story of that five years would have been
entirely different. Everyone would have known that the respective
attorneys in fact for societies or states could not grant new power to
interfere with the individual freedom of the members of an entirely
different society, America.
There never was a day at Philadelphia in 1787 when the clear-
minded Americans did not remember and realize this vital distinction
between Americans, in their capacity as members of their respective
existing societies, and Americans, in their capacity as members of
the prospective society of the whole American people. There never
was a day when they did not realize that the members of the
proposed new and supreme society of men would never have but
one attorney in fact for any purpose, the government at Washington,
while the members of each small and inferior society would still
have, as they already had, in their capacity as such members, their
own attorney in fact, their own government.
One instance alone is sufficient to show how that Philadelphia
Convention never forgot these important things. When the
Committee of Detail, on August 6, 1787, reported to the Convention
the first draft ever made of our Constitution, the Preamble read: “We,
the people of the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, etc.”
(enumerating all the states), “do ordain, declare, and establish, the
following constitution for the government of ourselves and our
posterity.” (5 Ell. Deb. 376.) But, so that future generations, like our
own, should not ignore the fact that it was not the people of the
respective states but the whole people of America who made the
Constitution, before the proposal was made from Philadelphia, the
Preamble, identifying the makers of the Constitution, was changed to
read, “We, the people of the United States,”—the whole people of
the new nation, America.
In the Virginia convention, Patrick Henry put the clear fact all in
one pithy statement. He made that statement in one of his eloquent
arguments against ratification of the Constitution. Many Americans
today do not know that Patrick Henry was the most zealous
opponent of the proposed Constitution. He was a citizen of the
nation of Virginia. His human liberty as an individual could not be
interfered with by any government or governments in the world
except the Virginia government and only by it, under grant of national
power to it from him and his fellow citizens of Virginia. That is exactly
the status which he wished to retain for himself and which he
insisted was the best security for individual freedom of all Americans
in Virginia. “This is an American government, not a Virginia
government!” he exclaimed. Nothing could more clearly express his
knowledge, the common knowledge of all in that day, that he and his
fellow Americans in that convention were being asked as Americans,
not as citizens of Virginia, to constitute a new nation of the American
people and a national government for that people.
That is why the Tenth Amendment, responsive to the demand of
that Virginia convention and other similar conventions of the
American people, names the citizens of the respective states as one
class of reservees and the citizens of America as the great reservee
and “most important factor” in the Tenth Amendment. This is the
plain meaning of the language of that Tenth Amendment, to those
who know what America is, where that language reads “to the states
respectively, or to the people.” The word “respectively” is pointedly
present after the word “states” and it is pointedly absent after the
word “people.” Nothing could make more clear, to those who do not
forget that the citizens of each state were the state itself, that the
words “to the states respectively” mean to the respective peoples or
citizens of each state and that the words “or to the people” mean to
the people or citizens of America, in that capacity.
 CHAPTER V
THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED

We average Americans have now lived with those earlier

Americans through the years in which they were educated to their
making of the American nation, to their constitution of its only
general government with national powers.
We have been with them in those early days when legally they
were subjects, inasmuch as their British Legislature at London had
unlimited ability, not delegated by them, to interfere with the
individual human freedom of each of them and all of them. We have
realized that, in those very early days, despite their legal status,
those Americans were actually and in substance citizens of their own
respective communities, inasmuch as the legislatures which actually
did interfere with such freedom were the legislatures of their own
choosing to which they themselves delegated such powers of
interference.
We have been with them when their British Government began its
attempt to exercise its omnipotent ability. We have seen the
inevitable result, the American Revolution, by a people, educated
through actual experience in self government, against the attempt of
any government to exercise a national power not directly granted by
its citizens. We have seen their invincible determination, in an eight
year war of sacrifice, that no government in America shall ever have
any national power except by direct grant from its citizens. We have
seen them, in their Statute of ’76—never repealed—declare this
principle to be the basic law of America.
We have been with them when the Americans in each former
colony constituted for themselves a government and gave it limited
ability to interfere with their individual freedom. Living with them at
that time, we have realized how accurately they then grasped the
vital fact that the granting of such national ability is the constitution of
government and that no people ever are free or self-governing
unless every grant of that kind is made directly by the citizens of the
nation themselves.
We have realized that, in constituting their respective national
governments, the citizens of each of those nations withheld from its
government many possible national powers, such, for example, as
those mentioned in the various Bills of Rights or Declarations of
human liberty in the different written constitutions of those nations.
We have realized—a vital legal fact never to be forgotten—how
accurately those Americans and their governments knew that not all
of those sovereign legislatures of those independent nations could,
even together, exercise or grant a single one of those possible
national powers reserved by the people to themselves. We have also
realized—again a legal fact which should have sunk deep into our
souls—that the very national powers, which the citizens of each of
those nations had granted to its legislative government, were to be
exercised only by that legislative government and could not be
delegated by it to any other government or governments. “The
powers delegated to the state sovereignties were to be exercised by
themselves, not by a distinct and independent sovereignty created
by themselves.” (Marshall, M’Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316.)
We have lived with those Americans in those Revolutionary days
when the legislative governments of their thirteen nations created “a
distinct and independent sovereignty” to govern a federal union of
those nations but not to govern, by the exercise of national powers,
the human beings who were the American people. We have seen
those legislative governments then aware of their existing ability,
each as the representative or attorney in fact of its own nation for all
federal purposes, to vest federal powers in a federal government. “To
the formation of a league, such as was the Confederation, the state
sovereignties were certainly competent.” (Marshall, M’Culloch v.
Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316.) But those legislative governments knew
that they could not delegate to any government even those limited
national powers “delegated to the state sovereignties” by their
respective citizens. “The powers delegated to the state sovereignties
were to be exercised by themselves, not by a distinct and
independent sovereignty created by themselves.” (Marshall, supra.)
As to the national powers not delegated but reserved by the people
to themselves, the legislative governments of that day (as well as the
American people) knew what the Supreme Court still knew in 1907
as to national powers similarly withheld from the later national
government of America:
The powers the people have given to the General
Government are named in the Constitution, and all not there
named, either expressly or by implication, are reserved to the
people and can be exercised only by them, or upon further
grant from them. (Justice Brewer in Turner v. Williams, 194 U.
S. 279.)
We have been with those Americans in the few short years in
which they learned that the maximum of protected enjoyment of
individual freedom could never be obtained through a general
government possessing naught but federal powers, the only kind of
power which any American government can ever obtain through
grants made by governments or, in any way, except by direct grant
from its citizens themselves.
We have been with those Americans through the greatest
Revolution of all, when their leaders and the average Americans
themselves, still determined to obtain that maximum protected
enjoyment of individual human liberty and awake to the knowledge
that it could not be obtained through a general government with
naught but federal powers, rose again to the great occasion. We
have been with them when, outside of all then existing constitutions
and outside of all written American law except the Statute of ’76,
those Americans, at the suggestion of their American leaders, made
themselves the members of one great political society of human
beings, the nation which is America. We have been with them when
they gave the government of America, by direct grant from
themselves, such enumerated national powers to command them,
the citizens of America, as they—not the state governments—
deemed wise and necessary to protect their human liberty against all
oppressors, including all governments. We have been with them—
and we have marveled—while they themselves actually made, by
their own action, their amazingly effective distribution of all delegated
powers to interfere with individual freedom.
We have seen that they gave to the new government, the only
government of the citizens of America, naught but enumerated
national powers, with the ability to make all laws necessary for the
proper execution of those enumerated powers, and reserved to
themselves alone—not to any government or governments in the
world—all other possible national powers over the self-governing
people, the citizens of America.
We have seen how they, the citizens of America, the possessors
of the supreme will in America, then ended the complete
independence of each of the thirteen nations but reserved to the
citizens of each nation much of their former ability to exercise their
own national powers of government over themselves, through their
own delegation of such power to their only attorney in fact for such
purpose, their own legislature.
We have seen those American citizens, while destroying the
complete independence of those former nations, incorporate the
former federation of states into their own system of a society or
nation of all the human beings of America. We have seen them, in
the constitution of their own national government, make it also the
federal government of that federation and leave with it such federal
powers as they themselves deemed wise. We know, therefore, as
they knew in 1790 when their great distribution of power had become
effective, that no legislature in America could exercise a national
power not granted by its own citizens, and that no legislature or
legislatures in America could give any national power to any
government.
We average American citizens of this present generation must
now feel qualified to understand the Constitution and its settled
distribution of all national powers to interfere with individual freedom.
If these Americans could use their knowledge intelligently to make
that amazing Constitution to protect our human liberty and their own,
it cannot be beyond us, now also taught by their experience, to
understand the protection which that Constitution gave to them and
gives to us against even the usurpation of our own governments.
Only by that understanding may we hope to keep that legacy of
protection. No longer, now that we have acquired that understanding,
can we make the great mistake of believing that the public leaders or
lawyers of this generation are qualified to teach us anything about
that protection.
The experience of our leaders and lawyers has given them an
entirely different education, in the science of government, than was
the education of these earlier average Americans and their leaders,
than is our own education in having lived over again the days in
which all valid grants of national power in constitutions of American
government were made by the people themselves because people
and governments alike knew that such grants could never be made
by governments. The experience of public leaders and lawyers in
America, for the past thirty years, has been almost exclusively
concerned with property and with law and Constitutions in relation to
property.
In the Supreme Court, in the Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36
at page 116, Justice Bradley points out that the Declaration of
Independence was the first political act of the American people in
their independent sovereign capacity and that therein they laid the
foundation of national existence on the basic principle that men are
created with equal and inalienable rights to “life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness.” He then goes on to state that “Rights to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are equivalent to the rights of
life, liberty, and property.” We thus realize that the education of the
Americans, who made all our constitutions, trained them to make
Articles of government which would secure protected enjoyment of
these three human rights. And we have learned that to those
Americans, life and liberty came before property in importance.
On the other hand, the leaders and lawyers of the present
generation have been educated to think that property is the one
important right which constitutions are made to protect. Wherefore it
would be extraordinary if any of them knew that the American people
constituted all their governments, and made their distribution of
national powers among those governments and reserved to
themselves many national powers, all for the main purpose of
securing individual life and liberty, and then, the enjoyment of
property. That these leaders and lawyers, so educated by
experience, have not known these things or understood at all the
constitutional Articles, an accurate understanding of whose meaning
depends upon a knowledge which their education has withheld from
them, the story of the last five years amply demonstrates. In its
detail, that story and that demonstration will be later dwelt upon
herein.
Fortunately, we average Americans of this generation have not
received any wrong education in the relative importance of human
life and liberty to property in the eyes of the American people who
constituted all governments in America, and in the constitutions
which those people made to secure all three human rights against
even the usurpations of delegated power by the very governments
which those constitutions created. Our wrong education in that
respect has undoubtedly been attempted. The events of the last five
years, however, while demonstrating the thoroughly wrong education
of our leaders, have also shown that the average Americans still
sense something extraordinary about governments exercising
undelegated power over citizens of which they are not the
governments and about governments claiming ability to give to
themselves and to other governments undelegated national powers
to interfere with individual human freedom. It has been entirely the
result of the wrong education of our leaders and “constitutional”
lawyers that we have not been told the legal fact that, and the
constitutional reason why, these extraordinary performances on the
part of governments in America have been just as void as they are
extraordinary.
Now that we have turned from the unsound teaching of those
wrongly educated leaders and lawyers and have educated ourselves
by living with the earlier Americans through their making of all our
constitutions of government, we are ready to approach, with clear
and understanding minds, a brief consideration of the great
Constitution proposed at Philadelphia and made by the citizens of
America. Only by such brief but accurate consideration can we ever
realize the distribution of delegated national powers between a
supreme government—legislating for all American citizens—and
lesser governments, each legislating only for its own citizens and
without any power to legislate for American citizens. Only by such
consideration can we realize the importance to us of the legal fact
that the citizens of America, when making that distribution of granted
national powers, reserved to themselves alone all other national
powers to legislate for American citizens except those national
powers granted and enumerated in Article I of our Constitution to the
only national government of the citizens of America.
 CHAPTER VI
THE CONVENTIONS GIVE THE CONSENT

The proposal which came from Philadelphia in 1787 was

absolutely without precedent in history. Simply stated it was that,
outside of all written law save the Statute of ’76, the entire American
people, who were not one nation or its citizens, should make
themselves one nation and the supreme nation in America; that,
simultaneously with the birth of this new nation, they should destroy
the complete independence of each existing society or nation, in
some one of which each American was a member or citizen, but
keep alive each such society or former nation, subject to the
supreme will of the citizens of the new nation; that they should keep
alive the federation of those old nations also subject to the supreme
will of the citizens of the new nation; that they should leave with each
former nation (now to be a subordinate state) and to its citizens
much of its own and their own national power to govern themselves
on many matters without interference from any government or
governments outside of that state; that they should leave with those
continuing states and their governments their existing and limited
ability to give federal power to government by making federal Articles
in the Constitution of federal government; that they should, as the
citizens of America, give to no state or states or their respective
governments any new power of any kind, leaving to the citizens of
each state to determine (within the limits fixed by the Constitution of
the American citizens) how much power its own national government
should have to interfere with the individual freedom of its own
citizens; that—most unique and marvelous conception of all—these
citizens of America, simultaneously with the birth of the new nation
and in their capacity as its citizens, should grant to its government,
the only government of those citizens of America, definite and
enumerated national powers to interfere with their individual
freedom; and that—probably the most important and the least
remembered feature of the whole proposal—all other possible
national powers over themselves, as citizens of America, should be
reserved exclusively to themselves and be exercised or granted by
them alone, “in the only manner in which they can act safely,
effectively, and wisely, on such a subject, by assembling in
Convention.” (Marshall, in the Supreme Court, M’Culloch v.
Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316.)
We have not forgotten that these Americans, to whom that
proposal was made, did act upon it in that only effective way, by
assembling in their conventions.
To the formation of a league, such as was the
Confederation, the state sovereignties were certainly
competent. But when, “in order to form a more perfect Union,”
it was deemed necessary to change this alliance into an
effective government, possessing great and sovereign
powers, and acting directly on the people, the necessity of
referring it to the people, and of deriving its powers directly
from them, was felt and acknowledged by all. The
government of the Union, then, (whatever may be the
influence of this fact on the case,) is, emphatically, and truly, a
government of the people. In form and in substance it
emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are
to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit.
(Marshall, M’Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316.)
In view of the startling fact that our leaders and “constitutional”
lawyers have neither felt nor acknowledged the necessity that new
national powers of that government, new powers to interfere directly
with the individual freedom of its citizens, must be derived “directly”
from those citizens, in the only effective way in which they can act,
on such a subject, by assembling in their conventions, it is the duty
of ourselves, the average American citizens of this generation, to
insist that they learn this legal fact. When they shall have learned
what all Americans once knew, the freedom of the American
individual will be as secure as it was in 1790. No legislature, no
matter whence comes a suggestion to the contrary, will dare to issue
any command except to its own citizens, and only to them in matters