Inspiring holiday stuff

Gainesville State School is located 75 miles north of Dallas, next to a town of 15,000.  It was originally a girls’ school, but became co-ed in1974 and eventually all-male in 1988.  The school offers courses in agriculture, horticulture, welding, and business in addition to the standard high school curriculum.
Gainesville State is also a maximum-security youth [...]

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More on the Jewish Football Club thing

The other day, Mireille introduced the weird philo-semitism of Ajax Football Club.  Ajax fans, however, are not alone in appropriating Jewishness.  A number of teams worldwide identify with Judaism.  Among them are M.T.K. Hungaria and England’s Tottenham Hotspur.
There are multiple reasons a club gets tagged as “Jewish.”  MTK was founded in 1888 by Jewish businessmen.  Through [...]

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More on the Redskins (more on the Jews later)

Our local (American) football club has a uniquely unpleasant history.  Consider this image of an elderly black fan dressed in faux-native garb.  What makes it so incongruous is not simply the appropriation of someone else’s culture; it’s the fact that the Redskins are historically the most racist franchise in football against blacks too.  Owner George [...]

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ethnic mascots, part three billion and seven: the Amsterdam Jews

I would imagine by now most people are aware of my aversion to using ethnic groups as sports mascots and how deeply bewildered I am by the fact that my home town’s football team happens to be the Redskins. I’m not even going to entertain the idea that the name isn’t racist– the very fact [...]

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Don’t buy a Bulgarian football club

I know it’s on your to-do list, but I wouldn’t recommend it.  I also know you read the Sofia Echo, so you’ve seen this already:
Holding the presidency of a football club can be hazardous – even deadly – in Bulgaria. Dozens of examples over the past 19 years attest to this. The latest is that [...]

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Don Haskins dead at 78

Don Haskins was the head basketball coach at Texas Western (now UTEP) in the 1960s.  Haskins made history in the 1965-1966 season when he started five black players in the national championship game against the University of Kentucky.  Although college basketball had already been integrated, Haskins’ Miners were the first all-black starting five to play [...]

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