Sport Physical Education in Postwar America

1
Sport Physical Education in Postwar America

• 1945-1970
• http//www.hess.ttu.edu/miller/1945-1970.ppt

2
Professional Sport

• Following World War II became the dominant
  component of the American sport scene.

3
Professional Sport

• Reasons for Growth
• An increasingly affluent and hi-tech society.
• Television
• Super jets transported teams across the country
  and to other continents
• Manufactures supplied athletes with the latest
  equipment
• Computers assisted in recruiting athletes and
  scheduling games.

4
Race Integration Into SportThe Noble Experiment

• Baseball was also the first of the major
  professional sports to sign an African American
  player.
• Steps that lead to this accomplishment
• In 1945 Branch Rickey organized the United States
  Baseball League, to be comprised of African
  American teams, including a team named the Brown
  Dodgers.

5
Jackie Robinson

• Rickey sent scouts to find players for the Brown
  Dodgers, but especially to seek one man-an
  excellent baseball player to integrate
  professional baseball.
• The person chosen would have to be able to
• Play with white players
• Get along with them
• Be able to withstand the taunts, discrimination,
  and unpleasant situations.

6
Jackie Robinson

• Robinson made his debut without the predicted
  race riots and withstood the suspicions, taunts,
  and threats of players and fans alike.
• Selected as Rookie of the Year in 1947
• Most Valuable Player in 1949
• This insured the success of the noble
  experiment.
• The American League had its first
  African-American player in 1948 when Bill Veeck
  of the Cleveland Indians signed outfielder Larry
  Doby.

7
Team Movement

• In 1953 the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee and
  had instant success with 1,826,397 in attendance.
  
• In 1954 the St. Louis Browns became the Baltimore
  Orioles
• 1955 the Philadelphia Athletics were the Kansas
  City Athletics.
• The West Coast acquired major league teams in
  1958 when the New York Giants moved to San
  Francisco and the Brooklyn Dodgers switched to
  Los Angeles.

8
Reflection on Philosophical Changes

• During this era was the genesis of placing more
  emphasis on attendance and making money.
• Since Los Angeles was growing tremendously fast
  more team were attracted to areas in which there
  was less competition for marketing and attracting
  fans

9
Reflection on Societal Changes

• Professional teams moving also reflected the
  changes of American families.
• Previously, employees generally stayed with one
  company for an entire career.
• Beginning in the early 1960s employees were
  moving from company to company more often

10
Pro Expansion

• League expansion in 1961, 1962, and in 1969
  resulted in four divisions, each league
  consisting of two divisions, the champions of
  which competed in a playoff to determine the
  league pennant winner.

11
Pro Expansion

• The opening of the Houston Astrodome in 1965,
  with its artificial turf on which the ball moved
  faster (and players fell harder) than on natural
  grass, sparked a period of new stadium
  construction in cities with established teams as
  well as those with new franchises.

12
Pro Expansion

• A number of new multi-purpose stadiums installed
  artificial turf which was economical, easily
  maintained, and readily adaptable to a variety of
  sports and other events.

13
Anti-Trust

• In 1953, a congressional committee repeated an
  investigation into baseball exemption from
  antitrust laws.
• In 1970 the Supreme Court confirmed earlier
  decisions that baseball was not subject to
  antitrust laws.

14
Labor Negotiations

• Inside the baseball world, players expressed
  their growing concern about the conditions of
  their employment.
• In 1946, the owners averted formation of a
  players union by allowing player representative
  to attend meetings and help formulate more
  equitable contracts.

15
Labor Negotiations

• In a prelude to future labor negotiations and
  tactics, some players boycotted the opening of
  1969 spring training because of a dispute over
  owner contributions to the pension fund.

16
Differences Between Mens and Womens Physical
Education

• At mid-century, on most campuses in the United
  States, physical education for women and for men
  existed in separate departments.
• The curriculum and activities offered, and their
  administration, expressed the major philosophical
  differences between physical education for women
  and physical education for men.

17
Differences Between Mens and Womens Physical
Education

• Departments of physical education for women,
  regardless of the size or type of institution,
  tended to have common goals, similar programs,
  and similar problems.
• These departments shared a philosophy of
  appointing broadly prepared rather than highly
  specialized faculty.

18
Differences Between Mens and Womens Physical
Education

• Departments for men, on the other hand,
  demonstrated no such uniformity of purpose among
  institutions.

19
Physical Education in the Schools

• The boys program through the 1950s generally
  emphasized the major team sports.
• Girls programs tended to focus on the team
  sports.
• This pattern was affected in the mid-1950s when
  test results indicated that American children
  were less fit than European children.

20
Physical Education in the Schools

• Public and official concern resulted in a
  temporary emphasis on physical fitness-producing
  activities in school programs.
• In the mid- 1960s there was increased interest in
  activities that sought to equip boys and girls
  with recreational sport skills, such as tennis
  and golf, that could be pursued throughout life.

21
Teaching/Coaching

• In many of the large universities with major
  intercollegiate athletic programs there was some
  philosophical conflict between the faculty who
  primarily taught in the mens physical education
  teacher preparation program and those whose
  primary assignment was coaching.
• In smaller institutions or those with less
  ambitious athletic programs, the physical
  education teaching faculty and coaching staff
  were usually the same people.

22
Fitness Progress

• Physical fitness research efforts of the 1930s
  and 1940s to the attitudinal and behavioral
  studies of the fifties, the serious
  investigations of the many dimensions of sport
  and physical activity had progressed steadily.

23
Physical Education Pioneers

• Delbert Oberteuffer, Eleanor Metheny exposed two
  generations of students to the theoretical
  foundation of sport and physical activity.
• Franklin Henry challenged the profession to begin
  defining physical educations body of
  knowledge.

24
Physical Education Pioneers

• Two sport sociologists at the University of
  Wisconsin, Gerald Kenyon and John Loy, called for
  American scholars to join them as they moved
  toward a sociology of sport.
• Shortly thereafter Bruce Ogilvie and Thomas Tusko
  popularized the newly developing field of sport
  psychology..

25
Physical Education Pioneers

• The concept of movement education became one
  focus of attention for elementary physical
  education in the 1960s based on the early work
  of HDoubler and Glassow.
• Emphasized analyzing and understanding the
  science of movement.
• Both stressed learning and understanding the
  fundamentals of body movement through
  problem-solving activities related to space,
  time, and flow of movement.

26
Problems in Intercollegiate Athletics

• The spectacular growth in the popularity of
  college athletics was not without problems. The
  pressure to win in order to sell tickets to meet
  expenses necessary to recruit athletes produced a
  climate conductive to cheating, scandal, and
  hypocrisy.

27
Problems in Intercollegiate Athletics

• In the late 1940s the NCAA found it necessary to
  assume an enforcement role because of repeated
  reports of recruiting violations among its
  members..

28
Principles of Conduct

• In July of 1946 a Conference on Conferences was
  held for the purpose of determining Principles
  for the Conduct of Intercollegiate Athletics.

29
Principles of Conduct

• As a result of this conference the NCAA adopted a
  sanity code, in 1948. The main points were (1)
  principle of amateurism, (2) principle of
  institutional control and responsibility, (3)
  principle of sound academic standards, (4)
  principle governing financial aid to athletes,
  and (5) principles governing recruiting.

30
Principles of Conduct

• In 1952, new legislation was adopted dealing with
  academic standards, financial aid, ethical
  conduct, and out-of-season practice in football
  and basketball.

31
Problems in Intercollegiate Athletics

• The first reported instance of tampering occurred
  in 1945 when rumors of a fixed game instance of
  such tampering occurred in 1945 when rumors of a
  fixed game between Brooklyn College and the
  University of Akron caused a significant
  fluctuation in the point spread and cancellation
  of the game. All five Brooklyn players admitted
  taking bribes to throw the contest.
• The National Basketball Association issued a
  lifetime ban on all of the implicated players
  whether or not they had been found guilty in the
  courts.

32
Womens Athletics

• Intercollegiate athletics for women did not exist
  in its present form. Todays program evolved
  from extramural meaning inter-institutional
  competition.
• The first experiment in extramural tournaments
  was a highly successful intercollegiate golf
  championship. By this time the increasing
  extramural competitions and the desire of college
  women for competitive opportunities began to
  concern women physical education.

33
Womens Athletics

• The Division for Girls and Womens Sport (DGWS),
  made clear that Girls and women may not
  participate as members of boys and mens teams.
• They again affirmed the philosophy that student
  athletes should not receive financial aid for
  superior skill alone.
• Athletic scholarships were not approved, but
  financial aid for needy students was acceptable.

34
Womens Olympic Movement

• In 1963 the DGWS, in cooperation with the United
  States Olympic Development Committee, sponsored
  the first of five institutes to promote Olympic
  sports.
• For the first time in almost fifty years the
  Olympic Movement was directly promoted by women
  physical educators.

35
Womens Olympic Movement Problems

• Philosophically committed to promoting a sport
  for every girl rather than high-level sport for a
  few, many women were not prepared to coach
  students or teams at expert levels.
• To complicate the situation, the womens
  movement of the mid-sixties, to the delight of
  some and consternation of others, chose sport as
  one of the suitable areas for equal right
  struggles.

36
Olympic Politics

• In the 1960s it was difficult to differentiate
  between political activities and Olympic
  activities
• Olympic Games were used as a tool between East
  vs. West, communism vs. democracy
• Within the US militant groups employed the Games
  in 1968 as a political platform to crusade
  against racial injustice

37
Olympic Politics

• This most prevalent when Olympic sprinters Tommie
  Smith and John Carlos, finishing 1st and 3rd
  respectively in the 200 meter dash arrived for
  the awards ceremony.
• Both were shoeless, wearing knee length black
  stockings, and a black glove on one hand (Smiths
  right, Carloss left)

38
Olympic Politics

• The USOC was embarrassed by this display and
  issued a strong reprimand for Smith and Carlos
  along with apologies to the IOC, the Mexican
  Organizing Committee and the Mexican people
• Avery Brundage, Chair of the IOC, went further
  and issued the removal and suspension of the
  black athletes

39
Olympic Politics

• In 1967 the Black Power Conference called for a
  boycott of the 1968 Games as a protest against
  all forms of American racism and retaliation for
  lifting of Muhammad Alis heavyweight boxing
  crown.
• A vote of 75 was need to implement the boycott
  but this fell short by 10
• However, several black athletes did boycott the
  Games most notable being Lew Alcindor

40
Muhammad Ali

• Known as Cassius Clay when he won the Olympic
  heavyweight crown in 1960 won the world
  heavyweight boxing title from Sonny Liston in
  1964
• He successfully defended his title in 1965 and
  1966
• In 1967 he refused to be drafted into the armed
  services claiming he was a Muslim minister

41
Muhammad Ali

• In the midst of his legal battles the World
  Boxing Association stripped him of his title
• He was allowed to continue his fighting career in
  1973 and regained his crown by defeating George
  Foreman in 1974.