Weekend Review - Mon 30th April

• 30th Apr 2007 at 11:26:22 BST by Liam Doyle
• 0 comments

Martial Arts, College Sports and David Halberstam

Like Chess last week, Martial Arts is the activity that finds itself unexpectedly at the centre of attention. Bruce Lee and Me and American Shaolin both get reviewed in The Guardian and The Telegraph. Looks like both have their faults - it seems that the search for the new Angry White Pyjamas goes on. Incidentially, the author of the Telegraph reviews is Marcus Berkmann, author of the classic Rain Men.

There's not too much else in the UK papers apart from a review of Breathless Hush in The Observer. I can't find a link to this on their site for some reason but if you've got a copy of the paper itself you find it in the Extra Time section at the back of the sport supplement.

Also in The Observer is a brief article from Anthony Holden, author of soon to be released Bigger Deal about how he juggled his new book with his "day job" - classical music critic of that paper.

Stefan Szymanski, author of National Pastime, writes an interesting article in The Observer about the ever increasing trend of American ownership in English football. In particular he expects further debate on relegation - with the inference being that owners will eventually call for its abandonment.

For many fans relegation is an essential component of sport, but for owners, increasingly it appears it's merely an inconvenient truth. To be fair, it's not just American owners who feel that way - English Rugby Union has debated the concept of relegation almost continuously since professionalism - but I agree with Szymanski that the topic will force its way up the debate list in the coming years. Personally I believe that relegation has to stay as part of the structure of sporting competition despite the pain it can cause.

In the States, the wonderfully titled Mondo Lucha a Go Go is reviewed in Publishers Weekly. Not By a Long Shot, which looks quite interesting to me, is reviewed a little less than favourably in the Saint Louis Times.

College sports in America have long since given academics cause for concern. It's suggested that the culture of winning and promotion of athletic excellence above educational needs, have created an "anything goes" culture where athletes' excesses are tolerated, excused and even promoted.

Perhaps one of the more infamous cases of recent times is the one concering Duke University's Men's Lacrosse team. Although the charges were dropped and all three players were declared innocent by the judge, it created a huge storm and again thrust college sports back into the limelight. It seems that this story won't go away as 2 books are sceduled for release about the case in June. The first is A Rush to Injustice by attorney Nader Baydoun and the second is It's Not About the Truth, the story of coach Mike Pressler. Expect further debate and controversy upon release.

We end this week's round up with the sad news that author David Halberstam died last Monday. Halberstam truly was a gifted writer and the body of work he leaves behind is testimony to his talent.

Among his sports books, both Summer of 49 and October 1964 are rightly considered classics. A personal favourite of mine is Playing for Keeps which, for me, is the definitive work on Michael Jordan. There's a nice tribute to him on Sports Illustrated including a couple of articles he wrote for them on Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. It's well worth checking out.