A League of Fans Special Feature

Taylor Branch

Taylor Branch is a civil rights and presidential historian best known for his trilogy on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement.  He won the Pulitzer Prize for the first part of that trilogy, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63.  He also [...]

A League of Fans Special Feature

Joe Nocera

Joe Nocera is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times. He has written for The New York Times Magazine, been a business writer, and served as a writer and editor for Fortune magazine for 10 years. He frequently writes about the NCAA and college sports issues, [...]

A League of Fans Special Feature

Chris Nowinski

Chris Nowinski is one of the foremost educators, advocates, and researchers in the field of sports concussions and brain trauma.  A former Harvard football player and WWE wrestler, Nowinski was diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome and forced to retire in 2004.  He began a quest to better understand [...]

Joe Ehrmann is a former National Football League star, playing most of his career with the Baltimore Colts. After his playing career, he became an ordained minister and social justice activist in Baltimore’s inner city. He serves as a volunteer assistant for the Gilman (Maryland) High School football team. His unconventional coaching style is chronicled [...]

A League of Fans Special Feature

John Gagliardi

John Gagliardi is the head football coach at NCAA Division III St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. He’s the winningest coach in college football history, with a 484-133-11 all-time record, including 30 conference titles and four national championships. He’s the first active head coach to be inducted [...]

A League of Fans Special Feature

Robert Lipsyte

Robert Lipsyte was an award-winning sportswriter for the New York Times. His book SportsWorld: An American Dreamland, published in 1975, is a seminal work in the field of sports journalism. It was one of the first sports books to not “god up” the athletes or view games [...]

A League of Fans Special Feature

Jay Coakley

Jay Coakley is a former athlete who became one of the nation’s preeminent sports sociologists.  Coakley grew up in the Chicago area and evolved into an all-state basketball player.  He moved to Colorado to play for famed hoops coach Joe B. Hall at [...]

Q & A With Leading Sports Reformers

A League of Fans Special Feature

John Gerdy has been involved in sports virtually his entire life. The son of a high school football coach, Gerdy went on to become an outstanding basketball player for Davidson College. After a brief NBA tryout, Gerdy played professionally in the Continental [...]