Fame to Infamy

Essays that reveal the public slide into disrepute of oncecherished male sports icons

Essays by Lisa Doris Alexander, Gregory J. Kaliss, Jeffrey Lane, Thabiti Lewis, Robert F. Lewis II, Shelley Lucas, Roberta J. Newman, C. Oren Renick and Joel Nathan Rosen, and Sherrie L. Wilson

Fame to Infamy: Race, Sport, and the Fall from Grace follows the paths of sports figures who were embraced by the general populace but who, through a variety of circumstances, real or imagined, found themselves falling out of favor. The contributors focus on the roles played by athletes, the media, and fans in describing how once-esteemed popular figures find themselves scorned by the same public that at one time viewed them as heroic, laudable, or otherwise respectable.

The book examines a wide range of sports and eras, and includes essays on Barry Bonds, Kirby Puckett, Mike Tyson, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, Branch Rickey, Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain, and Jim Brown, as well as an afterword by noted scholar Jack Lule and an introduction by the editors. Fame to Infamy is an interdisciplinary volume encompassing numerous approaches in tracing the evolution of each subject's reputation and shifting public image.

David C. Ogden, Pacific Junction, Iowa, is associate professor of communication at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Joel Nathan Rosen, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is assistant professor of sociology at Moravian College. He is the author of The Erosion of the American Sporting Ethos: Shifting Attitudes toward Competition.