Queering the Southern Gothic: A Conversation with Genevieve Hudson
Genevieve Hudson discusses her debut novel, BOYS OF ALABAMA.
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Posts Tagged: football
Welcome to South Bend: Notre Dame Football
When the air turns cool, and the leaves turn color.
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The NFL and Compulsory Patriotism
A piece of cloth is not being disrespected, but many black Americans are being disrespected, and killed.
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Saturday Rumpus Fiction: Three Short Stories by Sherman Alexie
These are desperate times, and I’m not as desperate as a lot of people, but I’m desperate enough to need this job.
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Color at the Mercy of the Light
What if I said: while people still believe they are white in America, that delusion, and the dream upon which it is founded, needs to be seriously examined.
...more“I Knew at Once I’d Never Last”
At Catapult, Nicholas Ward writes about loving and leaving football, and the violence we push against and get back, in a piece aptly titled, “There Is No Violence Here”: But in high school, something shifted. It became clear what we’d need to do for success: lift weights, bulk up, get tough, stop having fun, and start getting serious. […]
...morePassing in Football
The fear of expulsion from that collective black-boy body, of being deemed not black enough or male enough or straight enough, counterfeit somehow, terrified me. As football comes under increasing scrutiny from all sides, Frederick McKindra, over at BuzzFeed, pens a lyrical ode to the naive dance of masculinity he witnessed on his childhood football […]
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The Limbic System Roundup
A struggling human is often bent upon the little scratch of power he or she has.
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His Helmet Off, Raising It High
This was the most important moment of my life. I know it because after Number One died I started to realize I could kill myself too.
...moreA Super Bowl Preview for People Who Don’t Know Football (2015 Edition)
Like an all-night rager in the apartment upstairs or a crying infant on a red-eye, the Super Bowl is one of those ineluctable public occurrences that’s seemingly impossible to stop and difficult to ignore.
...moreFor Gentlemen Only
The lack of literary interest in the game is surprising, since it serves as the perfect lens through which to examine our fractured state: its ingrained prejudices, gender distortions, money lust, and, above all, the culture of brute violence that has come under increased scrutiny of late. For Electric Literature, Ravi Mangla reflects on Don […]
...morePolitics and Football
The Millions takes a look at Rumpus columnist Steve Almond‘s book Against Football: Almond stalks through his arguments against the modern state of football at a pace that is both clipped and highly personal. There is a lot of shame here, a discomfort with being complicit in that “system” lying at the root of his […]
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Fantasy Football for Poets: Dispatch #1
I’m not supposed to be an NFL fan. I like writing, books, wine, condiments, ambient music, and US Presidents.
...moreF. Scott Fitzgerald’s Late Night Football Strategy Sessions
A century ago, Princeton University was a premiere football school. As a freshman, F. Scott Fitzgerald was cut from the team after just one day. But that didn’t stop him from calling the famed football coach Fritz Crisler in the middle of the night with crazy football strategies, one of which might very well have […]
...moreWeekend Rumpus Roundup
First off, Grant Snider unfolds one of our most dogged clichés. More than one hundred and fourteen years ago, an uprising broke out in China that eventually became known as the Boxer Rebellion. But according to Jennifer Cheng, the movement now occurring in Hong Kong differs fundamentally from that violent, ultra-nationalist Rebellion of the past. […]
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Friday Night Lies
“This is a night of more than just football. It’s a night of fresh haircuts and blushed cheeks. It’s four-wheel drive trucks, it’s spent Zima caps and condoms, it’s Levis and short skirts and lights so bright you have to shield your eyes.”
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The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Steve Almond
The Rumpus Book Club chats with Steve Almond about his new book, Against Football, One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto, the complicity of fans in the violence of the NFL, the sports media’s role in the discussion (or lack of one) and the difficulty of leaving a sport you love.
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Against Everything
The mountains of Alabama are small mountains—foothills, really—but they are mine like a sports team is mine—like a football game (which I have for so long been near but have not really, really seen) is mine—as in the phrase “We scored! We scored!”
...moreRay Rice and Domestic Abuse: A Rumpus Roundup
In February, Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice knocked out his fiancée at Atlantic City’s Revel Casino. He was caught dragging her limp body out of the elevator. They later married. Domestic violence is so common in the United States—every 9 seconds a woman is assaulted—it rarely makes headlines. But Ray Rice plays football.
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How Not to Be Humiliated
Twenty-one years ago, a week before Thanksgiving, you were admitted to Dorothea Dix State Psychiatric Hospital in Raleigh, NC.
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Ted Wilson Reviews the World #219
SUPER BOWL XLVIII ★★★★★ (4 out of 5) Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing Super Bowl XLVIII.
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A Super Bowl Preview for People Who Don’t Know Football (2014 Edition)
If you don’t watch football but might be forced to watch the Super Bowl, this may help.
...moreThe Bart Oates Sad Mall Nail Salon Shrine Mystery
In a nail salon tucked deep in a failing mall in South Jersey, there’s a small shrine to retired NFL player Bart Oates. The story behind it “is not the sexiest solution to the Bart Oates Sad Mall Nail Salon Shrine mystery, but it’s representative of how things are in South Jersey.” Fans of Fantasy […]
...moreVikings Punter Fired for Supporting Gay Marriage?
So there you have it. It’s my belief, based on everything that happened over the course of 2012, that I was fired by Mike Priefer, a bigot who didn’t agree with the cause I was working for, and two cowards, Leslie Frazier and Rick Spielman… If Fantasy Football for Poets were still going, it would […]
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Fantasy Football for Poets, Week 13
In this column, J. Ryan Stradal examines complex issues of the NFL and brings you original interviews.
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Fantasy Football for Poets, Week 12
I’m writing about three players who have all quit America’s most popular and visible sport mid-season. Their reasons for quitting are as different as their trajectories, but in each of them, there are shards of a much larger and tragic American story.
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The Game Could Wait
Having a child carves you out. Stories like this line the walls inside, and keep you up wondering why, how, what the fuck is exactly happening here?
...moreFantasy Football for Poets: Week Five
Being unable to play his favorite instrument anymore broke his heart, but while his injured hand couldn’t perform the delicate gesticulations of a violinist, it was not a hindrance in the blunt-force job of offensive lineman.
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Secret Weapon
I loved football. Even though Dad had also taught me to swing a bat, field a ball, shoot free throws, block lay-ups, tee off, and do the elementary backstroke, nothing got me more excited than catching a 30-yard pass
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