The Eternal Present of Sport
Daniel Grano
Daniel A. Grano is a professor of communication studies at UNC Charlotte and an affiliated faculty member of the University Writing Program.
The Eternal Present of Sport
From the opening kickoff in exhibition football season to a sudden death playoff at the Masters, sport arguably is America’s most popular past-time, not to mention a lucrative career for the elite athlete. And Personally Speaking kicks off its 10th season in September with a hard look at the sport-religion relationship.
The Eternal Present of Sport: Rethinking Sport and Religion (Temple University Press) considers the importance of religious images and ideas in contemporary sport controversies including performance enhancement, the head trauma crisis, and pay-for-play in collegiate athletics. Many people believe that sport is “religious” in that it provides an escape from politics. Author Daniel A. Grano argues instead that religion is a source of crisis and change in sport.
Grano asserts that it is precisely through sport’s highest religious ideals that controversies are taking shape and constituting points of political and social rupture. He examines issues of transcendence, “legacy” (e.g., “greatest ever,” or “all-time”) and “witnessing” through instant replay which undermines institutional authority. Grano also reflects on elite athletes representing especially powerful embodiments of religious and social conflict issues related to gender, sexuality, ability doping, traumatic brain injury, and institutional greed.
The Eternal Presence of Sport received the Outstanding Book Award from the Communication and Sport Division of the National Communication Association.
Grano is a professor of communication studies. His work focuses on intersections between sport and politics with particular emphasis on health, the body, race, religion, and public memory.
For more information about the Personally Speaking series, please visit cws.charlotte.edu/stage-clas/ps.