{"product_id":"lacrosse-a-history-of-the-game-9781421400440","title":"Lacrosse: A History of the Game","description":"\u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003eA comprehensive history of modern lacrosse, from the appropriation of the Native American game to its ever-increasing popularity today.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHonorable Mention in the Best Sport History Book awards from the North American Society for Sport History\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNorth America's Indian peoples have always viewed competitive sport as something more than a pastime. The northeastern Indians' ball-and-stick game that would become lacrosse served both symbolic and practical functions--preparing young men for war, providing an arena for tribes to strengthen alliances or settle disputes, and reinforcing religious beliefs and cultural cohesion. Today a multimillion-dollar industry, lacrosse is played by colleges and high schools, amateur clubs, and two professional leagues.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eLacrosse: A History of the Game\u003c\/i\u003e, Donald M. Fisher traces the evolution of the sport from the pre-colonial era to the founding in 2001 of a professional outdoor league--Major League Lacrosse--told through the stories of the people behind each step in lacrosse's development: Canadian dentist George Beers, the father of the modern game; Rosabelle Sinclair, who played a large role in the 1950s reinforcing the feminine qualities of the women's game; \"Father Bill\" Schmeisser, the Johns Hopkins University coach who worked tirelessly to popularize lacrosse in Baltimore; Syracuse coach Laurie Cox, who was to lacrosse what Yale's Walter Camp was to football; 1960s Indian star Gaylord Powless, who endured racist taunts both on and off the field; Oren Lyons and Wes Patterson, who founded the inter-reservation Iroquois Nationals in 1983; and Gary and Paul Gait, the Canadian twins who were All-Americans at Syracuse University and have dominated the sport for the past decade.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThroughout, Fisher focuses on lacrosse as contested ground. Competing cultural interests, he explains, have clashed since English settlers in mid-nineteenth-century Canada first appropriated and transformed the \"primitive\" Mohawk game of \u003ci\u003etewaarathon\u003c\/i\u003e, eventually turning it into a respectable \"gentleman's\" sport. Drawing on extensive primary research, he shows how amateurs and professionals, elite collegians and working-class athletes, field- and box-lacrosse players, Canadians and Americans, men and women, and Indians and whites have assigned multiple and often conflicting meanings to North America's first--and fastest growing--team sport.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDonald M. Fisher \u003c\/b\u003eis a professor of history at Niagara County Community College.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Johns Hopkins University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50515149685010,"sku":"9781421400440","price":32.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_bcee0815-ee65-4334-8f7b-d6a33e516f6e.jpg?v=1730999024","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/lacrosse-a-history-of-the-game-9781421400440","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}