With all of the die-hard sports fans crowding our Facebook newsfeeds with too many capital letters and expletives, it's clear that football season has begun once again.
As fall sports come underway this month, athleticism and the arts are joining together in a variety of creative forms.
This unexpected merging has sparked inventive works through the years, and this week is no exception.
PBS profiled a sports figure for the first time in the history of its "American Masters" series on Sept. 10. "American Masters Billie Jean King," which focuses on the tennis champion, honored the 40th anniversaries of both her historic match against Bobby Riggs in 1973 and her founding of the Women's Tennis Association the same year. The film reexamines King's first foray into the sport, before anyone knew she would go on to win 39 Grand Slam titles and change the tennis world.
"American Masters Billie Jean King" is not only a story of athletic prowess, it is also one of her commitments to womens' rights and the LGBT community. Even if tennis may not be your cup of tea, there are deeper messages in this film that will resonate with all.
Two of the country's top investigative reporters, Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, have teamed up for the latest expose of college football. In "The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football," to be released tomorrow, Benedict and Keteyian examine the sport at some of the top football programs in the country.
Given unparalleled access to the inner workings of these programs, the pair reveals the system through the eyes of everyone most involved, from athletic directors to NCAA investigators to the student-athletes, or "athlete-students," as "The System" refers to them. This book focuses on more than just the doom and gloom; it is a celebration of college football as an American tradition. Still, it serves largely as a reminder of the darkness that lurks in the background of the bright stadium lights.
Sports enthusiast and playwright Eric Simonson has turned to the grand American pastime of baseball as inspiration for his latest production. "Bronx Bombers," opening tomorrow at Primary Stages in New York examines the Yankees' continuous domination and popularity in national culture.
The Yankees featured some of the most iconic and notorious players, both on the field and in the dugout. Simonson infuses the play with the personalities of the team's biggest names, including Babe Ruth, Yogi Berra and Derek Jeter.
