Learning to Win

“[This book] provides a fascinating window onto race, gender, class and mainstream culture.” — New York Times

“In the richness of its detail and the quality of its analysis, Learning to Win is a most satisfying book. . . . An intelligent and sophisticated book. Not only does nearly every page contain perceptive observations, but Grundy has been remarkably successful in weaving together into a smooth narrative the complex meanings of North Carolina’s recent sporting history.” — Journal of American History

“Outstanding. . . . This superbly researched book, heavily based on oral history, with over 50 photographs, is highly recommended to general readers and upper-division undergraduates through faculty and researchers/professionals.” — CHOICE

“An exhaustive and engaging account that shows how critical sports studies can provide meaningful connections between athletics and the larger culture.” — American Studies

“Displaying her keen sense of how material culture as well as oral history can inform the study of identity and community, Grundy deftly situates sports into the ways both men and women fashioned a sense of themselves as individuals and as members of larger polities during the transformation of North Carolina from an agricultural to an increasingly urban and industrial society.” — Journal of Southern History

“Learning to Win is by far the best book on the relationship between sports and education in southern history. By studying sports among high school and college males and females, black and white, Pamela Grundy brings new insights to the often slow movement toward today’s big-time, big-money spectator sports. Her use of oral histories and countless college publications helps show the human side of sports for players, fans, boosters, and school administrators.” — Ted Ownby, University of Mississippi

“In exploring the history of high school and industrial league sports in North Carolina alongside intercollegiate athletics — with equal attention to urban and rural, male and female, white and black — Grundy has produced a portrait uncommonly rich in both breadth and depth. Every chapter is original, and the book as a whole, by weaving together its various stories so artfully, is genuinely groundbreaking work. Learning to Win is superb sport history.” — Michael Oriard, Oregon State University