L’UFOLEP et sa commission scolaire sous la Quatrième République française : de la réhabilitation à l’embellie d’une voie sportive laïque dans l’école élémentaire

Cette recherche se propose d'éclairer la renaissance d’une fédération affinitaire sous la Quatrième République française, l’UFOLEP. Elle met l’accent sur les difficultés de reconstruction, puis sur la réussite à trouver un espace de développement. Celui-ci prend la voie de l'école élémentaire, par le biais de son ancienne commission scolaire : l’USEP. Dans ce cadre parascolaire, qui rayonne peu à peu à l’enseignement de l’EPS lui-même, l’USEP développe des innovations conformes à son éthique en faveur d’une éducation physique et d’un sport éducatif protégé des voies fédérales classiques. Cette orientation sportive (et non voie) s’accorde bien avec le registre doctrinal de la Ligue de l’Enseignement qui héberge ce mouvement sportif, autour d’une idée laïque repensée dans cette France d’après-guerre. En revanche l’UFOLEP peine à développer sa voie postscolaire qui, après s'être redressée, stagne.

Les activités physiques et sportives dans les institutions juives françaises durant l’Entre-deux-guerres (1918–1939) : un éclectisme de pratiques et d’objectifs

Jusqu’aux années vingt, les Juifs de France restent hermétiques à la dynamique de développement des activités sportives dans la société française. Mais, confrontées à des vagues successives d’immigration et à une montée progressive de l’antisémitisme, les communautés juives développent dans l’entre-deux-guerres un ensemble de réseaux et d’organisations favorables au développement des activités corporelles. Le sport devient alors un outil au service de ces organisations juives, qui l’utilisent selon des modalités et objectifs parfois très différents. Ne partageant pas exactement les mêmes visions de l’individu à former ni les mêmes objectifs, elles ne parviennent pas à s’associer pour se constituer en une institution sportive juive commune, influente, structurante et stable dans l’hexagone. L’étude du développement du sport communautaire juif est finalement pertinente pour mettre en évidence les multiples fonctions et valeurs attribuées aux activités corporelles, elles-mêmes dépendantes des volontés, aspirations et débats politiques des communautés.

Baylor University’s Football Stadia: Life Before McLane Stadium

The present study offers a descriptive history of the football grounds at Baylor from 1894 to 2014. The current review identifies important individuals and notable events that impacted the football facilities at Baylor. Moreover, the contextual factors influencing each period of change were recognized, and it was determined if Baylor’s facilities followed the pattern of other regional peers. In the case of Baylor, football ultimately created social anchors for the institution and Waco because the increasing popularity and commercial interest in college football produced spectacles capable of providing a unique campus spirit. Next, the spectacle of football and spirit both established and improved alumni relationships and corresponded with interest in elevating the prestige of the university and city to attract students, visitors, and businesses to operate in the area. Finally, the construction of various Baylor football playing grounds produced significant media attention capable of boosting enrollments and recognition that Baylor was a major university.

“Dead but Standing Erect”: Why Southern Conference Members Left to Form the Southeastern Conference

Thirteen institutions left the Southern Conference to form the Southeastern Conference during 1932. Why did these schools leave the Southern Conference? Previous historical research portrays the large size of the Southern Conference and the desire to pass academic reforms as reasons for the Southeastern Conference’s formation. This article argues that the university presidents and other administrators at Southeastern Conference institutions formed it to enhance the legitimacy of their member institutions. Throughout the Great Depression, the conference’s administrators pursued increased legitimacy by attempting to reform academic eligibility rules, allowing football games to be broadcast over the radio, awarding athletic scholarships, allowing member institutions to compete in emerging postseason football bowl games, and hiring a commissioner. This instance of conference realignment is historically significant because some of the policies implemented by the Southeastern Conference contributed to its rise as one of the top revenue-generating conferences in college athletics.

The Strategic Revolution: Scottish Ideals and Transnational Exchange in Golf Course Architecture, c. 1860s–1930s

Professional golf architects emerged in the early twentieth century across the English-speaking world. These new professionals coalesced around ideas that promoted a Scottish national conception of proper golf. When golf first migrated from the Scottish coasts inland, south into England, and across the oceans to the United States and the British Dominions in the latter half of the nineteenth century, no standardized form or set of ideals on Golf course architecture existed. Through their collective writings, professional golf architects from Britain, the United States, and Canada codified the values, design principles, and the romance of the ancient Scottish linksland courses as the standard way to design and construct golf courses. We therefore position golf courses as important sites of historical inquiry into the transmission of national styles. These Golden Age (1910–37) golf architects thus encouraged the transnational exchange of sport through the construction of golf courses in a peculiarly Scottish sense.

The Early Synecdochical Anchors of College Football: Fields and Facilities 1869–1903

The present study examines the early wooden facilities and grounds of American college football within National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and Ivy League schools from 1869 through 1903. Within, we identify what set of events and opportunities led to the development of the earliest football playing spaces. Furthermore, we recognize and explain what patterns of construction and renovation influenced the creation of permanent stadia. Critical environmental conditions that impacted the spread of knowledge about football and its playing grounds are recognized in addition to specific rules, which influenced the evolution of fields and facilities. Finally, we recognize the importance of facility enclosure and interests in producing revenues, and feature discussion on the movement of games from off- to on-campus while offering a collective picture of what these places looked like as potential synedochial social anchors for their institutions.