In this exhilarating tour of the good, the bad, and the ugly of American sports culture, iconoclastic cultural historian and Nation magazine writer Dave Zirin argues that American sports are about a lot more than just fun and games. Exploding the myth that the world of sports somehow stands outside the world of politics and ideology, Zirin shows how American sports culture has long been a haven for the most reactionary attitudes and ideas, promoting everything from nationalism and militarism to sexism, racism, and homophobia. At the same time, he identifies an equally strong countercurrent, a history of rebel athletes whose high-profile resistance to jingoistic patriotism, heterosexist masculine authority, white male privilege, and other forms of bullying have reverberated beyond the field