The revised book, first published in 2014, will have an additional 40 pages of information with new illustrations and appendixes.

“The book is intended for the fan and students of the game who have an interest in the origins and development of this remarkable sport and business,” Crepeau says.

The new material centers on the past decade; terms of commissioners Roger Goodell and Paul Tagliabue; tensions over collusion, drug policies and revenue; the controversy surrounding Colin Kaepernick and protests of police violence; and players retiring early over the threat to their long-term health benefits.

Crepeau also looks at the Super Bowl’s evolution into a national holiday.

“The NFL as of the end of the last Super Bowl is at the top of its power,” Crepeau says. “The future, like so much else, will depend heavily on the long-term impact of the COVID-19 crisis and the racial issues in sport and in society.”

The original publication looks at the forces that shaped the NFL, television contracts, labor issues, the addition of Monday Night Football, commissioner Pete Rozelle’s leadership, and other topics.

Crepeau retired from Â鶹ԭ´´ five years ago after 44 years teaching in the Department of History.

The book, printed by the University of Illinois Press, also is available on Amazon.

DaCunha, 44, who has a bachelor’s in history, is a business systems analyst at Red Lobster in Orlando, where he works to help create menus with meal descriptions, prices, nutrition and other information. If current Jeopardy! champion James Holzhauer wins today and Tuesday, DaCunha will face the player who at the moment holds the show’s top seven biggest daily prizes.

DaCunha says the Jeopardy! taping seemed to go so fast that he can’t remember most of the categories. The taping of the show might have been a blur rushing by, but his path to reach the show took a year.

“When I got the call from one of the producers, I had totally forgotten about my tryout,” he says.

“When I found out I would be on, my main goal was not to embarrass my family.”

He took the show’s online test in April 2018, had his regional audition in June, and taped his episode Feb. 27. He says show producers told him about 80,000 people a year take the online test, and about 5,000 advance to the regional winnowing, at which contestants take a timed written test and compete in a mock game against two other contestants. Of those, between 300 and 400 are flown to Los Angeles each year to compete on the show.

“I’d say my love of reading was my biggest asset to getting on the show.”

“I’d say my love of reading was my biggest asset to getting on the show,” DaCunha says. “That was definitely encouraged at Â鶹ԭ´´. I was in the honors program [now Burnett Honors College] and remember reading so many great books for my classes. Also, the library was one of my favorite places to hang out.”

He says Richard Crepeau and Ed Kallina, both now retired, were two of his favorite professors because “they did such a great job of making their classes interesting,” and his all-time favorite class was Crepeau’s Sport in American History.

Crepeau says he remembers DaCunha as an excellent student “and I am not at all surprised that he will be a contestant on Jeopardy!. I wish him best of luck. I hope he does not have to face the current champion who is just demolishing everyone he plays and setting records for single-day prize money.”

DaCunha also credits reaching the show to his time as a student assistant hired by history department coordinators Carole Gonzalez ’01 and Nancy Rauscher.

“Spending all that time in the history department exposed me to many different fields of research and discussions between professors,” he says. “I treasured my time there and will always be grateful to them for giving me that opportunity.”

Coincidentally, DaCunha’s wife, Carly, also appeared as a contestant on the show in 2012. The University of North Carolina graduate is now a textbook editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

“She didn’t win, but every response she gave was correct, including her Final Jeopardy! response,” he says.

At home, DaCunha says his favorite Jeopardy! questions are the ones he doesn’t know because they’re the ones that teach him something.

And as for show host Alex Trebek, “He is a genuine class act…He is pretty much what you see on TV—a gentleman and a scholar.”

Over the course of two decades, George Herman “Babe” Ruth Jr. transformed America’s national pastime from a game of speed into a game of power, from the national pastime to a national institution. The long-ball hitters came to overshadow the base stealers, the bunters, and the hit-and-run artists, while the fans fell in love with the home run.

They also fell in love with Ruth, who delivered home runs at a rate never before seen in baseball.

Some have called Ruth a symbol of his time. He reaffirmed the Horatio Alger success story; he displayed the strength and power of a Paul Bunyan; and he was a rugged individual in the new urban corporate world that demanded conformity. He defied authority and still achieved massive fame and success before he died from cancer in 1948 at the age of 53.

How did he reach this pinnacle, and what does he still mean to us today?

That first home run came at the Polo Grounds in New York, where the Boston Red Sox were playing the New York Yankees. Ruth sent the first pitch he saw in the third inning into the upper stands in right field with 8,000 fans in attendance. Ruth, the Sox pitcher that day, took the loss in extra innings.

A year earlier, at age 19, Ruth had made his debut pitching for the Red Sox, but he only logged 10 at bats that season. He remained in Boston through 1919 and continued to pitch, although each year he played an increasing number of games in the outfield. In 1918 Ruth led the league in home runs with 11. He added a league-leading 29, a new major league single-season record, the following year when he also led the league in runs scored and runs batted in.

Although a very good pitcher, Ruth was an even better hitter and the Red Sox grew dependent on both his arm and his bat. In 1916 he led the American League with the best pitching earned run average and in the 1918 World Series he pitched 29 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings, a record that stood until 1961.

The Babe’s future was not in pitching, but in hitting. When the Yankees purchased him from the Red Sox for $125,000, they were paying for hitting, not pitching.

In 1920 Ruth shattered the home run record with 54 (only one other whole team had more), and bested himself the next season with 59. In 1927 he set a new mark with 60 home runs. He was the first player to reach 30, 40, 50 and 60 home runs in a season, and between 1926 and 1931 he averaged over 50 home runs a season.

The numbers are staggering, and not just in home runs. Ruth led the league in RBIs five times, runs scored eight times, walks 11 times, and on-base percentage 10 times, and he won the batting crown once. As an outfielder he had a strong arm, and base runners didn’t usually challenge him.

In addition to the sharp increase in home runs, Ruth’s career influenced a sharp increase in runs scored per game and batting average all across Major League Baseball. Although there are many reasons given for this change, the most likely explanation is that hitters were swinging for the fences and therefore when they made contact they were hitting the ball not only farther, but also harder than ever. Conversely, there was a steady decrease in stolen bases. In 1916 there were 2.21 stolen bases per game across the major leagues and by 1930 there were only .87 per game.

It is not just the home run for which Ruth is remembered. He was performing his great feats at a time when celebrity was established as a centerpiece in mass culture. Ruth’s fame spread well beyond the diamond, and his personal life became a matter of interest to the general public, not just baseball fans.

The Babe’s off-field antics were widely reported and added considerable volume to the roar of the Roaring Twenties. He became known for his overeating, his high-speed automotive habits, and his general extravagances. Less well known, but equally large, was his appetite for women and alcohol.

The reputation for a wild lifestyle was tempered by stories of his special bond with children. He was often described as a child or childlike, and although he was not an orphan he was generally reported to be orphaned at a young age. It was tempered, too, by the times he publicly acted in the role of the reformed sinner, rededicating himself to baseball and to the children for whom he was a hero.

Ruth’s success brought him a high salary from the Yankees and endless endorsement opportunities in the new world of America’s consumer culture. He was the first baseball player to have an agent/manager, Christy Walsh, who along with the second Mrs. Ruth, Claire, organized Ruth’s off-field business opportunities and managed his wealth. Claire was able to curb some of Ruth’s off-field excesses, and that likely extended the Bambino’s playing career.

In the end, Ruth is a near mythic figure who remains a hero and a wonder across generations of baseball fans, and indeed in the general population.

His name has become an adjective in our language, as we still speak of “Ruthian clouts” and “Ruthian achievements.” Perhaps this cannot be explained fully, but sportswriter Bill McGheehan came close when in 1925 he wrote that Ruth “is our national exaggeration.”ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý

Ruth, indeed, offered an exaggerated version of individualism, defiance of authority, power, strength, excess, and record-breaking achievements. And he did so while achieving wealth and fame while maintaining his image as the ordinary American.

It is difficult to imagine that anyone could repeat this feat today, a century after the Babe first showed how.

Historian Richard Crepeau is a Â鶹ԭ´´ professor whose research interests are 20th century U.S. history, cultural history, and sports history. His latest book is “NFL Football: A History of America’s New National Pastime.” He can be reached at Richard.Crepeau@ucf.edu.

Ěý

In the academic world, one unit of time is the academic year broken in into blocks called semesters, which in turn are divided into two parts split by the mid-term. Terms are also subdivided into weeks, and weeks into credit hours.

At the beginning of the semester the end seems a long way off, and at the end it seems to have sped by in the twinkling of an eye. At times it seems it will never end, while at other times it seems as if it could not be over yet – and one is left to wonder why there is never enough time to get everything done.

So here we are at the end of another semester, wondering how it could have gone by so fast. It is also the end of another academic year, which usually raises the same question.

For some students it is the end of their college career, and they will move on to a world in which time will be divided in any number of other ways. Yet, no matter how these blocks of time are divided, they too will have the dual character of speed and slowness.

As the graduates look forward, they anticipate a long life ahead hoping to fulfill dreams of career, family and personal growth. We know, of course, that for some the dreams will be realized, but for others they will fade. We know that for some, longevity will be denied, while for others the decades will push relentlessly forward.

For the life of a university, time will loop back on itself. The cycles will be repeated with new students taking the seats of those who have gone before them. For professors the challenge is to go back to the beginning of the cycle and find new energy and new ways of conveying their knowledge and experience to students whose experiences are different from those who have graduated and left the campus.

The old must be made fresh and new for those students for whom all is new. For each new cohort of students the university experience is novel. Some come to the campus with great anticipation and excitement, while others come because it is what is expected of them by parents and peers; going to college is just something you do. It is simply a next step in life.

In the classroom, professors meet both groups and are challenged by them in very different ways. The trick is to reach both groups and give them something that will enable them to cope with a rapidly changing world filled with hope and promise, both real and false.

I am often asked how students today differ from those of decades past. I don’t have any profound answer from years of observation, but one thing seems to stand out. Students today arrive in college with more information than any of their predecessors, but with no greater grasp of meaning or knowledge.

They have more tools than their predecessors and this constitutes both an advantage and a potential distraction. The value of tools, from the first discovery of the wheel onwards, depended upon the use to which they were put, and so, too, with the electronic wonders of our time.

So are students today different from those of the past? Yes, clearly they are. They have the same basic needs. They need to know who they are, and they need to have some notion of how to navigate their way ahead.

For me the most important things a student should take away from the university are an ability to ask questions, to seek answers, and above all to be able to identify all those things that masquerade as authentic, and separate them from those that are not.

A great university will assist its students in acquiring this ability, while an ordinary university will either let them pass through unaffected or merely prepare them to fill a job and pass their time on the planet.

President Obama has also donned the mantle of the champion of the middle class, something that was a theme in his re-election campaign. At least 85 percent of all Americans think of themselves as middle class, and nearly all Americans, except the rich, aspire to be members of the middle class.

The essence of the American dream, for at least a century and a half, has been the dream of upward mobility, rising to or within the middle class. The major vehicle in the movement has been education, and therefore equal access to that education is vital to maintaining the American dream. A century ago that meant access to public education through the high school level. A high school diploma was the key to advancement.

Since World War II this standard has been changing and we have now arrived at the point at which a college degree has replaced the high school diploma as one of the keys to advancement. Possession of a college degree today is as important as holding a high school diploma was a century ago. Today, undergraduate education should be open to all those academically qualified– andĚý at no cost.ĚýPublic education must be truly public up at least through the bachelor’s degree.

It is not a surprise to those of us in public higher education to see an increasing number of reports on the decline of upward mobility in America. It should, in fact, be quite alarming across America that European societies are displaying more upward mobility than our own, even the class-encrusted British world.

When I finished my undergraduate education, I walked away without any debt. When I finished my M.A., it was the same. When I finished my Ph.D., I had some debt but it was not a burden to pay back over a decade.

If I received a Bachelor of Arts from an American public university today, given the same background out of which I came, I would be leaving with a diploma and backpack of debt that would not only be a burden for a decade, but would have made it very difficult for me to eventually get an M.A., let alone a Ph.D. The upward mobility that I experienced would not have taken place, my life would have been considerably different, and who knows where that might have led.

It is difficult to watch undergraduates who are working full-time try to survive in a college classroom taking a full academic load. They are doing that because of a plethora of pressures pushing them to finish the degree as fast as possible. Some do not make it for a variety of reasons, but within that variety the financial issues are nearly always a significant element. If they do make it, they walk away with considerable debt facing a difficult job market and beginning their working career far behind the starting gate.

The point is that presidential administrations can talk all they want about the cost of higher education and the need to bring it down —Ěýand they should — but they must also talk about the importance of the college degree. They must devise a way to make that degree as accessible for this generation as a high school diploma was for previous generations.

If this can’t be done then it is time to lay the American dream to rest, and watch longingly as societies across the world create levels of mobility that allow their young people to dream the dream that is now fading in America.

Â鶹ԭ´´ Forum columnist Dick Crepeau is a history professor at the Â鶹ԭ´´ and can be reached at Richard.Crepeau@ucf.edu.ĚýĚý

I just can’t adjust to Christmas in Florida – not the religious holiday, but the secular one featuring Santa, his reindeer, fake snowmen, gingerbread men, Charlie Brown and his friends, and any number of inflatable or Styrofoam characters populating front yards around the community. They seem to have taken over Central Florida like some sort of alien occupying force.

Then of course there are the lights.

The lights! The lights!

They’re scattered everywhere across the fronts of houses, adorning bushes, swirling around palm tree trunks and flashing from the fronds.

What is it about Floridians and Christmas lights? Do transplanted Yankees have some sort of strange need to bury themselves in lights? Are they overcompensating for the lack of snow and cold weather so familiar in their childhood?

How else to explain the cascading avalanche of green, red and white light that gives a strange twilight glow to neighborhoods well after sunset? How can you possibly get excited about a Santa sleigh of lights, pulled by blinking reindeer, piercing the night through the fog born of 100 percent humidity? Not exactly a veritable winter wonderland.

Then there are bushes covered with white lights blinking on and off in a kind of studied random pattern, which, if you watch long enough, can leave you nauseous. Small hedges are covered with red or green lights. Even worse are multi-colored arrangements that appear to have been created by monkeys throwing light bulbs at hedges, offering no recognizable pattern, only scattered bulbs in riotous forms.

One is reminded of those strange modern art “events” of the ’60s at which people threw various colors of paint at a canvas, which generally resulted in something that wasn’t quite art.

On top of a subdivision wall I saw a strange blue line the other night. It resembled a series of dots running for about 50 yards along the side of the road. I had never seen it before, and so I assume it had some mystical Christmas meaning that only certain “special” people could discern. Clearly I wasn’t one of them.

Just the other day I had an encounter with a new variation on Christmas decorations. I saw several cars adorned with antlers. Not those that come as trophies of the hunt, but synthetic ones sticking up from the roofs.

One car even had a red ball attached to the middle front grill, like is was Rudolph the Red-nosed Range Rover.ĚýĚý

Yeah, that really put me in the Christmas spirit.

This was not a transcendent moment taking me back to my childhood, but a torrent of tackiness reminding me just how far gone some Floridians are as they struggle in vain to convince themselves that it really is Christmas, even if Santa is wearing a swimsuit and catching a wave.

Such an image has been immortalized with a new holiday recording carrying the off-putting title, “Christmas in the Sand.” Somehow I don’t think it will become a classic, but then who other than Gene Autry thought Rudolph” would become better known than the three kings?ĚýĚý

The single most amazing piece of schlock I’ve seen over the years is a neon sign spelling out “Happy Birthday Jesus,” in the distinctive neon script used to spell out “Miller High Life” in the windows of neighborhood taverns. Such tackiness has no peer.

Perhaps it’s time to send the worst offenders off to Maine or Minnesota for a two-week stint of deprogramming amidst the delights of a December blizzard. They obviously need help, having failed to make the adjustment to Christmas in Florida as they continue to insist that artificial Christmas trees, blinking lights, and Styrofoam snowmen are essential to the season.

I do like Christmas but just not in these conditions, where Santa is more likely to sweat bullets than sort out who has been naughty or nice.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Aren’t you glad it only comes once a year?Ěý

I had the good fortune of spending the last five months of 2011 in London, while teaching in the FSU London Program, where I was able to witness these various reactions firsthand.Ěý

The legacy of the London Games is a subject being discussed and debated in the media and by public officials. Members of the London Organizing Committee stress the event’sĚý“legacy” as a way of reassuring the public that the extravagant cost of staging the games is a wise investment for the people of EnglandĚý– and not a public burden, as has been the case in Greece and China.

The budget has reached 15 billion English pounds (about $23.7 billion), a significant increase from the original projected budget of less than 6 billion pounds (about $9.5 billion). In the past few months the budget for the opening and closing ceremonies was doubled, and at the insistence of the United States, the security budget was also doubled.

This is a tough sell given the fact that unemployment is at a 17-year high, and an austerity budget has been implemented by the English government with a call for sacrifice by the English people. Undaunted by the task, Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson continue to trumpet the benefits of the games, preferring to discuss the finances in terms of “investment” rather than “cost overrun.”

The promised legacy is multifaceted. First, is the opportunity to present the best of Britain to the massive global television audience as well as to visitors. Of more long-term significance is the makeover of East London. Abandoned lands and urban blight have been replaced by the Olympic Park and the Westfield Mall in Stratford.

New public transport for East London includes a massive hub through which nearly every visitor will pass. Affordable housing is another part of the legacy with a projected 11,000 new housing units. The Olympic Village, or at least part of its 3,000 units, is included in that number.

The removal of residents from some East London neighborhoods, the increase in rents, and rising costs of housing in the area, offer a different legacy. Promises that 30 percent of jobs and construction contracts would go to locals were quietly abandoned shortly after the games were awarded to London.

Growing concerns in Britain over obesity are being addressed as part of the Olympic legacy. It was anticipated that the excitement generated by the games could be translated into an increase in public fitness and exercise programs. Sport England, the organization charged with achieving this part of the legacy, projected involvement of more than a million people in their programs. At the end of 2011 they had achieved about 11 percent of their goal.

So will there be any positive legacy at all for the Games?

Certainly the Westfield Mall at Stratford will do plenty of business during the games. The hotel and restaurant proprietors will do well, not so much by an increase in business, as by an increase in prices. The Olympic Park itself will be a positive addition to the neighborhood, while the new sports venues could make a significant contribution to the Stratford area.

Whether the profits and the long-term legacy of these venues can be sustained is the great unknown.

Some cities have successfully used the Olympics to transform themselves. Barcelona is generally cited as one of the best in this regard, as blighted areas were transformed, the city was opened to the sea by the construction of the Olympic Village and port, and the infrastructure was modernized.

At the other end of the spectrum, Athens and Beijing now feature underused, locked and rusting Olympic venues, many of which are still being paid for.

The Olympic Stadium in Montreal with its massive cost overruns was not completed until 1987 – 11 years after the games – and it took 30 years to pay off the debt. The current collapse of the Greek economy is attributed at least in part to massive debt incurred for the 2004 Olympics.

So what will be the legacy of London 2012?

At this stage it is difficult to offer a definitive answer. What we do know is that NBC will offer American television viewers an upbeat portrait of the games and its legacy. London 2012 officials will be quoted in all available media about the wondrous things happening to London and England as a result of the games.

The sporting events will be exciting as elite athletes from around the globe compete for their glory and our entertainment. The personal stories of the athletes will be inspiring. The pageantry of the opening and closing ceremonies will be breathtaking.

We will all get swept up in the “Olympic Spirit.”

None ofĚýthis is legacy. The determination of that will come later.

What history tells us, however, Ěýis the chance of a positive legacy is somewhat less than 50-50.

Â鶹ԭ´´ Forum columnist Dick Crepeau is a history professor at the Â鶹ԭ´´ and can be reached at Richard.Crepeau@ucf.edu.ĚýĚý