Throwbacks: A Newsletter About Sports History and Culture

Throwbacks: A Newsletter About Sports History and Culture

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The Undefeated Team College Basketball Doesn't Want
Fifty years after Indiana went undefeated, does winning still matter more than metrics?
 • Michael Weinreb
The Five: Even They Couldn't Ruin These Olympics
Mikaela Shiffrin, George Orwell, and why patriotism is not nationalism.
 • Michael Weinreb
Oakland's Alysa Liu: A Brief Coda
This is Throwbacks, a newsletter by me, Michael Weinreb, about sports, history, culture, and politics—and how they all bleed together.
 • Michael Weinreb
Mark Cuban Wants the NBA to Embrace Tanking. That's a Terrible Idea.
The former Mavericks owner thinks fans don't care about competition or the collective good of the league. The NFL's century of dominance would seem to…
 • Michael Weinreb
Olympic Fame Used To Be Optional. Now It's an Obligation (1980)
Eric Heiden won five gold medals and chose anonymity. Today's Olympians are performing under a weight that didn't exist then.
 • Michael Weinreb
The Beautiful Face of Socialism (1988)
Katarina Witt had to perform loyalty for East Germany or lose her freedom. Is America still the counterbalance?
 • Michael Weinreb
Special Edition: Throwbacks Goes To the Super Bowl
I watched the least interesting Super Bowl in years from inside a fishbowl. Then Bad Bunny happened.
 • Michael Weinreb
Does Football Need Violence to be Football?
The rest of the world is co-opting our most essential sport...and leaving behind the one thing that might destroy it.
 • Michael Weinreb
The Super Bowl Is Too Big To Escape Reality (1989)
The Miami riots, Bad Bunny, and how America’s biggest sporting event encompasses everything everywhere all at once.
 • Michael Weinreb
Worst. Super Bowl Uniforms. Ever?
How NFL uniforms got objectively worse, and why no one will admit it.
 • Michael Weinreb
The Orangeburg Massacre and the Fight Against Forgetting (1968)
Fifty-eight years before Minneapolis, a group of Black students, led by the football team, were gunned down in cold blood while protesting segregation…
 • Michael Weinreb
The Loneliness of the Backup Quarterback
On Earl Morrall, Jarrett Stidham, and the lost art of patience.
 • Michael Weinreb
The Artist and The Scoreboard
Caleb Williams made the throw of the year. His team lost. How much does it matter?
 • Michael Weinreb
A Throwbacks Conversation: Chuck Klosterman on the Cotton Bowl...and Many Other Football Things...
...including defunct rock festivals, Roger Staubach, his oddly conservative video-game strategy, and football's future (or lack thereof).
 • Michael Weinreb
Throwbacks: A Newsletter About Sports History and Culture
Throwbacks: A Newsletter About Sports History and Culture
An Off the Beaten Path Exploration of Sports History, Culture, and Politics (and Assorted Minutiae)
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Throwbacks: A Newsletter About Sports History and Culture

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