Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Sport and Society

2019; Linguagem: Inglês

10.21061/alan.v46i2.a.10

1547-741X

Carl Deuker,

Sports, Gender, and Society

overcome prove to be too high and too many and are ultimately insurmountable to him.His inability to dedicate his life entirely to his sport is a reminder that you need resources to get resources.With some family support and perhaps money, maybe he could have achieved his dream to be a prizefighter.Literature, media, and popular culture seize the narrative that champions are self-made, but that's seldom the case.Great champions are forged through careful grooming and the sacrifices of others.Grit and dedication are not the only elements that help athletes become champions and recognized celebrities who are able to transcend their circumstances.Not having that help-like parents who pay your rent or people willing to train youcan be a deal breaker.Kelly: I think so many people love the myth of sports greats rising from the proverbial ashes because it lets us off the hook as a society; if people can succeed through hard work, then it doesn't mean we've utterly failed them when, like Miguel, that doesn't happen because of an inequitable distribution of resources. Carl:The idea that sports are a great equalizer is appealing, and there is some truth to it.All levels of sports have athletes who have overcome hardships to make the team, whatever that team is.But for most kids, sports reflect the society we live in, with all its barriers.Golden Arm, the book I'm working on, has as its main character a kid who is poor.He's a born From the Editors: In this piece, we are honored to feature a written conversation among Carl Deuker, Kelly Loy Gilbert, and Claudia Meléndez Salinas, inspirational authors who explore the relationships among sport, society, and characters as important elements of their books.We greatly appreciate the generous response of the authors (and their publishers) and their willingness to engage with challenging questions that focus on the role of sport and society in various contexts, particularly how perceptions and realities of sport help shape both individuals and communities.As to process, we generated and sent a series of questions to the authors.We compiled their initial responses into a single document and then sent the compiled version back and forth to solicit questions, elaborations, and revisions until all were satisfied with the end result.We hope our readers enjoy the important insights offered in the thoughtful responses of these authors for adolescents. In your books, do you see sport as a "great equalizer," or do you think that sport perpetuates barriers among individuals and groups that already exist, in terms of class, race, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, etc.?Claudia: The main character of my novel, Miguel Ángel (from A Fighting Chance, 2015), is the son of a Mexican immigrant field laborer.He wants to overcome his financial barriers and his circumstances through the power of his punches.He sees boxing as his way out, or the great equalizer that he so desperately seeks.But the barriers he must