Happy 2018 from the Sport Heritage Review! A few brief sport heritage research tidbits to start the new year:

Clemson Football Memories Project: We are now into the analysis phase of our Clemson Football Memories Project, which combines sport heritage and reminiscence therapy to address dementia and other memory-related issues. In addition to our analysis, Clemson’s media relations team put together a great story and video that talks a bit about our project:

Over the holiday break, we were thrilled to receive regional and national attention for our project. Over thirty stories appeared across the US based off of the original press release, including this news clip from WYFF in Greenville, South Carolina:

While the media attention is welcome, we are currently seeking follow-up funding to continue the project further. We think, based off of our pilot project, that there is room for this project to grow and (hopefully) help more people.

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum: This week, Sean Gammon of the University of Central Lancashire and I will be visiting the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York to work on a few different research projects, including how popular sport heritage tourist sites negotiate their cultural and economic outputs, as well as to continue our work about heroes as sport heritage, to understand a bit more about the idea of “home” and sport heritage, and to understand a bit more about authorized and unauthorized forms of heritage vis-a-vis sport heritage. This will be our first visit to Cooperstown and, despite the forecast of very chilly weather, we are excited to head to upstate New York to continue our work.

Sport Heritage monograph: Work continues on the sport heritage monograph, tentatively titled Heritage and Sport: An Introduction. At present, a copy is due to Channel View Publications in October of this year. Approximately two-thirds of the book has been drafted, with the remainder of an initial draft expected to be completed by the end of April. The summer will be spent adding to the draft and sending to colleagues for informal review.