Famous for a Time

Jason Wilson and Richard M. Reid’s Famous for a Time is an engaging and accessible anthology that explores the lives of some of Canada’s most remarkable athletes from the 1800s and the first part of the twentieth century, including the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games.

Wilson, a professor of history at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, and Reid, a professor emeritus at the same university, highlight the constraints these athletes faced. Through the lens of sports, they pay particular attention to the impact of colonialism on Indigenous peoples, revealing how arbitrary constructs were introduced under the guise of creating a more “scientific” approach to various games.

Their book narrates the evolution of the sportsperson as a profession — a unique career intricately linked to a pervasive betting culture, where even judges of sporting events placed bets on certain athletes, often favouring one competitor over another. Betting culture was also a significant factor in baseball’s rise to popularity over the slower-paced game of cricket, which struggled to shed its image as a gentleman’s game.

The authors mention the ways shifting gender norms were brought about by the rising popularity of different sports, particularly cycling. The resilience of the athletes whose stories the authors tell — many of them non-white and from poorer families — reflects their capacities to navigate adverse circumstances and their determination to make sports a viable career.