Robert Scoop Jackson’s third book, “The Game is Not a Game: The Power, Protest and Politics of American Sports” (Haymarket Books) came out in March just as the national coronavirus lockdown began.
Jackson said it came after once being bothered by a sentence in an online article on the greatest football coaches, which included the late Grambling coach Eddie Robinson: “A great example of the ways in which racism, the subtle politics of the game, and the power of media to dictate the narrative in sports interact” is how he began the concluding section.
Before he joined ESPN in 2005, Jackson lent his insightful, unapologetic voice on sports and society to previous editorial positions at Hoop, Inside Stuff, Slam and XXL.
“The NFL is pretty much representative of America in its thought process and its function… I will call out the NFL in its hypocrisy,” Jackson declares in his chapter on former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and the anthem protests issue.
The author tackles the issue of how women athletes are disrespected and unfairly compared with males, a spinoff of a 2011 ESPN column he wrote, Jackson said.
