Sports Through the Lens : Essays on 25 Iconic Photographs

2025 Anthology Award, North American Society for Sport History

The stories behind and legacies of important sports photos from the last 130 years.

Ever since photography and professional sports originated in the nineteenth century, photographers have shaped how we perceive sports. Sports through the Lens collects essays by twenty-five historians that consider what it means to capture and revisit a moment of cultural significance in sports, looking at each photo’s creation, its contexts, and how its meaning has shifted over time. Some essays provide fresh perspectives on such iconic images as Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston at their 1965 rematch and Michael Jordan soaring at the 1988 NBA All-Star Game slam dunk competition; others introduce readers to the lesser-known stories of the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon or the inaugural World Indigenous Games. The authors examine the photos' legacies alongside the artistry of both the athletes and the photographers. Reflecting on images of athletes from around the world engaged in sports from baseball to horse-racing to hockey, Sports through the Lens provides a wide-ranging meditation on the visual, historical, and cultural meaning of sports photographs.

Maureen M. Smith is a professor in the Department of Kinesiology at California State University, Sacramento and the co-author of (Re)Presenting Wilma Rudolph.

Daniel A. Nathan is a professor of American studies at Skidmore College and the author of Saying It’s So.

Sarah K. Fields is a professor of communication at the University of Colorado Denver and the author of Game Faces: Sport Celebrity and the Laws of Reputation and Female Gladiators: Gender, Law, and Contact Sport in America.