As unaware sports fans wonder why anyone’s making a fuss about the name of the Washington football team – Redskins – Don Marks’s new book, Playing The White Man’s Game ($24.95, University of Toroonto/J. Gordon Shillingford), comes at just the right time. Not only does it tell the stories of First Nations athletes, including track star Jim Thorpe and the NFL’s Wahoo McDaniel, it compares modern and traditional sports and deals with pointedly political issues like the use of problematic logos. Read it and you’ll understand why some NFL commentators won’t use Washington’s team name.
