West Virginia University Press has published a history of sports in the state called Hillside Fields: A History of Sports in West Virginia by Bob Barnett.

West Virginia’s championship teams at WVU and Marshall University and athletic superstars like Jerry West and Mary Lou Retton are familiar to all, but few know the full, untold story of sports in the Mountain State. Hillside Fields: A History of Sports in West Virginia chronicles the famous athletic triumphs and heart-breaking losses of local heroes and legendary teams, recording the Titanic struggles of a small state competing alongside larger rivals.

Hillside Fields provides a broad view of the development of sports in West Virginia, from one of the first golf clubs in America at Oakhurst Links to the Greenbrier Classic; from the first girls basketball championship in 1919 to post Title IX; from racially segregated sports to integrated teams; and from the days when West Virginia Wesleyan and Davis & Elkins beat the big boys in football to the championship teams at WVU, Marshall, West Virginia State and West Liberty. Hillside Fields explains how major national trends and events, as well as West Virginia’s economic, political, and demographic conditions, influenced the development of sports in the state. The story of the growth of sports in West Virginia is also a story of the tribulations, hopes, values and triumphs of a proud people.

Bob Barnett taught sport history at Marshall University in West Virginia for 35 years. He has published more than 300 articles in publications such as Saturday Evening Post, American National Biography, the Washington Post, Sports Heritage, and the Dallas Cowboy News, has been a section editor for the_ Journal of Sport History_ and the Encyclopedia of Appalachia, and has written two documentaries for West Virginia Public Television. Barnett is the author of Growing Up in the Last Small Town: A West Virginia Memoir.
To order this title or to learn more about this book or any WVU Press title, visit www.wvupress.com or call (800) 621-2736.

Hillside Fields: A History of Sports in West Virginia by Bob Barnett
May 2013: 352pp
PB 978-1-935978-67-1 : $22.99
ePub 978-1-935978-69-5: $22.99

-WVU-

af/05/09/13

CONTACT: Abby Freeland, Marketing Manager, WVU Press
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