To the Extreme

Alternative Sports, Inside and Out

Edited by Robert E. Rinehart & Synthia Sydnor

Subjects: General Interest
Series: SUNY series on Sport, Culture, and Social Relations
Paperback : 9780791456668, 450 pages, March 2003
Hardcover : 9780791456651, 450 pages, March 2003

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Table of contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1. PROEM
Robert E. Rinehart and Synthia Sydnor

ROLLERBLADING

2. PSYCHOTIC RANT
Arlo Eisenberg

3. DROPPING INTO SIGHT
Commodification and Co-Optation of In-Line Skating
Robert E. Rinehart

WINDSURFING

4. JOURNEY TO LA GRINGA
Bob Galvan

5. WINDSURFING
A Subculture of Commitment
Belinda Wheaton

SKY DIVING/DANCING/SURFING

6. FREE DIMENSIONAL SKYDIVING
Tamara Koyn

7. SOARING
Synthia Sydnor

BMX

8. SMALL BIKES, BIG MEN
Brett Downs

9. BMX, EXTREME SPORTS, AND THE WHITE MALE BACKLASH
Kyle Kusz

MOUNTAIN BIKING

10. OUT OF THE GENE POOL AND INTO THE FOOD CHAIN
Lee Bridgers

11. MOUNTAIN BIKING MADNESS
Simon Eassom

ECO-CHALLENGE

12. ECO (EGO?) CHALLENGE
British Columbia, 1996
Jim Cotter

13. "ANOTHER KIND OF LIFE"
Adventure Racing and Epic Expeditions
Martha Bell

KAYAKING/WHITEWATER SPORTS

14. THE WRONG SIDE OF THE THIN EDGE
Ron Watters

15. WHITEWATER SPORTS
From Extreme to Standardization
Jean-Pierre Mounet and Pierre Chifflet

CLIMBING

16. XTREEM
David Dornian

17. THE GREAT DIVIDE
Sport Climbing vs. Adventure Climbing
Peter Donnelly

SURFING

18. VINTAGE DAYS IN THE BIG WAVES OF LIFE
Greg Page

19. EXPRESSION SESSIONS
Surfing, Style, and Prestige
Douglas Booth

SKATEBOARDING

20. AUTHENTICITY IN THE SKATEBOARDING WORLD
Becky Beal and Lisa Weidman

21. DRAWING LINES
A Report from the Extreme World (sic)
Jeff Howe

EXTREME SKIING

22. MAY 27, 1998
Kirsten Kremer

23. OH SAY CAN YOU SKI?
Imperialistic Construction of Freedom in Warren Miller's Freeriders
Joanne Kay and Suzanne Laberge

SNOWBOARDING

24. SNOWBOARDING
The Essence Is Fun
Jake Burton

25. SELLING OUT SNOWBOARDING
The Alternative Response to Commercial Co-optation
Duncan Humphreys

INDEX

Insider and outsider narratives on the essence of modern “extreme” sports.

Description

An international array of authors, including some prominent extreme athletes like Jake Burton and Arlo Eisenberg, look at a variety of issues and concerns within the new action extreme sports that are gaining popularity throughout the world. For each sport, an interpretation is presented through two essays: one written by a scholar active in some aspect of research for the given activity, and another by a practitioner/athlete who writes "from the inside out." The juxtaposed essays confront questions about the essence of sport such as, What is sport?; How does it originate?; and What is its use, value, and function? This book offers a fascinating look at how twentieth- and twenty-first-century sport forms emerge, proliferate, and take hold in a sport-crazy world.

Robert E. Rinehart teaches Kinesiology at California State University at San Bernardino. He is the author of Players All: Performances in Contemporary Sport. Synthia Sydnor is Associate Professor of Kinesiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.