Indian Spectacle

College Mascots and the Anxiety of Modern America

By Jennifer Guiliano

SERIES: Critical Issues in Sport and Society

Rutgers University Press

Amid controversies surrounding the team mascot and brand of the Washington Redskins in the National Football League and the use of mascots by K–12 schools, Americans demonstrate an expanding sensitivity to the pejorative use of references to Native Americans by sports organizations at all levels. In Indian Spectacle, Jennifer Guiliano exposes the anxiety of American middle-class masculinity in relation to the growing commercialization of collegiate sports and the indiscriminate use of Indian identity as mascots.

Indian Spectacle explores the ways in which white, middle-class Americans have consumed narratives of masculinity, race, and collegiate athletics through the lens of Indian-themed athletic identities, mascots, and music. Drawing on a cross-section of American institutions of higher education, Guiliano investigates the role of sports mascots in the big business of twentieth-century American college football in order to connect mascotry to expressions of community identity, individual belonging, stereotyped imagery, and cultural hegemony.

Against a backdrop of the current level of the commercialization of collegiate sports—where the collective revenue of the fifteen highest grossing teams in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has well surpassed one billion dollars—Guiliano recounts the history of the creation and spread of mascots and university identities as something bound up in the spectacle of halftime performance, the growth of collegiate competition, the influence of mass media, and how athletes, coaches, band members, spectators, university alumni, faculty, and administrators, artists, writers, and members of local communities all have contributed to the dissemination of ideas of Indianness that is rarely rooted in native people’s actual lives.

Novel and fresh, Indian Spectacle is a well researched and clearly written history of sport and society in the United States. Guiliano's sound, thorough, and comprehensive book makes a significant contribution to advancing current understandings in new and important ways. C. Richard King, professor of comparative ethnic studies, Washington State University

Persuasively locating the University of Illinois as historical ground zero, Guiliano offers a beautifully written and thoroughly researched account of the development of the sport mascot. Indian Spectacle sets the standard for understanding the origins of the craziness at halftime. Philip J. Deloria, author of Playing Indian

For such a short book, the breadth of Indian Spectacle is impressive. It combines a handful of complicated, overlapping histories into a single narrative, providing the context to explore, analyze, and understand Indian mascots. This allows Guiliano to offer a nuanced understanding of the role of college sports in America and the power of their images and experiences. While college sports and mascots are the focus, Indian Spectacle further challenges us to explore issues of community identity, cultural heritage, and mass marketing in other settings. Sport in American History

Concise and eloquently written, Indian Spectacle offers valuable insights into the growth in popularity of football in America and the importance of the spectacle of mascots and halftime performances in narratives of white masculinity and dominance. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

A welcome addition to both scholarly and popular debates about the cultural appropriaton of American Indian images as sports mascots … Scholars of cultural history, American Indian studies, and ethnic studies will find this book particularly useful, and the general reading public will find Giuliano's narrative revelatory. Highly recommended. CHOICE

The hallmark of [Indian Spectacle] is in bringing history to light in the contemporary conversation about Native American mascots. History of Education Quarterly

Indian Spectacle is tightly argued and well researched, theoretically rigorous and clearly written. Great Plains Quarterly

An outstanding contribution to a growing literature on native mascots. The Historian

A welcome historical text [that] adds a crucial perspective to this pressing and divisive issue in America. French Journal of Media Studies

The Mascot Is Fiction. The War Is Real: Why Chief Illiniwek, retired more than a decade ago, still inspires anger, pain, and pride at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign' by Chris Quintana Chronicle of Higher Education

Novel and fresh, Indian Spectacle is a well researched and clearly written history of sport and society in the United States. Guiliano's sound, thorough, and comprehensive book makes a significant contribution to advancing current understandings in new and important ways. C. Richard King, professor of comparative ethnic studies, Washington State University

For such a short book, the breadth of Indian Spectacle is impressive. It combines a handful of complicated, overlapping histories into a single narrative, providing the context to explore, analyze, and understand Indian mascots. This allows Guiliano to offer a nuanced understanding of the role of college sports in America and the power of their images and experiences. While college sports and mascots are the focus, Indian Spectacle further challenges us to explore issues of community identity, cultural heritage, and mass marketing in other settings. Sport in American History

Concise and eloquently written, Indian Spectacle offers valuable insights into the growth in popularity of football in America and the importance of the spectacle of mascots and halftime performances in narratives of white masculinity and dominance. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

Persuasively locating the University of Illinois as historical ground zero, Guiliano offers a beautifully written and thoroughly researched account of the development of the sport mascot. Indian Spectacle sets the standard for understanding the origins of the craziness at halftime. Philip J. Deloria, author of Playing Indian

A welcome addition to both scholarly and popular debates about the cultural appropriaton of American Indian images as sports mascots … Scholars of cultural history, American Indian studies, and ethnic studies will find this book particularly useful, and the general reading public will find Giuliano's narrative revelatory. Highly recommended. CHOICE

The hallmark of [Indian Spectacle] is in bringing history to light in the contemporary conversation about Native American mascots. History of Education Quarterly

Indian Spectacle is tightly argued and well researched, theoretically rigorous and clearly written. Great Plains Quarterly

An outstanding contribution to a growing literature on native mascots. The Historian

A welcome historical text [that] adds a crucial perspective to this pressing and divisive issue in America. French Journal of Media Studies

The Mascot Is Fiction. The War Is Real: Why Chief Illiniwek, retired more than a decade ago, still inspires anger, pain, and pride at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign' by Chris Quintana Chronicle of Higher Education

JENNIFER GUILIANO is the assistant professor of history in the School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis.

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

1 King Football and Gameday Spectacle

2 An Indian versus a Colonial Legend

3 And the Band Played Narratives of American Expansion

4 The Limitations of Halftime Spectacle

5 Student Investment in University Identities

6 Indian Bodies Performing Athletic Identity

Conclusion

Notes