From the Archive: The Sinful Seven (2020)
A review of a very good book that tells the story of college sports through scientific and fantastical allegory... originally written August 2020
The Sinful Seven: Sci-Fi Western Legends of the NCAA. By Spencer Hall, Jason Kirk, Richard Johnson, Alex Kirshner, & Tyson Whiting. 2020. vi plus 441 pp. Notes, About the Authors. $18.52+ (PDF/Ebook/Mobi)
If there is a college football season to accompany the 2020-2021 school year, it will not be like those we are used to. Members of the Ivy League, MAC, C-USA, Pac-12, Big Ten, and Big 12 are among the schools (sports programs that do some teaching on the side) that have already announced they won’t be playing games this fall. Some are opting to postpone for the spring, when things will be different, just as they are different now than they were in March. I don’t know who’s to say whether they’ll be better, but they’ll certainly be different.
The steps required for games to be played in the Fall would include acknowledging that student-athletes, who generate money for the member schools of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, are at least as much employees as students. But because no one with power ever cedes it willingly and because an organization coined a term to avoid paying workman’s compensation last century, the student-athletes are not being acknowledged in their requests for clear COVID testing protocols, or increased financial compensation (the “non-profit” NCAA rakes-in $1,000,000,000 a year, mostly from football and men’s basketball).
The Sinful Seven: Sci-Fi Western Legends of the NCAA helps outline how the NCAA accrued so much money and so much authority over college sports, its authors using the tools of a literal narrative of sports amateurism history and a figurative narrative set in the mythical Old West territory of La Cademia. The book’s argument is that the NCAA is essentially a scam; from the opening chapter it demonstrates the poignancy of the Western metaphor, reminding me so much of Blazing Saddles and the “phony baloney jobs” Mel Brooks and company “harrumph” about. The NCAA’s enforcement arm is represented by an erudite, pretentious sheriff that attempts to establish justice so as to free laborers from their wages and the sin of wanting something for themselves; he expands his judiciary and executive powers without so much as a vote, empowered by those that profit from his corruption.
SBNation alumni have written three other books I’ve read – Bill Connelly’s Study Hall and The 50 Greatest* College Football Teams of All Time, and Matt Brown’s College Football What If? I’ve read A Payroll to Meet about the SMU Mustangs of the 1980s; I’ve read Knute Rockne: All American. The Sinful Seven stands alongside Friday Night Lights for its honesty and insight. I only hope it has that level of influence, as the creative touches made to illustrate real life facts are unmatched.
The Sinful Seven is in good literary company, but it stands alone in the ways it marries history and fiction, using a gleeful, gory, sometimes somber western narrative to analogize that history. It alternates between the literal and interpretive, each giving context to the other. Just as Atlanta A&T’s one band had one sound, this team of writers combined their individual perspectives and authorial voices to produce a beautiful chorus of college football facts, sharp humor, and a salient critique of the inherent corruption and hypocrisy of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Their combination of frankness and storytelling acumen are exactly what is needed to help a fan make sense of college sports.
The Sinful Seven is split into two ‘books,’ each headlined by a brief poetic cycle which broadly previews the narrative themes of either section; “Ballad of the Sinful Seven” starts Book One and “Ballad of the Bear and the Cyclone” starts Book Two. Book One is about the formation of the NCAA, its early attempts to regulate college sports, and the pushback it got from other institutions and individuals seeking to profit from collegiate athletics. Written mostly by Spencer Hall (six chapters) with Alex Kirshner (two) and Richard Johnson (one) also contributing, Book One fleshes out the way the NCAA was born out of Teddy Roosevelt’s appeals to prevent player deaths; the formation of the NCAA and NIT basketball tournaments; and woven through all this are the incredible story of banditas and witch-nuns trying to hold onto what was theirs in defiance of new order. Split between Alex Kirshner, Richard Johnson, and Jason Kirk, Book Two and the Epilogue explore the rivalry between Kentucky basketball coach Adolph Rupp and football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant; a riveting tale of cults, champions, and primal warfare as allegory for the Texas-Texas A&M rivalry; an exploration of integration and race in sports; and the lie that amateurism always was.
The cast of characters for the initial caper include anthropomorphized examples of the first seven schools to ignore the NCAA’s first attempts at policing amateurism in college sports. I can tell you they’re women who plan a bank robbery and I’m still leaving out the best bits. While Teddy Roosevelt is a historical figure but not one given an analogue, George Wallace makes an appearance in the Western metaphor, eventually coming across the path of Jack Trice, the first Black college football player at Iowa State University. The Cyclones’ stadium is named for Trice; the book explores why an investigation was never launched into his on-field death, and how his mythology exemplifies the problematic and underhanded ways in which college sports have historically addressed the problem of race. The epilogue features one of the key characters from A Payroll to Meet, Dallas businessman and former-SMU booster Sherwood Blount, whose quote about the necessity of fulfilling promises of payment to athletes inspired that title and makes a reprisal here.
That epilogue (“It Was Always Bound to Collapse”) is where the book all comes to a head, as the familiar motifs of fiction set in the Old West and the early twentieth century – robbers and robber barons, religious zealots, crooked sheriffs, drunks, wastrels, masked adventurers – all come together to allow the authors to examine the reality that Steven Godfrey explored in his Crooked Letters series and Foul Play documentary: the players are punished, some even have their career prospects destroyed, when they accept something resembling due compensation. The powers that be get a slap on the wrist. The system exists to enrich the schools and their presidents, the coaches and athletic directors, the conference commissioners and bowl representatives; all of whom nod toward the NCAA as the bad guy, acting as if their hands are tied when they bought the rope and hired the sheriff.
As a work of history, it is thoroughly sourced, drawing from university archives and libraries, as well as newspapers and bulletins – such as the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Associated Press, United Press, and Louisville Courier Journal – and a handful of other books. It isn’t cited in Chicago Style, but to each discipline their own style guide.
I don’t know when I last anticipated a book this much or enjoyed one on this level. College football with cowboys, zombies, witches, and a sci-fi allegory for athlete transfers and schools changing conferences. Seldom do I read something so relevant to society that doesn’t depress me. There’s a lot to love about this project. It is a great joy when people you believe in but don’t know, whose work touches your life from afar, fulfill the promise of their talent, and you hope they’re recognized for that.
I read The Sinful Seven in a little over a week, in between unpacking and decorating my new apartment. I highly recommend it. It is such a unique piece of art and literature, and it is exemplary of why sports media in general, and college football journalism specifically, needs the voices of Spencer Hall, Jason Kirk, Alex Kirshner, and Richard Johnson. Tyson Whiting does a tremendous job with illustrations that bring the characters to life in a manner that combines styles of cartoons and historical artifacts. The subtle but uncomplicated art style makes positive use of contrasting color with vacancy on the page and is also compelling in its ability to create emotive faces. Real-life tweets are occasionally incorporated and reimagined as telegrams, adding to the atmosphere, levity, and relevance. Any fan of college sports – especially college football – and any sports journalist or historian, any writer aspiring to self-publishing or collaborative work should make room for this book on their hard drive.
The Sinful Seven is available as an eBook or PDF, and proceeds from pre-orders went toward Feeding America. Spencer Hall and the gang are currently also running the annual EDSBS Charity Bowl for New American Pathways, a Georgia-based nonprofit which helps refugees from immigration through citizenship, helping them contribute and thrive as members of our society.