A new 30-chapter anthology, Facing Adversity & Resilience in Sports, moves attention away from scores and standings toward the personal struggles of athletes, coaches and sports-media professionals. The Facing Project Press released the book, which was edited by Adam J. Kuban, a professor in the School of Journalism & Strategic Communication at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.
How the book was written
The anthology is the product of a collaboration between undergraduate sports-reporting students at Ball State and storytellers from Indiana and other parts of the country. Students interviewed the people featured in each chapter and then wrote their accounts in the first person, a method the publisher says is designed to build empathy. Kuban described the approach as a way for students to learn about their subjects' struggles and successes and to present those experiences as if they were the storytellers themselves.
Themes and subjects
The book is organized into six sections: identity and LGBTQ+ inclusion; racial justice, cultural representation and heritage; disability and chronic illness; mental health, grief and healing; gender barriers and institutional inequity; and the professional realities and personal vulnerability of working in sports. According to the publisher, the chapters include accounts from Paralympians, female football players, student-athletes managing type 1 diabetes, sports journalists dealing with burnout, and coaches building team culture across language barriers.
Classroom and community use
Each section ends with discussion questions and educational resources, which the publisher positions as material for classrooms, athletic departments and community groups. Endorsements quoted in the announcement come from Brandon Pope, a multimedia journalist and Fox32 Chicago reporter, and J. Samantha Rivera, a bilingual sports journalist for ESPN. The book is available in paperback and eBook formats through The Facing Project Press.