EVENT OVERVIEW: Michael MacCambridge, Bestselling Author, will be In Conversation with Kansas City Star Columnist Vahe Gregorian about his new book The Big Time: How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America. This Event is Co-Presented by Rainy Day Books & Mid-Continent Public Library.
ABOUT MICHAEL MACCAMBRIDGE: Michael MacCambridge is an author, journalist and TV commentator, whose books have included the acclaimed America’s Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured A Nation and Chuck Noll: His Life’s Work. For eight years a columnist and critic at the Austin American-Statesman, MacCambridge was later a contributor to A New Literary History of America, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, and GQ. The father of two children, Miles and Ella, he lives in Austin.
ABOUT THE BIG TIME: A captivating chronicle of the pivotal decade in American sports, when the games invaded prime time, and sports moved from the margins to the mainstream of American culture.
Every decade brings change, but as Michael MacCambridge chronicles in THE BIG TIME, no decade in American sports history featured such convulsive cultural shifts as the 1970s. So many things happened during the decade—the move of sports into prime-time television, the beginning of athletes’ gaining a sense of autonomy for their own careers, integration becoming—at least within sports—more of the rule than the exception, and the social revolution that brought females more decisively into sports, as athletes, coaches, executives, and spectators. More than politicians, musicians or actors, the decade in America was defined by its most exemplary athletes. The sweeping changes in the decade could be seen in the collective experience of Billie Jean King and Muhammad Ali, Henry Aaron and Julius Erving, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Joe Greene, Jack Nicklaus and Chris Evert, among others, who redefined the role of athletes and athletics in American culture. The Seventies witnessed the emergence of spectator sports as an ever-expanding mainstream phenomenon, as well as dramatic changes in the way athletes were paid, portrayed, and packaged. In tracing the epic narrative of how American sports was transformed in the Seventies, a larger story emerges: of how America itself changed, and how spectator sports moved decisively on a trajectory toward what it has become today, the last truly “big tent” in American culture.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR, VAHE GREGORIAN: Vahe Gregorian joined The Kansas City Star staff as a sports columnist in 2013 after 25 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has covered 20-plus Final Fours, numerous college football national title games and 10 Olympic Games. He is a 1983 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an English major and a seldom-seen wide receiver on the 1982 Ivy League co-champions. He earned his master’s degree in journalism at the University of Missouri in 1988, and he spent 2003-2004 in Ann Arbor as a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. Vahe has co-authored books with Michigan State’s George Perles and then-Northwestern coach Gary Barnett. His work has been featured in The Best American Sportswriting. Among his honors and awards, he has been recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors as the No. 1 sports columnist in the nation in 2018. He also was inducted into the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame in April 2022.
DATE & TIME: Tuesday, October 10, 2023, at 7:00 PM
LOCATION: A Rainy Day Books Author Event at Mid-Continent Public Library, Woodneath Library Center, The Story Center, 8900 NE Flintlock Road, Kansas City, Missouri 64157
EVENT FORMAT: Michael MacCambridge will be In Conversation with Vahe Gregorian for his new book The Big Time: How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America. A Meet & Greet Booksigning will follow the Presentation.
ADMISSION PACKAGE: This is a Complimentary OPEN House Event. Registration is Required at https://www.mymcpl.org/events/91324/story-center-speakers-series-michael-maccambridge or Call the Library at 816-883-4900. Rainy Day Books will have Michael MacCambridge's Books for Sale at this Event, or you may Pre-Order for In-Store or At-Event Pick-Up through the link below. Seating is General Admission.
DISCLAIMER: All Author Event sales are final and non-refundable. Additional Signed Books are available for purchase at our Author Event.
