Hey my name is Ryan White, and I graduated from Ithaca College in upstate New York. I was born in Watertown , New York, the oldest of 8. Currently, I am working on my PhD in Kinesiology, and have been asked to write this blog, because of my (critical) love of sports. In studying for my PhD, I have been trained in a form of cultural studies that digs deeper into the meaning of sport in our personal/local/US/World society. Thus rather than engaging sports on a cursory level, my goal is to get everyone to dig a little deeper and get to the heart of what sport means to us and others in our lives. Hopefully through this training, and my personal political leanings I will be able to get others to critically evaluate sport as well.

On a professional level I have published articles on Korean Nationalism in "East Plays West" (Wagg and Andrews, eds. 2007), American nationalism through the Little League World Series in "Youth Culture and Sport" (Giardina and Donnely, eds. 2007/8), and the International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics (forthcoming, 2007). Currently I am finishing a paper on the corporate and mediated (mis)treatment of Danny Almonte, and writing my dissertation on Red Sox Nation (due around 2009). I have presented at several national and international conferences such as AAHPERD, NASSS, ISSA, Queen's Conference, and at the University of Toronto, and given invited lectures at Ithaca College, Towson University, and the University of Maryland - College Park.