Body of Work
Serena Williams has more Grand Slam tournament victories than any tennis player in history, and she is widely recognized as one of the greatest athletes of this or any era. Unfortunately, she receives almost as much attention for the way she looks. Using Williams as an example, Professor Yago Colás explores issues of race and gender in sports, along with the question of why women athletes must still contend with idealized norms of physical female beauty that are often incompatible with peak athletic performance.
Yago Colás teaches the culture of sports in LSA, and his previous academic focus lay in studying fiction and narrative in relation to their social contexts. The title of his most recent book, Ball Don’t Lie, is playground slang used to suggest that an event in a basketball game either justifies or contradicts a contentious call.
Other Episodes of Ball Don't Lie: