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Hawkins

University of Georgia sport management professor Billy Hawkins’ book, The New Plantation: Black Athletes, College Sports, and Predominantly White NCAA Institutions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), has been named one of 2010’s Outstanding Academic Titles by Choice Reviews.

“This recognition reflects how the book is important and relevant to the literature in the field of sport studies,” said Hawkins, an associate professor in the College of Education’s department of kinesiology. “It garners a distinction as a unique treatment in its respective topic area.”

Every year, Choice subject editors select the most significant print and electronic works reviewed during the previous calendar year.

Appearing annually in the January issue, the prestigious list of publications reflects the best in scholarly titles and attracts extraordinary attention form the academic library community. The 2010 feature includes 668 titles in 54 disciplines and subsections. Hawkins’ book is one of only six chosen in the Sports and Recreation section.

Several criteria are applied in awarding Outstanding Academic Title status:

• overall excellence in presentation and scholarship
• importance relative to other literature in the field
• distinction as a first treatment of a given subject in book or electronic form
• originality or uniqueness of treatment
• value to undergraduate students
• importance in building undergraduate library collections

In his book, Hawkins uses the plantation model to present black male athletic experiences within a broader historical and social context of people in slavery.

“As we examine the structure of intercollegiate athletics, the athlete is not necessarily the property of the institutions, but it’s the rights to athletes’ labor and the profit off of their labor that makes the plantation model appropriate in examining the experiences of black male athletes,” said Hawkins.

Hawkins joined the UGA faculty in 1996. He earned his Ph.D. in Health and Sport Studies from the University of Iowa in 1995.