Department of History

The Tropic of Football

Sports historian Rob Ruck travels to the South Seas to unravel American Samoa’s complex ties with the United States. Football is at a crossroads, its future imperiled by the very physicality that drives its popularity. Its grass roots—high school and youth travel programs—are withering. But players from the small South Pacific American territory of Samoa are bucking that trend, quietly becoming the most disproportionately overrepresented culture in the sport. Tropic of Football is a gripping, bittersweet history of what may be football’s last frontier.

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The Tropic of Football

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Transnational Themes