Education

Ph.D.: Bowling Green State University, Journalism and Mass Communication, 1995
M.S.: University of Tennessee, Communications, 1984
B.S.: University of Tennessee, Communications, 1980

Biography

I am a professor of journalism at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, where I teach sports journalism classes to undergraduate and graduate students. I am an author, historian, lecturer, satirist, and columnist. My ninth book, Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography, was published in 2017. Other books include From Jack Johnson to LeBron James: Sports, Media, and the Color Line (2016); Conspiracy of Silence: Sportswriters and the Long Campaign to Desegregate Baseball (2012); The Sound and Fury of Sarah Palin (2011); Wry Harvest: An Anthology of Midwest Humor (2006); Blackout: The Untold Story of Jackie Robinson's First Spring Training (2004); and Drawn to Extremes: The Use and Abuse of Editorial Cartooning (2004). Before becoming a college professor, I worked for newspapers and magazines. Since becoming a professor, I've written hundreds of articles and columns for such publications as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, Los Angeles Times, ESPN.com, New Republican.com, and Christian Science Monitor. My columns appear regularly in The Huffington Post, etc. My research articles have appeared in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Journalism History, and the Journal of American History. I have been interviewed by National Public Radio, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ESPN, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, etc. I have given talks at the British Library, Duke University, George Washington University, American Film Institute, and the Negro Leagues Museum. I have twice been a Pulitzer Prize judge in the category of editorial cartooning.

Academic interests

Sports, media, race, and culture; the meaning and importance of editorial cartooning, satire and humor; the role of the mass/news media on society.

Teaching

Feature writing, opinion writing, magazine writing, nonfiction writing, communications history, satire, media and society, baseball and myth.

Awards

Conspiracy of Silence: Sportswriters and the Long Campaign to Desegregate Baseball. Winner, Best Book on Journalism and Mass Communication History, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, August 2013; starred review, Kirkus Review (2012), Top books for 2012, sports and recreation, Choice magazine; Top books for year, Huffington Post; Top 50 baseball books of all time, Peter Drier, Huffington Post; Blackout: The Untold Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Spring Training Baseball, Winner, Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Award for Best Florida Book in Minority and Ethnographic Studies, from the Florida Historical Society, 2005; Book chapter, “Robinson and Wright Flee Sanford by Sundown,” anthologized in Best Baseball Writing 2005 (New York, NY: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2005), excerpted from Blackout: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Spring Training; Macmillan-Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) award for best research in 1999; “L’affaire Jake Powell: The Minority Press Goes to Bat against Segregated Baseball,” 2000; Best Faculty Paper. Minorities and Communication Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications annual conference, 1998. Award for newspaper column, Media Orthopaedic Reporting Excellence (MORE) Awards from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons for a column I wrote for the Indianapolis Star, March 2015; Judge, Pulitzer Prize Award for editorial cartooning, 2012 and 2013; Judge, Herb Block Award for editorial cartooning; 2008.

Publications

Chris Lamb and Michael Long, Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography; (Westminster John Knox Press, to be published, 2017); Chris Lamb, From Jack Johnson to LeBron James: Sports, Media, and the Color Line, ed., (University of Nebraska Press, 2016); Chris Lamb, Wry Harvest: An Anthology of Midwest Humor, ed. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006); Chris Lamb, Drawn to Extremes: The Use and Abuse of Editorial Cartoons in the United States (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2004; issued in paperback, 2006); Chris Lamb, Blackout: The Untold Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Spring Training (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2004; issued in paperback, 2006). My articles have appeared in the following academic journals: Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Journalism History, and the Journal of American History.

Service

I serve as a book or journal reviewer for the following publications: Journalism History, American Journalism, New York Journal of Books, Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, and Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture.