Biography
Dr. Wamsley has a keen interest in academic leadership, gleaned from a 30-year career in teaching, research, and administrative roles. Along with this scholarly background, he brings extensive leadership experience within the university and larger communities.
He has served 16 years in significant university administration roles, and has much leadership experience in student academic success, curriculum development, student recruitment, retention and student relations, quality assurance reviews and reports, professional accreditation processes, faculty relations, alumni relations, fundraising, and strategic planning.
He has earned over a million dollars in research grants and research funding and has published more than 100 peer-reviewed publications in addition to monographs and edited books and academic journals. In addition to his research record, has received teaching awards at the University of Alberta, the University of Calgary, and at both the Faculty and USC Teaching Honor Roll level at Western.
Recognized as one of the world's leading Olympic Games experts and historians, Dr. Wamsley has appeared in various media publications/broadcasts nearly 1,700 times throughout his academic career, including with such news agencies as CTV, Global, CBC, BBC, CNN, New York Times, Times of London, and the Wall Street Journal.
Positions
Education
Extending from an early focus on sport and the state in 19th century Canada, Dr. Wamsley’s research has more recently been situated within:
- Canadian sport history – the study of sport and gender, violence, masculinity and femininity
- The Olympic Games – the organization of gender relations, Indigenous participation, and the politics of hosting the Games.
Publications
Selected Publications
Books/Monographs
Authored:
Morrow, D. and Wamsley, K. (2017) Sport in Canada: A History, 4th edition. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press. 351 pp.
Edited:
Young K. and Wamsley, K., (Eds.) (2005) Global Olympics: Historical and Sociological Studies of the Modern Games. Elsevier Press: Oxford. 372 pp.
Wamsley, K. (Ed.). (1995). Method and Methodology in Sport and Cultural History. Brown and Benchmark: Dubuque, IA. 291 pp.
International Journals Edited
1999-2005 Senior Editor: OLYMPIKA: The International Journal of Olympic Studies, (internationally peer-reviewed) with Stephen R. Wenn,). Co-editor with Michael Heine, 2011-2019.
Chapters in Books
Nzindukiyimana, O., and Wamsley, K., (2020) Black Canadian Sporting Histories in the 19th and 20th Centuries, in Carly Adams, Ed., Sport and Recreation in Canadian History, Champaign, Il: Human Kinetics, pp. 227-246.
Wamsley, K. (2017) The Body, Sexualization, and the New Voyeur at the Early Olympic Games, 1896-1928, in Dongguang Pei, (Ed.) Collections of Papers on Olympics, pp. 62-74 (100%).
Wamsley, K. and Ross, M., (2016). Sport and Masculinity. In Borish, L.J., Wiggins, D.K., and Gems, G.R. (Eds.) The Routledge History of American Sport, Routledge: London and New York. 227-239 (60%).
Wamsley, K. (2012) The Olympic Games: Pedagogical Politics for Bodies and Minds. In E. Singleton and A. Varpalotai. (Eds). Pedagogy in Motion: A Community of Inquiry for Human Movement Studies, London, ON: The Althouse Press, 239-258 (100%)
Wamsley, K. and Heine, M. (2007) “Fair Game: Indigenous Peoples and the Physical Culture Exhibits of World Expositions,” in M. Lammer, E. Mertin, and T. Terret, (eds.) New Aspects of Sport History, Cologne, Germany: Academia, pp. 62-66. (75%)
Wamsley, K. (2007) “Womanizing Olympic Athletes: Policy and Practice during the Avery Brundage Era, in G.P. Schaus and Stephen R. Wenn, (eds.), Onward to the Olympics: Historical Perspectives on the Olympic Games, Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2007, pp. 273-282. 100%
Wamsley, K., (2007) “The public importance of men and the importance of public men: Sport and Masculinity in 19th Century Canada.” In K. Young & P. White (Eds.). Sport and Gender in Canada 2nd edition London: Oxford University Press pp. 75-92. (30% new material). 100%
Wamsley, K. (2006) “Celebrating Violent Masculinities: The Boxing Death of Luther McCarty,” in James Opp and John C. Walsh, (eds.) Home, Work, and PLay: Situating Canadian Social History, 1840-1980, Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, pp. 286-295 (with David Whitson reprint). 80%
Forsyth, J, and Wamsley K., “Symbols without Substance: Aboriginal Peoples and the Illusions of Olympic Ceremonies” in Kevin Young and Kevin Wamsley (Eds.) Global Olympics: Historical and Sociological Studies of the Modern Games (Oxford: Elsevier Press) pp. 227-248. 50%
Wamsley, K. (2005) “Olympic Men and Women: The Politics of Gender in the Modern Games” in Kevin Young and Kevin Wamsley (Eds.) Global Olympics: Historical and Sociological Studies of the Modern Games (Oxford: Elsevier Press) pp. 103-126, 90% (with Gertrud Pfister). 90%.
Wamsley, K. (2004) “Laying Olympism to Rest,” in John Bale and Mette Krogh Christensen, (Eds.).Post Olympism? Questioning Sport in the Twenty-first Century. Oxford: Berg Press (pp.231-242). 100%
Wamsley, K. (2003). Violence and Aggression in Sport. In J. Crossman (Ed.), Canadian Sport Sociology, Thomson. (pp. 90-101). 100%
Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals:
Ross, M and Wamsley, K, “The New Woman and the Manly Art”: Women and Boxing in Nineteenth-Century Canada,” (2020). Sport History Review
Nzindukiyimana, O & Wamsley, K, “‘We Played Ball Just the Same’: Selected Recollections of Black Women’s Sport Experiences in Southern Ontario (1920s– 1940s).” (2019) The International Journal of the History of Sport , 36, (13-14), pp. 1289-1310.
Nzindukiyimana, O. and Wamsley, K.B. (2016), “Lowering the Bar: Larry Gains’s Heavyweight Battle for a Title Shot, 1927–1932.” Journal of Sport History, 47, (2), pp. 125-145.
Ryan, D. & Wamsley, K. (2007) “The Fighting Irish of Toronto: Sport and Irish Catholic Identity at St. Michael’s College, 1906 – 1916,” Sport in Society, Vol. 10, 3, pp. 495-513. 40%
Forsyth, J. & Wamsley, K. (2006) “‘Native to Native...We’ll Recapture Our Spirits: ‘The World Indigenous Nations Games and North American Indigenous Games as Cultural Resistance,” The International Journal of the History of Sport, Vol. 23, 2, pp. 294-314. 50%
Gillespie, G. & Wamsley, K. (2005) “Clandestine Means: The Aristocratic British Hunting Code and Early Game Legislation in Nineteenth-Century Canada,” Sporting Traditions 22, 1 (2005) pp. 99-120. 40%
Ryan, D & Wamsley, K. (2004) “A Grand Game of Hurling and Football: Sport and Irish Nationalism in Old Toronto.” Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 30, 1, pp. 21-31. 40%
Kossuth, R. & Wamsley, K. (2003). “Cycles of Manhood: Pedalling Respectability in Early Ontario Bicycle Clubs.” Sport History Review, 34, 1. pp. 168-189. 30%
Wamsley, K. (2002). “The global sport monopoly: a synopsis of 20th century Olympic politics.” International Journal, LVII, 3, pp. 395-411. 100%
Wamsley, K. & Kossuth, R. (2001). “Fighting it out in Upper Canada/Canada West: Masculinities and Physical Challenges in the Tavern.” Journal of Sport History, 27 (3), pp. 405-430. 80%
Wamsley, K. (1999). “What Price for World Class?” Canadian Issues, 14-15, Autumn 1999. 100%
Wamsley, K. (1998). “State Formation and Institutionalized Racism: The Gambling Laws in 19th and Early 20th Century Canada”, Sport History Review, 29, 1, May, pp. 77-85. 100%
Wamsley, K. & Whitson, D. (1998). “Celebrating Violent Masculinities: The Boxing Death of Luther McCarty.” Journal of Sport History, 25, 1, spring, 1998. 80%
Wamsley, K. (1997). “Nineteenth Century Sport Tours, State Formation, and Canadian Foreign Policy.” Sporting Traditions, 13, 2, pp. 73-89. 100%
Wamsley, K. (1997). “Policy Implications For Hosting the Olympics.” Policy Options, Vol. 18, No. 3, May 1997, pp. 13-15. 100%
Wamsley, K. (1997). “Power and Privilege in Historiography: Constructing Percy Page.” Sport History Review, 28, 2. pp. 144-155. 100%
Heine, M. and Wamsley, K. (1996). “Kickfest at Dawson City: Native Peoples and the Sports of the Klondike Gold Rush,” Sport History Review, 27(1), pp. 72-86. 30%
Wamsley, K. and Heine, M. (1996). “Tradition, Modernity, and the Construction of Civic Identity: The Calgary Olympics”, Olympika, V, pp. 81-90. 70%
Young, K. and Wamsley, K. (1996). “State Complicity in Sports Assault and the Gender Order in Twentieth Century Canada: Preliminary Observations”, AVANTE, Vol. 2 (2) pp. 51-69. 40%
Wamsley, K. (1995). “Cultural Signification and National Ideologies: Rifle-shooting in Late 19th Century Canada”, Social History, Vol.20, No. 1, January, pp. 63-72. 100%
Wamsley, K. and Heine, M. (1995). “Sabbath legislation and state formation in 19th century Canada,” AVANTE, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 44- 57. 70%
Wamsley, K. (1994). “Good Clean Sport and a Deer Apiece: Game Legislation and State Formation in 19th Century Canada,” Canadian Journal of History of Sport, Vol.XXV, No.2, December, pp. 1-20.
Teaching Honours and Awards: 12
Graduate Students and Post-Doctoral Fellow Supervision
PhD Students: 10
Master’s Thesis Students: 17
Master’s Non-Thesis Students: 8
Post-Doctoral Fellows: 4
PhD Supervisory Committees 24
PhD Examination Committees 48
Master’s Supervisory Committees 16
Master’s Examination Committees 19