Repairing the Athlete's Image

Repairing the Athlete's Image: Studies in Sports Image Restoration, edited by Joseph R. Blaney, Lance Lippert, and J. Scott Smith, offers twenty-one case studies and conceptual frameworks about athletes and their organizations as they attempt to mitigate the effects of malfeasance. Employing traditional Image Restoration Theory (IRT) approaches to athletic communication (and other innovative approaches), the contributors to this volume add to our understanding of which communicative strategies work best for athletes when their reputations are sullied. This comprehensive text presents case studies of varying athletes, sports, and public relations scenarios with prescriptive advice for those attempting to repair athletic reputations. The contributors variously explore such controversies and mischief as the steroids accusations lobbed at Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, the Michael Phelps marijuana controversy, the sexual misconduct of Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant, and other topical subjects in sports communication and image repair. While this book will be useful for athletes, coaches, managers, and agents in varying athletic endeavors and levels, it is also a dream collection for teachers and scholars of sports communication. The subjects examined in this study span country, gender, and popularity of sport (not to mention a healthy variety of types of accusations.) Repairing the Athlete's Image is an essential resource for graduate and upper-level undergraduate courses in sports communication and popular culture.

Joseph R. Blaney is associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of communication at Illinois State University.
Lance R. Lippert is associate professor of communication at Illinois State University.
J. Scott Smith is a PhD student at the University of Missouri.

Introduction
Part 1. Drugs
Chapter 1. From the Mitchell Report to Brian McNamee: Roger Clemen's Image Repair Discourse, J. Scott Smith
Chapter 2. "Big Mac" with a Side of Steroids: The Image Repair Strategies of Mark McGwire, John McGuire, Lori McKinnon, and Wayne Wanta
Chapter 3. Defense of an Anti-Hero: Barry Bonds' "State of the Great Address", J. Scott Smith
Chapter 4. The Image Repair Media Interview as Apologia and Antapologia: Marion Jones on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Michael R. Kramer
Chapter 5. The Michael Phelps Saga: From Successful Olympian, to Pot Smoker Caught on Camera, to Renewed Role Model and Brand, Rod Troester and Lindsay Johns
Part 2. Marital Infidelity and Sexual Misconduct
Chapter 6. Tiger Woods' Image Repair: Could He Hit One Out of the Rough?, William L. Benoit
Chapter 7. Power, Privilege, and the Surprising Absence of Repair: Kobe Bryant and Interest Convergence, Rachel Alicia Griffin
Chapter 8. Strategies of Silence: The John Terry Affair and the British Press
Part 3. Socia