Sam Schelfhout is a doctoral student in Physical Culture & Sport Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He earned his Master of Science degree in sport management at UT in 2017, during which time he worked with the Texas Longhorns communications department. His master's thesis, "It is 'Force Majeure': The Abrupt Boycott Movements of the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympic Games," examined the boycott movements of several national Olympic committees in response to the Hungarian Revolution, the Suez Crisis, and the "Two Chinas" problem prior to the 1956 Summer Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia. Sam is a recipient of the College of Education Texas New Scholar Recruitment Fellowship, as well as the Department of Kinesiology & Health Education Mary Buice Alderson Teaching Excellence Award for his teaching experience in sport management classes.
Sam is a native of Monroe, Washington, and received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Portland. Outside of academics, Sam enjoys experiencing Austin's punk music scene, fantasy/science fiction literature, hiking, and attending Longhorns sporting events.
Sport and international relations, popular culture and international relations, public diplomacy, American foreign policy, American soft power, public policy and agenda-setting, politics and mass media, democratization, sport and political ideology, history of sport, philosophy/metaphysics of sport, sport and national identity, esports
Thomas M Hunt (Supervisor)
Examines the intersection of sport and international political history.
Tolga Ozyurtcu (Co-supervisor)
Studies the historical, philosophical, sociocultural, and political dimensions of sport and physical culture.
Schelfhout, S. & Fair, J. (2019). Lifting 'Round the World: The Political Impact of the USA Weightlifting Team's 1955 Goodwill Tour to the Middle East. The International Journal for the History of Sport, 35(10), 1008–1028. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2019.1576637.
Schelfhout, S.., Bowers, M.T.. & Hao, Y.A.. (2019). Balancing Gender Identity and Gamer Identity: Gender Issues faced by Wang 'BaiZe' XinYu at the 2017 Hearthstone Summer Championship. Games and Culture. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1555412019866348?journalCode=gaca. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412019866348.
Emerging Scholar Award, Eleventh International Conference on Sport & Society (2020)
Graduate School Decentralized Continuing Fellowship, The University of Texas at Austin (2020)
Mary Buice Alderson Teaching Excellence Award, The University of Texas at Austin (2019)
Texas New Scholar Recruitment Fellowship, The University of Texas at Austin (2017)
Politics and Power in Chinese Esports - Incorporating Esports in the Olympic Movement, North American Society for Sport History, Chicago, IL (2020)
Measuring Nationalism and Conflict through the Africa Cup of Nations Qualification Process, Eleventh International Conference on Sport & Society, Granada, Spain (2020)
A Fine Example of Brotherhood and Sportsmanship" - 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games in the Era of the "Little Détente", Center for Sociocultural Sport and Olympic Research, Fullerton, CA (2019)
Together We Are Strong: The Rise of Physical Culture in Esports, North American Society for Sport History, Boise, Idaho (2019)
'How Can Sports Prevail Over What Has Happened in Hungary?': The Boycotts of Spain, The Netherlands, and Switzerland in the 1956 Summer Olympic Games following the Hungarian Revolution, Center for Sociocultural Sport and Olympic Research, Fullerton, CA (2018)
You Can't Win If You Don't Try': Portland's Failed Bid to Host the 1968 Summer Olympic Games, North American Society for Sport History, Winnipeg, MB, Canada (2018)
Save Points: Video Games and the Preservation of Play, FLOW 2018, Austin, TX (2018)
Football and the Falklands: How the British Press Amplified Nationalistic Fervor Between Fans of England and Argentina's National Football Teams Following the Falklands War, North American Society for Sport History, Fullerton, CA (2017)
Lifting 'Round the World: The Political Impact of the USA Weightlifting Team's 1955 Goodwill Tour to the Middle East, North American Society for Sport History, Atlanta, GA (2016)
The Emergence of 'Green' Architecture in South Africa, University of Notre Dame Human Development Conference, South Bend, IN (2014)
Congress and College Football: Congressional Motivations for the Removal of the Bowl Championship Series, University of Portland Founder's Day, Portland, OR (2014)
