UVA TODAY — Between 2012 and 2019, University of Virginia School of Law professor G. Edward White wrote three books on the relationship of law to American history, starting with the colonial years and ending with the close of the 20th century. The books, in White’s words, were “long, dense and largely intended for scholarly audiences.” “I enjoyed writing them,” White said, “but felt I needed a change of pace, and something of a ‘break’ from that sort of scholarship.” Enter soccer. An avid player in his younger days at Phillips Academy Andover and Amherst College, White – who published 18 books prior to the new one, including one that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in history – concluded that little had been written about the history of soccer in America. During a previous respite from legal writing, White had written a book on the early- and mid-20th century history of baseball and thought a comparable book on soccer could be interesting.