Marvin T. Chiles, associate professor of African American history at Old Dominion University, has written a book about the VIA and sports called Playing for Power: Black Resistance in Amateur Basketball and Football in Jim Crow Virginia. The publisher, University of Alabama Press, offers this description of the book,

In Playing for Power, Marvin T. Chiles offers a fascinating account of amateur sports in Jim Crow Virginia, revealing how, in addition to churches, workspaces, and civil rights organizations, sports were also a key arena for Black resistance to white supremacy. Drawing from a rich trove of primary sources, Chiles recounts the development of Black football and basketball culture at the high school and college levels in Virginia from the 1890s to the early 1970s. Looking beyond their role as leisure pastimes, Chiles demonstrates how amateur sports strengthened education, neutralized class divisions, shaped Black masculinity, mentored Black male leadership, cultivated race pride, and reflected Black desires for urban modernity.

Illuminating the ways Black athletes created a world that pushed for racial progress through objective, meritocratic achievement anchored by masculine leadership and institutional success, Playing for Power traces how amateur sports coalesced into a key cultural institution that fostered Black Virginians’ collective sense of community, achievement, and purpose during segregation, cornerstones of later advances in the Civil Rights Movement. Playing for Power also contributes to a larger understanding of sports history and how amateur sports became favorite American spectacles and markers of Southern identity. Chiles’s groundbreaking work will interest historians, scholars, and individuals interested in the intersection of sports and civil rights and the history of Black sports during the Jim Crow era.

The book was published in June of 2025 after years of extensive research. Mr. Knox Tull notes, "Playing for Power gives a comprehensive history of the VIA and of its predecessor, the VIAL. In addition, the book gives a history of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA)."

New Book on the VIA: Playing for Power