Abstract: Academic pedigree, which is closely related to the production of knowledge and the formation of schools, and is an important proposition in the study of basic theories of disciplines, has long been ignored by the academic circles. This paper discusses the academic pedigree and development crisis of sports history in Taiwan by using the methods of documents and expert interview. The results are as follows: (1) The development of sports history in Taiwan was initiated in early 1970s by Wu Wenzhong, a sports scholar from mainland. The sports history on both sides of the Taiwan Strait has the same origin; (2) currently, there are 3 distinctive schools of sports history in Taiwan: the first one led by Xu Yixiong, which focuses on Modern China, the second one led by Tsai Zhenxiong, which focuses on the local sports history during the period of Japanese rule, and the third one led by Huang Dongzhi, which uses the theory of historical sociology to study the modern sports history in Taiwan; (3) At present, the academic community of sports history in Taiwan presents diversified characteristics in academic relationship and research paradigm; (4) There are four development crises in Taiwan sports history: first, the transfer in academic interest sports of history postgraduates; second, the decline in research funds for sports history; third, the invisibility of sports history achievements in high-level journals; fourth, there is superposition effect with the development crisis of sports history in Taiwan. It is proposed to effectively solve this problem by strengthening the cooperation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Key words: Taiwan, China, sports history, academic pedigree, discipline crisis