Welcome to the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports.

The Stark Center is a research center housed within the Department of Kinesiology & Health Education.  We are a unique combination of library, archive, and gallery/exhibit space. 

An Unexpected Pleasure: Kissing the Ground in Equilibrium—A Search for the Origins of the Pushup

One of the things I enjoy most about the Stark Center are the requests we often get for information about some aspect of the history of physical culture. Most of those requests are handled by our incredible Stark Center staff but every now and then a request will make its way to my inbox and I find myself so intrigued that I end up doing research that wasn’t planned because the question made me curious too. This past Sunday was one of those days. I got an unexpected email from Denis Blinov, whom I’ve never met. “May I ask if you...

The Boys of Yore

The Boys of Yore

Yessir, it’s football season again and I have the pleasure of living in FOOTBALL COUNTRY, a.k.a. TEXAS. Friday night lights are in full swing in the high schools—you can’t drive down any highway or back road in the state of Texas on a Friday night and not see the stadium lights somewhere ahead of you on the road. The NFL season got underway last Sunday with a bang. But, more importantly, the college season has begun, and our beloved UT Longhorns are 2-0 with a win over ‘Bama in Tuscaloosa last Saturday. Nobody on campus has come down off of...

Browse the Complete Journal Archive

The Stark Center features collections from around the world related to all aspects of physical culture and sports.

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