May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which provides an opportunity for our nation to pay tribute to the many Asian and Pacific Islanders who enriched America’s history and established its future prosperity. In celebration of AAPI Heritage Month, I highly recommend that everyone check out Indomitable: The Tommy Kono Story, an on-line exhibit produced by...
This week at The Stark Center, I’ve been thinking a lot about the history of women’s fitness and physical activity here on The Forty Acres. On Wednesday night, we were fortunate to host the University’s distinguished Tower Fellows. After our director, Jan Todd, addressed the visitors and told them about how the Stark Center was...
In honor of Black History Month, I wanted to celebrate by sharing this issue of Ebony Magazine from May 1952. (Unfortunately, I’m late to publish this post due to Winter Storm Uri and the issues it created at The Stark Center. Please forgive my tardiness). In the lead up to the Olympic Games in Helsinki,...
In any normal year, one of sports’ greatest spectacles, the Tour de France, would have concluded about a month ago. This year’s tour has unsurprisingly been rescheduled to begin August 29, but the event pictured in this photograph permanently ended its 85-year run in 2016. The Critérium National de la Route was for many years...
Here at the Stark Center, we are fortunate to have the Jody Conradt Papers, 1958-2017. Several years ago, Jody Conradt, the University of Texas at Austin (UT) Women’s Basketball Coach (1976-2007) and Women’s Athletic Director (1992-2001) and the first female collegiate coach to win 700 games, generously gifted to the Stark Center documents, memorabilia, and...
William B. Ward Collection, Box 220, Shelf 15-1 As the June days stack up and other sports leagues resume play, there still seems to be no prospect for the game that is most associated with the lazy days of American summers: baseball. This New York Yankees road jersey is made of grey flannel with navy...
As a center for the history of sport and physical culture, the Stark Center benefits greatly from the rich athletics tradition of the University of Texas at Austin. Today’s short post looks at one of the sports in which the University of Texas has excelled for most of a century, tennis. The Stark Center has...
The Mark Henry Collection at The Stark Center includes a number of artifacts from Mark’s dynamic career as powerlifter, strongman, Olympian, and wrestler in the WWE. Because 2020 was set to be an Olympic year with the Summer Games hosted in Tokyo, I was curious to get Mark’s perspective on the Olympic experience as a...
One of the amazing things about working at the Stark Center is the opportunity to see and interact with materials related to the amazing athletics programs at the University of Texas at Austin. As one of the most storied programs in sports history, the University of Texas football program is a phenomenal resource for archival...
