In 2011, the Stark Center celebrated the opening of the Joe and Betty Weider Museum of Physical Culture; it was a gathering of the true royalty of bodybuilding. Arnold Schwarzenegger attended along with many of the then still-living Mr. Olympias—Larry Scott, Lee Haney, Ronnie Coleman, Frank Zane, and Chris Dickerson. Other bodybuilding luminaries joined the...
For 15 years renowned artist David Deming and I shared The Forty Acres—as we call UT’s main campus—but our paths never crossed. Deming was in the Art Department teaching sculpture, then serving as chair of the department, and finally as Dean of The College of Fine Arts until he moved back to his hometown in...
Since we began Iron Game History in 1990, we’ve dedicated a full issue of Iron Game History to one person as a memorial tribute on several rare occasions. The last person to be so honored, in fact, was Olympic weightlifting gold medalist Tommy Kono whose life is detailed in a special double issue of IGH...
Please Watch for Updates on Reopening. Some of the most beautiful photos ever taken show a totally still body of water in which the scenery on land is replicated in crystalline perfection in its mirrored surface. The photo might show a pond in New England reflecting the fall leaves, a lake out west reflecting the...
I am proud to announce the launch of The Strongman Project a new web outreach of the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center which can now be seen at: www.strongmanproject.com. Our plan is for The Strongman Project to grow and evolve over time as we will be adding new materials regularly to the site. The Strongman Project...
Last October we celebrated our tenth anniversary with a special day-long event at the Stark Center for the subscribers of our journal, Iron Game History: The Journal of Physical Culture (now in its 30th year). Many of our subscribers had never been to see the Center and so as we planned the day, we allowed...
In December of 1973, I took a workout at the Texas Athletic Club in Austin, Texas, and tested myself for the first time in the deadlift. I was inspired to see what I could lift that day by watching a young woman deadlifting at the gym who had entered a local powerlifting meet as a...
I’ve been in isolation ever since I returned on March 9th from directing the 2020 Arnold Strongman Classic (ASC). Like other fans of Strongman, I’ve watched with sadness as show after Strongman show got canceled last month as the coronavirus spread around the globe. In recent weeks, I’ve been listening with yet more dismay to...
On Monday, March 2, 2020, I met my graduate course, The History of the Sport Industry in America, at the Stark Center to talk about a series of readings they’d been assigned that dealt with the business of strength. They were asked to read an article Ben Pollack and I wrote about 1950s gym-chain magnate...
