Because of the pandemic and that stagnant period of time before vaccines were available, I (like most people) suffer from an affliction where I occasionally find it difficult to differentiate between the year 2020 and 2021. For nearly seventeen months, The Stark Center, as a physical space, was closed to the general public as well...
News, Blogs & Updates
“Big Ricky” Comes to The Stark Center and Other New Artifacts
Last month, The Stark Center opened a new exhibit featuring sculptures by David Deming and Michael Deming. It’s called Degrees of Fitness / Sporting Bodies; if this is the first you’ve heard about it, click the title for more detailed information about the exhibit. I highly encourage everyone to make a trip to The Stark...
Rogue Fitness Honors Terry Todd with Documentary Premiering at Austin Film Festival
The H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports announces the premier and theatrical release of The Commissioner of Power, a feature-length documentary about the life and work of Terry Todd, Ph.D. Todd was the founder (with his wife, Jan) of the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center in the College of Education and taught in...
STRONGMAN PROJECT Celebrates the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo by Looking Back at the Golden Age of American Weightlifting
According to weightlifting historian John Fair, the Golden Age of American Weightlifting was defined as the period from 1945 to 1960. It was a time when American athletes regularly populated the podiums of international weightlifting competitions. In fact, counting from the Paris World Championships in 1946 through the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, the United...
Celebrate Juneteenth with Mark Henry at The Strongman Project
In celebration of tomorrow’s Juneteenth holiday, I’ve published a new Feature over at The Strongman Project all about the life and strength career of Mark Henry. In a 2009 blog post titled “Broad Shoulders,” Terry Todd explains his detailed method for accurately measuring the width of Mark Henry’s shoulders. In the post’s final sentence, he...
Clyde Littlefield & The Texas Relays
After last year’s cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays are back! This year’s meet is slightly different than usual. It will not include high school teams or individual athletes and it will take place over three days instead of four. The Clyde Littelfield Texas Relays is one of the nation’s...
A New Page for Academic Conferences and Symposiums
As many of you know, The Stark Center hosted a virtual conference on January 15, 2021, called Physical Cultures of the Body. Twenty-one scholars representing thirteen different countries presented papers on the symbolic and cultural importance of the healthy and active body with reference to issues of race, gender, injury, strength, performance, eugenics, and much...
Remembering Sean Connery as a Bodybuilder and Athlete
Thomas Sean Connery’s breakthrough as an actor came in 1962 when he was cast in the role of James Bond, Agent 007 of the British Secret Intelligence Service, a fictional character adapted for the screen from Ian Fleming’s spy novels. Connery portrayed Bond in seven films, all of which were immensely successful. The worldwide...
Stark Center materials quoted in an article on Dudley Allen Sargent
An article about Dudley Allen Sargent, “Belfast man pioneered physical education, influenced basketball’s creation and field hockey’s U.S. introduction”, published in the Penobscot Bay Pilot quotes some resources at the Stark Center. The article quotes Jason P. Shurley, Jan Todd and Terry Todd’s book Strength Coaching in America: A History of the Innovation That Transformed...
