In celebration of Jewish-American Heritage Month, The Stark Center would like to recognize Joe Weider, the man who made bodybuilding part of global culture. Born in Montreal, Canada, Weider began his athletic career as a competitive weightlifter and, during his lifetime, he led weight training from the closets and primitive gyms of the first half of the 20th century into elegant spas, varsity training rooms, and popular culture. He published his first magazine, Your Physique, in 1940 at the age of 17 with only a few dollars in his pocket. Joe went on to launch many other magazines, including Muscle Power, Muscle & Fitness, Flex, Shape, and Men’s Fitness....

In celebration of Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, The Stark Center would like to recognize the career of weightlifter Walter Imahara. Like so many other families of Japanese heritage, the Imahara family was relocated to an internment camp during WWII while Walter was only six years old. In 1955, Imahara began classes at Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) and because his physique resembled that of famous American lifter Tommy Kono (a fellow Japanese American who had been interred with his family at Tule Lake), he was recruited to join the collegiate competition weightlifting team....

Last week, much of Texas—and especially the Austin-area—was iced over after winter storm Mara made its way across the state. As a result, The University of Texas campus was closed Tuesday through Thursday as roads were covered in as much as a solid inch of ice; trees and other above-ground appendages wilted and snapped under the weight of their icy burdens, creating headaches and even severe danger for many members of our local community. I’m very thankful that The Stark Center made it through unscathed, but we have not always been so lucky. The last time central Texas was struck...

With the new year approaching, it’s time to mark your calendars for the 2023 Physical Cultures of the Body Conference (PCBC) on Friday, January 13th. This will be the third iteration of this international conference, and it is free and open to all on Zoom. PCBC is jointly sponsored by the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports and the academic journal Iron Game History: The Journal of Physical Culture. The conference was created as a showcase on scholarship related to historical and humanities-based approaches to the study of physical culture. We have been inspired by the international...

As many of you may remember, the winter storm in February 2021 caused an immense amount of damage here on The Forty Acres, our colloquial name for the University of Texas campus. The Stark Center, specifically, was a victim of flooding due to burst pipes on the floor above us in the North End Zone building. Jan Todd wrote about the water and the detriments to our beloved floor on her It’s A Good Life blog, which you can read by clicking here. Assessing the damage and determining an adequate solution to the issues has been a long and complicated...