Burnt orange graphic for the 40 Hours for the Forty Acres fundraising campaign.
March 24, 2022September 17, 2024
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40 Hours for The Forty Acres Fundraising Campaign

As some of you may already know, The Stark Center serves as the official repository for the preservation of the UT Athletics’ archives, in addition to housing one of world’s most important libraries related to health, fitness and physical culture. The Stark Center’s holding related to UT sports includes more than 300 boxes of materials from the UT Athletics Media Relations Archives as well as personal papers and memorabilia from Longhorn coaching greats Jody Conradt, Augie Garrido, Clyde Littlefield, Mack Brown, Harvey Penick, Pat Weiss, David Snyder, Wilmer Allison and many individual former athletes. If you’ve visited The Stark Center recently, you...

Jack Shanks’ Lifting Belt and Vest Donated To The Stark Center
March 2, 2022March 2, 2022
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Jack Shanks’ Lifting Belt and Vest Donated To The Stark Center

On Monday 8 May 1972, Jack Shanks, wearing a short sleeve shirt, tie, pants, and dress shoes, lifted the Dinnie Stones with his bare hands, the first to do so since Scottish sport superstar Donald Dinnie himself lifted the stones in 1860. Even more impressive is that Jack Shanks only weighed 161lbs (73kgs) when he completed the lift—his belt is a mere 40 inches, end to end. The immense feat, of course, attracted a crowd of local press and excited onlookers. Sport Historian David Webster, O.B.E., was there to observe the lift. Webster is the man who rediscovered the stones...

Remembering Chris Dickerson and his Gift to Bodybuilding History
January 13, 2022September 30, 2022
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Remembering Chris Dickerson and his Gift to Bodybuilding History

 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 party, including Bill Pearl, Clarence Bass, Doris Barrilleaux, John Balik, Boyer Coe, Jim Lorimer, and, of course, Joe and Betty Weider themselves. It was a great evening and the bodybuilders who came that night seemed to understand and appreciate that we were serious about trying...

December 20, 2021September 30, 2022
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Here’s to the Students!

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 as The University of Texas student population. During that time, The Forty Acres was seemingly hushed as the vast majority of students, faculty, and staff left campus and relocated to complete their work and studies at home. This semester, that all changed. With access to...

Plaster Cast, 8-foot-tall, Ricky Williams
November 5, 2021June 13, 2024
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“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 Center to see the Deming sculpture show – it’s a terrific showcase of sculpted works that delves into the world of physical culture with fresh focus and presentation. I’m quite proud of the exhibit and the way it offers something new to our galleries. I’m...

Film poster for The Commissioner of Power
October 20, 2021October 20, 2021
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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 the Department of Kinesiology & Health Education for 35 years specializing in research related to strength and sport history. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of strength training and strength coaching. The Commissioner of Power premieres on Wednesday,...

David Deming with his bronze sculpture of Terry Todd
October 20, 2021June 14, 2024
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A Surprise Gift from Artist David Deming

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 1998 to become President of the Cleveland Institute of Art. During those same years, Terry and I were teaching weight training and other classes in Kinesiology and Health Education.  We were friends with other Art Department faculty like painters Kelly Fearing, and Vincent Mariani, (who...

John Davis, Jim Bradford, Norbert Schemansky, and Paul Anderson of the US Weightlifting Team stand behind a barbell.
July 23, 2021July 23, 2021
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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 States weightlifting team won seven of eleven world team titles and more than half of the individual titles. Some of the greatest lifters in history were members of the United States weightlifting teams during this successful run of years. Over on Strongman Project, we have...

Mark Henry
June 18, 2021June 26, 2024
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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 wrote, “As for Mark, he may not be the broadest, but he’s a real shadow-caster,” a clever and playful description of Mark’s prodigious size. Mark very accurately fits the bill, both in physicality and personality. Mark is one of the Iron Game’s greatest lifters and,...