Programs as Artifacts of UT Life

One of the challenges in the creation of this Stark Web site was to find representative programs from the entire history of UT football. The majority of the programs used on this site belong to the Media Relations Division of the Athletic Department of the University of Texas, which has kept its own archives of football memorabilia through the years. Other programs were found at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History on the UT campus, and still other in the private collection of Austin artist Cathy Munson who graciously opened her studio to us when we asked her assistance. The final source of programs was the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports located in the Department of Kinesiology & Health Education of the College of Education. Started by UT faculty members Terry and Jan Todd, the Collection is internationally famous as the world’s largest and most complete archival collection in the field of physical culture. In addition to the quarterly publication of Iron Game History: The Journal of Physical Culture, the Todd-McLean Collection contains a unique collection of materials relating to physical fitness, sport training, competitive sports, weightlifting, bodybuilding, powerlifting, physical education, alternative medicine, and hygiene.

An artifact is an object from the past that historians examine as a way to understand how people lived in earlier times. Pottery shards from ancient Egypt are artifacts, of course, and so are Leonardo Da Vinci’s diaries, photographs from the Civil War, newspaper stories from World War II, and the football program covers displayed on this Web site. What can football programs tell us about the past? Plenty. As you’ll see as you go through the exhibit, UT’s football programs have helped to create the public image of the Longhorns, and the cover art has been used to foster traditions and emotions that surround the game experience. Memories of a day out with Dad, your first date with your spouse, or a grand sense of pride at being a Longhorn may be triggered with the glimpse of a game program. In addition, program covers serve to mark changes in technology and national events, thus giving us a glimpse into the mindset of UT students at the time. Whether depicting American pride during World War II or highlighting America’s space race against the Soviets in the 1950s, program covers provide windows to the past and are, therefore, significant pieces of popular culture.

Below is the Stark link to the history of Longhorn media programs.

https://archives.starkcenter.org/omeka/exhibits/show/longhorn-legacy/longhorn-legacy-intro

Longhorn Power: An Online Exhibition on Strength Training for UT Sports by the Stark Center

Jan Todd, Terry Todd, Matt Bowers, Peter Ullmann, Dominic Morais, Fozzy Whitaker, Ryan Munson & Jenna Galloway

Original Designers and Webmasters: Jenna Galloway and Sarah Wiseman*

Headed by Assistant Athletic Director for Strength and Conditioning Jeff Madden the University of Texas employed 12 full-time strength and conditioning personnel during the 2011-2012 academic year and an additional 16 graduate assistants and volunteers. This large number is necessary because in the 21st century every Texas varsity athlete, more than 500 men and women, engage in year-round strength and conditioning workouts under the leadership of these professionals. When Roy James McLean entered the university almost one hundred years ago in 1913, the idea of a strength coach in sport was unheard of. McLean would prove to be a visionary about resistance exercise, and well before most American universities owned a barbell set, Texas was teaching physical education classes in weight training and had varsity athletes lifting weights as well.

This on-line exhibition, based on interviews primarily done during 2010 and 2011, celebrates Texas’ role as a leader and pioneer in the field of strength and conditioning for sport. Using photographs, video interviews and printed records, this exhibition traces the evolution of strength and conditioning from McLean’s early work in the 1920s through the Darrell K. Royal years of the 1950s and 1960s, the role of Charles Craven in the late 1960s and 1970s, the first official UT strength coach Dana LaDuc, and the men who followed LaDuc in the modern era: Rock Gullickson, Bennie Wylie, and the current Assistant Athletic Director for Strength and Conditioning, Jeff Madden. We’d like to thank everyone who participated in this project and who so graciously gave time from their busy schedules to take part in our interviews. The work you have done has fundamentally changed athletic performance, as well as and our expectations of what is humanly possible. We are deeply grateful to all of you.

–Jan Todd

https://archives.starkcenter.org/omeka/exhibits/show/longhornpower/intro