About the Stark Center
History
The center was founded by UT faculty members Terry and Jan Todd who began collecting materials about physical culture and sports well before their arrival at The University of Texas in 1983. Their collection, known as the Todd-McLean Collection, while housed at UT for many years, was open to researchers only on a limited basis because of their lack of space and staff support. A desire to see this major research collection housed in more suitable quarters, and to utilize the resources of the collection for museum exhibits about the history and benefits of exercise and sports, resulted in a search for funding to build a world-class facility dedicated to scholarship in the fields of physical culture and sports. Major gifts from the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation, and Joe and Betty Weider, have covered the costs of the Stark Center construction and allowed us to open the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center. Additional funding is currently being sought to further the Center’s joint mission of preservation and education.
Library Overview
In addition to rich repositories of materials related to weight training, bodybuilding, physical fitness, and school physical education, the Todd-Mclean Collection also contains materials related to a variety of sports—especially golf, boxing, football, baseball—and the outdoor sports of hunting and fishing. The Collection includes a rich and diverse collection of materials related to UT sports, and also contains items related to sports at other Southwestern universities. Visitors with an interest in UT’s sporting tradition might enjoy looking at Longhorn Legacy: A History of UT Football Programs, on this site. The Collection also contains literature on hygiene and the alternative health movement, nutrition, the Olympic movement, the use of ergogenic aids and anabolic steroids in sports, the circus and vaudeville, and the early twentieth century science of physical anthropometry. The Todd-McLean Collection, which is made up of a number of smaller collections acquired from private individuals, consists of more than 300,000 items including books, magazines, photographs, scrapbooks, clipping files, art, film, artifacts, pamphlets, training courses, posters, and sporting event programs. For more information on our holdings, click here.
The Stark Center Library is a non-circulating library and researchers are encouraged to schedule appointment with Cindy Slater, the Assistant Director of Library Services before visiting.
About the Facility
Take a look at our home in the North Endzone, see the statues, and view construction photos of the new addition to the Stadium
Meet the staff
View bios of the full and part-time staff members here at the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center.
Our Donors
The H. J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports is being made possible through the generous donations of a number of private foundations and individuals. Although The University of Texas has provided the Center with 27,500 square feet of space, the funds required to build and operate the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center have come from private donor sources.
Thank all our donors for their support
