Drs. Terry and Jan Todd, faculty members in the College of Education’s Department of Kinesiology and Health Education, have been honored in London, England, with the Oscar Heidenstam Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Heidenstam Award, given to the Todds on March 15, recognizes the breadth and significance of an individual’s contributions to the field of physical culture, and it is rare the award is bestowed on an American.
Begun in 1991, the Heidenstam Foundation was established to honor the life of Oscar Heidenstam, a renowned “ambassador of physical culture” and a man deemed “The Father of British Bodybuilding.” Since its creation, the foundation has honored several individuals for their achievements in physical culture.
The Todds are national and world record-breaking competitive lifters who have gained legendary status in the areas of fitness, bodybuilding and powerlifting. They have coached world champion athletes, taught thousands of students and are prolific scholars who have authored a combined 600 articles and seven books.
Since joining The University of Texas at Austin faculty in 1983, the Todds also have assembled the world’s largest collection of physical culture materials and donated that collection to the university. The collection forms the foundation of the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center of Physical Culture and Sports, an academic center that soon will be relocated to a new 27,000-square-foot home at the north end of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. The Todds have raised more than $6 million and either donated or solicited gifts of books, photos, magazines and artifacts worth about the same amount, to establish and outfit the center.
In remarks made after receiving their crystal award at the Heidenstam awards dinner, the Todds said, “As we began to take up the cause of drug-free sport in the 1970s, we drew courage from the brave efforts of earlier opponents of drug use—pioneers like David Webster and Oscar Heidenstam. These men believed that, at its heart, a physical culture life had to be a healthy life. Otherwise, it was a sham.
“Oscar and David correctly suspected, more than 40 years ago, that the long-term use of these powerful hormones would lead to the many premature deaths we’ve seen in sports and physical culture. For these and other reasons we knew we would be among friends at this dinner—friends of Oscar, friends of drug-free sport and friends of the physical culture life.”
Learn more about the Todds and the physical culture collection.
