Dr. Terry Todd, founder and co-director of the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports and former record-setting weightlifter and powerlifter, has been inducted into the National Fitness Hall of Fame.
The Stark Center is housed at The University of Texas at Austin.
Todd, a faculty member in the College of Education’s Department of Kinesiology and Health Education, started his weightlifting career an undergraduate at The University of Texas at Austin while he was still on the varsity tennis team, winning intercollegiate championships in weightlifting in the super-heavyweight class. He continued lifting during graduate school at the university. Over the next several years he won national championships in weightlifting andpowerlifting, setting national and “world best” records in the process.
After a year and a half as managing editor of Strength and Health magazine, Todd began his teaching career as a faculty member at Auburn University. He later taught at Mercer University in Georgia and Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, before joining The University of Texas at Austin in 1983.
Todd has written seven books, including “Inside Powerlifting” (Contemporary Books, 1978), “Fitness for Athletes”(Contemporary Books, 1978), “Herschel Walker’s Basic Training” (Doubleday, 1985 and 1989), and, with Jan Todd, “Lift Your Way to Youthful Fitness: The Comprehensive Guide to Weight Training” (Little, Brown and Company, 1985).
He recently wrote “Bodybuilding as I See It” (UT Press) for fitness publishing icon Joe Weider and his new book “Philosophical Reflections on Physical Strength” (Edwin Mellen Press, 2010) is in press. Todd has published more than 500 articles in both popular and academic publications, including Sports Illustrated, Readers’ Digest, the Journal of Sport History, Men’s Journal, Iron Man, Muscle and Fitness, Texas Monthly, and the National Strength and Conditioning Association Journal.
Todd also lectures around the nation on drugs in sports, conditioning and sport/fitness history. For the past nine years Todd has directed the Arnold Strongman Classic, a strength contest that pits competitors against each other in events that test basic strength.
Prior to and during the 1992 and 1994 Winter Olympic Games Todd was CBS’s commentator on sports medicine and drugs.He also provided commentary on sports medicine and history for National Public Radio’s Morning Edition for many years.
He has worked as a color commentator on sports for CBS, NBC, ESPN and the BBC and appeared many times on shows like “The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour,” the “Today Show,” “Good Morning America,” “Nightline,” “ABC Nightly News,” “CBS Evening News,” “NBC Nightly News,” “CNN News,” and CNN’s “Newsmakers.” He has consulted for many television programs, including “60 Minutes.”
In 1979, Todd was inducted into the United States Powerlifting Federation’s Hall of Fame, and in 1992 he was honored by the Association of Oldetime Barbell and Strongmen. Todd also was selected as an inaugural member into the USA Powerlifting Association’s Women’s Hall of Fame in 2004, inducted into the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2005 and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oscar Heidenstam Foundation in 2008.
For more than 30 years Terry and wife Jan, who also is a University of Texas at Austin faculty member and record-setting powerlifter, have collected rare and unique materials regarding physical culture and sports. Decades of collecting have culminated in the creation of the Stark Center, a 27,500-square-foot facility that has two primary divisions, one being the largest research library in the world in the areas of health and exercise and the other a 14,000 square foot exhibition space. The exhibition space includes the Joe and Betty Weider Museum of Physical Culture, an art gallery, three photography galleries and a large lobby where sports memorabilia, like Ben Crenshaw’s 1984 Master’s trophy, are on display. The recently completed Stark Center, which is in the North End Zone Building of Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium, is scheduled to open in late April.
The National Fitness Hall of Fame and the National Fitness Museum were created to recognize and remember the efforts of those who have devoted their lives to promoting health and fitness to the American public.
