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Those who know a bit—or a lot—about the collecting my wife Jan elmer bitgood village I have done over the elmer bitgood village decades elmer bitgood village that our focus has been on Physical Culture, broadly defined. In the very earliest years of my collecting, elmer bitgood village course, I was primarily interested elmer bitgood village assembling books and magazines that dealt with my own avocation—progressive resistance exercise. A word here about Fannie Ratchford, a woman who—a decade or so earlier—had had what I now realize was a profound effect on the trajectory of my life.
My relationship with Miss Ratchford began during the summer of my freshman year at UT, inwhen I took a temporary job as a student helper at the Rare Books Library.
Miss Ratchford was a woman of great accomplishment, having built that library into one of the finest of its kind in the country, and she had the sort of quiet dignity which commanded respect. Miss Ratchford revered books, of course, and she was also a true believer in the importance of tradition. In fact, it was her love of tradition which caused her to notice a lowly freshman. At the snack bar, when I held up the oaken bucket in front of the supervisor of the snack bar she immediately laughed, took the bucket, and filled it brimful with ice from their elmer bitgood village ice chest.
She then invited me to join elmer bitgood village and the library staff for their afternoon tea, and from that day until I reluctantly left my job to begin the fall semester I was the person whose job it was to fetch the bucket of ice for our daily tea. I can still recall the ceremonial atmosphere of those teas, which were formal but also very entertaining—filled elmer bitgood village good talk about books, films, and ideas.
A frequent topic of discussion, as expected, involved a particular book or elmer bitgood village of books and how they were being used by scholars or catalogued for future use. Being an avid reader of books, as I already was, I came under the spell of these booklovers and soon I took a certain pride in the work I did cleaning and caring for our many treasures.
The most recent addition to this story is that the conference room in the Stark Center has officially been named the Miriam Lutcher Stark and W. In any case, Ottley was enthusiastic about my suggestion that he meet Miss Ratchford because he was already in his 70s and certainly aware that it would be a very elmer bitgood village thing if his collection could find a permanent home in a elmer bitgood village institution so that instead of it being dispersed willy-nilly by his family it would become available to scholars and fans of the field of Physical Culture.
Those considerations are elmer bitgood village complex to discuss in detail elmer bitgood village, but I believe Ottley would have been pleased to know that over 40 years elmer bitgood village his beloved collection finally found its way to UT and is now available to scholars and fans alike.
Later, when we brought our collection to the University of Texas inwe hoped we could create a permanent, public home for this growing accumulation of publications, and approximately five years ago our dream began to take shape.
Also, once we realized we would have 27, square feet for our facility, we began to expand our plans as to how we could make the best use of so much space. Our Physical Culture Collection, of course, was the foundation of it all, but because Jan and I are longtime members of the department of Kinesiology and Health Education—which deals with athletics and human movement—we decided to broaden our collecting focus to include sports. We realized right away, however, that even with such a spacious facility there was no way we could collect all, or almost all, of the books and magazines in English in all sports.
Therefore, although we had almost 2, books about various competitive sports we decided to concentrate our efforts on conditioning techniques for sports as well as on a few individual sports in which we already had—or at some point acquired—a significant collection. It should also be noted that the sport of golf touched the life of Lutcher Stark, the aforementioned sportsman and philanthropist whose fortune formed the basis for the Stark Foundation, our primary donor.
Stark, who greatly expanded the Stark timber empire, truly loved the sport and in his later life played as often as he could at a golf course another timber baron had built in the town of Orange, Texas.
For some reason, this timber baron decided to ban the senior Mr. Stark from the course, whereupon Lutcher contacted the most famous architect of golf courses in the country, Donald Ross, and hired him to build a state-of-the-art course in Orange on part of the more elmer bitgood villageacres of land the Starks controlled. Another part of the reason we selected golf was that the first major gift we received related to any specific sport was a collection of approximately volumes—many of which are quite rare.
The collection had been assembled over many years by the late Edmund Hoffman, a prominent businessman from Dallas who had an abiding love for golf and its sporting traditions. Hoffman died inbut his widow and their son—after visiting the site of the elmer bitgood village Stark Center and seeing some of our own collection—decided to donate the Edmund Hoffman Collection to the Center.
Buoyed by this gift, I got in touch with Scott Sayers, the longtime friend and business manager of Ben Crenshaw, the putting genius who won two Masters and a worldwide fan base after winning 19 PGA events along with two national NCAA golf championships while playing for the University of Texas.
Well known for his knowledge of elmer bitgood village history and his extensive collection of rare books on the sport, Crenshaw—an Austinite—seemed to me like a man who would understand what we were trying to do at the Stark Center and would perhaps join our effort to preserve the past. As I soon learned, Scott Sayers was himself a serious collector of golf-related items; and after I explained what we were doing and gave him a tour of the Stark Center he urged Ben to come along on his next visit.
To shorten a long story, after a several trips to the Stark Center both Sayers and Crenshaw agreed to place their unique collections with us—including photos, films, paintings, videotapes, game-use clothing, clubs, trophies, framed collages of autographed photos, golf-bags, clippings, and even the customized golf cart Ben had been elmer bitgood village when he captained the U.
The showpiece of this wonderful collection is the solid silver replica of the clubhouse at Augusta National—given elmer bitgood village him after he won his first Masters in To elmer bitgood village this he went to the clinic of the renowned orthopedic surgeon, Dr.
Frank Jobe, in Los Angeles. Anyone interested in knowing more about how these rolling gyms developed can find a lot of information in the April issue of Iron Game History available at http: I should add that Tom began a serious strength and fitness program right after he was tested and shown which exercises would be best for him, and he remains an avid trainer with a strikingly youthful, powerful, and title-winning body at the age of Beyond the collections of former UT teammates Crenshaw elmer bitgood village Kite we have plans to increase our holdings in golf.
As these holdings arrive and become part of the library at the Stark Center I will keep readers of this blog aware of what we have. Already, a great many people have come to the Center specifically to see some of the Crenshaw and Kite treasures and to use the Edmund Hoffman Collection.
Elmer bitgood village a researcher sitting in our Rare Books Room quietly reading about the Auld Game or watching men and women, too, stand transfixed for minutes examining the elmer bitgood village silver Masters Trophy always makes me realize that those people, who are deeply elmer bitgood village to their sport, elmer bitgood village brothers and sisters under the skin.
I feel blessed, as does Jan, to be able to feed this innocent hunger, elmer bitgood village fuel the devotion. The oldest golf course in the world is Musselburgh Links, but there are many vary old golf courses in Scotland, most famously St.
Andrews, where originally having only room for nine holes, early golfers played the course twice leading elmer bitgood village the 18 hole courses we have today. Thanks again for the reference.
Bob, thanks for your responses. I wish my Brother Joe had lived long enough to read your report and visit your center here in Austin. We were caddies, Joe was 15 and I was For a short time he was a teaching professional before his true career took him in other directions. Joe always maintained his interest in golf and also tried his hand at marathon golf, playing as many rounds of 18 and additional holes to see what he could do from dark to dark, just as you have mentioned in your blog.
Thank you for a history lesson regarding your center here in Austin and its connection to golf. Strongly yours, Elmer bitgood village Hornick. Click the images below to view a larger version and read their captions 4 Comments personal trainingMay 11, Elmer bitgood village HornickJanuary 26, Re the photo of the lifter doing the deadlift.
Elmer bitgood village the Best to you, Dr. Jan Todd and elmer bitgood village staff. Leave a comment Your email address will not be published. Name E-mail Comment Submit.
