Richard Lapchick

Last updated

Richard E. Lapchick is a human rights activist and sportswriter. [1]

Contents

Early years

Lapchick's life passion began in Germany at the age of 14 while touring the Nazi internment camps of Dachau.[ when? ] While he was in Europe during the 1960 Summer Olympic Games, he discovered the profound impact that sports can have across all lines of race, color, creed, and religion. It was then that his dream to use sport as a vehicle for social change was born.

It reinforced his early experiences witnessing public hostility toward his father Joe Lapchick when, as the coach of the New York Knicks, he signed Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton, the first African-American player signed in the NBA in 1950. [2] His earliest memory as a five-year-old was seeing an image of his father swinging from a tree across the street from his house where people were picketing against the inclusion of a black athlete in a "white" team.

Activist work

In the 1970s, Lapchick started fighting apartheid and led the boycott of South African participation in international sports events, the Davis Cup in particular. [3] Lapchick claims he was physically attacked in his college office in February 1978 just as it looked like the Davis Cup was going to be canceled. He claims he was attacked by men who proceeded to carve N-I-G-E-R into his stomach. [4] Lapchick worked for the United Nations from 1978 to 1984. Lapchick claims his New York City apartment was ransacked in 1981 while he was leading a protest of a South African rugby team scheduled to play in the United States. His activism led to a personal invitation from Nelson Mandela upon his presidential inauguration in 1994 after anti-apartheid movements were successful.

Lapchick founded the Center for the Study of Sport in Society (CSSS) in 1984 at Northeastern University and is now Director Emeritus. [5] In 1993, Lapchick co-founded the Mentors in Violence Prevention program. [6]

One year after the center's inception, Lapchick wanted to take its mission national and established the National Consortium for Academics and Sports (NCAS). For 32 years, the NCAS has been "creating a better society by focusing on educational attainment and using the power and appeal of sport to positively affect social change." [1]

Lapchick helped create the National Student-Athlete Day in 1988 which to date has recognized more than 2.6 million high school students for being citizen-scholar-student-athletes.

Lapchick was engaged by the NBA in 2014 to help construct the case for why continued ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers by Donald Sterling was detrimental to the NBA after his racist remarks became public.

Lapchick is active in work against human trafficking and has added Shut-Out Trafficking to the NCAS's effort to combat human trafficking with week-long programs on NCAS campuses. Since 2014-15 there have been week-long programs on 28 NCAS campuses connecting with more than 54,570 participants. The program is partnered with the US Fund for UNICEF and the USOC Athletes Advisory Council and is funded by the Fetzer Institute.

Lapchick is a regular columnist for ESPN.com and the Sports Business Journal . [1]

Academic career

Lapchick received a doctorate in international history from the Graduate School of International Studies (now the Josef Korbel School of International Studies) at the University of Denver.

Lapchick was an associate professor of political science at Virginia Wesleyan College from 1970 to 1978 and a senior liaison officer at the United Nations between 1978 and 1984. He then served as director at Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society for 17 years.

Lapchick accepted the endowed chair of the DeVos Sport Business Management Program at the University of Central Florida's College of Business Administration in 2001. [1] In 2009 it was named the #1 MBA program in the nation for volunteer service. In 2015, Sport Business International named DeVos as one of the top three graduate sports business programs in the United States as well as one of the top five graduate sports business management programs internationally. During his time at DeVos, Lapchick was named as "One of the 100 Most Powerful People in Sport".[ citation needed ]

While at the University of Central Florida, he remains President of the National Consortium for Academics and Sports (NCAS) and has established The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) which serves as a comprehensive resource for issues related to gender and race in amateur, collegiate and professional sports. He is the author of the Racial and Gender Report Card (RGRC) published by TIDES. [7]

In December 2006, Lapchick, his wife Anne, daughter Emily, and a group of DeVos students formed the Hope for Stanley Foundation (HFS), which has worked to help rebuild New Orleans. HFS has also worked with tornado victims in Tuscaloosa, AL, in New York with the victims of Hurricane Sandy, and in Baton Rouge, LA with victims of the flooding that impacted the community in August 2016.

Awards

In 2009, the Rainbow/ PUSH Coalition and Rev. Jesse Jackson honored him for "lifetime achievement in working for civil rights." Lifelong friend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar presented the award to Lapchick on behalf of Rev. Jackson. [8]

Written works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheerleading</span> Athletic activity based on cheering for a team

Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to entertain the audience, or for competition. Cheerleading routines typically range anywhere from one to three minutes, and contain components of tumbling, dance, jumps, cheers, and stunting. Cheerleading originated in the United States, where it has become a tradition. It is less prevalent in the rest of the world, except via its association with American sports or organized cheerleading contests.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of sport</span> Sub-discipline of sociology

Sociology of sport, alternately referred to as sports sociology, is a sub-discipline of sociology which focuses on sports as social phenomena. It is an area of study concerned with the relationship between sociology and sports, and also various socio-cultural structures, patterns, and organizations or groups involved with sport. This area of study discusses the positive impact sports have on individual people and society as a whole economically, financially, and socially. Sociology of sport attempts to view the actions and behavior of sports teams and their players through the eyes of a sociologist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's sports</span> Sports participated by women and girls

The participation of women and girls in sports, physical fitness, and exercise has been recorded to have existed throughout history. However, participation rates and activities vary in accordance with nation, era, geography, and stage of economic development. While initially occurring informally, the modern era of organized sports did not begin to emerge either for women or men until the late industrial age.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard DeVos</span> American businessman

Richard Marvin DeVos Sr. was an American billionaire businessman, co-founder of Amway with Jay Van Andel, and owner of the Orlando Magic basketball team. In 2012, Forbes magazine listed him as the 60th wealthiest person in the United States, and the 205th richest in the world, with an estimated net worth of $5.1 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Lapchick</span> American basketball player and coach

Joseph Bohomiel Lapchick was an American professional basketball player, mostly known for playing with the Original Celtics in the 1920s and 1930s. He is commonly regarded as the best center of his era, overshadowed in his later years only by Tarzan Cooper. After ending his playing career in 1937, Lapchick became head coach at St. John's University, a position he held until 1947, when he took over the New York Knicks in the NBA. Lapchick coached the Knicks until 1957, leading them to three consecutive NBA Finals appearances (1951–53). He returned to St. John's, coaching them until 1965.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trinity High School (River Forest, Illinois)</span> Private school in River Forest, Illinois, United States

Trinity High School is a Roman Catholic college preparatory high school for girls located in River Forest, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Located in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, it was founded in 1918 by members of the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters. Originally the school was built on the grounds of Rosary College, which is now Dominican University, but in 1926 the campus was relocated a few blocks away from the original site. Today, Trinity High School has an enrollment of 500 young women divided among four grade levels. Trinity students come from 45 zip codes and 144 different grade schools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlie Scott (basketball)</span> American basketball player (born 1948)

Charles Thomas Scott, also known as Shaheed Abdul-Aleem, is an American former professional basketball player. He played two seasons in the American Basketball Association (ABA) and eight seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Scott was an Olympic Gold Medalist and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018. Scott is the leader in most points per game with 24.8 in Suns franchise history.

The National Consortium for Academics and Sports (NCAS) is an organization of colleges and universities that have agreed to help student athletes finish their decrees. NCAS was established in 1985 by Richard Lapchick at the Center for the Study of Sports in Society at Northeastern University. The NCAS National Office was relocated to Orlando, Florida on the campus of the University of Central Florida in 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yamanashi Gakuin University</span>

Yamanashi Gakuin University (YGU) is a university in Kōfu, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. Yamanashi Gakuin was founded in 1946. Today, it is a comprehensive educational institution that includes a kindergarten, elementary school, junior high and high school, junior college, university and graduate school. (YGU) sits at the core of the whole institution, and aims to contribute to society by nurturing in students profound knowledge and creativity, a globalized perspective and deep understanding of and appreciation for Japanese culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sporting boycott of South Africa during the apartheid era</span>

South Africa under apartheid was subjected to a variety of international boycotts, including on sporting contacts. There was some debate about whether the aim of the boycott was to oppose segregation in sport or apartheid in general, with the latter view prevailing in later decades. While the National Party introduced apartheid in 1948, it added sport-specific restrictions from the late 1950s, on interracial sport within South Africa and international travel by nonwhite athletes. The international federations (IFs) governing various sports began to sanction South Africa, both in response to the new restrictions and in reflection of the broader anti-racism of national federations in newly independent postcolonial states. By the early 1970s, South African national teams were excluded from most Olympic sports, although South Africans competed in individual events in some, mainly professional, sports through the 1980s. Although from the mid-1970s the National Party relaxed the application of segregation provisions in relation to sport, this failed to alleviate the boycott, which continued until the end of apartheid.

Peter P. Roby is the former athletic director of Northeastern University. Roby was introduced as the ninth athletic director of the university in June 2007 and retired in February 2018. In 2007 Roby was named as one of the 100 Most Influential Sports Educators.

Issues related to race and sports have been examined by scholars for a long time. Among these issues are racial discrimination in sports as well as the observation that there are overrepresentations and underrepresentations of different races in different sports.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Youth sports</span> Sport practiced by youth

Youth sports is any sports event where competitors are younger than adult age, whether children or adolescents. Youth sports includes school sports at primary and secondary level, as well as sports played outside the education system, whether informally or organized.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Race and ethnicity in the NBA</span>

The composition of race and ethnicity in the National Basketball Association (NBA) has changed throughout the league's history. The first non-white player to play in the league was an Asian American, Wat Misaka, in 1947. African Americans entered the league beginning in 1950. According to racial equality activist Richard Lapchick, the NBA in 2021 was composed of 73.2 percent black players, 16.8 percent white players, 3.1 percent Latino players of any race, and 0.4 percent Asian players. Additionally, 6.6 percent of the players were classified as either multiracial or "other" races. The league has the highest percentage of black players of any major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">College sports</span> Collegiate and university-level competitive sports

College sports or college athletics encompasses non-professional, collegiate and university-level competitive sports and games.

This timeline of college football in Kansas sets forth notable college football-related events that occurred in the state of Kansas.

Greg Austin is an American football coach and former player. He is currently the assistant offensive line coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was previously the offensive line coach at FIU, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and the University of Central Florida. He also played offensive guard for the Nebraska Cornhuskers from 2003 to 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darryl Williams (advocate)</span>

Darryl K. Williams of Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts and Milton, Massachusetts was an advocate for social justice, compassion and forgiveness as well as a local advocate for accessibility for persons with disabilities. As a 15-year-old African-American living in Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, Williams became the victim of a school shooting on September 28, 1979, in Charlestown, Boston, Massachusetts while playing at a high school football game. Williams survived the shooting but was paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life. Protests, rallies and school walkouts ensued in response, and racial tensions in the city of Boston escalated in the aftermath.

Brian Wright is the general manager of the San Antonio Spurs since August 2019.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Richard Lapchick, Biography, (http://www.ncasports.org/about/staff-bios/bio-richard-lapchick.shtml Archived 2011-07-27 at the Wayback Machine ) accessed November 12, 2009.
  2. Richard Lapchick, Smashing Barriers, (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 2001), 103-4.
  3. Richard Lapchick, Smashing Barriers, (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 2001), 3-5.
  4. "A gut feeling that this time, this movement for racial equality may endure | Commentary". 7 June 2020.
  5. http://www.northeastern.edu/sportinsociety/about/index.html Archived 2011-11-12 at the Wayback Machine
  6. Lapchick, Richard (November 30, 2011). "Violence against women needs action". ESPN.com . Retrieved March 29, 2013.
  7. "TIDES". TIDES. Retrieved 2019-08-21.
  8. Gabriel, Jon (July 8, 2009). "Richard Lapchick Receives Lifetime Achievement Award". UCF Today. Archived from the original on July 10, 2009. Retrieved July 20, 2017.