Richard E. Lapchick is a
human rights activist
A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing campai ...
and writer.
[Richard Lapchick, Biography, (http://www.ncasports.org/about/staff-bios/bio-richard-lapchick.shtml ) accessed November 12, 2009.]
Early years
Lapchick's life passion was sparked in Germany at the age of 14 while touring the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
internment camp
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
s of
Dachau. He was in Europe during the
1960 Summer Olympic Games and discovered the impact sport has to cross all lines, color, creed and religion and 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
Joseph Bohomiel Lapchick (April 12, 1900 – August 10, 1970) 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, overs ...
when, as the coach of the
New York Knicks
The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the National Basketball Associat ...
, he signed
Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton
Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton (born Clifton Nathaniel; October 13, 1922 – August 31, 1990) was an American professional basketball and baseball player. He is best known as one of the first African Americans to play in the National Basketball ...
, the first African-American player signed in the NBA in 1950. 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
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
and led the boycott of the South African participation in international sport events, the
Davis Cup
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organis ...
in particular. 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 cancelled. He claims he was attacked by men who proceeded to carve N-I-G-E-R into his stomach. Lapchick worked for the United Nations from 1978-1984. 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
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist who served as the President of South Africa, first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1 ...
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
Northeastern University (NU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in ...
and is now Director
Emeritus
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
. In 1993, Lapchick co-founded the
Mentors in Violence Prevention program.
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."
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 determined 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.
Academic career
Lapchick was an Associate Professor of Political Science at
Virginia Wesleyan College
Virginia Wesleyan University (VWU) is a private university in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The university is nonsectarian but historically affiliated with The United Methodist Church. It enrolls 1,607 students annually in undergraduate and graduate ...
from 1970-1978 and a Senior Liaison Officer at the United Nations between 1978-1984. 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
The University of Central Florida (UCF) is a public research university whose main campus is in unincorporated Orange County, Florida. UCF also has nine smaller regional campuses throughout central Florida. It is part of the State University ...
's
College of Business Administration in 2001.
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 sport business programs in the United States as well as one of the top five graduate sport business management programs internationally. During his time at DeVos, Lapchick was named as "One of the 100 Most Powerful People in Sport".
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.
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 in 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
Jesse Louis Jackson (né Burns; born October 8, 1941) is an American political activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. senator ...
honored him for "lifetime achievement in working for civil rights." Lifelong friend
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kareem (alternatively spelled Karim or Kerim) ( ar, کریم) is a common given name and surname of Arabic origin that means "generous", "noble", "honorable". It is also one of the Names of God in Islam in the Quran.
Given name Karim
* Karim A ...
presented the award to Lapchick on behalf of Rev. Jackson.
As a writer
His literary works include:
''100 Trailblazers: Great Women Athletes Who Opened Doors for Future Generations''; ''100 Pioneers: African-Americans Who Broke Color Barriers in Sport''; ''100 Heroes: People in Sports Who Make This a Better World''; ''New Game Plan for College Sport''; ''Smashing Barriers: Race and Sport in the New Millennium''; ''Never Before, Never Again: The Stirring Autobiography of Eddie Robinson, the Winningest Coach in the History of College Football''; ''Sport in Society: Equal Opportunity or Business as Usual?''; ''Five Minutes to Midnight: Race and Sport in the 1990s''; ''Rules of the Game: Ethics in College Sport''; ''On the Mark: Putting the Student Back in Student-athlete''; ''Fractured Focus: Sport as a Reflection of Society''; ''Broken Promises: Racism in American Sports''; ''Oppression and Resistance: The Struggle of Women in Southern Africa''; ''Politics of Race''; ''and International Sport: The Case of South Africa''.
[Richard Lapchick, 100 Trailblazers: Great Women Athletes Who Opened Doors for Future Generations, (Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology, 2009), Preface.]
Lapchick is a regular columnist for
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
.com and The Sports Business Journal.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lapchick, Richard
American civil rights activists
University of Central Florida faculty
American sportswriters
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)