Expert on Sports and Race Relations to Speak

Richard Lapchick, a human-rights activist and advocate of racial justice who is an internationally recognized authority on sports issues, will speak in Thomas Great Hall on Tuesday, April 10, at 8 p.m. His lecture, titled "Sport as a Bridge Across America's Racial Divide," is free and open to the public.

In an era of heightened racial tensions on college campuses, Lapchick argues, the concept of teamwork in sports presents a rare opportunity to bring different racial groups together on an equal playing field rarely available elsewhere in American society. His presentation will focus on this special role athletics plays and also the lessons of teamwork that can serve as a model for society at large.

Lapchick, the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, helped found the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University in 1984. The Center's numerous award-winning initiatives included programs aimed at preventing violence, improving race relations, preventing drug and alcohol abuse, and balancing academic and athletic priorities.

Lapchick was the American leader of the international campaign to boycott South Africa in sport for more than 20 years. In 1993, the center launched TEAMWORK-South Africa, a program designed to use sports to help improve race relations and help with sports development in post-apartheid South Africa. He was among 200 guests specially invited to Nelson Mandela's inauguration.

A columnist for ESPN.com and The Sports Business Journal, Lapchick is a regular contributor to the op-ed page of the Orlando Sentinel and has appeared repeatedly as an expert on sports issues on national news broadcasts. Among his myriad awards are his induction, along with Arthur Ashe and Nelson Mandela, into the Sports Hall of Fame of the Commonwealth Nations in 1999 in the category of Humanitarian and the Ralph Bunche International Peace Award. He joined Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe and Wilma Rudolph in the Sport in Society Hall of Fame in 2004.

Lapchick's lecture is sponsored by the Department of Athletics and Physical Education, the Sociology Department, the Class of 1902 Lecture Fund and the Haverford College Dean's Office.

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