Weightlifting champion founded UT center
Terry Todd, a former weightlifting champion and the founder and director of a University of Texas museum dedicated to physical culture and sports history, died Saturday. He was 80.
“It may seem that our world is a bit weaker today, but actually we are all immeasurably and eternally stronger for having known him,” reads a statement on the website of the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports at the University of Texas, which Todd formerly ran.
Todd grew up playing tennis — he was on the varsity team at Travis High School, lettered in tennis at UT and returned to it later in his life — and began weight training after high school to make his left arm as strong as his dominant tennis arm. He fell in love with weight training, according to those who knew him, and began to take it seriously while pursuing his doctorate at UT. His dissertation was on resistance training.
In the 1960s, Todd began competing in weightlifting championships. He was the first man to squat 700 pounds and the first man to total 1,600, 1,700, 1,800 and 1,900 pounds in powerlifting.
He also built a career publishing books on sports and fitness as well as writing for various scholarly and popular magazines. Sports Illustrated published Todd’s features on pro wrestler Andre the Giant, football star Herschel Walker and champion arm-wrestler Al Turner, among other topics.