Thanks Dad

My dad, Dr. Charles Augustus Bucher, was a Professor of Education at New York University and later at the University of Nevada of Las Vegas.  In addition to serving on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, he was the author of more than twenty textbooks on the subject of health, physical education, and fitness.  His textbooks have been published in 13 languages.

Dad, in some ways, was ahead of his time.  In the 1950’s, he pushed for fitness centers at airports and other public places long before they became fashionable.  He created a slimnastics record and put it all to music, long before Jane Fonda came along.  In his writings, he criticized the Olympics for being too competitive, and losing sight of its mission.  He quotes Baron Pierre de Coubertin, Founder of the International Olympic Committee; “The important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning, but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering, but fighting well.”

Charles Bucher was ahead of this time in another respect.  Recently, I was perusing some of the articles he wrote for professional journals as well as Sports Illustrated, Women’s Day Magazine, Parent’s Magazine, Reader’s Digest, and others.  For the first time, I noticed The Expected, published by the Virginia Baptist State Convention.  According to this publication, the Virginia Baptist State Convention’s aim is to promote self-help and spiritual independence, with an emphasis on education.  As an aside, The Convention is still going strong today.  This edition of The Expected included information on the 92^nd Annual Session (1958), as well as two articles.  One article, by The Negro History Department at Virginia Theological Seminary, was titled “Zenobia, Beautiful Negro Queen of Palmyra.”  The other article, “Sports Are Colorblind,” was written by Dr. Charles Bucher.

My dad began the article by discussing how sports have the potential to break down color barriers.  He cites examples of amateur and professional sports such as tennis, baseball, basketball, and football bringing Negroes and Whites together.  For example, he cites Branch Rickey and the role he played in “sports integration.”  Dad quotes Rickey, “I believe the racial extractions…are secondary to what men can do.  The American public is not as concerned with a first baseman’s pigmentation as it is with the power of his swing, the dexterity of his slide, the grace of his fielding, or the speed of his legs.

Dad goes on to discuss sports as an agent for change.  Specifically, he argues in compelling fashion that sports – locally, nationally, and internationally, help people of all races better understand each other’s feelings and perspectives.  He concludes, “The millennium will not come overnight, but when historians write the story of integration of minority groups into the American cultural pattern, the athletes will be given a very important chapter.”

Interestingly, my dad discouraged me from going into the field of health and fitness.  In part, I think he felt he never got the credit he deserved for being a scholar, a historian, and a social commentator.  Dad provided me with an unbelievable work ethic, which has served me well in my career as a college professor, sociologist, and author.  Moreover, he taught me and modeled the importance of leaving this world a better place for all of God’s children, regardless of skin color.  For that, I am very, very grateful.

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