John Apostal Lucas: Teacher, Sport Historian, And One Who Lived His Life Earnestly - A Collection Of Articles And Essays

By John A. Lucas

Dr. John Lucas has dedicated his nearly half-century of academic life at Penn State University to researching and writing about his first love of sport, track and field, and the Olympics. He has attended every Summer Olympics since the 1960 Rome Games and has written several books, including Future of the Olympic Games. From his over 200 monographs and articles, Lucas has selected 23 of his articles written since 1953 for this anthology. They cover the range of his academic interests and reflect his passion for the Olympics and athletics. The work also includes an autobiography of a life dedicated to writing, teaching, coaching, and running.

“In 1962, six years before I first met him, John Lucas defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Maryland on ‘Pierre de Coubertin and the Formative Years of the Modern Olympic Movement.’ Almost a half century later, following 8 books and some 250 scholarly articles on Olympic history, comes this book, ‘The Best of John Lucas,’ compiled by the world’s doyen of seriously researched, thoroughly documented, and passionately written Olympic history.”  (Dr. Robert Barney, founder of OLYMPICA: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OLYMPIC STUDIES and past-president of the North American Society for Sport History.)