Written by Maggie Samples // Photo by Balazs Balassa
A series of weekly lectureships on the education of the whole person has begun at Harding and will continue for two more weeks.
The Liberal Arts Colloquium series is held on Tuesday evenings and is led by history professor Dr. Julie Harris. The speakers for the Body and Soul of Sport lectures on Oct. 4 in Cone Chapel were Meredith Fear, head coach of women’s volleyball, Dr. Kevin Youngblood, professor of Bible and Ministry, Dr. Charles Bane, associate professor of communication, and Dr. Justin Bland, assistant professor of exercise and sport sciences.
Fear spoke on Title IX and its impact on sports.
“What happened in one generation for my mom, who was a great athlete, to not have opportunity here, to one generation later have three collegiate athletes for daughters?” Fear said during the event.
Fear said that Title IX impacted Harding and that the president at the time, Dr. Clifton L. Ganus, filed for Title IX exemption in 1985 on religious grounds and a hesitation over potential modesty issues in uniforms.
“Harding was one of the first ones to write a Title IX exemption letter in 1976 by President Ganus,” Fear said. “I will be honest. As a woman, all the things that were in there were hard to read.”
Fear said that in spite of this, Ganus was a big supporter of the women’s volleyball team when she was an athlete at Harding and encouraged her after she took the head coach position in 2012.
“I had this little phrase pop into my brain that sometimes you can’t see the light until someone flips the switch for us, and there’s definitely been a wave of love and support and acceptance of our female athletes now,” Fear said.
Youngblood spoke on the Biblical connection between body and soul. Youngblood said exercise has relevance to the soul because the body is the temple of Christ.
“We have tended to have, in Christianity, a less than fully integrated self with a kind of body-soul dysphoria, and it keeps reemerging,” Youngblood said.
Bane’s lecture was titled “There is a God and I’m not Him,” and he spoke on sports films, specifically “Facing the Giants” and “Rudy.” Bane said these films communicate an idea of faith through the sports story.
Bane said “Facing the Giants” promotes a faith that says prayer will bring immediate satisfaction, while “Rudy” encourages a faith based on hard work and the knowledge that humanity doesn’t know better than God.
“God will always be there for you, but that doesn’t let you off the hook,” Bane said. “It’s also your job to inspire others around you to lift themselves up, and that’s a theology I think we can all get behind.”
Bland discussed the science behind exercise and the lifelong benefits that it can bring. Bland spoke on the cellular details of what happens in the body during exercise and the positive changes it can bring on a molecular level.
“Small decisions that you make make meaningful foundational changes,” Bland said. “What you do shapes you, and I mean that to the nth degree. What you do shapes you. You are not just physical; you are embodied.”
The second Liberal Arts Colloquium session was held Oct. 11, with a theme of “Analyzing Sports in Action.” The speakers were Dr. Steven Breezeel, Dr. Stephen Burks and Dr. Jake Stewart. The next colloquium will be held next Tuesday, Oct. 18.
