CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER 6

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IN HIS EARLY YEARS, BOB MORFORD’S DESTINY COULD NOT HAVE BEEN CLEARER. BORN INTO A MILITARY FAMILY OF SOME SIGNIFICANCE, BOTH HIS GRANDFATHERS WERE GENERALS IN THE BRITISH ARMY. MORFORD HIMSELF WAS DECORATED BY THE KING AFTER HE COMPLETED THREE YEARS IN THE ROYAL MILITARY

POLICE IN MALAYA WHERE HE WAS BORN. IT WAS THEN THAT FATE AND HAPPENSTANCE INTERVENED.

When he left the protracted conflict between commonwealth forces and the communist Malayan National Liberation Army, he was given a ticket on the next boat leaving Malaya. He was told that it was destined for the USA. With no landing or immigration papers, the American officials in San Francisco told him that there was a train leaving for Canada shortly and that he should be on it. When he arrived in Vancouver with 30 dollars in his pocket, he was told by some helpful people that displaced persons were being recruited for a massive hydroelectric construction project in a remote region near Kitimat. Amongst the workers were several UBC students, who encouraged him to accompany them when they returned to classes. It was there amidst the mountains of the Coastal Range in the twilight of August 1952 that the thought of attending university occurred to him for the first time.

Just days later, his life took another unexpected and fortuitous turn. While standing in the registration lineup in UBC’s Armouries, he was approached by physical education professor

Published annually under the auspices of the Alma Mater Society, the Totem yearbooks chronicled student life at UBC from 1915 to 1966. Their pages documented graduating classes, sports teams, student clubs and organizations, social events, governance bodies, and fraternities and sororities. The 1953 yearbook included photos and descriptions of Bob Morford’s exploits as a gifted freshman on the varsity rugby team.

and varsity rugby coach, Albert Laithwaite, who was evidently impressed by the 22-year-old’s imposing physical stature and encouraged him to come out for the team. Minutes later, he chanced upon a student named Gerry Kenyon, who was then president of the Physical Education Undergraduate Society. “We got to talking about this and that, and he asked me if I had thought of a career in physical education,” Morford recalled years later. “So I gave it a shot.”

Four years later, he graduated at the top of the physical education class of 1956 and won a fourth consecutive Big Block Award for rugby. Having subsequently been one of the first graduates in the school’s new master’s program in 1959, his keen interest in science and physical activity prompted him to pursue doctoral studies. At the urging of his master’s adviser and mentor, Max Howell, he set off to the University of California, Berkeley. There he specialized in motor learning and performance and completed his dissertation under the supervision of Franklin Henry, one of the founders of the academic discipline and one of its key influencers for years to come.

He returned to Canada for a brief time at the University of Alberta, where he was reunited with Howell. He then moved to California State University, Hayward. Teaching motor learning and performance seminars as well as advising graduate students, he followed Henry’s lead and began to focus on the field as a whole, especially its future directions as a discipline. Ultimately, he became the school’s director at Hayward, and his influence grew as he spoke and wrote about the changing field of physical

Far left: Bob Morford as a graduate student in 1959.

Left: UBC president Douglas Kenny, speaking at the opening of the new UBC Aquatic Centre in 1978, convinced an initially reluctant Bob Morford to return to UBC from the University of Washington to become the second director of the School of Physical Education.

education, the rise of kinesiology as an academic discipline, and the need for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives in teaching, research and professional practice. His rising visibility and contributions to advancing a new way of thinking were instrumental in his recruitment to the University of Washington in 1973, where he served as chair of a newly formed department constituted by the merger of separate men’s and women’s programs. The department was housed in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Morford’s curricular reforms and new faculty recruitments were designed accordingly. He recruited sociologists, psychologists, historians, neurophysiologists, physiologists, and biomechanics specialists able to advance interdisciplinary teaching and research agendas. During this time his vision for academic kinesiology continued to form. Some of his ideas were consistent with Henry’s views and others were original and proved to be long-lasting. His contributions garnered various forms of recognition, but perhaps none more prestigious than his 1980 election to the American Academy of Kinesiology. “I had no intention of becoming an administrator,” he reflected. “Professor Henry had me cut out to be a scholar and researcher. Ironically it was he who recommended me for the Cal State, Hayward job, but as he said at the time, ‘for no more than five years, then get out of administration.’”

UBC’s initial attempts to recruit him as director of the School of Physical Education in 1978 were not successful. A day or two after meeting with representatives of the school and the university, he officially turned down invitation for the directorship, partly due to an acute sense that the faculty members’ preference was alumnus Gerry Glassford. He immediately received a phone call from UBC President Douglas Kenny, who expressed his disappointment and asked if he would please come back to UBC for a meeting with him the following day. Morford was again hesitant, having determined that although there was growing interest in research on the part of UBC faculty members and graduate students, teaching loads were heavy and money for research was in short supply. But as requested, he made a return journey to Point Grey the following day.

During a long walk along a beach near the campus, Kenny expressed his reasons for wanting Morford to reconsider his decision. Above all, Morford recalled, Kenny wanted to see the school’s spectrum widened beyond the training of physical education teachers and recreation administrators, and for it to achieve greater academic respectability within a university that was slowly becoming oriented towards a more researchintensive mission. “I have to say that I was very impressed that a university president would show so much interest in developing an academic degree underlying a physical education curriculum. He understood the situation in the school and wanted it changed and asked what it would take to bring about a new orientation. I explained that from my experience the school would need at least 10 new faculty appointments and named the areas of specialization that I felt were needed. Additionally the school needed a large infusion of money for lab development and also a sizeable increase in the annual operating budget. He did not gulp, as far as I remember, but said ‘I cannot promise you what you have asked for, but I will think it over and do my best to see what I can do. Then I will call you.’”

Two days later Kenny called to say that he would approve a portion of Morford’s request for 10 new faculty positions and a greater budget allocation to purchase equipment and establish laboratories. Encouraged by what he might achieve with the additional resources and support of the president, Morford accepted the offer to succeed Bob Osborne as director. His agenda at UBC

One of the first researchoriented faculty members hired by Morford was former Olympic soccer team coach Ian Franks, who brought expertise in both motor learning and sport analysis. Morford later forged a partnership with the Canadian Soccer Association to establish a centre for the development of Olympic team players under Franks’ direction.

Ken Coutts, an exercise physiologist who came to UBC in 1969 after completing graduate work at Michigan State, is pictured with Diane Rakiecki, who was the second student with a physical disability, after Rick Hansen, to graduate from the school. She was an accomplished wheelchair athlete and a Paralympic gold medalist in wheelchair basketball at the 1992 Paralympic Games in Barcelona. Coutts took a keen research interest in cardiovascular capabilities of athletes with spinal chord injuries.

began with the aim of modernizing intercollegiate athletics and expanding a then-narrow focus on training physical education teachers and community recreation administrators, and to create a school with superb undergraduate and graduate programs. He emphasized the importance of new knowledge frameworks for research and instruction, including exercise science and sport studies that were developing elsewhere in North America. These he felt could help situate the school’s science-based courses—exercise physiology, motor control and learning, biomechanics, sport psychology and sport sociology—in a more coherent framework that was discipline-focused, whereas the professional preparation component could emphasize research on instruction, coaching and leadership. Driving this was a clear need to hire people whose research would help lead the school into the next phase of its development. Over time, this resulted in a series of appointments of new faculty members with keen research interests, including a former University of Washington friend and colleague named Hal Lawson. Others included former Olympic soccer team coach Ian Franks, who brought expertise in both motor learning and sport analysis; biomechanics specialist Gord Robertson from the University of Waterloo, who later moved to the University of Ottawa, and

Vancouver native Dave Sanderson, who replaced Robertson after completing doctoral studies at Pennsylvania State. Bob Sparks, a sociocultural specialist, was appointed in 1980 while still completing a PhD at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a school long recognized as an important centre for the development of sport studies in North America. A year later another Massachusetts graduate with sociocultural interests named Rick Gruneau joined the school. Angelo Belcastro, an exercise physiology and biochemistry specialist from Alberta, arrived in 1987.

With Morford at the helm, the school continued a gradual evolutionary turn towards a new destiny. Integrated exercise, kinesiology and sport science programs and research agendas were now at the top of the school’s priority list, with important connections to various external partners, including Sport Canada and the medical community. The latter resulted in the creation of the Allan McGavin Sports Medicine Centre in 1979, and with it, the addition of sport medicine faculty and researchers. The first of its kind in Canada, the joint venture between the school and the Faculty of Medicine became a world-renowned leader in sport medicine, an emerging and critically important new field of study and practice. The UBC Sports Medicine Centre opened in 1979 in the John Owen Pavilion on the south campus. The first of its kind in Canada, the joint venture between the School of Physical Education and the Faculty of Medicine became a world-renowned leader in sport medicine, an emerging and critically important new field of study and practice. It underwent extensive renovations in 1987 and was renamed the Allan McGavin Sports Medicine Centre that same year. Pictured above in 1985 are (left to right) physiotherapist Ron Mattison; co-founders Dr. Doug Clement and Dr. Jack Taunton; Dr. Don McKenzie and physiotherapists Trish Hopkins and Clyde Smith.

Doug Clement (left) examines x-ray images with Dr. Gord Matheson, a former fellow in the UBC Sports Medicine who was subsequently appointed as the director of Sports Medicine at Stanford University.

During UBC’s 1987 spring Congregation, the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, was conferred upon former faculty member May Brown in recognition of her vast contributions to public service, youth and education. A faculty member in the School of Physical Education from 1947 to 1955, she is pictured in the academic procession at the entrance of War Memorial Gymnasium with university president David Strangway.

Physicians Doug Clement, Jack Taunton and Don McKenzie joined the school as joint appointments with the Department of Family Practice, which was coincidentally headed by Morford’s former UBC rugby team mate, Peter Grantham. The Buchanan Exercise Science Laboratory also opened in 1979 in the basement of the new UBC Aquatic Centre under the direction of Ted Rhodes, signalling the beginning of emphasis on physiological research. Although plans to build the well-equipped laboratory had been initiated during the latter years of Osborne’s directorship, it became an important and symbolic asset for the school’s future.

As the school’s research environment slowly grew and evolved throughout the 1980s, so too did the publications and conference presentations on the part of its faculty. By the end of the decade, the undergraduate curriculum had also undergone substantial change, driven in part by a weakened provincial economy, resulting in the Bachelor of Recreation Education beginning a four-year phase-out period in 1985 as part of university financial restraint. The pill was no doubt a bitter one, for the program had produced many graduates who had profoundly influenced municipalities throughout the province by producing community recreation leaders who had created facilities and programs serving all ages. One of the most prominent influencers was Clyde Griffith, who moved to Victoria in 1973 and served in a leadership capacity for 22 years in the Recreation Branch of the Ministry of Housing, Recreation andConsumer Services.

In 1987, radical curricular changes were approved for the Bachelor of Physical Education degree that reflected widening strength of faculty and gradual changes in career aspirations of graduates. The offerings were expanded to include seven program choices available to entering students: exercise science, health and fitness, leisure studies, leisure and sport administration, motor performance and control, instruction and coaching, and general studies. Correspondingly, performance requirements were drastically reduced.

Another substantial change from the school’s original mandate occurred in 1987 when a special committee established by UBC President David Strangway recommended that ties between the school and its intramural and varsity athletics programs be severed, even though many of the coaches held dual appointments within the school. In spite of his belief in maintaining performance programs and practical community-focused components, Morford didn’t openly oppose their imminent divestment, perhaps having seen the writing on the wall as early as 1980 when he was surprised to learn that Bob Hindmarch, who had been appointed to succeed Bus Phillips as athletic director, would report not to him, but to a university vice-president. Hindmarch

was by now a full professor and an influential figure within sport circles in Canada, including the CIAU and the Canadian Olympic Association. Although he clearly respected and admired Morford, Hindmarch became increasingly convinced that the university needed to have more direct control over what was now called the Department of Athletics and Sport Services, and which by this time included community-focused instructional courses and summer camp programs as well as control of the majority of sport fields and facilities.

Faculty members and staff who were witness to the split between the school and the Department of Athletics and Sport Services saw little reaction on Morford’s part that would indicate anything other than that he accepted and possibly even approved the move. Upon reflection many years later, however, his tone belied deep disappointment over what he perceived to have been a change of heart concerning the future of the school on the part of the university’s leaders. “After just six years, there would be a new president and a succession of deans of education who would provide no back-up or have no knowledge, much less interest, in where I was on the path to take the school over a fifteen-year period,” he said just a few months prior to his death in 2012. “Had I known that the school whose directorship I accepted was going to splinter off from its service components that it was known for across the country, I would not have accepted the job as Bob Osborne’s successor.”

One individual who did understand Morford’s ultimate discontent over the split with the athletic program was Hal Lawson, a close friend and confidant from the University of Washington who Morford enticed to join the UBC faculty. “Bob’s emphasis on the scientific and scholarly understanding of sport, exercise, dance, and physical activity writ large was never exclusively intellectual,” Lawson reflected after Morford’s death. “He held the view that the field was performance-based, and that the practice of performance needed to be married to performance analysis. As departments and schools in other universities eliminated performance classes and de-emphasized intercollegiate sport, Bob emphasized their centrality in academic programs and intellectual development.”

The separation notwithstanding, the years of Bob Morford’s time as director were marked by significant evolutionary milestones that brought the school closer to the forefront of developments in North America, not only by way of advancing a research agenda, but also in teaching and professional development with a more contemporary vision of physical education and kinesiology. Indeed, one of the school’s most compelling testaments to his aspirations was the Allan McGavin Sports UBC field hockey player and physical education student Dianna Popowich (left) was the daughter of 1952 physical education graduate and varsity soccer standout, Bill Popowich. A member of two CIAU championship-winning teams in 1983 and 1984, a scholarship was established by UBC women’s field hockey alumni in her memory following her untimely death in 1985.

Bob Hindmarch with Anatoli Tarasov

UBC players celebrate the team’s first-ever Vanier Cup Championship in 1982, a 39-14 win over Western Ontario in which physical education student Glenn Steele rushed for 236 yards and was named the game’s most valuable player. The Thunderbirds again prevailed 25-23 over Western Ontario in 1986 to win a second Vanier Cup under coach Frank Smith.

Medicine Centre. Following its inception in 1979, the centre flourished not only as a service to local and national sport communities, but also as a centre of learning and research, highlighted in 1985 when a promising young physician from Montreal named Rob Lloyd-Smith became the first to complete a fellowship in sports medicine under the supervision of Jack Taunton and Doug Clement, who were by this time recognized widely as among the discipline’s renowned pioneers. Another was the establishment of the Canadian Soccer Association’s centre for the development of Olympic team players under the direction of Ian Franks. Conceived by Morford, the association’s technical director Bill Thomson and national team coach Barry Clarke, and with additional support of external partners that included Sport Canada, the centre became a model for national sport centres that subsequently emerged around the globe. Moreover, it further exemplified Morford’s deft hand at forging strategic partnerships to optimize research resources and practical outcomes.

His leadership contributions exacted a toll, however, as he was forced to face contentious issues resulting from the changes to the school’s objectives and the effect upon pioneering faculty members who had established its legacy foundations. Those who taught in the teacher education program were given the choice to remain in the school or move more directly into the Faculty of Education. Similarly, when the split with the Department of Athletics and Sport Services occurred, Morford opened the

possibility for those affected to opt for split appointments, the most notable of whom were Nestor Korchinsky, who continued teaching but also oversaw the intramural sports program, and Dick Mosher, who successfully balanced his academic commitments with coaching men’s and women’s varsity soccer teams. The remainder of faculty members with coaching responsibilities were given a choice to move full-time into the school or to the athletic department. While the majority opted for coaching duties with a varsity team, women’s field hockey coach Gail Wilson and men’s rugby coach Barry Legh both opted to remain as senior instructors in the school. When the dust eventually settled, the school had been significantly, and to some, shockingly transformed from its traditional structure and mandate, with all faculty members being variously engaged in teaching, research and community service, but no longer as coaches of varsity teams.

Morford was recruited by San Francisco State University at around the time he stepped down from leadership responsibilities in the school. Their offer coincided with severe budget reductions in California, however, and on learning this Morford declined and advised them to appoint internally and use his proposed salary to negotiate the anticipated shortfalls. They did so reluctantly, and after a year’s administrative leave at UBC, Morford returned to the classroom. He volunteered to teach undergraduate students in addition to his graduate student supervision. He proved to be a skilled and popular teacher, as

Peter Mullins

In 1955, at age 29, Dr. Peter Mullins joined the teaching staff of the School of Physical Education and began coaching the track and field and freshman basketball teams, and in 1962 took over as coach of the Thunderbird basketball team He remained head coach of the track and field until 1964, a year that saw team members Doug Kyle and Doug Clement qualify for the Olympic Games. In his 20 years as varsity basketball coach, he led the Thunderbirds to 337 victories against US and Canadian competition. His teams won the Western Canadian university championship seven times and the Canadian university championship twice. In 1982, at age 56, Mullins stepped down from his coaching duties but continued to be a teacher and counselor until his retirement. His UBC head-coaching career of 27 years is the second longest in the school's history, after that of his colleague Jack Pomfret. He was named coach of Canada's National Team in 1969 and piloted a new four-year program of selection and training of Canadian players in preparation for the 1971 Pan-Am Games and the 1972 Olympics. His contribution to basketball in Canada has been recognized through the Dr. Peter Mullins Trophy, awarded to the CIS Rookie of the Year.

Under the leadership of Nestor Korchinsky and Bachelor of Recreation Education graduates Joan Pilcher and Lorne Bodin, UBC’s intramural sports and recreation program became widely regarded throughout Canada as an exemplary model for enriching campus life with a wide range of league sports, multi-day tournaments and mass participation events. With significant financial support provided by the Alma Mater Society, the program was operated out of offices in the Student Union Building. By the end of the 1980s the departments programs attracted over 10,000 student participants annually. The Arts 20 Relay, a team running event that retraced the steps of the Great Trek from the site of the original Fairview campus to Point Grey, was eventually halted by Vancouver City Police, who argued that the event had created unmanageable gridlock through the streets of Vancouver’s west side. A multi-sport relay event called Storm the Wall, meanwhile, became an annual spectacle for thousands of students near the end of each academic year.

Wheelchair athlete Rick Hansen, pictured receiving an honorary doctorate in 1987 in recognition of his Man-inMotion World Tour, was the first person with a disability to graduate from the School of Physical Education.

Over the course of Bob Morford’s 11-year directorship, a favourable research environment had been established along with advancements in teaching and professional development; undergraduate curricula had been revised in response to changing external needs and student interest, and the school had earned a new place in UBC’s academic hierarchy, under his leadership the school became home to an impressive roster of faculty members with wide-ranging expertise, and was well positioned to advance an increasingly wide spectrum of knowledge.

indicated by an excellence in teaching award and a preponderance of graduates who spoke in reverent terms at the mere mention of his name. He taught a senior undergraduate course in leadership and human resource development that capitalized on his administrative experience and expertise, and that was highly sought after. Along with Wendy Frisby and Bob Sparks, he co-developed a new semester-long field placement that became a coveted undergraduate course in sport management. Often the conversations among his students, friends and colleagues strayed to his lifelong preoccupation with birding and his wilderness passion as a naturalist. While at UBC as an undergrad student he took courses in ornithology which he considered as a career for a time before Howell convinced him otherwise. His love for the British Columbia wilderness endured none the less, particularly for the Bowron Lakes region where he maintained a shorefront cabin, and where the still deep waters upon which he plied his canoe mirrored an understated, but profound intellect.

In spite of his belief that his aspirations had been compromised by senior leadership changes, the school had advanced significantly in the objectives he and former president Douglas Kenny shared on their famous beach walk. Over the course of his 11-year directorship, a favourable research environment had been established along with advancements in teaching and professional development; undergraduate curricula had been revised in response to changing external needs and student interest; and the school had earned a new place in UBC’s academic hierarchy. He also laid the groundwork for further sea changes that came later, including the addition of master of arts and master of science degrees and the eventual start-up of a PhD program. Perhaps most important of all, the school was now home to an impressive roster of faculty members with wide-ranging expertise, and was well positioned to advance an increasingly wide spectrum of knowledge. From the jungles of Malaysia and the mountainous forests of northern BC, a mighty but self-modest scholar had emerged, and with him, a contemporary and exciting vision of physical education and kinesiology that put the University of British Columbia at the forefront of curricular and disciplinary developments in North America.

When he left UBC in 1995 he initially spent time at the University of Otago in New Zealand, and then made a paradoxical return to the place of his birth. After serving for nine years as a senior consultant to the National Sports Institute of Malaysia, he retired to Mexico, where on March 27, 2012 he completed his altogether remarkable journey.