Visiting professor works to make history a part of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics
Author: Communications
Posted on Jan 5, 2010
Category: UNB Fredericton
Robert Knight Barney, a world-renowned Olympic historian will speak at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton on Thursday, Jan. 14, at 7 p.m., at the Wu Conference Centre.
Dr. Barney's talk is titled Mountains Moved, Men of Substance, Memories: The Cornerstone of Canada's Olympic Experience.
In his talk, Dr. Barney will discuss how up until now little has been done to investigate the history of the Olympics. Through an investigation of family scrapbooks, memorabilia, photograph albums, and newspaper accounts, slowly but surely an image of Canada's first Olympic team endeavor has now become much clearer-and just in time for Vancouver.
Dr. Barney is an American citizen who lived and worked in Canada for 37 years. During his studies at the University of New Mexico, he was a three-sport intercollegiate athlete (football, baseball and swimming). He subsequently was a collegiate swimming coach, director of athletics and professor of kinesiology.
He has published some 250 pieces on sport history. His best known work is the seminal study of Olympic Commercialism, the 2003 award-winning book, Selling the Five Rings: The International Olympic Committee and the Rise of the Olympic Commercialism (with Stephen Wenn and Scott Martyn).
Dr. Barney served as president of the North American Society for Sport History, was an executive council member for the International Society of the Olympic History and was director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario.
In February 2010, coincident to the celebration of the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games, he will receive the International Society of Olympic History's highest award, the Pierre de Coubertin Award, for lifetime scholarship and achievements in the advancement of knowledge of the Modern Olympic Movement.
Contact
For more information on Dr. Barney's talk at UNB, please contact Linda O'Brien at lobrien@unb.ca, or 506-453-4576.