The 2015 C. H. McCloy Lecture: Road Trip Toward More Inclusive Physical Activity: Maps, Mechanics, Detours, and Traveling Companions

Abstract

This essay stems from the 35th annual C. H. McCloy Research Lecture at the 2015 SHAPE America National Convention & Expo in Seattle, WA. The lecture series has 2 main aims. First, it provides an annual forum for a contemporary scholar to delve deeply into her/his work and to share that work with her/his peers. Second, it is an enduring tribute to the pioneering work and influential career of Charles Henry McCloy (March 30, 1886–September 18, 1959), research professor emeritus at the University of Iowa. This essay is composed of 6 sections: a prologue, a biography of McCloy, my autobiography, the fundamental premises and overarching aims of my work, a summary of my research contributions aimed at promoting inclusive physical activity, and an epilogue. The entire article is built around the construct of maps, mechanics, detours, and traveling companions. Paradigm shifts and insights are unraveled as the work unfolds and becomes increasingly integrated. Rarely does a scholar have the chance to provide a narrative of this nature, and it is hoped that this essay will inspire others to discover their own scholarly pathways and to contextualize and reflect on their contributions for the greater good of the field of kinesiology and society.

Keywords::

• history
• kinesiology
• philosophy
• physical education

Notes

¹ The narrative described in this tribute was created by reading multiple texts, including, especially, the work of Berryman (1995), English (1983a, 1983b), Little (1968), Morgan (1981), Thomas (1997), and Todd (1991), as well as several original works by McCloy (1921, 1926, 1927a, 1927b, 1927c, 1927d, 1929, 1930a, 1930b, 1934, 1936, 1940, 1945, 1957a, 1957b, 1957c, 1958a, 1958b, 1960) and McCloy and colleagues (McCloy, Metheny, & Knott, 1938; McCloy & Tsong, 1926). I am especially indebted to James Robert Little, Ph.D., for his outstanding dissertation on McCloy (Little, 1968) and for his correspondence on the subject (personal communication, February 6, 2015; March 1, 2015; and March 27, 2015).

² In a survey of physical education department chairs in North America, Edwards (1989) found McCloy to be the third highest-ranked all-time leader in the field. This was true among both exercise science-oriented and humanistic-oriented department chairs.

³ Detroit Teachers College in Detroit, MI, is a precursor to the College of Education at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, where my wife, Marita K. Cardinal, Ed.D., and I both worked as tenure-track assistant professors during 1993 to 1997.

⁴ In the first-ever C. H. McCloy Lecture, Morgan (1981) described McCloy as a “peripatetic scholar of the first order” (p. 387). Peripatetic refers to traveling, of which there is no doubt McCloy did much. McCloy's travels and life experiences along the way were clear sources of scholarly inspiration for him. He was an observant and opportunistic scholar with wide-ranging interests and talents (McCloy, 1960).

⁵ I have attempted to encourage international development and globalization within the field in other ways too (Cardinal, Powell, & Lee, 2009; Dannen, Cardinal, & Staley, 2009), including having had the honor of serving as a U.S. representative to the International Olympic Academy in Olympia, Greece, in 2001. Though important to me, for the sake of brevity, little of my international work has been highlighted in this review though, to date, it has occurred in China, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Iran, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand (e.g., Cardinal, Keis, & Ferrand, 2006; Cardinal, Lee, et al., 2009; Cardinal, Tuominen, & Rintala, 2004; Flath & Cardinal, 2006; Y.-H. Kim & Cardinal, 2009; Lee & Cardinal, 2014; Sanaeinasab, Saffari, Nazeri, Karimi, & Cardinal, 2013; Si et al., 2011).

⁶ In 1995, while at Wayne State University, I also had the opportunity to participate in the inaugural class of Postgraduate Fellows in Physical Activity and Public Health sponsored by the American Heart Association, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, and the University of South Carolina, in Seabrook Island, SC. This occurred just prior to the publication of the Surgeon General's report on physical activity and health (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1996). As postgraduate fellows, we were taught and mentored by many of the driving forces that resulted in this seminal work. The value of this training for the more than 500 people who have participated in it during the past 20 years has been profound (Evenson, Dorn, Camplain, Pate, & Brown, in press).

⁷ Though a different form of cancer, my interest in studying cancer survivors was motivated, in part, through my own personal experience of being a cancer survivor, as well as the experiences of many family members who have had various forms of cancer. I was diagnosed with colon cancer in December of 2005 and underwent treatment in January of 2006. Today, I am cancer-free. This example is another very personal example of deriving scholarly inspiration through our lived experiences.