Richard Lapchick

Richard E. Lapchick is a human rights activist and writer.

Lapchick’s life passion was sparked in Germany at the age of 14 while touring the Nazi internment camps of Dachau. Coincidentally, he was in Europe during the 1960 Summer Olympic Games and discovered the tremendous impact sport has to cross all lines, color, creed and religion. Thus, his dream to use sport as a vehicle for social change was born. It reinforced his early experiences witnessing public hostility toward his father when, as the Coach of the New York Knicks, he signed Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, the first African-American player signed in the NBA in 1950. His earliest memory as a five-year-old was seeing an image of his father swinging from a tree across the street from his house where people were picketing against the inclusion of a black athlete in a "white" team.

In the 1970s, Lapchick started fighting apartheid and led the boycott of the South African participation in international sport events, the Davis Cup in particular. Lapchick was physically attacked in his college office in February 1978 just as it looked like the Davis Cup was going to be cancelled. He was attacked by men who proceeded to carve the N-word into his stomach. Lapchick worked for the United Nations from 1978-1984. His New York City apartment was ransacked in 1981 while he was leading a protest of a South African rugby team scheduled to play in the United States. His activism led to a personal invitation from Nelson Mandela upon his presidential inauguration in 1994 after anti-apartheid movements were successful.

Lapchick founded the Center for the Study of Sport in Society (CSSS) in 1984 at Northeastern University and is now Director Emeritus. In 1993, Lapchick co-founded the Mentors in Violence Prevention program.

One year after the Center’s inception, Lapchick wanted to take its mission national and established the National Consortium for Academics and Sports (NCAS). For 32 years, the NCAS has been "creating a better society by focusing on educational attainment and using the power and appeal of sport to positively affect social change."

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