SEACSM History

This history of SEACSM was supplied by Dr. Andy Kozar from the University of Tennessee/Knoxville.
The following column was an invited submission by Dr. Kozar (from the University of Tennessee.) taken from the 1994 Spring SEACSM newsletter:

Gay Israel's invitation to the past presidents' breakfast at the 1994 meeting (22nd Annual) of the Southeast Regional Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine (SEACSM) in Greensboro, North Carolina was a welcomed opportunity and a revelation for those who have not attended these meetings for some time. The experience of attending the sessions at Greensboro, including the large number of conferees, quality of the programs, knowledgeable presenters and the able leadership, was very gratifying for those of us involved in the organizational meeting of Southeastern Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine in Gatlinburg, Tennessee in November 1973.

In contrast to the large crowd at the Greensboro meetings, there were only fifty-eight eager prospective members representing seven states (Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia) in attendance at the 1973 meeting to establish the Southeastern Regional Chapter of the ACSM. The meeting took place during lunch at the Mountain View Hotel and Motor Lodge on November 10. Henry Montoye, who moved from the University of Michigan to join the exercise physiology group (made up of Hugh Welch and Ed Howley) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) in 1971, presided at this meeting, It was appropriate that he chaired the meeting since this historic gathering to explore the interest in and eventual establishment of the Southeastern Regional Chapter of ACSM was, from the very beginning, clearly Montoye's idea. As the Department Chairman for Men's Physical Education at Tennessee, I was approached by Montoye on numerous occasions with many suggestions and one of these was his passion to organize a Chapter of ACSM in our region.

While I was at the University of Michigan from 1955-1966 I was privileged to have as my major professor and mentor, the late Paul Hunsicker. He is best known for his outstanding, early work (1957) on the Youth Fitness Tests for the American Association for Health, Physical Education an Recreation (AAHPER) and with the President's Council on Youth Fitness. As a skilled administrator at Michigan he developed one of the better exercise physiology/ research programs in the country in the late 1950's and the early 1960's. Graduates from that program were employed internationally by the better known institutions of higher education. Although Hunsicker was an innovator, much of what he did in preparing exercise physiologists and conducting fitness testing was learned at the University of Illinois under the leadership of his teacher, Tom Cureton, an internationally known exercise physiologist/ researcher and a pioneer in physical fitness programs and testing.

While working in the program at Michigan both as a student and a faculty member I developed a healthy respect for the importance of scholarship in the area of exercise physiology and it's place in both education and medicine, It was my observation that Hunsicker employed the very best faculty members in all areas of the academic program at Michigan and expected a superior performance in teaching and research from them. Two of the outstanding faculty members he hired, Henry Montoye, an established scholar from Michigan State University and a young scholar, Hugh Welch out of the University of Florida, played important roles in the 1973 organizational meeting in Gatlinburg. Not long after Welch arrived at Michigan, I had accepted a position at the UTK as Department Head for the Men's Physical Education Program in 1966. Upon leaving, I told Hugh Welch I would be back soon to hire him to develop an exercise physiology program of teaching and research at the Knoxville Campus.

During the next few years the UTK Health and Physical faculty were happily planning a new Health and Physical Education building. In planning this building, my formal and informal educational experience at Michigan took hold and my strong desire to build a first class exercise physiology program within an already fine physical education program heightened. As a result, high on my priority list for the new building was an exercise physiology laboratory which resulted in my involving Hugh Welch at Michigan in the planning of the laboratory. By 1968, prior to the buildings competion, Welch accepted our offer to join the UTK faculty to teach exercise physiology and direct the work in the excellent laboratory he designed.

A few years later, in 1970, Welch indicated the need and his desire to have a colleague to work with in the laboratory. Eventually he identified Ed Howley, a Wisconsin graduate working at Penn State on a post doctoral assignment, as the best individual for the position. We were fortunate to have Ed join us that year. After leaving Michigan, I maintained contact with Henry Montoye at Michigan with a remote hope he might join our research group at UTK. After a great deal of talking between us and serious thought on his part Montoye, who shared our enthusiasm to build a first rate research program at UTK, joined our faculty. Having Henry Montoye leave the University of Michigan to join UTK's exercise physiology group was in professional sports parlance comparable to Joe Montana, an All-Pro quarterback, free agent and franchise player, leaving the San Francisco 49ers to be with the Kansas City Chiefs. Montoye was a franchise researcher/exercise physiologist/teacher and proved to be an invaluable member of the UTK research/exercise physiology team and more importantly, as a result of the move into the southeast region, he was able to almost single-handedly spearhead the founding of SEACSM.

When SEACSM was on Montoye's "drawing board" the Executive Secretary of American College of Sports Medicine issued a membership report May 6,, 1973 (memberships as of April 13, 1973). Nationwide, ACSM had a total of 2,385 members with a breakdown of 234 female and 2151 male members. The frequency distribution for the seven states represented (by invitation) at the Gatlinburg meeting was as follows: Alabama - 11, Georgia - 36, Kentucky - 26, North Carolina - 38, South Carolina - 16, Tennessee - 28, and Virginia - 41. Richard W. Bowers, chairman of the Ad Hoc committee for Regional Chapters, reported in an August 8,, 1973 memorandum that there were five regional chapters of ACSM, one with a permanent charter (Midwest, 1972) and four with provisional charters ( The Sports Medicine Association of Greater Washington D.C. May 1972; Central States, October 1972; New England, May 1973 and Rocky Mountain, May 1973.) Montoye used these and other ACSM reports in his early activities in attempting to form SEACSM.

With the help of the ACSM central office Montoye created an invitation list for the 1973 Gatlinburg meeting. He requested names and addresses of ACSM members for the seven states (listed earlier) to be included in the organizational meeting to the SEACSM. Added to the list were a number of ACSM non-members in the hopes of bringing others into the organization through the SEACSM, if established. The seven states selected by Montoye were included because of their geographical proximity to Gatlinburg, Tennessee to secure the best attendance possible.

A total of one hundred forty names, ACSM members and non-members located within a 200 mile radius of East Tennessee, were on the list to receive an October 1, 1973 Montoye memorandum. The memorandum gave the time, date, place and nature of the program and the business meeting. It was advertised as an open meeting and those who attended were not required to be members of ACSM or pay a registration fee. Several panel discussions were planned to encourage more participation but panel members had not been selected. At the conclusion of the memorandum was the key statement of the purpose of the meeting: ''... If there is sufficient interest in establishing a formal chapter, we would like to elect officers at the luncheon meeting. Please come prepared to nominate members of the college to serve as officers."

Fifty-eight of the one hundred forty invited participants came to Gatlinburg for the November 10, 1973 program and luncheon organizational meeting. The program opened with a 9:00 am -10:30 am panel discussion entitled "The Use of Oxygen in Athletics and Rehabilitation" with Hugh Welch of UTK as moderator. Charles M. Tipton, a University of Iowa faculty member who at that time was President Elect of ACSM, followed with a slide presentation titled " The Response of Connective Tissue to Use, Disuse and Injury." The luncheon organizational meeting was scheduled from 12:15 - 2:00 PM and the conference was concluded with a panel discussion of "[An] Adult Exercise Program." moderated by Blare Erb, M.D., a cardiologist from Jackson, Tennessee.

Minutes of the luncheon organizational meeting to establish a Southeastern Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine, recorded by ED Howley of UTK, were submitted to the organization on December 10, 1973. The question of forming a Regional Chapter and Dan Copeland of Memphis amended the motion to read "Southeast Region." Some discussion centered on the number of states to include in the region and it was determined that the seven states already identified in the invitation would be adhered to until more experience was gained. The amended motion to establish a Southeast Regional Chapter of the ACSM was carried.

The matter of electing officers for the just established SEACSM required a lengthy discussion. Some argued for a full compliment of officers while others suggested that, without a constitution, all that was need was two officers, a chairman and a secretary. A motion to elect a temporary chairman and secretary as carried. Glen Reeder, Middle Tennessee State University, nominated Hugh Welch as chairman but Welch indicated he would be off campus and declined the nomination. Dennis Calacino, UTK assistant professor, nominated me for chairman. Rankin Cooter, Georgia State University, was nominated for chairman by by Dave Adams of David Lipscomb College. Ballots were issued and I was elected. Cooter was nominated for secretary and Welch, who nominated him. asked that it be by acclimation. This was seconded and Cooter assumed the position of secretary without a ballot. After a motion by Clyde Partin and a positive vote the next meeting of the SEACSM was scheduled for Atlanta, a little more than three months after the Gatlinburg meeting. Clyde Partin offered the use of Emory Universities' facilities in Atlanta.

In preparation for the Atlanta meeting, as the newly elected Chairman of SEACSM, I appointed a Constitution and By-Laws Committee, a Nominating Committee for the election of officers, and a Program Committee for the Atlanta meeting of February 22-23, 1974. Montoye chaired and did most the work of the Constitution and By-Laws Committee which was made up of UTK faculty. The Constitution Committee completed it's work by December 12, 1973 and was prepared to bring it to the business meeting in Atlanta. University of Virginia's Cliff Breaker, Joseph Gruber of the University of Kentucky, and Welch, as the chairman,, served as the Nominating Committee for the election of officers at the next meeting. In a letter of February 1, 1974 Welch outlined their slate of officers and added that the Committee decided to offer one candidate for president and have other nominations coming from the floor.

The SEACSM program at Emory University in Atlanta opened on February 22 at 8:30 PM with a presentation entitled "The Effects of Physical Activity on Cardiac Rehabilitation" presented by Charles A. Gilbert, M.D., Associate Professor of Medicine (cardiology) at Emory and the Director of Atlanta's Preventive Cardiology Clinic.

The next morning scientific papers were presented. Two of these were presented by G. Alan Stull, University of Kentucky and jay T. Kearney, Appalachian State University. These co-authored papers were: "Recovery of Muscular Endurance Following Rhythmic and Sustained Activity" and "Fatigue Patterns During Second Bouts of Rhythmic and Sustained Exercise as a Function of Inter-trial Rest." Two other papers were presented by Edward W. Watt, Emory University, and Edward Howley, UTK. Watt's paper was titled "Effects of Training and Detraining on the Heart" and Howley's presentation was titled "The Energy Cost of Walking and Running One Mile in Men and Women." The featured speaker for the luncheon and business meeting was John V. Basmajian, Director of the Emory University Training Center who talked about "Bio-Feedback for Muscle Training." After his presentation the business session was conducted. Twenty-seven registrants of the forty-one paid members attended the SEACSM meeting in Atlanta. The SEACSM budget figures of the Atlanta meeting were revealed at the Charlottesville business meeting. The income for the Atlanta meeting totaled $337.00 of which seventy-five dollars was paid to the key speaker, Basmajian, $4.25 was recorded as the cost of printing checks. So the net balance of SEACSM prior to the Charlottesville meeting was $257.75.

At the Atlanta business meeting a number of actions were taken that moved the organization nearer it's goal, that is being granted a charter from the ACSM officials. SEACSM officers elected at the Atlanta meeting were as follows: President - Clyde Partin, Emory University; President-elect - Dan Copeland, Memphis, Tennessee; Secretary-Treasurer - Rankin Cooter, Georgia State University; Members at Large - Andrew J. Kozar, UTK; Henry Montoye, UTK; and Fred Allman, Atlanta. The Gatlinburg meeting minutes of November 10, 1973 and the Constitution and By-laws were approved with slight revisions. On March 20, 1974 the Secretary-Treasurer, Cooter mailed the revised copy of the Constitution and a new draft of the By-Laws and a preliminary draft of a membership application to the Southeast Chapter for review and comment by the membership. The plan was to submit all revisions of the Constitution and By-Laws to the membership at the Fall 1974 meeting at Charlottesville, Virginia, the third meeting of SEACSM in a twelve month period. In a follow-up letter dated April 22, 1974 Cooter asked for final comments on the Constitution and By-Laws and added that he had completed the proper forms for application for a temporary chapter with the ACSM to be presented at the May 9-11, 1974 (21st Annual) meeting, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee.

One month before the November 1974 Charlottesville meeting and eleven months after the Gatlinburg meeting the ACSM Board of Trustees granted a provisional charter to the SEACSM. At October 13, 1974, the second day of the Board meeting in Chicago, Edna Wooten, ACSM Board member, moved that the Southeast Chapter be granted a provisional charter and the motion passed. In a recent letter from Mark Robertson, ACSM Assistant Executive Vice President, I was informed that Susan Yoder, ACSM's current Director of membership and chapter services confirmed that the Southeast Regional Charter became permanent two years later in 1976.. So in a brief three year period, Montoye's vision of a permanent Southeast Chapter of ACSM, which captured the imagination of many individuals in the region, came to fruition. Since those initial three years, SEACSM has grown into the vital organization that convened in Greensboro January 20-22, 1994.

[As recorded throughout the article, I used original documents from my SEACSM file covering the years of 1973-1975 to prepare the story of our geneses. These included notes, minutes and reports of meetings, correspondence, and conference programs of that period. Additional material, as noted, was graciously provided by D. Mark Robertson, Assistant Executive Vice President of ACSM. I wish to thank Gay Israel for inviting me to speak at the past presidents breakfast meeting at Greensboro and recommending my submitting this piece for ACSM Newsletter. Also, I need to thank Ed Howley and Joan Paul for reviewing the article and providing their helpful comments.]