The gentle way

Most students at BU know Jack Rude as an accounting professor. 

A few know him as sensei. 

Rude has practiced the art of judo since 1961 and advised Bloomsburg's Judo Club since 1998 (with just a few years off for the remodeling of Nelson Field House). 

Two evenings a week during the semester Rude and about a dozen students move into the wrestling room to practice. 

There's no cost to the students beyond the uniform and sweat equity.

While it may appear to be rough and tumble, judo translates literally as "the gentle way."

"The founder of Judo, Jigoro Kano, was looking for a lifetime sport," says Rude, who is a level 1 certified coach with the U.S. Judo Association. "This is a martial art you can fully practice without hurting anybody." 

The club generally competes in two tournaments a year, the Liberty Bell Tournament in Philadelphia and the Am-Can Tournament in Buffalo.

Photos by senior photography intern Lee Patton.

Field hockey generations

In athletics, sometimes the preparation is just as interesting as the game. The story behind the story. A shoot at an afternoon practice several days ago showed BU's field hockey team has a story that runs generations deep.

Head coach Nikki Rhoads (black shirt in the center at right) is 2004 BU alumna and standout player for the Huskies, helping the team to two NCAA championships and two Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference titles. As a coach, she's continued the winning tradition by guiding the Huskies to a 19-1 record and their fourth straight PSAC Championship in 2011.

At practice, Rhoads is joined on the field by her former coach Jan Hutchinson (pink shirt at right), who has returned as a volunteer assistant. Retired since 2010 after 33-year career at BU, Hutchinson doesn't miss the pressure and stress of being a head coach, but loves to stay involved with helping students. "I can't get it out of my system," she says simply.

Athletics and art

We live in a screen-based culture. Televisions, computers, cell-phones, tablets. You're looking at one right now. Our lives are increasingly, and to me a little worryingly, digital. Digital media are powerful tools, but do have we lost something human in the process?

Art and athletics are sometimes conceived as opposites. Depending on your high school, the "jock" and the "arts" crowds were likely two different groups. But I think they share something very powerful in common. At their best, art and athletics remind us of what it means to be human.

Sports reminds us that we are not merely receptors of digital data flashed before our eyes but flesh, bone, blood and spirit. Sports can remind us that striving is valuable simply for the sake of striving.


I'm not a big sports guy. I played soccer as a teenager, but aside from college basketball, I generally don't watch games and I don't care who wins. I've been at Bloomsburg for 20 years and if asked on a given day, I might say that Bloomsburg is a great school for smart jocks. Athletics is an important part of our identity, in a positive way, because the athletes aren't disconnected from the university. They are part of it. Club and intramural athletics are a big part of what we offer as well.

I don't follow the scores, but there are few people on campus I like better than football coach Danny Hale. While I generally do non-athletic photography for Bloomsburg, I shot a portrait of him for a magazine story several years back (The second photo of Hale).

Fast forward a few years and I'm waiting in line at Dunkin Donuts and I get a big bear hug from the coach himself. For Hale, people count. When you're talking with him, you're the most important person in the world and he doesn't forget. It's a quality I've noticed that a lot of leaders share in common.

The field was named in Danny Hale's honor last week (April 28) and it couldn't have been done for a better guy. And maybe, this coming fall, I'll go to some more games.

The photos here (with the exception of the Hale portrait) were shot last fall very early in the season. Sports is not my specialty, my lenses tend toward wide angle rather than telephoto end, but it was a lot of fun.

The final photo of the Husky mascot I believe was taken by my colleague Jaime North. We traded cameras at the sidelines for a while during the game and I'm pretty sure he took that one.

Click on any image to see them larger.