For most of his life, Richard Lapchick has been aware of the cruelty and hatred provoked by bigotry.
He was just five when his father, legendary New York Knicks coach Joe Lapchick, drafted one of the three Black players to break the color line in the NBA — making his family home a target for those who wanted to preserve segregation in sports. As a teenager, he decided he was going to devote his life to battling racism and other forms of discrimination.
It’s a fight Lapchick — who retired as the chair of UCF’s DeVos Sport Business Management Program in 2021 — is still up for.
Right after being named the Orlando Sentinel’s Central Floridian of the Year, he leaned toward the microphone with an impish grin and said: “Gay. Gay. Gay.” He wasn’t coming out of the closet — he was expressing solidarity with Floridians outraged by yesterday’s passage of a bill that bans discussion of sexual orientation in classrooms.
That intersection of a lifelong career spent battling racism, and a still-burning passion for justice, made him the right choice for this year’s honor, Sentinel editors agreed.
Other finalists honored at Wednesday’s breakfast included an attorney who crafted a unique approach to fighting over-development; a Lake County woman who successfully battled a move to bring a Confederate statue to the Tavares courthouse; a homeless advocate who took services to the streets; and a leader of multiple organizations meant to break down barriers for non-English speakers.
Over his career, Lapchick stood shoulder-to-shoulder with people whose names are easily recognized: Nelson Mandela, who invited Lapchick to his 1996 presidential inauguration in recognition of two decades of work fighting apartheid. Kofi Annan, who worked with Lapchick on a fight to expel a bank with strong financial ties to South Africa from the United Nations plaza. And two lifelong friends who Lapchick met as a teenager: Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
His work led him to a teaching position at Northeastern University, where he founded the National Consortium for Academics and Sports. In 2001, (at the behest of his wife, Ann, who wanted to move to Central Florida) he became the first director of the DeVos program, and then founded The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport. He’ll continue as the director of TIDES, which is nationally known for its annual by-the-numbers reports on racial and gender divisions in the sporting world.
He may be the only academic to inspire a fan page (lapchickinspiredme.blogspot.com). Through the dozens of testimonials on that site, it’s clear he’s worked to instill that same passion for equity in his students. Current events — like this year’s debates over the anti-gay bill as well as one meant to ban the teaching of critical race theory, along with last year’s legislation targeting transgender athletes — show him that the battle is far from over, he said.
“I define a leader as someone who steps up for justice and doesn’t block its path,” he said. “If children have learned how to hate, we can teach them how to love.”
He wasn’t the only one honored at Wednesday’s event who felt that way. In naming the other finalists for the award, the Sentinel recognized people who had shown extraordinary commitment to their communities:
Finalist Steven Meyers, a Maitland attorney, is blazing a new path in environmental law that might help save some of Central Florida’s environmental treasures from development. He helped draft Orange County’s 2020 “rights of nature” charter amendment, approved by a staggering 89% of votes cast. Last year, he used that language to file suit against a major development in east Orange County — naming water bodies as his clients. He’s also asking the court to invalidate a law — passed before voters could even weigh in on the amendment — that cancels a local government’s ability to grant legal rights to natural elements like rivers and lakes.
Last year, finalist Mae Hazelton saw the culmination of a long battle to keep the statue of Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith from being installed in the Lake County Courthouse. The statue had been displayed in the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center as part of the Statuary Hall collection. After Florida leaders decided it should be replaced with the image of civil-rights pioneer and educator Mary McLeod Bethune, Lake County leaders secretly struck an agreement that would have put Smith’s bronze likeness in the Tavares courthouse. Hazelton led a successful fight to expose, and then reverse, that decision — and celebrated victory when Bethune’s statue was revealed over the summer.
Finalist Marucci Guzmán earned recognition for her tireless advocacy and — at times — brute force applied to breaking down language and cultural barriers for non-English speaking Central Floridians. She heads three organizations — Latino Leadership, focused on the needs of the Central Florida Latino community; Santiago & Friends, which targets families of autistic children; and Clínica Mi Salud, a free clinic providing primary medical care and mental health care to the Latino population. During the COVID pandemic, she insisted on better education and messaging that crossed language barriers.
Finalist Eric Camarillo founded a unique program — SALT Outreach — that takes services such as showers and laundry to homeless people in areas where they live. Over the years, SALT has grown from a small, volunteer-only organization to one with substantial funding and resources. Local advocates praised the group for its hard work during the COVID epidemic, distributing food and other necessities to the homeless after meal sites and other resources shut down. It recently started a housing program that rehabilitates shipping containers for residential use.
“This past year was especially challenging because the world turned upside down,” Sentinel Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson said. “The Central Floridian of the year program gives us a unique opportunity to take a moment to celebrate the good happening in Central Florida and beyond.”
