DANCE & SPORT

About the Book

Dance and Sport: One Man’s Journey shares Dr. Kilbourne’s personal journey to understand the relationship between dance and sport. The journey includes his creative and pioneering efforts in dance conditioning with U.C.L.A.’s men’s basketball team under head coach Larry Brown, his tenure as the first full-time conditioning coach in the National Basketball Association for the 1982-84 Philadelphia Seventy Sixers (1983 World Champions), his work with Olympic level figure skaters in the United States and Canada, and his discoveries in the academic arena about play, games, sport, and dance.

About the Author

Dr. Kilbourne has devoted all of his adult life to helping individuals and communities understand the deeper meanings of play, games, sport, dance, and creativity. His bachelor’s degree is in Creative Drama & Movement for Children from California State University Long Beach. His master’s degree is from the University of California at Los Angeles in Dance Education with an emphasis in Dance & Sport. While at UCLA, he served as Graduate Assistant (Dance/Basketball Conditioning) to then Head coach Larry Brown. His Ph.D. is from The Ohio State University where he continued his work in exploring the relationships between sport and performance. In 1982 John became the first full-time Conditioning Coach in the National Basketball Association with the Philadelphia Seventy Sixers. He helped them in the pursuit of their 1983 World Championship. In addition to his work in basketball, John has experience with figure skating in both the United States and Canada. John is a former member of The Margalit Dance Theatre, and The Detroit Dance Collective. John served as a professor in Movement Arts and Movement Science at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts, and Grand Valley State University in Michigan, retiring in 2023. He and his wife Elizabeth are the proud parents of their greatest productions ever, their children Zoé and Parker.