August 2005 Issue :

	Short Takes
	Boxing Rhetoric Goes Over the Top in "Cinderella Man," the Corrales vs. Castillo Fight and a LeRoy Neiman Promo.
	Where Do Members of the Association of Luxury Suite Directors Meet?
	Chivas USA, the MLS Expansion Team Owned by Mexican Entrepreneur Jorge Vergara, Has Disappointed on the Field and at the Box Office, at Least So Far.
	Park City, Utah Has a New Sports Museum.
	Publish or Perish
	Recent Academic Writing on NASCAR, Abusive Language at College Sports Events, NCAA Violations and Dangerous Sports.
	Interviews
	Abraham Madkour, the Executive Director of the SportsBusiness Daily and SportsBusiness Journal, Discusses the Evolution of the Much-Read Publications and Offers Thoughts on NASCAR, Poker, ESPN and the NHL.
	Frank Zarnowski, Author of "All-Around Men: Heroes of a Forgotten Sport," Talks about the "All-Around" Event, a Precursor to the Decathlon.
	Mascot
	Have a Look at the Mascot of the 2005 Games of the Small States of Europe.

What is it about boxing that lends itself to hyperbole? Consider: Journalist Jeremy Schaap recently wrote a book entitled "Cinderella Man: James J. Braddock, Max Baer, and the Greatest Upset in Boxing History." Problem is, as Earl Gustkey pointed out in his book review in the Los Angeles Times, the odds against Braddock were about 10-to-1. In fact, the greatest upset in heavyweight championship history took place in 1990, when James "Buster" Douglas, a whopping 43-to-1 underdog, knocked out Mike Tyson in Tokyo.

Add boxing . . . The recent Diego Corrales-Jose Luis Castillo lightweight championship fight was an action-packed brawl from start to finish. And, Showtime, the network that aired the fight, has spared no hyperbole in praising the bout on its website, raving that Corrales and Castillo produced "not only what many regard as the greatest, most exciting fight in history, but also one of the most dramatic sporting events ever."

Last boxing . . . And then there's this. In hyping the recent Bernard Hopkins-Jermain Taylor middleweight championship bout, Golden Boy Productions (run by Oscar De La Hoya) trumpeted the news that LeRoy Neiman has been commissioned to create artwork for the fight. According to a Golden Boy press release, "LeRoy Neiman is probably the most popular living artist in the United States. His art is unique. It stands alone, without any real comparison. It is an art which has become controversial because Neiman has broken the barriers of many of the most hallowed assumptions of modern art history and contemporary criticism." And we thought Don King was full of bluster.

Department of Headlines That Failed to Grab Us . . . "Opinions Sought on Alternative Badminton Scoring Systems." Sportscal.com, June 24.

Suite music . . . Where does the Cincinnati, Ohio-based Association of Luxury Suite Directors, known to one and all as ALSD, meet for its annual conference? In a hotel, of course. Exhibitors at the 15th annual ALSD Conference and Tradeshow, which took place in June at the Omni Hotel in Atlanta, included such vendors as Milliken Carpet, Omega Massage Chair, Inc., and United Receptacle. The title of ALSD's quarterly publication? That would be SEAT Magazine.

American fútbol . . . In the March 13, 2005, edition of the Los Angeles Times Magazine, journalist (and SportsLetter contributor) David Davis profiled Jorge Vergara as he readied Chivas USA for its debut season in Major League Soccer. In the article, Davis noted that MLS hoped to tap into the passion that the Mexican League team, Chivas of Guadalajara, generates among its fans, writing "The fanatical followers of Chivas Rayadas de Guadalajara, one of Mexico's most popular soccer teams, aren't anything like the leave-after-the-seventh-inning Dodger fans or the negotiate-a-deal-sitting-in-the-luxury-suite Laker supporters."

Add Chivas . . . So far, Chivas USA has been a major league disappointment. The team has won only three games, two of which came against MLS' other expansion team (Real Salt Lake), and its original coach has already been fired. In addition, despite Vergara's reputation as a bold businessman, Chivas USA ranks eighth among the twelve MLS teams in home attendance, with an average of 11,743 (through eleven games) at the Home Depot Center stadium that it shares with the L.A. Galaxy. Interestingly, Real Salt Lake ranks second in average home attendance at 20,738 (through nine home games), trailing only the Galaxy at 23,570 (through eleven home games).

Add Chivas . . . Davis also noted that "For MLS, after nine seasons still beset by spotty fan support, so-so competition, limited media coverage and millions of dollars of red ink, the stakes are higher. Indeed, soccer officials are counting on Vergara to accomplish what many consider to be impossible: generate a buzz about soccer in this country." The expectations notwithstanding, MLS 2005 average home attendance, at the All-Star Game break, had dropped by about 800 a game compared to the same period in 2004, from 15,380 to 14,568. The dip in the live gate hasn't translated into big television ratings. The average rating for MLS coverage on ESPN2 in 2005 is 0.2.

Last Chivas . . . If Chivas USA starts winning some games, look for attendance to rise. Even in the absence of a better record, the club will get a big attendance boost on August 10, when Chivas USA meets its local MLS rival, the Galaxy, as part of a doubleheader at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum featuring a match between Chivas of Guadalajara and Club America, two Mexican teams with large followings in Southern California. The attendance at the Chivas vs. America match will be used as the gate count for the Chivas USA vs. Galaxy game regardless of how many spectators actually show up for the MLS contest.

Museum watch . . . Do you want another glimpse of figure skater Timothy Goebel’s sequined costume? Do you need to see that infamous green Jell-O trading pin again? According to the Deseret News, a new museum in Park City, Utah, promises to “recapture the magic” of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Officially known as the George Eccles Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games Museum, the 2,500-square-foot space contains Olympic medals and torches, athletic gear, posters and photographs, video kiosks, and even a pin-trading display. Located at Utah Olympic Park, the museum is upstairs from the Alf Engen Ski Museum.

Passing the torch . . . Olympic researchers should note the name Jaime Loucky. He is the nephew of David Wallechinsky and the heir apparent to take over the writing and research chores of the comprehensive books that Wallechinsky has produced for every Olympic Games since the 1984 Los Angeles Games. Wallechinsky, who notes that Loucky assisted him in writing the last two books, says he will continue to help produce the books through the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

SportsLetter reader Pat Mooney wrote to us recently wondering why Major League Baseball named its anti-drug effort the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program. Mooney adds, "Wouldn't you think someone would use a better word than 'joint' when naming a drug abuse program? . . . This is probably from the same guy who decided that the U. S. government agency in charge of the entire outdoors should be called the Department of the Interior."

Recent academic writing on NASCAR, abusive language, NCAA violations and dangerous sports.

An Exploratory Investigation into NASCAR Fan Culture. Christie H. Amato, Cara Lee Okleshen Peters and Alan T. Shao. Sport Marketing Quarterly 14 (2) 2005.

"NASCAR fan commitment generates a degree of loyalty that is unmatched to any other sport in the United States." NASCAR fans can be classified into two groups. There are fans who are "'married'" to the sport (i.e. hardcore to moderate fans), and those who are merely "'engaged'" to it (i.e. casual fans). The hardcore to moderate fans are more likely to follow other forms of motor racing than the casual group and rely more heavily on a variety of media, including the Internet, to obtain NASCAR information. "These fans construct their NASCAR experiences as family oriented events, and NASCAR-related interactions may be used to acculturate the next generation of fans." The hardcore to moderate group decides to support particular drivers "independent of his sponsor," but is more likely than the casual fan group "to know about and purchase products from NASCAR sponsors." Therefore, a "firm's strategic selection of the appropriate driver to sponsor is particularly important."

Free Expression versus Prohibited Speech: The First Amendment and College Student Sports Fans. Louis M. Benedict and John D. McMillen. Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport 15 (1) 2005.

"[C]an fans say anything they like while attending a sporting event?" A growing number of college students "believe they have a Constitutional right to shout lewd, vulgar, abusive, and personal insults" at members of opposing teams at intercollegiate sports events. Some colleges and universities are reluctant to take action against such behavior because they fear "potential litigation under the First Amendment." "College campuses represent a unique arena for the First Amendment." Freedom of expression is a fundamental, but not absolute right in our society. "The increasing lack of civility in sports not only concerns athletes but also is increasingly affecting fans . . . Colleges should not abrogate their responsibilities simply to avoid complicated legal issues involving First Amendment jurisprudence. The Constitution was established to protect rights and should not be used as an excuse to violate the rights of others."

Major Violations and NCAA 'Powerhouse' Football Programs: What Are the Odds of Being Charged? K. Alexa Otto. Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport 15 (1) 2005.

NCAA Division I "'powerhouse'" football programs are charged with more major violations than "'non-powerhouse'" programs. "The NCAA and its members should be mindful that the penalties that universities, athletic departments, and football programs receive for committing major violations do not seem to deter them from committing more. The NCAA must recognize that the benefits of being a 'powerhouse' football program seem to far outweigh the cost of being charged with a major violation."

The Value of Dangerous Sport. J.S. Russell. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport XXXII (1) 2005.

Sports such as hang gliding, skateboarding, rodeo, downhill ski racing and boxing involve "serious threats . . . to life and limb." Why do people "freely choose to take unnecessary risks to their lives and bodies" by participating in dangerous sport and does dangerous sport have value? "[W]e discover and affirm who we are and what we can be by confronting and attempting to extend" the boundaries of our ordinary lives. Dangerous sport "tests us by requiring us to make the most of our whole selves, of our bodies and minds working together as a unity, when (or because) everything, or almost everything, is at stake." Extreme exertion characterizes "human activity in all areas of serious endeavor." The human "strivings" that propel people to engage in dangerous sport are similar to the "yearnings of romantic militarism that emerged in the 19th century as a response to the waning opportunities for expressions of martial spirit amid the orderly comfort and security of modern civil society." Dangerous sport appropriates the ideals of romantic militarism without posing a similar threat to civil society. "Dangerous sport can civilize those ideals to constrain their worst excesses. Thus, dangerous sport represents a practical and morally defensible institution for realizing an important source of human value."

ABRAHAM MADKOUR

SportsBusiness Daily, the online news-magazine, is the Bible of the sports industry. Required reading for titans and interns alike, the 11-year-old trade publication culls material from hundreds of newspapers, magazines, wire services and websites from around the world as well as press releases from sports-related companies, then sends summaries of--and links to--these stories to its estimated 25,000 daily readers.

Published by Street & Smith, the Daily also mines original material from its roster of reporters at sister publication SportsBusiness Journal, a weekly print magazine.

Five days a week, the Charlotte, N.C.-based Daily posts three issues to its subscribers: the "Morning Buzz" with brief headlines; the full-length Daily with an expanded roster of links; and the "Closing Bell" for late-afternoon reports. The Daily divides its stories into several pertinent categories, including "Sponsorships, Advertising & Marketing;" "Sports Media;" "Leagues & Governing Bodies;" "Franchises" and "Finance." A one-year subscription to the Daily, which enables users to access archival material, costs $1,300. A one-year subscription to the print magazine costs $229.

A former legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Abraham Madkour was hired as a staff writer for the Daily just before it launched in 1994. He was named editor-in-chief in 1996 and oversaw the Daily's transition from a newsletter to an online news service in 1998. In 2003, he became executive editor of both the Daily and SportsBusiness Journal.

SportsLetter spoke with Madkour by telephone from his office in Charlotte.

Abraham Madkour: The SportsBusiness Daily was founded by a gentleman named Jeffrey Pollack, who came from the political consulting world and partnered with a group called the American Political Network. The American Political Network publishes a very successful, influential, daily newsletter called the American Political Hotline, which is owned by the National Journal. They saw a connection between politics, sports, and the way that the Hotline was summarizing news on a daily basis and decided to establish a sports-business publication. Our first publication was in September of 1994.

SL: How has it changed from its original format to what it is today?

AM: It's had a few different life forms. Initially, it was available via fax--we sent out a 12- to 15-page fax that people received every day by noon. When we first started doing it, we got phone calls saying either, "You'll never be able to do this every day;" or "I can't live without this;" or "Stop jamming up my fax machine." We also would upload it to a bulletin board system, and newsrooms and publications could go to the bulletin board and download it.

At one time, we started emailing the full-text of the Daily to clients. The problem with that was, we had very little control over the distribution of our product. It was very easy to pass around and forward multiple copies illegally.

In 1998 or 1999, around the time Street & Smith got involved and acquired the Daily, we knew we needed to change our business model. What we did was to put it entirely online. It is now password-protected. Every user has to have a user name and an account to access the publication. We also added many different elements besides the flagship Daily, which goes out every day around 1 o'clock. We added morning and afternoon briefings, and we have an area where we post research data.

SL: How much material in SBD crosses over to the weekly print magazine?

AM: We walk a fine line because we can't make the print magazine that comes out on Monday a direct synopsis of articles that were in the Daily the previous week. So, we prime the magazine with breaking news and exclusive news, whereas the Daily is the industry's daily pulse of what's out there. Certainly, there is some cross-over. If a writer at SBJ can contribute something to SBD or vice versa, we utilize that. If a writer for SBJ has a story that is not going to hold for the magazine, that we're going to lose to some other publication, then we're going to come out with it first with the Daily.

SL: Do you see the Daily as a stand-alone or should it be read to accompany SBJ?

AM: What we've tried to do is make the products extremely compatible and complementary, so that even if you get daily feeds out of SBD, you also need the weekly magazine.

They're different reads. We try to make the brands consistent so they look, feel, and sound alike. At the same time, their mission on news is a little bit different. The magazine provides exclusive news and larger takeout and trend pieces. People can spend time with the magazine, like on an airplane or at the office. The Daily is a down-and-dirty, high-end trade publication for people who have a direct financial interest in the business of sports and need to get that information every day. On average, people spend about 12-20 minutes with SBD a day, and they spend anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes with SBJ a week.

SL: How many staffers on the Daily are combing through the papers and wire services every day?

AM: We have a staff of eight to do that.

SL: What are your personal must-read sports- and media-related websites?

AM: No one in this business goes very far without having ESPN.com book-marked. To me, ESPN.com has so much news and information. We're on them for their daily blogs, we're on them for their headline links, we're on them for their great columnists. But there's a lot out there--the list of favorites is endless. I mean, you got to read SportsPages.com.

I'm still a believer in the big papers. My favorites are the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the L.A. Times. For non-traditional sites, I always check out MediaBistro.com, which I think does a nice job of summarizing and compiling a lot of different media news. I read Howard Kurtz whenever he writes, and visit sites like IWantMedia.com and Jossip.com.

SL: How has the coverage of sports business changed over the past decade?

AM: When we started in 1994, sports business was very much an infant beat. Once it got traction and momentum in '96, '97, '98, we saw a lot of newspapers go out and hire specific sports-business writers. They had stadium issues, they had team relocation issues, so they started creating a sports-business beat. Then, with cutbacks and with different changes, I saw those beats disappear and I don't see them as much anymore.

However, the amount of people who are writing about business issues related to sports has only increased. There may not be specific staffers writing about sports-business solely, but there are regular columnists and writers taking more of a business angle to their sports stories. So, it's far more prevalent. We also see a lot more of the intersection between sports and the entertainment industry, through Hollywood entertainment in films, television, and music.

SL: In the past decade or so, how has the business of sports changed?

AM: It's become a lot more sophisticated and a lot more advanced. It's much more competitive. You're seeing a lot more people who are focused now, in terms of their careers, on the business aspects of sports, where before they were involved in sports and did some business on the side. The whole business has taken off, with the proliferation of agencies and consultants and even so-called "branding experts" dealing with athletes or with sports properties or with the networks. I see no signs of it slowing down. There's so much money involved in the sports business, a lot of people are trying to mine the opportunity.

SL: Let's hit on some current sports-business stories: What must the NHL do to woo back hockey fans after the lockout?

AM: The players and the owners have to work together, first of all. There can't be one side blaming the other, and there can't be one side saying they need to do all the work. It can't be the league saying, it's all on the players' shoulders, and it can't be the players saying the league needs to make rule changes. It has to be a true partnership where they're being pro-active together. I don't think the occasional meet-and-greet player appearance at the local YMCA is going to work here.

At the same time, they have a unique opportunity to re-brand and make up a whole new game, and I think that's what they're trying to do. In the last two weeks, we've seen some pro-active changes to the game. They're trying to make it a more fan-friendly in terms of the product on the ice by changing the rules. They've already upgraded the new logo and shield. That looks very nice.

At the local level, you need a lot of different fan-friendly measures, whether it's ticket discounting, concession discounting, improvements in the season-ticket packages, or certain types of value-added components, like concerts after the game. There has to be a better, more consistent television presentation. Right now, they're going to go to NBC, but they don't have a cable deal. They have to be on a cable network to give them a lot of exposure and promotional support. It's a challenge. It's not going to be an easy task.

SL: Did you foresee the astonishing growth of NASCAR and can it continue to grow at such an amazing pace?

AM: I can't say that I saw it coming. When we started in '94, we'd get a lot of phone calls saying, you guys should pay more attention to motor sports and to NASCAR specifically. I've got to give those people credit because they were right.

Can it continue to grow? I think so. I don't think it's peaked. There are markets that they aren't strong in, and there are some markets that they're not present in. They're trying to get to the Upper Northwest. I think they would still like to have a better foothold in the Northeast.

SL: Is competitive poker going to be a viable television franchise in years to come or is it just a fly-by-night trend?

AM: It's more than the flavor-of-the-month, but I don't think that this is going to be a continuing strong property. I see it having its, maybe, 35 minutes of fame. It's showing itself to be pretty viable, but I do think it's going to peak and I do think it's eventually going to fade. There's a glut of programming now. That could hurt it after a while if it becomes so ubiquitous that it loses its uniqueness. I also think that other sports could come along where people are more engaged after a while.

I have to tip my hat. That's another one I did not see coming. ESPN deserves a lot of credit. They took a chance. They threw something to the wall and it stuck.

SL: How about extreme sports? How will they transition into the future?

AM: That is a genre, or a segment, in the industry that still has a lot of growth potential, only because a lot of the data we're seeing shows that these are the sports that youth are playing and participating in. Obviously, they have appeal with young people, and therefore they have appeal with corporate sponsors. We're also seeing that there's a lot of high-energy, very passionate people related to the action sports category.

Now, where it goes from here in the next five years is important, and I think that everyone's waiting to see what the next big step is. There's the potential to see some full-fledged action leagues forming, kind of like with the Dew Action Sports Tour. You have some big companies behind it, in terms of Disney with ESPN pioneering the X Games. Now, you have NBC involved. The challenge, though, is making these into appointment-viewing programming entities, where people start to tune in to watch these events.

SL: Do you foresee any entity that could supplant the domination of ESPN?

AM: There's always been talk of successful rivals to ESPN. Certainly, there's some big companies out there. Comcast is a very big company. People are talking about them as a potential national sports network if they get the rights to the NHL and the NFL. What ESPN has done is not something you create overnight. It's been 25 years of a lot of work. And, they're a huge breadwinner for the Disney company. They have a lot of entities: they want to be wherever the sports fan is.

SL: How about ESPN's original programming--a success or a failure?

AM: I think, overall, the jury's out. What they're trying to do is make the network more diverse and not just based on rights programming with leagues. They're trying to be more of a self-sufficient, stand-alone entertainment network, and they're taking some chances. Some of them have worked. I thought "Junction Boys" and "Playmakers" were very good. I can't say I watched a lot of "Tilt." But as you saw with "Playmakers," they walk a fine line where they're in business with a lot of these sports properties. If they go out and try to do some critical, hard, edgy programming related to these properties, it gets them in trouble.

SL: Do you see any conflict of interest at ESPN, between their role as broadcaster and their role as journalists reporting on sports news and personalities?

AM: I think they've done a good job separating that. They have a lot of people there in the editorial department--executives like [director of news] Vince Doria and [executive editor] John Walsh--who are well-trained, experienced newsmen. News comes first with them. I don't think anyone can say that ESPN has been compromised at all. They've shown some hard-core, investigative-type journalism, and they will as long as they have those news-oriented people there.

SL: What trend in sports business do you see coming as we get into the second half of this decade and beyond?

AM: I think from a media perspective, you're going to see more and more sports programming available on any type of media technology device that's out there. The first movers, the smart media companies, are going to be able to get as much customized sports information to as many fans as possible. If you're a Patriot fan and you have your hand-held device, you'll be getting daily updates from [head coach] Bill Belichick and the team. There will be sponsor-able vignettes. You'll be able to see the jersey that [quarterback] Tom Brady wore in practice, and you'll be able to order that with your hand-held. I think that you're going to be able to get what you want when you want it. So, I would say that ease of use and ubiquity of information is going to be a big trend.

In terms of sports leagues, I think you're going to see more of a focus on the quality and the integrity of the games. That is the foundation for everything. Potentially, you're going to see a blurring of the lines between where sponsorship starts and where the competition on the field begins.

With facilities, I think you may see smaller venues that are more intimate but take over a larger footprint of space. What I mean by that is, there may be cases where there are only 35,000 people in the building, but outside the building there's room for another 30,000 people who can watch the game [on television screens] and also walk along a boardwalk-like strip, with food and entertainment, concessions, merchandise. It's almost like an amusement center, an experience park, with the games inside and the experience continuing outside.

With the Olympics, I think you're going to see a movement toward more action, or edgy, sports being involved in the Games, like BMX and vertical boarding. You saw it with the snowboarding athletes. I think that the IOC really wants to get a little more progressive in its presentation of the Games. I also think that, with new sports coming in, you're going to see some sports being phased out. I do agree with the theory that bigger Games is not always better Games.

SL: What about television: will we see the Super Bowl or the Olympic Games on pay-per-view?

AM: I don't think so--not for the big events. Certainly, they're going to slice and dice the pie in as many ways as they can. MLB on Demand and NBA on Demand are good examples. They are subscription-based packages, where if you want to see a lot of baseball or basketball games, you can get it for a price. I do think you're going to see multiple technologies being used, where you can upgrade and get more virtual stats and scores and real-time information. You'll be able to pay extra to get access to cameras in the locker room, in the coaches' rooms. It all depends on how pro-active the viewers want to be. It's tricky because the early research seems to show that most people don't want to be that pro-active in their television viewing; they'd rather be reactive and just watch.

The 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games were noteworthy for many things, not least because athletes competed in the decathlon for the first time. (Jim Thorpe, of course, was the run-away winner.) But before the advent of the decathlon, another ten-event competition, known as the "all-around," was a popular track and field event.
		This book may be purchased at Amazon.com

— David Davis

SportsLetter: How did you get interested in the subject of the all-around?

Frank Zarnowski: I'm a decathlon scholar. My goal in publishing is to have a complete record of the decathlon, including biographical and statistical data. In my effort to track down where the decathlon came from, I ran across the all-around event. I kept tracing it back, and tracing it back, and pretty soon I'm back to the Civil War.

The impression a lot of people have is that the decathlon started with Jim Thorpe winning the gold medal at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. In one sense it did, but there was a two-generation history of combined events before Jim Thorpe won the decathlon. All these great champions of the all-around--their names have fallen through the cracks.

SL: You trace the origins of American track and field competition to the large number of Scots who immigrated to the U.S. in the 19th century. What was the role of local Caledonian clubs in America and how would you describe the Caledonian Games?

FZ: The Scots emigrated all over the English-speaking world, but many of them came to the U.S. and Canada. The Caledonian clubs were designed to promote and retain the culture of emigrated Scots. Every significant town had a Caledonian club. What they did annually was to have a festival, or fair, where they brought out the kilts and played the bagpipes and did a lot of Scottish dancing. They also continued to practice what they called the national games--what we called the Caledonian games. Much of that was throwing heavy implements around. The Scots put a lot of emphasis on strength. These games became very popular. They attracted a ton of people--and what they were were the first track meets.

Then they got the idea to invite some of the great champions from Scotland, like [Donald] Dinnie, who toured extensively in the U.S. and won many Caledonian Games competitions. He was the top sporting attraction in the 19th century, in terms of the number of people who went to see him compete.

SL: What influence did the Caledonian Games have on the combined event that became known as the all-around?

FZ: The Caledonians were the inventors of the all-around. The events that make up the all-around came right out of the Caledonian Games, including the hammer and the 56-pound weight. The notion of being an all-around champion was so popular that when the amateurs began to gain control of track and field, they started their own all-around event in 1884. And that was taken almost exactly from the Caledonian Games.

The first standard all-around was a nine-event contest offered in 1884. The next year, it was taken over by the NYAC [New York Athletic Club], and they debated for about five years about the order of events and the number of events. I found that one of the events, the 880 walk, was inserted to prevent Malcolm Ford from winning the all-around. Ford was such a good sprinter that they took out the 440 sprint, in retaliation for him leaving the NYAC. By about 1889, they had settled on the order of the ten events, and that never changed.

As for the scoring table, that came about in 1892. Previously, the scoring was done on a points-for-place basis. That was a Caledonian concept, where you were given five points for first place, three points for second, and one point for third. But if you didn't meet a minimum standard in three events, then your scores got thrown out. It got to be very confusing. So, the NYAC asked Alexander Jordan, a competitor who was retiring at the time, to write a set of tables. These became known as the Jordan Tables. The 1893 meet was the first to use the all-around tables and give a total score. That was a major contribution because now we had a measure of comparison about the athletes.

SL: You write that, by the turn of 20th century, the Caledonian Games had faded in popularity. What happened?

FZ: In about 1870, track and field and baseball had very similar, large followings. Baseball went from being amateur to professional. Track was just the opposite; it went from being professional to amateur. The Scottish movement was almost exclusively professional. Those guys came over here and won prize money. Also, there was a fairly significant gambling element. But the Caledonian people--the pros--lost the battle to the amateurs, who were very clever in grabbing the attention of the newspapers.

In the late 19th century, there were many weekly sporting papers--The Clipper, The Spirit of the Times, The National Police Gazette. The amateurs got control of the editorship of those papers and systematically ignored the Caledonian people and pooh-poohed their records. For example, William Curtis was the editor of several papers and magazines. In spite of all his other contributions to track, his goal in life was to make sure that people didn't remember the Caledonian Games. He promoted amateur track, and he was a zealot. By the time you get to 1896, the Caledonian Games were a passing phase. The public forgot about them. Unfortunately, we don't give the Scots as much credit as they deserve. They really developed not just track, but the rules of track.

SL: Track was very popular at the end of the 19th century, yet you note that the sport failed to take advantage of this. What happened?

FZ: In the 1890s, track was reeling and lost a lot of its popularity. It was fading. There were a lot of new sports that were becoming popular, like football and bicycling. A few things helped to save the sport. One was the Olympics, beginning in 1896. Another was the phenomenal international meet in New York in 1895, when the Americans went on this great recruiting binge and the New York Athletic Club swept the London A.C. This helped create a great deal of interest in track and field.

SL: In 1904, Kiely Thomas was credited with winning the first, and only, all-around event contested at the Olympic Games. However, you write that the all-around championships were held a couple of months before the rest of the track and field competitions in St. Louis. How did Thomas get credit for something he didn't accomplish?

FZ: I went to Ireland and met with his family to find this out. Thomas was, hands down, the best athlete of his era. He was also a nationalist. In those days, if you lived in Ireland, you had to compete for Britain, and he never would do that. But he did get an invitation in 1904 to come to the U.S. and contest the all-around, which happened to be held in St. Louis with other AAU championships, several months before the Olympic Games were contested. He came, he won, and he went home.

I went through every bit of correspondence--every letter the guy wrote--and he never claimed to have been Olympic champion. He didn't know he was an Olympic champion. Not one publication, from 1904 to the early 1950s, ever claimed that this was an Olympic event. I went through every newspaper in 1904--St. Louis had three daily newspapers then--and they all said the all-around was an AAU championship.

In the 1950s, an Irish journalist took it upon himself to make Kiely an Olympic champion. With a little bit of chicanery, he convinced the IOC and the IAAF that the all-around was actually part of the Olympic Games, when in fact it wasn't. The basis of his claim was that Kiely had an Olympic medal. Well, I found that medal. It's on display in Clonmel, Ireland, in the county library--and it was not an Olympic medal. It was an AAU medal.

SL: Why wasn't there an all-around event at 1908 London Olympic Games?

FZ: The British never had much of a history of multiple events, and so they didn't offer a combined-event contest. The interim Games in 1906, held in Athens to save the Olympic movement, had a reinvented pentathlon.

SL: The decathlon made its first Olympic appearance at the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games. What role did Sweden play in this story?

FZ: Some athletes from Denmark in the late 1890s came to the U.S., saw the all-around, took it back to Denmark and offered it as a national championship for a number of years. They changed the name to "tikamp," which is translated as "ten events." The Swedes, the Finns, and the Norwegians saw this and liked it, but they decided to massage the event. They changed some of the events. They took out some of the Scottish weight events and inserted more classical throwing events, like the discus and the javelin. They also took out the 880 walk and replaced it with the 400-meter run.

In 1912, the Swedes were given the opportunity to host the Olympics in Stockholm. At the time, host countries were allowed to insert some events to the Olympic program. The Swedes, having taken this "tikamp" and worked it over for about 10 years, decided to put that in the program. The final form is the same form that we have today--the same ten events, in that order. It has never changed.

SL: After winning the decathlon and the pentathlon at the Stockholm Games, Jim Thorpe came home and won the AAU all-around event in 1912. His name isn't listed in the record books. Why not?

FZ: It's a clerical oversight by USA Track & Field. When the family got the Olympic medals and Thorpe got his amateur standing back 30 years after he died, the IOC went back and put his name in the Olympic record book. But because the all-around is forgotten, the AAU and its successors haven't put Thorpe's name back on the list of the all-around winners.

SL: You write that, after Thorpe's triumph at the 1912 Olympic Games, the decathlon and the all-around co-existed for awhile. Why did the decathlon supercede the all-around by the 1920 Antwerp Olympics?

FZ: There was a debate within the AAU as to whether or not one of these events was redundant. Basically, they said: what's the point of offering two events that are similar? On the all-around side were people like Avery Brundage, who maintained that the all-around was much harder and was a better test of versatility, strength and endurance. But he and the others lost out. I think they were at a disadvantage because, in 1914, when [AAU czar] James Sullivan died, the all-around lost its most prominent backer. He was a fan of the all-around, and he would have kept it had he lived.

In 1921, the AAU offered both a decathlon and an all-around for the last time.

SL: How would you compare the two events--the decathlon and the all-around --as athletic tests?

FZ: The all-around was a harder thing to do. You did it in one day, and there was a limited amount of rest time between events. The rules said five minutes between events, so you had to jump from one event to the next.

There was a lot more strategy in the all-around because you had to learn to pace yourself. You didn't go all-out in every event. In the decathlon, you can go all-out because you have a pretty good rest between events.

SL: Why did the all-around make a comeback in the 1950s?

FZ: A guy named Bill Jimeson, who ran a track club in Baltimore, was paging through the AAU rule-book in the late 1940s and saw the rules for the all-around. He wondered why the all-around wasn't being held anymore. He called the AAU office and asked them if it was okay to conduct the all-around again. He was told that it was okay, as long as it didn't cost the AAU any money.

In the 1950s, the all-arounds were always held in Baltimore. They began to attract a cult of athletes--hammer throwers and walkers. The NYAC started sending people, and when interest ran out in Baltimore in the early 1960s, the NYAC took it over and began to host it again. The last AAU-sponsored all-around came in 1977.

When the all-around made a comeback in the 1950s, it never attracted the top multi-event athletes. Bob Mathias and Rafer Johnson and Bruce Jenner never did the all-around.

SL: One interesting point you make in the book is that many all-arounders contributed to other facets of track and field history. For instance, Harry Gill became the famed coach at the University of Illinois and Avery Brundage led the IOC for years. Why do you think that occurred?

FZ: Yes, some of them became very good coaches, like Gill and George Goldie, who was an early Caledonian all-arounder and became the coach of the NYAC. He made terrific contributions to track and field. It might have been that they had a knowledge of--and appreciation of--a lot of different events that required many different skills. In those days, a club or a college had one track coach who had to coach every event. Nowadays, you have a sprint coach and a distance coach and a vertical jumping coach.

SL: Do you think there's any chance for another comeback for the all-around?

FZ: I'm waiting for somebody to say, "We ought to just try this event as an exhibition." I've always wondered what a guy like Dan O'Brien could do.

Meet the mascot of the Games of the Small States of Europe, held in Andorra in May. All we can say is, "Break up Liechtenstein."