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Angeles, September 25, 1998 Vol. 10, No.3 Dear Reader: Let’s get physical . . . The August 6, 1998 issue of USA Today contains an article on Atlanta’s Olympic legacy, describing the lasting effects of the Games on the city and its people. Ginger Watkins, former managing director of corporate services for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG), makes the claim that "Los Angeles may have made $200 million plus, but the 1984 Olympics didn’t leave a physical legacy." Once again, the Atlanta Olympic folks cannot quite manage to get things right. New buildings and facilities built for the 1984 Games included the Olympic Swim Stadium and the Frank L. King Olympic Hall at the University of Southern California, the Peter V. Ueberroth Olympic Office Building at UCLA, and a cycling velodrome at California State University, Dominguez Hills. The 1984 Games also resulted in permanent improvements to several facilities throughout Southern California. The Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee (LAOOC) put $1.8 million (in 1984 dollars) into renovations at Exposition Park, which housed two sport venues. The LAOOC also contributed $5 million to improvements of the Los Angeles Coliseum and $3.2 million to upgrading Weingart Stadium at East Los Angeles College. Add legacy . . . While ACOG was spending $207 million on a stadium now used by billionaire Ted Turner’s Braves, the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles (AAF), created with the surplus from the 1984 Games, was managing what is now a $160 million endowment devoted to youth sports. The AAF, to date, has contributed $83 million to sport in Southern California. The Foundation has funded construction of the AAF Rose Bowl Aquatics Center and the Paul Ziffren Sports Resource Center. In addition to making hundreds of program grants, the Foundation has made 58 capital grants for such things as new blacktops, gym floors and running tracks. Maybe a new floor at an inner-city gym is not as glamorous as a ballpark for pampered professional athletes, but it may be more important.
Sports Illustrated, in its August 17, 1998 issue, disparaged the sport of beach volleyball, noting in particular the loss of prize money, sponsorship and poor attendance on the Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) tour. While it’s true that beach volleyball suffers on American sands, that is not the case internationally. The International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) World Beach Tour appears to be doing quite well. The 1998 Tour features 14 men’s and nine women’s events with total prize money of more than $4 million. Spectator support has been strong, too. The June 22 finals of the Canada Open in Toronto drew 4,000; the Lausanne, Switzerland Open pulled a cumulative crowd of 60,000 in early August; and on August 25, 3,000 rain-soaked Russians watched the finals of the Moscow Open. As for television, the FIVB produces Hot Sand, a series of features and tournament highlights distributed for broadcast in 50 countries. On August 7, the FIVB signed a four-year deal with Japanese broadcaster Mainichi to show FIVB Tour events in Japan. Add volleyball . . . SI sure was correct about the home front though. In fact, things are so bleak on the AVP Tour that it can’t even find its way onto the "jurisprudence" section of the sports pages. How often does a sport’s superstar, and Olympic gold-medalist to boot, get into a nasty brawl with barely a mention? On August 29, according to The Muskegon (MI) Chronicle, AVP star Kent Steffes had fisticuffs with rival Brian Lewis during the AVP’s Muskegon Open. The altercation left Lewis with a gash below his left eye requiring 31 stitches. Steffes was disqualified from the tournament with Lewis threatening legal action. And even that couldn’t make SportsCenter.
Say what? . . . "Sure I approach things from a woman’s standpoint, but that doesn’t matter when you’re dealing with people." - Monika Suhnholz, General Manager, Austin Lone Stars, quoted in Soccer America.
Almost one hundred thirty years after Rutgers played Princeton in the first college football game, the Rutgers 1000, a group of students, faculty and alumni of the New Jersey school, have called the university to task for the increasing "professionalization" of its athletic programs at the expense of academic life and the general student population. Citing Rutgers’ more than three million dollars-a-year athletic deficit, the group has begun to attract national interest with its call for the university to withdraw from the Big East Conference and from NCAA Division I-A. Instead, the group wants Rutgers to follow the blend of athletics and academics exemplified by the Ivy League. Despite the seriousness of its proposal, the group seems to have maintained a sense of humor. Each month, Rutgers 1000 bestows the "Herbie Husker" award, a dubious distinction given to the person that "contributes the most to helping Rutgers resemble the University of Nebraska." The Rutgers community also can enter the "Slum Classroom Contest" by submitting photos of dilapidated student classrooms. First prize includes a "guided tour of Louis Brown Athletic Center, Hale Training Center, and Rutgers Stadium Complex, with full-color souvenir pictures of athletic facilities." You can find the Rutgers 1000 at members.aol.com/rutg1000/colonial.htm. Add Rutgers . . . The "Slum Classroom Contest" has become a rallying point for the Rutgers 1000’s criticism of athletic spending. It seems they have a point. Here is William Rhoden’s description of Rutgers’ varsity basketball locker room in a New York Times article published on January 15 of this year: "Three hours before his team played host to Boston College, Kevin Bannon sat in the Rutgers basketball team’s fabulous renovated locker room. Players watched music videos on a large screen in a room that is part lounge, part study, part theater. There are spacious dressing areas and custom-designed, handmade cherry wood lockers with the players’ names and numbers. There are speakers in the showers and seven televisions, two satellite dish hookups, five VCR’s and a tiered theater with 23 giant leather seats."
Olympic posers? . . . The International Yoga Sports Federation (IYSF) will host its 7th World Yoga Sport Championship, November 28-29, 1998 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Competition will take place in two divisions: Artistic Yoga Sport and Olympic Yoga Sport. Despite the terminology, however, there is no such thing as Olympic Yoga. The sport is not on the program of the Olympic Games nor is the IYSF a "recognized international sport federation" by the International Olympic Committee. So, calling yoga Olympic is, well, a bit of a stretch.
Let’s eat! . . . In the All Star Feast Cookbook (1997) more than 130 athletes reveal their favorite recipes. Just a few for you: Brett Favre’s Too Hot to Handle Crawfish Etouffe Lynn Swann’s Catch-of-the-Day Monongahela Shrimp (Would you eat these?) Bounce Pass Lamb Chops A La Cousy Arturo Gatti’s Rock ‘em, Sock ‘em Rigatoni with Vodka Sauce Chris Berman’s Baby Back, Back, Back Pork Ribs Mom Unser’s High Octane "Indy" Chili (Now we know what fuels those Unser boys.)
What do the late Cap Anson, Jesse Owens and Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis have in common? All are buried in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago. The Find A Grave Web site will help you locate the final resting places of the sports legends of yore. It’s on the Web at www.findagrave.com.
Hear no evil, see no evil . . . Lost in the debate about Mark McGwire’s use of the over-the-counter steroid androstenedione is the broader question of what Major League Baseball is doing about more potent anabolic steroids. Major League Baseball, it seems, is not doing much. MLB’s drug policy does ban "the possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance . . . This prohibition [includes] steroids or prescription drugs for which the individual in possession does not have a prescription." MLB, however, only tests for cocaine, marijuana, amphetamines, opiates and phencyclidine (PCP). So although steroids technically are prohibited, MLB does nothing to enforce the ban against them. And here is the best part - - MLB claims to have developed its drug policy to "maintain the integrity of the game" and protect the health of those who work in baseball. Just why is it that teenagers can buy androstenedione over-the-counter in stores? Thank U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the self-appointed moral watchdog of Washington, who was the primary sponsor of the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. The act gives relatively free rein to the dietary supplement industry and puts testosterone precursors like "andro" outside federal (FDA) control. In an interview with Joe Weider’s Muscle and Fitness in June 1994, Hatch fervently defended the supplement industry (much of which is located in Utah) claiming that "We need to safeguard the rights of consumers to buy and use supplements as they have done for literally thousands of years."
Forget steroids. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dirty little secret is curling, and we don’t mean the exercise you do with dumbbells. David Webster reveals the ugly truth in his 1979 book Barbells and Beefcake. Arnold, he writes, "first showed promise as an ice curler, his father, a police inspector, being the European curling champion." Curling . . . low weights, high reps.
Can you name the number of Olympians that played for the Chicago Bulls last season? The answer is five: Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, of course. Follow that with Toni Kukoc (Croatia), Luc Longley (Australia) and Bill Wennington, who played for Canada in 1984. Kukoc has played in three Olympic Games: 1988 for Yugoslavia; 1992 and 1996 for Croatia.
Sneaker Pimps . . . In another example of the fading line between journalism and advertising, the folks at SLAM magazine have published a "special issue of SLAM" entitled SLAM PRESENTS KICKS. The issue is a cover-to-cover paean to the sneaker god, Nike, including photos of every basketball shoe ever made by the swooshmeisters. No ads by any other company grace the pages. In fact, one is hard pressed to find a photo showing anything but Nike shoes. SLAM publisher, Dennis Page, admitted to SportsLetter that Nike was the sole sponsor of KICKS, but wasn’t exactly sure which party broached the idea. Got to hand it to them. It’s pretty clever when you can get people to fork over $4.50 to read 100 pages of thinly-veiled advertising.
The sun never sets . . . Not that anyone in the United States would know, but the XVI Commonwealth Games took place September 11 - 21, 1998 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Roughly 6,000 athletes from 68 countries/states participated in 15 sports. The Games, first held in 1934, take place every four years. Kuala Lumpur was the first Asian City to host the Games. Among the 15 sports were such colonial pastimes as Lawn Bowls, Rugby, Squash and Cricket. Meet Wira, the Orang Utan (Malay for jungle man), the 1998 Commonwealth Games mascot. His name means "warrior."
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