Every American Olympic athlete who has mounted the podium to receive a medal should remember the contributions of Sen. Ted Stevens, who died in a plane crash on Monday, says a former USOC official.
In 2003, Sen. Ted Stevens (right) shared a Senate panel with Arizona's John McCain in an investigation into misconduct within the U.S. Olympic movement. Stevens was known as an advocate for amateur athletes and the U.S. in the Olympics, says former USOC spokesman Mike Moran.(Editor's note: Mike Moran served as the chief spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee for 22 years. He offers this tribute to the late Sen. Ted Stevens, who died in a plane crash Monday night in Alaska.)
Mike Moran
Special to The Plain Dealer
Every American Olympic athlete who has mounted the podium to receive a medal from Lake Placid to Vancouver should pause today to take a moment to remember former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who died in a tragic plane crash Monday night in a remote area of the state he loved and served for six terms in Washington.
Stevens authored, sponsored and delivered the most important piece of legislation in the history of the American Olympic movement in 1978, the Amateur Sports Act, now named after him. The historic legislation is the blueprint by which the United States Olympic Committee gained its pivotal, central role in carrying out its mission and assuring that every American athlete, no matter their lot in life, can dream and have the right to compete for the chance to realize their goal.
Simply put, Ted Stevens had the back of hundreds of thousands of men and women from every state, city, town or hamlet who wanted to achieve something special. Most failed, but many others have made up our Olympic and Paralympic teams, Pan American Games teams, and scores of others who earned the right to represent our nation at World Championships or Trials leading to the ultimate recognition.
Acting on the findings of the President's Commission on Olympic Sports from 1975-77, Stevens took on the decades-long dysfunction of American amateur sports and delivered a document ending years of turf battles between the NCAA and the once-powerful AAU over control of our athletes and their right to compete. It ushered in a new era for amateur and Olympic sport, and it created a system of rights for the athletes and gave birth to the new USOC, placing the organization squarely in the driver's seat for the task of managing the Olympic movement.
Stevens was aided by Olympic greats like swimmer Donna de Varona, who worked tirelessly from 1976-78 as a consultant to Stevens and the Senate on behalf of American athletes and their rights, and what they brought home was monumental. It not only guaranteed the rights of athletes in critical areas, but it created a USOC with power and influence, giving it the protection of the coveted Olympic marks and terminology vitalto its fund raising.
It brought the system of individual national governing bodies for each Olympic or Pan Am games sport with those same guarantees built into their charters, and it installed a brand-new system of appeal and arbitration for our athletes they would never have dreamed ofunder the former good old boys network now demolished.
As a product from this massive reform came the reborn USOC, which had been little more than an Olympic travel agency for decades, selling lapel pins and belt buckles to help finance the trips to the Games, its board dominated by the AAU and its cronies, doing business in some smoke-filled back rooms in New York City.
Now there were to be Olympic Training Centers where athletes could develop their skills at no cost. A new national headquarters was opened in Colorado Springs in August, 1978, where the USOC grew from a dozen staffers like me, to the mature, diverse and efficient, prominent force that it is today. Training centers came alive in Colorado Springs, Squaw Valley and Lake Placid, and later Chula Vista, Calif.
The stage was set for what has now become reality. The United States is a power in both the Winter and Summer Games and we have, because of the strength of the national governing bodies, a deep and resilient talent pool.
The Amateur Sports Act is not perfect, and it has been challenged, criticized and amended over the years to meet the needs and changes in American sport, from the rapid growth of the Paralympic movement to issues like women's representation in the USOC, but is continues to sustain the complex nature of Olympic sport.
Stevens never let down in his vigilance on behalf of American athletes. He was the watchdog of the USOC, and any number of meetings I endured in his Senate offices over 25 years are unforgettable. He could be charming or he could be a bully when he wanted to make a point, but we listened and we obeyed.
The last time I saw him in person was in February, 2003, when he was in a gym at the Olympic Training Center in front of more than 500 USOC employees, waving a binder of documents in the air that he had gathered during a long investigation into charges of mismanagement and systemic problems since 1999. It ended with the departure of the USOC's chief executive, humbling, rancorous hearings in Washington, and a massivereform in 2004 that reduced the board of directors and changed the way the USOC conducted itself internally.
To the end, he was the Man in Washington for American athletes, and the guardian of the flame for the USOC.
His Senate career ended in 2008 and he endured problems and issues since that have made some overlook his triumphs for his state and for Olympians and those who dream of being one. He opposed the clumsy, destructive boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games forced on the USOC by the Congress and the inept Carter inner circle, and he would open his office to any aspiring Olympic athlete who felt unheard or ignored, and he was at the front of the line when we brought our Olympic Teams to the White House after every Games to welcome these special athletes.
He sat at the head table, front-row, at every one of the grand Olympic dinners we staged in Washington through the years with his arms crossed and a frown on his brow until it came time for me to introduce the athletes and bring them to the stage for their recognition.
Eerily, he had survived another plane crash in Alaska in 1978 that took the life of his first wife, Ann. His untimely death comes only weeks after the passing of another of the USOC's most influential figures, George Steinbrenner, who also brought needed change and direction to the movement at a critical time in 1989 and who was also a friend to Olympic athletes and their plight.
Not much of the reporting about Stevens' life and death will mention his massive contributions to America's athletes or the USOC, but it will never be forgotten by those of us who were part of the rebirth of the organization in 1978, it's move to our cherished Colorado Springs and the Rockies, and by thousands of athletes who had a dream of greatness, and those who are just now beginning to create their own.
Mike Moran was the chief spokesman for the USOC through thirteen Games, 1980-2002. He is now a media consultant. Reach him at: mike@thesportscorp.org.