Kelly Elected President of USOC, Points to ’88

John B. Kelly, Jr., brother of the late Princess Grace of Monaco, was elected president of the U.S. Olympic Committee Saturday and expressed hopes of fielding “the greatest American Olympic team ever” at the 1988 Seoul Games.

Kelly, 57, an Olympic bronze medalist in rowing in 1956 at Melbourne, warned in an inaugural speech beginning his four-year term that in the wake of the Los Angeles Olympics: “We have had massive retirements of some top athletes and we have a big rebuilding job to do.”

But he expressed confidence that with the financial underpinning of the USOC’s share of the huge Los Angeles Olympic surplus, with careful preparation and a with policy of “opening the Olympic movement to the broadest spectrum of participants,” a superior team will be formed for 1988.

Kelly pledged to work to bring athletes from all racial, ethnic and economic groups onto the Olympic team and said he would strive to persuade the International Olympic Committee “to permit equal women’s participation in many Olympic sports and events where equality does not exist today.”

On the issue of drugs, the new president told several hundred delegates at the USOC’s annual meeting here:

“While I glory with you in (our) achievements, I must tell you that I am deeply concerned about some of the methods of improving performance, which have appeared in recent years.

“Let there be no mistake--I am opposed to the use of drugs and any other artificial techniques, and I will fight vigorously to suppress their use in this country and throughout the world.”

Kelly, owner of a Philadelphia-based construction company and the son of a rowing gold medalist in two Olympic Games, replaced William E. Simon, former U.S. secretary of the treasury, as the USOC president.

Simon, who was often faulted for not consulting others before taking positions on various issues, was dealt a rebuke Saturday when his chosen candidate for USOC third vice president, George Killian, the executive director of the National Junior College Athletic Assn., was defeated by Stephen Sobel, a former president of the U.S. Fencing Assn., in a rare contested election for a high USOC post. Sobel is a New Jersey attorney, who has served for the past four years as USOC secretary.

In another change of guard at the USOC, the long-time executive director, Col. F. Don Miller, retired and was replaced by Air Force Lt. Gen. George Miller, no relation. Gen. Miller, 54, recently retired as vice commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command.

Gen. Miller and Kelly both expressed some concern that corporations and individuals who have been big donors to the USOC might gain an impression that they can ease off on donations because of the approximately $90 million the USOC is going to receive in Los Angeles Olympic funds.

They explained that the Los Angeles money is being placed in a foundation, which will be headed by Col. Miller and which will serve as a permanent endowment for the USOC. Only its interest income is supposed to go into supporting USOC operations.

So, the two new leaders pointed out, most of the USOC’s $115-million 1985-88 quadrennial budget, up from $88 million in the last, Los Angeles quadrennial, will have to come, as before, from donations.

Kelly expressed hope that the trustees of the foundation would agree to let its interest income be used for USOC overhead.

“If that could be done, then our finance committee and marketing people could go to the American public and to corporate America and say that every dollar contributed is going entirely into programs for the athletes,” Kelly said.

A treasurer’s report indicated, meanwhile, that about $16 million in U.S. government money from the sale of Los Angeles commemorative Olympic coins that was destined for the foundation is being held in the regular USOC account to fund current operations.

Gen. Miller said that this is because the USOC has a cash-flow problem. But he added that negotiations are proceeding for corporate sponsorships of the next American Olympic team and when these negotiations are concluded, there should be enough in up-front payments to allow the foundation to get all of the money owed to it.

He pointed out that contrary to frequent public perceptions, the USOC does more than just send teams to the summer and winter Olympics. It is now a four-year operation with major continuing responsibilities of training athletes, subsidizing other amateur sports groups and even encouraging sports at the grass roots.

Friday, it was announced that the USOC will open a third Olympic training center, this one on the campus of Northern Michigan University at Marquette, Mich. The other training centers are at Colorado Springs and Lake Placid, N.Y.

Besides Kelly and Sobel, other USOC officers elected for the next four years, all without opposition, were Robert H. Helmick, a Des Moines attorney and president of the International Swimming Federation, as first vice president; Dr. Evie Dennis, a Denver public school administrator, as second vice president; Hungarian-born Andreas Toro, an El Cerrito, Calif., architect, as secretary, and Howard Miller Jr., chief executive officer of the Bascom Corp. in Boston, as treasurer.

President Reagan addressed the USOC meeting late in the day on videotape. The President paid tribute to the USOC’s efforts at the Los Angeles Games, where the American team won 83 gold medals, and wished it well at Seoul and in the 1988 Winter Games at Calgary, Canada.