Sporting Groups Still Profit From Olympic Surplus

The Los Angeles Olympics--the most profitable sporting event in history--are still making money.

The Amateur Athletic Foundation, successor to the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, has approved $9 million in grants in the last two years, including $5 million to 103 youth sports organizations in Southern California since last December.

But because of its income from investments, mainly short-term government securities, it now has more money than it first received as its 40% share of the 1984 Olympic surplus--more than $93 million, compared to its original principal of $88.5 million.

Foundation President Stanton Wheeler said Monday that the surplus is not actually as large as it seems, because there is about $3.5 million in grants already authorized but not yet distributed.

Principal Untouched

Still, at this time last year the foundation’s officers were talking about how much of the principal they would be spending this year, in addition to the interest income. As it turned out, they have not been eating into it thus far at all.

Board Chairman Paul Ziffren recently named a new long-range planning committee to examine just how the foundation should be spending its money over the long term and how long a life it should have.

The committee’s chairman, U.S. 9th Circuit Court Judge Stephen Reinhardt, remarked last week:

“We’ve had a good conservative first two years, time for everyone to get experience at what we’re doing. We’re off to a good solid start. It’s not a glamorous eye-catching story, but the object was to establish a solid base and that’s what we’ve done.”

Now, Reinhardt said, he believes that the time has come to move beyond grants to outside youth groups, which are apt to continue in about the same amounts, toward more programs the foundation initiates itself.

At a board meeting earlier this month, final approval was given to a plan to build a $2-million sports resource center--including a library to house Olympic memorabilia and books, and multipurpose meeting rooms--on the property owned by the foundation and now housing its headquarters in the West Adams district.

Conferences on Youth Sports

When the center, to be named after Ziffren, is finished in 1988, the tentative plan is for the foundation to begin sponsoring occasional conferences on youth sports issues, such as the question of whether participation in high school sports should properly be contingent on academic grades.

“I would hope we could make some sort of contribution to thinking through the problems of sport,” Reinhardt said.

Some of the coaches’ clinics that the foundation has already begun sponsoring to train hundreds of volunteer coaches will be held in the resource center, and those doing research in sports topics will be able to use the library facilities.

At the same time, the board ordered expansion of the foundation’s summer swim program, which provides instruction to youths aged 8 to 18. This coming summer, the program will be held at 95 sites, including all the swimming pools in Los Angeles County that are operated by either the county or Los Angeles city recreation departments.

Interviews with the foundation staff and several of its board members indicated that three issues preoccupy those charged with seeing that the Olympic surplus funds go to the purpose for which they were originally committed--to enhance youth sports opportunities.

Debate Over Impact

First, there is a debate over what kind of impact the foundation should seek to have.

Second, there is a question as to how much money the foundation should spend outside the area of specific youth sports programs, generally on programs associated with the resource center.

And third, there is the question of how long the foundation will continue to exist, whether it should spend down its principal to a point where eventually, perhaps in 20 or 25 years, it will go out of business.

On the first question, board member David Wolper has emerged as a leading exponent of the view that the foundation ought to be aiming at making what he calls “a larger general impact” not only in the Los Angeles community, but elsewhere as well.

“We do have an enormous amount of funds--more than anyone has ever had to benefit youth sports--and we ought to be making some national, even international impact,” said Wolper, who produced the Olympic opening ceremonies two years ago.

Sports Center Suggested

He suggested as possibilities a major conference on questions involving amateur athletics and the colleges, or creation of a sports center in Exposition Park where youngsters could compete in sports events.

The Wolper view, however, is challenged by others, such as attorney John C. Argue, head of the private boosters group that helped bring the 1984 Games to Los Angeles.

“I’m interested in putting bats and balls in the hands of kids,” he said. “Our effort ought to be judged on the numbers of kids we’ve gotten involved in sports. I say, judge it on the numbers of kids on fields rather than the number of inches we get in the paper.”

The foundation president, Wheeler, seemed to be supporting Argue when he remarked, on the question of impact, that he felt it is important to “distinguish between impact and visibility.”

‘That’s Real Impact’

The foundation’s grants might seem to have had “low visibility to people with experience of mass media events,” he said. “But if you look at 100 different grants, that’s real impact.”

At the same time, Wheeler said he hoped that the foundation would be able to support efforts, perhaps through conferences and other educational projects, that would “upgrade and improve the sport delivery system” to youth.

“We can do that by improving coaches, studying how to ensure safety and providing high quality programs,” he added. “This is our central aim. It’s not something that gets you worldwide attention. But if we can set up models here, we can disseminate them throughout the nation.”

This is where Wheeler and his staff vice presidents think the first question, about impact, melds into the second, about how much the foundation should be spending outside its regular grants.

Particular Pride

The staff expressed particular pride in some of the grants that have been made--such as helping sponsor the Mount San Antonio Relays youth day or providing for expansion of tennis instruction in minority communities--but it also said other types of activities, sometimes more intellectual, are justified as well.

For instance, staff Vice President Anita DeFrantz, who recently was appointed as the second American member of the International Olympic Committee, said she believes that it is important for the foundation to propagate the idea that any youngster participating in high school and college sports should be required to get satisfactory grades.

“We short a lot of kids if we allow them to get to college without learning to read,” she said.

Wheeler also explained that the foundation wants to assist efforts to find better ways of organizing games for youngsters.

He expressed admiration, for example, for American League President Bobby Brown’s ideas for using pitching machines rather than pitchers in baseball games played by 6- to 9-year-olds. Perhaps, he remarked, it will be found better if kids are given five swings of the bat. If the ball was not hit into fair territory in those five swings, then the hitter would have struck out. There would be no walks from the pitching machine.

Sponsor Clinics

The foundation, he suggested, would be willing to buy the pitching machines for community baseball organizations, and it would be willing to sponsor the conferences and the coaches’ clinics that would get the word out.

He said the foundation might also be interested in organizing sports across age lines. For instance, it could help set up community cross-country teams in which a 60-year-old might participate alongside a 10-year-old. These are the kind of “sports delivery” systems he said the foundation hopes to develop through the new sports resource center.

While the new long-range planning committee will take up the question of how much to allocate to such activities, Wheeler said that the amount in direct grants will probably always be the largest expenditures.

Pattern May Be Broken

Ziffren added in another interview that the pattern of the first two years--in which the foundation has been making a little more than $1 million in grants each quarter--may be broken occasionally if particularly worthy large programs come along for funding. He pointed out that, to a large extent, foundation giving is dependent on the kind of applications that come in.

As for how long the foundation goes on, the board chairman said he supposes it will be about 20 years.

“We do want to make sure that the resource center is carried on perpetually,” he said. “We are very probably going to set aside a reserve fund that will be allowed to go untouched and gather interest during that time, so that after we are through making grants, we will have enough to keep the center going.”