PROS IN THE OLYMPICS : The Debate Continues: Amateurs, Shamateurs

When the question is whether professionals should be allowed to compete in the Olympics, the United States Olympic Committee continues to coast along at a safe 55 m.p.h.

That, however, is still too fast for some members, who long for the chariots of fire of decades past.

There was a debate and a vote recently on the controversial eligibility issue at the USOC’s executive board meeting in Indianapolis.

But those who believe they have heard the last of this issue know little about Olympic history.

Immediately after Pierre de Coubertin of France introduced the idea of a modern Olympics in 1892, discussion began about which athletes should be eligible. Almost a century later, there still is no consensus.

“I love the eligibility issue,” USOC president Robert Helmick said.

“It’s like old home week. Every time we have a meeting, we bring this up when things get slow.”

Since last year, the USOC’s position has been that athletes who receive compensation for participating in their sports should not be allowed to compete in the Olympics unless they put their money in trust funds.

There are 23 sports that have sanctioned such trust funds for their athletes. From those trust funds, athletes can withdraw living and training expenses with the balance available to them upon their retirements from sports.

If a track athlete needs a Mercedes to travel to and from workouts, so be it.

At the same time, the USOC supports the right of each international federation to determine the eligibility rules for its sport.

That position also has been adopted by the 92-member International Olympic Committee, which ultimately makes the decisions.

This is too liberal for some USOC members, most notably past president Robert Kane.

In an impassioned speech to the Executive Board, he proposed an amendment to the eligibility rule that would have withdrawn USOC support from the right of international federations to sanction professionals for the Olympics.

Kane said that because the Olympics as we know them are sustained largely by revenue from American television and sponsorship, the USOC should wield more influence with the IOC.

“This whole question has gotten to be a comic tap-dance, except it’s not funny,” he said.

“It’s probably the most important issue that has ever come up in the USOC in my opinion. If the Games go professional, pretty soon there won’t be any Games.

“Professionals diminish the Games. Of the 166 countries (in the IOC), 123 do not have professional athletes. We are disinheriting the small nations, the poor nations, the Third World by asking them to compete against professionals.

“We are the only one of the 166 nations that could control the destiny of the Games by dropping out. If the USA drops out, the Games would fold. It’s our dollars that support the Games.

“We have the clout if we want to use it. But I am angered by the implausible apathy of this body on this very, very important matter.”

Kane’s amendment would not have altered the USOC’s position regarding trust funds.

Neither would it have altered the USOC’s position that athletes who are professionals in one sport should be allowed to participate in the Olympics in another sport.

Even though track and field’s governing body, the International Amateur Athletic Assn., recently voted not to reinstate athletes who remain active in other professional sports, such as Chicago Bear wide receiver Willie Gault, that could change at the IAAF’s August council meeting in Rome.

Kane called his proposal liberal, but it was rejected in a voice vote.

“A lingering doubt has been resolved,” Helmick said. “We have stated all along that the international federations should be responsible for their own rules.”

Kane said that position is “wimpish.”

But Richard Hollander of The Athletics Congress, the national governing body for track and field, said Kane is unrealistic.

“You don’t understand that we are where we are today,” Hollander told Kane.

Kane does understand. He just doesn’t like it.

At the IOC’s 92nd session next month in Istanbul, members will decide whether to accept the International Tennis Federation’s plan to open its qualifications for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul to all players.

That is consistent with the policy of the tennis federation, which has not distinguished between professionals and amateurs since 1968. Only in the United States are players so identified as a concession to the NCAA.

The tennis federation will compromise only to the extent of prohibiting its players from accepting money for their Olympic performances and requiring them to suspend sponsorship agreements during the Games.

If the plan is rejected by the IOC, or even if it is adopted but can’t be made workable in Seoul, tennis federation President Philipe Chartrier of France said he will recommend that tennis withdraw from the Olympics.

Given the tennis federation’s conditions, Kane and his supporters presumably would be pleased with such a concession. They don’t want to see John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova and Boris Becker in Seoul’s tennis competition any more than they want to see Hulk Hogan wrestling.

But the United States Tennis Assn. supports the tennis federation’s position and has asked the United States’ two IOC members, Helmick of Des Moines, Iowa, and Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles, to vote for it in Istanbul. There is every indication they will do so.

Two weeks before the IOC session, the International Ice Hockey Federation will meet in Vienna to decide whether to allow all players, including those from the National Hockey League, into the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.

The IOC already has given its approval pending the hockey federation’s vote.

Even if the hockey federation accepts professionals, there is little chance NHL owners will allow their players to compete in the Olympics, which are scheduled for the middle of the regular season.

The National Basketball Assn., however, might take a different position if its players receive Olympic eligibility from the International Amateur Basketball Federation (FIBA). The Summer Olympics do not conflict with the basketball season.

In a decision that was in doubt until the vote was called, FIBA last summer decided not to allow NBA players to participate in the Olympics.

But Bill Wall, executive director of the Amateur Basketball Assn. of the United States, said the other day that FIBA may call a special congress after the tennis decision becomes official in May to reconsider its eligibility rules.

He said that FIBA could not make the change in time for the Seoul Olympics but might have new rules for the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona.

Like American ice hockey officials, Wall has joined the Soviet Union in fighting the liberalization of the rules in his sport. He fears that allowing professional basketball players into the Olympics might adversely affect ABAUSA’s fund raising. But he acknowledged that he might be on the losing side.

Kane said it would be a sad day for the Olympics if Larry Bird and Magic Johnson played against Kenya.

It might also be a sad day for Kenya.

But DeFrantz, chairman of the USOC’s eligibility committee, said that the Kenyans should be allowed to speak for themselves.

The prospect of the IOC accepting more professionals into the Games doesn’t bother DeFrantz as much as the disparity in eligibility standards from sport to sport.

“My sense is that the IOC wants to move away from the confusion and embarrassment of this variety of rules,” she said.

That could lead to Olympics that are totally open, but that is a debate for the next quadrennial.