USOC Meetings : Schiller May Again Be Considered for Executive Director Job

Robert Helmick, president of the U.S. Olympic Committee, said Sunday that Southeastern Conference Commissioner Harvey Schiller expressed interest in returning as the USOC’s executive director even as Schiller was resigning from the position last January after only 18 days on the job.

“Harvey has expressed to me really right from the outset, right from January, that he is very interested in the USOC and being executive director at the appropriate time,” Helmick said on the last day of the 4-day USOC executive board meetings.

“His reason for not staying had nothing to do with him not being interested in the position. It was because of timing.”

Schiller resigned as SEC commissioner to become USOC executive director on Jan. 1, then resigned that job to return to the SEC on Jan. 19.

He cited personal reasons for his indecision, including treatment for skin cancer, which made it difficult for him to disrupt his life with a move from Birmingham, Ala., to USOC headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Baaron Pittenger, the former assistant executive director who was promoted when Schiller resigned, will be in the position until February, when his contract expires. He said Sunday that he would like to be offered a new contract.

“That’s part of the game,” Pittenger said when asked about Schiller’s anticipated candidacy. “It’s a great opportunity for somebody, which is why I want it.”

Schiller was unavailable Sunday for comment. He said last week that he was aware that he had support from within the USOC’s 105-member executive board but added that he was not actively pursuing the position.

Even though the USOC will not elect a new executive director until at least February, the subject already has inflamed passions.

Former Olympic weightlifter Bruce Wilhelm of Daly City, Calif., had to be restrained by other athletes Saturday night when he thought an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter’s questions concerning Schiller were too negative.

In a decision that caught even the principal by surprise, New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner was slated Sunday as one of three USOC vice presidents by a nominating committee.

Steinbrenner, who has been an executive board member since 1985 and presides over an overview commission that is expected to make recommendations in February about the USOC’s course, said that he was interviewed by the nominating committee but believed that he had expressed reservations that would prevent him from being slated.

He said that he still hasn’t decided whether to accept the nomination.

“I’m a little concerned because others have devoted a lot more time to the Olympic movement than I have,” he said. “If there is any resentment about my nomination, that wouldn’t be good for the Olympic committee.”

Asked about his role as an officer if he accepts the nomination and is elected, Steinbrenner sounded like another George who became vice president.

“I’ll do whatever the president tells me to do,” Steinbrenner said. “I’ll try to carry out his ideas.”

But Steinbrenner also suggested that he may have a few ideas of his own.

“I’m not a laid-back guy,” he said, hardly a bulletin for those who have observed his leadership of the Yankees.

The committee nominated Helmick to continue in the presidency, which the Des Moines, Iowa, lawyer has held since 1985. The only other officer nominated to remain in office is vice president Bill Tutt of Colorado Springs. The other vice president nominee is Michael Lenard, a Los Angeles lawyer.

Dr. LeRoy Walker of Durham, N.C. was nominated as treasurer and Chuck Foster of Duxbury, Mass., as secretary.

Executive board members can challenge the committee’s recommendations by having their own names placed in nomination for the election, which will be held at the next USOC meeting Feb. 17-19 in Portland, Ore.

Although no one might challenge Steinbrenner, he is not likely to receive universal support from the executive board.

Asked to comment on Steinbrenner’s nomination, Pittenger said, “You don’t really expect me to comment on that, huh?”

In choosing a 150-acre site west of the Otay Reservoir and raising more than $5 million toward its $15 million goal, San Diego has met all but one of the USOC’s conditions to construct an official training center for Olympic athletes.

San Diego representatives agreed Saturday to submit a plan in February to help the USOC defray operating expenses for the training center, which tentatively is scheduled to open in 1991.

Howard Miller, USOC treasurer, estimated that the training center will cost between $4 million and $5 million annually to operate.

The USOC already has training centers in Colorado Springs and Lake Placid, N.Y. Formerly a training center site, Marquette, Mich., has been re-designated as an educational center.

Indianapolis also has been given tentative approval to begin acquiring land and financial support for a training center.

The Anchorage Olympic Committee (AOC) will proceed with its efforts to bring the Winter Games to Alaska but with a new chairman.

Rick Mystrom, who twice has overseen unsuccessful bids before the International Olympic Committee at a cost of $5 million, resigned to devote more time to his advertising agency. The AOC is expected to announce a replacement next month.

The chairman’s first responsibility will be to lead Anchorage’s campaign to become the USOC’s candidate in bidding for the 1998 Winter Games. The USOC will announce its choice next spring after hearing presentations from bid cities, expected to include Salt Lake City, Reno-Tahoe and Klamath Falls, Ore.

In his final appearance before the USOC executive board Saturday, Mystrom said that Anchorage is a “prohibitive favorite” to win the bid for the 1998 Games. The host city will be selected in 1991.

Mystrom said that the AOC believes it lost its bid for the 1994 Winter Games 2 months ago in Seoul because of the IOC’s “overwhelming desire to go to Scandinavia.”

Lillehammer, Norway won narrowly over Oestersund, Sweden. Anchorage was third, ahead of only Sofia, Bulgaria. Albertville, France has been awarded the 1992 Winter Games.

AOC officials acknowledge that they might have an easier time winning with the IOC than the USOC. The sentiment among some USOC members is that world-class facilities in Anchorage would be so remote for most U.S. athletes that they would not boost the country’s future Winter Games efforts.

The site most often mentioned as an alternative to Anchorage is Salt Lake City, but that city appears to be having difficulty determining which of two groups will present its bid.

The group from Reno-Tahoe scored points with the executive board Sunday when it revealed that it would be willing to build winter sports facilities even without a guarantee from the IOC that the Games would be awarded to that city. Anchorage and Salt Lake City did not make the same commitment.

Dr. Roger Jackson of Canada, chairman of the Pan American Sports Organization (PASO) technical commission, has called facilities for the 1991 Pan American Games in Havana, Cuba bleak.

As a result of Cuba’s decision to boycott the Seoul Olympics and fears that it might not have the resources to stage a multi-sport event, there has been speculation that PASO will attempt to move the Games to another country when it meets this week in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

But considering that the Cubans believed they had a deal with PASO when the 1987 Pan American Games suddenly were awarded to Indianapolis in 1984, PASO President Mario Vasquez Rana of Mexico is not likely to risk offending the Cubans a second time. The Games probably will be held there, although under Spartan conditions.

The Cubans already have announced that they cannot afford to build the facilities for modern pentathlon. PASO might decide this week to move that competition to another city, perhaps San Antonio.

Another sport left off the program is women’s team handball.

“The only reason the Cubans don’t want that is because they’re not good at it,” said Dr. Peter Buehning, president of the U.S. Team Handball Federation.

Also on the PASO agenda is discussion of the first Winter Pan American Games, scheduled for next September in Argentina. It will involve only skiing events. But the second Winter Pan Am Games, to be held in the United States or Canada in 1993, will include all the sports in the Winter Olympics.

USOC Notes

USOC President Robert Helmick will lead a delegation later this month to Moscow, where sports ministers from throughout the world will discuss strategies to combat performance-enhancing drugs, such as anabolic steroids. Also representing the United States will be Dr. Don Catlin of UCLA’s analytical laboratory and chairman of the USOC’s substance-abuse committee, hurdler Edwin Moses and former speedskater Michael Plant of the Athletes Advisory Council and Dr. Ralph Hale, president of U.S. Water Polo. . . . Dr. Robert Voy, the USOC’s chief medical officer, later will attend another international drug conference in Vienna.

The USOC decided Saturday to support in principle a plan that would allow random testing of athletes for steroids during training periods. But Helmick said that he is not in favor of unannounced testing, preferring that athletes be given 24 to 48 hours notice. “We don’t want doctors in white coats knocking on athletes’ doors in the middle of the night,” he said. The Athletes Advisory Council agreed with that proposal but also passed a resolution calling for the lifetime ban of any athlete testing positive for steroids. . . . According to the original projection, the USOC would receive $80 million from the sale this year of official Olympic coins by the U.S. mint. That later was revised to $50 million. Now it appears as if the USOC will receive closer to $20 million.

USOC treasurer Howard Miller estimated last spring the USOC, which had a $149.9 million budget for this quadrennial, would finish the year $13 million in the black. But he announced Saturday that it actually will have a shortfall of about $5 million. The budget for the next 4 years is expected to be $200 million to $240 million. . . . ESPN will televise the Olympic Festival for the next 3 years, including the one scheduled for Los Angeles in 1991.