USOC Report by ‘Diplomat’ Steinbrenner’s Commission Due

The Boss is now The Diplomat.

In one role, George M. Steinbrenner creates controversy by firing managers, squabbling with players and leaking news stories to get his New York Yankees on the back pages of the city’s tabloids.

But in his new role as chief critic of the United States Olympic Committee, Steinbrenner has exhibited surprising traits that include a zest for compromise and a quest for secrecy.

“He doesn’t bully people, and he listens,” said Christopher (Tiff) Wood, a three-time Olympian in rowing. “He is cooperative, reasonable and, yes, diplomatic. He is not the person I have read about all these years.”

Steinbrenner and the seven other members of the Overview Committee finally will go public with their top-secret report to retool and refocus the USOC. The report is scheduled for release today in Portland, Ore., at the close of the USOC’s three-day, quadrennial meetings.

“This report can be a file 13 or something to be implemented,” Steinbrenner said in a recent interview. “We’ll make recommendations positively. It will be a positive, powerful report.”

USOC President Robert Helmick said he expects the committee to release a report that is firm, fair and objective.

“My purpose with the commission’s report will be to implement it immediately,” said Helmick, who adds he will read the report for the first time this weekend.

Many were surprised a year ago when Helmick turned to Steinbrenner for a top-to-bottom review of the U.S. Olympic effort.

“The only side of Steinbrenner I’ve noticed is a very effective business person, a dedicated person,” said Helmick. “I don’t happen to be a baseball fan. I don’t know this baseball persona. I’ve only known George through the USOC. I’ve come to rely upon him as an effective member.”

The timing of Steinbrenner’s committee appointment -- in the midst of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta -- probably couldn’t have been worse. The United States won six medals at Calgary and finished a disappointing third behind the Soviet Union and East Germany in the medal count at the Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.

“I wasn’t worried about the timing,” said Steinbrenner, who is expected to be elected one of the USOC’s three at-large vice presidents this weekend. “I’m a champion of causes for athletes.”

Steinbrenner, a member of the USOC Executive Board for five years, has handled tough assignments before. He helped mediate a dispute between the Amateur Athletic Union and The Athletics Congress over use of the term Junior Olympics.

“George put some people together to hammer out the issues,” said Mike Plant, an executive board member. “He basically took depositions, and, in two years, an agreement was reached. He wears two hats. With the Yankees, he pays the bills and does what he pleases. With the USOC, he has been low-key and effective.”

Steinbrenner has stepped into a logistical mine field with this commission. Officially, Steinbrenner and the other members of the committee -- drawn from sports, academics and business -- were asked to evaluate the USOC’s performance 10 years after the federal Amateur Sports Act of 1978. The legislation ended years of bickering between the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the AAU, and chartered the USOC in its current form.

Unofficially, the committee’s mandate was clear: Put U.S. athletes back on a competitive fast track.

“I feel very strongly about the need to keep our program in step with the other nations of the world,” Steinbrenner said. “The other nations are donating a large portion of government finances to their programs. To them, this isn’t just sports. This is prestige. They’re all coming on strong. It’s important to America, for the national recognition of our nation, to do well at the Olympics.”

In an update released last April 27, the committee wrote, “This is not a witch hunt, I can assure you.”

The committee has engaged in a year of fact-finding and interviewing, contacting hundreds of athletes and administrators. But Steinbrenner said the committee could not reach all voices of amateur sport. For example, the committee interviewed Ollan Cassell, TAC chairman, and Tom Tellez, the University of Houston coach who oversees Carl Lewis’ training, but failed to contact Olympic track and field coaches Stan Huntsman and Terry Crawford.

“We couldn’t reach everyone,” Steinbrenner said. “If we listened to everyone, every view, it would have taken us 10 years to finish this.”

Despite a veil of secrecy placed over the contents of the report, many within the Olympic movement expect the commission to address at least three major areas:

--Funding for athletes. The USOC had hoped to institute a pay scale for elite athletes, but after failing to reach a $50 million target for sale of Olympic coins, the program is in limbo. The USOC is expected to approve a $248 million budget for the period through the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France, and Barcelona, Spain.

--The USOC’s bloated bureaucracy. This is a two-tiered problem. The USOC is an umbrella covering a diverse group of organizations, ranging from Olympic sports to the American Bowling Congress to the YMCA. Accounting irregularities also have been uncovered at the USOC’s headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo.

--Creating a system of accountability that rewards the national governing bodies that spend money wisely. The USOC filters its money to the bodies -- some that achieve results, others that don’t. The U.S. volleyball team is viewed as a model, maintaining a year-round training center and a job program for its players. Sports such as bobsledding and speed skating have been beset with internal strife throughout the decade.

“The USOC is a congress of sport,” said Helmick. “But we can cut down on the bureaucracy. I think there is a lot we can do to make ourselves more efficient. We need massive changes in funding to get the type of support the athletes need. The budget we’re going to present, where we maintain the same level of administrative costs and have the increases fall to the athletes, is the correct direction.”

The USOC is essentially a volunteer organization that has undergone traumatic and dramatic growth in the last decade.

“One major problem we have in this country is there are people at home, watching games, who are intimately involved in training and selection of athletes,” said Mike Jacki, executive director of the U.S. Gymnastics Federation. “The rest of the world is doing this as a serious business, and we’re doing this with volunteers. Some guy is a plumber Monday through Friday, and, on weekends, he is making decisions for the USOC.”

But for one weekend, at least, the USOC will take direction from a controversial baseball owner-turned-judicious administrator.

“This has been one of the truly enlightening things I’ve ever been involved with,” Steinbrenner said. “The USOC is the greatest voluntary organization in the history of the world. What they’ve accomplished has been tremendous. These people are fanatical. It is uplifting for me to see them work this hard.”