USOC MEETING : San Diego Facility Gets Funding at Last

After voting previously to establish a $42-million training center in San Diego, the U.S. Olympic Committee finally signed a contract Sunday with representatives from the city.

But the ceremony did not take place until after further debate among USOC executive board members, some of whom did not want to proceed with the commitment to San Diego until they had a more specific financial impact report.

Although San Diego is raising money to build the state-of-the-art center, the USOC will be responsible for its operating costs when it opens in late 1991 or early 1992.

Ultimately, the executive board voted without dissent Sunday to reconfirm its support of the center.

In a related issue, some executive board members had questions about San Diego’s ability to finance construction of the center.

Representatives of the city have been negotiating a $15 million sponsorship agreement with ARCO, but that has been jeopardized by the USOC’s $3-million deal with 3M to serve as a sponsor for all three training centers--San Diego plus the two already operating in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Lake Placid, N.Y.

But San Diego representatives convinced the executive board that they will be able to acquire alternate financing if they lose ARCO.

In the final session Sunday of its three-day meeting, the executive board also approved two short-notice, out-of-competition drug-testing plans recommended by the substance-abuse committee, which is chaired by hurdler Edwin Moses.

One will require national governing bodies, the federations for Olympic and Pan American Games sports, that cooperate with the plan to establish a pool of athletes who will be available for testing at any time during the year with only 48 hours notice.

Two national governing bodies, track and field and cycling, already have begun similar programs that might be incorporated into the USOC plan.

The executive board also voted to adopt the U.S.-Soviet drug-testing agreement. The USOC will select Soviet athletes for testing in Moscow, and the Soviets will select U.S. athletes for testing in Los Angeles.

Moses said that the plan will be put into operation when the USOC is convinced that the laboratory in Moscow is as efficient as the one at UCLA.

Representatives from eight other countries, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, West Germany, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, South Korea and Italy, will meet in Rome on Dec. 12-13 to discuss implementing similar agreements among themselves.

“Conspicuous by their absence is East Germany,” USOC executive director Baaron Pittenger said. “They are not as interested in becoming part of this as they had indicated previously.”

It was a kinder, gentler executive board that met Sunday.

The nine multisport, community service organizations, such as the YMCA, the YWCA and the Boy Scouts, each have had a vote on the executive board. But on Saturday, as the USOC began its reconstruction, the nine were given only three votes among them on the new board of directors.

Overnight, however, there was a change of heart. Their voting power was restored Sunday. Votes also were restored to past presidents, which, in this case, applies solely to Robert Kane because he is the only one who still attends executive board meetings.

Bill Wall, executive director of the U.S. Basketball Federation, told the executive board Sunday that the United States might not send men’s and women’s teams to the 1991 Pan American Games in Cuba.

Approached later by reporters, he would not elaborate except to say that the problems are not with the Cubans but with the Pan American Sports Organization (PASO) in Mexico City and that other countries also are considering not entering basketball teams.

USOC President Robert Helmick said that the basketball federations in several countries want to share television revenues from the Games but have met resistance from PASO. There also have been reports that PASO will not accept professional basketball players, who are eligible under international rules.

The “Carol Cady Loophole” was closed Sunday, when the executive board voted to bar athletes who are ineligible in one sport from competing in another at the Olympics, Pan American Games or Olympic Festivals.

Cady, a shotputter from Stanford, was suspended last winter by The Athletics Congress, the national governing body for track and field, because she competed in South Africa. But she participated in this summer’s Olympic Festival in Oklahoma City as a weightlifter.

Unless the U.S. Weightlifting Federation takes similar action, she still is eligible for competitions that are not sanctioned by the USOC.

The executive board also voted to bar athletes who compete in South Africa from representing the United States in the Olympics, Pan American Games and Olympic Festivals. But it tabled a motion to ask the U.S. Olympic Foundation to divest its financial holdings in companies that operate in South Africa, an action the USOC already has taken.

Of the foundation’s $172 million, about 4% is invested in South Africa. Helmick, a member of the foundation’s board of directors, said that he will encourage divestiture at a Nov. 29 meeting in New York.

Also tabled by the executive board was a proposal that would have allowed the USOC president to serve two consecutive four-year terms. Helmick said that he favors the proposal because it would strengthen the presidency, not because it would enable him to run for reelection in 1993. But he said that he was not disappointed when action was postponed at least until the February meeting in Phoenix.

“It’s not very important,” he said.

Between August, 1987, and December, 1990, the USOC will have spent more than $1 million on its executive director position.

That includes the $432,000 that it eventually cost to buy out George Miller, who was fired on the day after the Pan American Games in Indianapolis ended in August, 1987. The USOC recently sold the house it bought from Miller in Colorado Springs at a $98,000 loss.

Also included is the $12,500 in salary that the USOC paid Harvey Schiller for the 19 days he served as executive director before he resigned in January, 1988, and the $10,000 that it cost to move him from Birmingham, Ala., to Colorado Springs. The USOC did not pay for his move back to Birmingham.

Now that Schiller is returning to Colorado Springs as executive director on Jan. 1, the USOC not only will have to pay his salary next year but also that of his predecessor, Pittenger. Since replacing Schiller in 1988, Pittenger has received $150,000 a year. He will receive $200,000 next year before his contract expires in December.

But at least Pittenger will be working for his salary. He will remain with the USOC as a senior consultant in charge of the U.S.-Soviet drug-testing agreement.