Not Everyone Who Makes a Request Gets Olympic Funds

Although many of those applying for a share of the 1984 Olympic profits come away happy, there have been some Olympic-sized disappointments.

“We had an individual who wanted to build a hotel in Barcelona, Spain, and call it ‘The Olympian,’ ” said Steve Rutledge, spokesman for the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles. “He wanted us to pay for the whole thing. Millions. Needless to say, it didn’t get funded.”

But even those who get a portion of the $90-million Olympic fund may not get as much as they wanted.

When he applied for a diving platform for Crown Valley Recreation Center in Laguna Niguel, former Olympic diving announcer Dick Wilson also asked for a Jacuzzi.

“There are times in Southern California it gets darn cold at night,” Wilson explained. “I couldn’t get them to (approve it), because they felt it was too much of a recreational thing.”

Not everyone takes rejection lightly.

On three occasions, Ralph Rodheim and other Newport Beach fund-raisers asked the AAF for grants to help build a $1.4-million, 50-meter-by-25-yard swimming pool at Corona del Mar High School, “not just for the school but for the community.”

“We were turned down each time because we were not a black ghetto minority,” Rodheim said. “It’s reverse discrimination. Our kids here have as many problems as the ghetto kids. I’m appalled personally. We were not even asking for much money, $75,000.”

“They just said they were not going to fund anything in the Newport Beach area because it’s too wealthy,” Rodheim said.

However, Rodheim noted that the private Newport Aquatic Center received a $115,000 AAF grant to buy racing shells.

“The Newport Aquatic Center is an Olympic rowing facility, once again politics,” Rodheim said. “More people will be using this (swimming pool) than will be using that facility.”

Newport Aquatic Center assistant director Bob Strachan acknowledged that the facility is a training center for the United States Rowing Assn. and that the women’s national kayaking team trains there.

“We’re sending four girls to the national championships on June 19,” he said.

But David Grant, a Newport Aquatic Center board member and former Olympic assistant rowing coach, said the AAF grant was justified.

“It’s not just for the elitist, not just the people in Newport Beach,” Grant said of the rowing center. “Anybody can join; we just need to find ways to get them there.

“It’s a home for people who want to be on the water and can’t afford to be; (people) who don’t have waterfront homes.”

Strachan said the aquatic center will try “to bring in kids from the less affluent areas, in Santa Ana . . . exposing them to both rowing and kayaking.”

Although about 75% of those using the Newport Aquatic Center are paying members, the facilities are available to the public through classes run by the city recreation department and the center’s summer camp.

“We want to devote a two-week portion of the summer camp to underprivileged kids and waive the two-week fee,” Strachan said. “We’re trying to keep the cost under $30.”