COMMENTARY : Task Is Building a Fit Population, Not Olympic Athletes

With a few notable exceptions, the medal-winning athletes at the Olympic Games are international travelers who practice wherever they see opportune conditions, find sponsorship from whomever offers what pleases them most and demonstrate primarily, and well, the abundance of human capabilities that are present everywhere.

Olympic regulations do not insist that a nation’s representatives train at home in order to reflect more realistically the state of fitness and well-being of its population. And it remains true that, in spite of the worship of the medal winner, not much of the gold-silver-bronze melts down into the improvement of the physical education or training opportunities of the medalist’s compatriots at home.

The task of building fit and physically cultured citizens in the United States is not much easier than it is elsewhere. The NBA players thrilled lovers of the game with their virtuosity, and other professional athletes also demonstrated how exquisitely talent can crystallize under well-designed conditions. But at the amateur level, the view is different.

A few weeks before the Barcelona Olympics, about 80 youngsters, ages 7 to 14, took part in the ARCO Jesse Owens Championships of the Western District. Competitors were eligible from as far away as Santa Maria, yet only six cities were represented.

I led the group in general warm-ups.

Merely being instructed on how to assume and maintain proper posture sounded foreign to the children. To stretch their arms upward and sideways seemed to embarrass them. Exercises of mid-body and hips evoked laughter and sex-oriented remarks. Girls would not do them, protesting that they might get dirty or itchy. Many refused to sit on the perfectly suitable, football-field grass.

When I suggested jumping jacks, the group began to jump and shout the count--but did the exercise incorrectly.

Shortly afterward, I attended the U.S. Olympic track and field trials in New Orleans. On Saturday, a large crowd watched the 100-meter dash. On Sunday, in scorching noon heat when the wheelchair athletes were dispatched to battle for speed and distance, only a few ice-crunching spectators were on hand.

In the colonnade under the bleachers, vendors were selling T-shirts with the inscription: “No Pain, No Spain.” Yet, the truth is that pain is the worst enemy of an athlete. In the search for excellence in sports, nothing inherently calls for pain. Sore muscles, occasionally tired joints, calluses from intensive training and a scrape or a blister are parts of the challenge. But real pain is a setback. Pain kept fine candidates from making the Olympic team--and defeated outstanding contenders in Spain.

Nevertheless, quite a few coaches believe in the effectiveness of training methods that approach the edges of pain. Eager to win, they have compromised the patient cultivation of talent and brought into vogue a hybrid that muddles the educational values of sports. I am convinced statistical analysis would reveal that such coaches have ignored, misguided or ruined many more athletes than they nurtured to greatness.

Some parents and enthusiasts, if they have the money or can find a sponsor, take a capable child and begin to shape him or her into the image of their dreams. Professional trainers know how zealously the parents want to see what they pay for; therefore, they put the youth in sport-specific drills prematurely. This is fun, and the child probably will progress quickly in acquiring showy skills and the ambition to reach for stardom. But most of the work is a high-grade stucco coating on the anatomically and physiologically immature individual.

Even parts of the same muscle group in the child are stronger, while others are weaker, and joints and bones may become deficiently cushioned. The wear eventually begins to tear. The sport or the event is blamed for chronic pains or injuries that, in reality, are caused by improper training.

In contrast to the individual who is a product of all-around conditioning during low-pressure formative years, whose balanced skeletal system and richness of coordination pathways safely support rehearsals of new, specific skills--and who can look toward longevity without injuries--the early specialist is fragile.

Being drilled from the beginning mainly in the routines of the sport, he or she might be fearless--might run faster, jump higher or move with more extraordinary nimbleness, but is plagued by injuries and early burnout.

Another factor that is not inherent in the pursuit of excellence is the depth of disappointment that appears to sweep over the athlete who does not come in first.

How often, these days, do the great ones embrace after the decision has been made and say, “Thanks for the good race?” Perhaps the incessant planning for competition, with its need to formulate a winning strategy, drives athletes through one season after another without allowing them to fall in love with the beauty and feeling of their sport.

It is said that Vince Lombardi believed winning is everything, but he worked with mature football players on refining their skills and kept them from making errors. He must have known that winning is a combination of building toward perfection, which takes time; of conscious, as well as instinctive, responses to one’s internal drive; of a variety of external conditions affecting each player at the moment and of luck.

I think Lombardi would have been thrilled if he could have seen the daring exhibition of the Mongolian strongmen!

No, this team was not in the Olympics. The Mongolians heaved heavy iron balls back and forth and tossed around other equipment which, far more timidly, European athletes use for training. The group, although sparkling and debonair in appearance, let loose with raw power that was choreographed with speed and precision. The spectators shouted and applauded until they were astonished into near-silence by one athlete’s possibly record-setting powerlifting performance.

Discipline, self-respect, respect paid to others, patience, all-out effort, calmness in mishaps, modesty in acclaim. . . . Believe me, until about 25 years ago, this was the code of behavior not only in the circus, but also in the Olympic Games.

Perhaps the Olympics should be reduced in size and moved into the field of entertainment. Contracts signed in advance with the top competitors and predetermined sums paid for placings would calm emotional excesses. Required respectfulness and technical perfection would ensure the quality of sporting achievements.

Who can dispute that only a few can become the fastest runners, the lead dancers, the trapeze artists or the expert platform divers? The cultivation of the kallos-kai-agathos , the healthy, harmonious person that everybody has a right to become, needs to be supported in the Olympiads between the Games as a commitment by the nations that participate in the Olympic movement.

What a wealth of beautiful people, for example, we have in the United States!

On the plane from New Orleans, there was an elderly lady whose slim legs were among the longest I have ever seen, and a farmer from Florida whose arms resembled chiseled baseball bats. Near him sat a math teacher who, had he lived in their time, could have contested the strongest men who worked the boats along the mighty Mississippi River.

Today’s adolescents might not have the chance to survive as vigorously as those three strangers. Each day, it seems, the adult world takes another open space from them and passes another rule that obstructs their energetic development.

How long can a nation remain truly fit when it propagates a rift between athletics and academics? And does not access to the pursuit of a physically expressive form of art belong to all?

Should not the Olympiad before the 1996 Games in Atlanta deliver physical education to all schools and colleges, as well as industrial, military and community club leagues, so that the ultimate champion will be increased national fitness?