Blackmun Left in Limbo as USOC Meets

Amid intensifying uncertainty over the status of acting CEO Scott Blackmun, the U.S. Olympic Committee on Sunday approved a nearly $125-million annualized budget and confirmed a remarkably ambitious goal of winning 20 medals at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games.

The steps marked the latest twists in the ongoing adventure that is the hallmark of operations at the USOC--described Sunday by USOC President Sandra Baldwin as a “wonderful family, sometimes dysfunctional.”

Under the direction of Blackmun and Baldwin, the USOC’s 119-member Board of Directors approved a balanced budget that calls for $491.5 million in revenues and $488.7 in expenses for the period 2001-2004.

The 2001-2004 figures mark an increase of about 15% over the prior budget, which covered 1997-2000 and called for spending about $110 million yearly. Most Olympic budgets run in four-year cycles to account for both Summer and Winter Games. The 2001-2004 cycle includes the Salt Lake Games and the 2004 Summer Olympics, now scheduled for Athens.

The new budget includes a $14.8-million allocation to the recently created U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Blackmun has been a forceful proponent of combating the use of performance-enhancing drugs; within the past few months, he led the way in implementing a resolution to hold hockey players--and by extension other professional athletes--to the same drug-testing standards as other U.S. Olympic athletes.

Blackmun also played a key role in setting the 20-medal goal, going so far as to tie the plan to certain USOC staff bonuses. The plan was disclosed Friday at the USOC’s policy-making Executive Board meeting. Blackmun stressed Sunday to the full board that 20 medals is “a goal and not a prediction.”

The U.S. has never won more than 13 medals. It took 13 each at Nagano in 1998 and at Lillehammer in 1994. Twice it has won 12.

Blackmun said, “If the setting of this goal causes us to get one more medal, I think this is a worthwhile endeavor.”

In an interview, Baldwin said, “It’s imperative that the U.S. winter team do well in Salt Lake and the best measure of doing that is to win 20 medals.”

When Blackmun took over as interim CEO last October from corporate turnaround artist Norm Blake, who abruptly resigned, he was widely perceived as a promising albeit untested executive--but one who knew the USOC after years of service as its lawyer and then as Blake’s chief deputy.

In the past six months, he has been instrumental in charting a goal-oriented operations strategy, including a plan to tie financing for athletes to performance-based objectives tailored to each sport. That approach is less threatening to the USOC’s varied constituencies than Blake’s approach, which was dubbed “money for medals” and ultimately led to his resignation.

Staff at USOC headquarters in Colorado Springs back Blackmun. Over the weekend, the Community Based Organizations and Armed Forces Council--which represents the YMCA, other grass-roots groups and the military--endorsed him unanimously. Months ago, he won the backing of a key player in USOC politics, the National Governing Bodies Council, which represents the organizations that run the roughly three dozen Olympic sports.

Baldwin has said repeatedly that Blackmun has her support. “We have a clearer direction right now than the USOC has had in my entire recollection,” she said Sunday.

Nonetheless, Baldwin has not been able to move the Executive Committee. Earlier this year, meeting in New York in January and in Denver in February, it declined to Blackmun the job full time, even authorizing a national search.

Since then, the search committee, led by baseball players’ union chief Don Fehr, has met just once. A second meeting is set for May 21. Blackmun said repeatedly over the winter that he had hopes the search would be wrapped up by May 31. Impossible, several sources said Sunday. Perhaps June 30.

A behind-the-scenes move Sunday that would have taken the issue directly to the board of directors did not reach the floor.

Blackmun, meantime, said here that he is actively exploring other job possibilities; he declined to say what those might be. He stressed that he is not trying to pressure or threaten the USOC or the search committee. He said he has no immediate intent to leave and is simply looking out for his future.

“If [Blackmun] gets the job for having gone through the search process, he’ll be the stronger for it,” asserted a source close to the process.

But come June, the start date of the Salt Lake Games, Feb. 8, 2002, will be a mere eight months away. It is considered vital to U.S. chances to again play host to the Games that the Salt Lake Olympics go off smoothly.

“His patience is finite,” one USOC insider, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Sunday of Blackmun. “If we’re not careful, we could wake up one day and find he’s taken another job. That would not be good news. Can you imagine how we’d have to start over?”

In other action, the USOC released a slew of rules for the bid process now underway for the 2012 Games--the next opportunity for the Olympics to be held in the United States. Los Angeles is one of eight U.S. cities vying to be the U.S. bid city.

The USOC will make its choice in October 2002. In 2005, the International Olympic Committee will then choose the 2012 site. Rio de Janeiro, London and other cities have expressed interest in the 2012 Games.

The 2006 Winter Games will be in Turin, Italy. Selections for 2008 and 2010 have yet to be made but there are no U.S. candidates for those Olympics.

The U.S. 2012 bid process rules, clearly a product of the recent Salt Lake City corruption scandal, require that gifts between bid city officials and USOC board members not exceed $10--retail, not wholesale, the rules point out.

The rules also preclude “official” bid visits by board members to the various cities--which include San Francisco, New York and Washington--and bar trips by bid committees to any member of the board.

The rules also mandate that “any expense” incurred by a USOC board member in a bid city, even if not related to the bid, not be paid by a bid committee or “a third party acting on behalf of the bid committee.”

As part of the bid process, a USOC inspection team will pay visits this summer to the eight cities. The L.A. visit is likely to be put off until after the mayoral election.