Ward’s USOC Support Slipping

Bill Martin, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s acting president, said Tuesday that the organization was “in a very difficult situation going forward with Lloyd [Ward] as CEO.”

Martin said that Ward had called him last Wednesday, wondering if he ought to resign as USOC chief executive in the wake of turmoil sparked by an ethics-related controversy.

Martin said in a conference call Tuesday among USOC executive committee members that he told the CEO then he wanted time to think about it. Then Monday, Martin said, Ward called again, saying that “attacks” in the press “were not going to push him out the door.”

On Monday night, according to Martin, Ward called again, asking to stay on until the USOC’s board of directors meeting in April, saying that if the policy-making executive committee or the 120-member board of directors tells him then to go, “I’ll go.”

It remains unclear, with the USOC in what Martin later described as “crisis,” whether Ward has that much time. USOC Vice President Bill Stapleton said Tuesday he had been in contact with the heads of two “major sponsors,” who’d told him, “Until Lloyd is gone, [the USOC] is not going to have any credibility.”

Another vice president, Paul George, having returned from a trip last week to International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, said, “The international perspective is, Lloyd’s credibility is severely, if not mortally, damaged,” and, “If you put it all together, we have a responsibility to the organization beyond just Lloyd.”

The conference-call comments marked a significant shift in the positions of some top officers, who for weeks had been resolute in their support of Ward. Others on the call said Ward ought to stay. The executive committee took no action, although it did call for study of a possible CEO succession plan.

Ward could not be reached for comment.

The call was convened amid news reports this week centering on Ward’s conduct or oversight of staff during his tenure as CEO -- reports that prompted blunt comments on the call about leaks to the press and sometimes-bleak observations about the USOC’s future. Congress is expected to appoint a task force to study a re-make of the USOC’s structure. The USOC already has launched its own internal reform panel.

Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles, also a member of the IOC, said, referring to the USOC, “Once we finish killing Lloyd with a lynching -- and wait until these words get to the press -- a lynching or death by a thousand cuts, then what?”

She also said, “We are a sick, sick, sick organization,” adding about a potential search for a new CEO, “Who would take this job?”

“Who would want it, really?” asked Mary McCagg a few moments later.

USA Today reported Tuesday that Ward had directed staff to give allegedly “preferential treatment” for hotel accommodations and tickets at last year’s Salt Lake City Winter Games to the builder of his Colorado Springs home.

“I’m not sure if his tickets were paid through the USOC,” Ward told the paper. “They must have been. But he paid.... I don’t see that as preferential treatment.”

The Colorado Springs Gazette reported Tuesday that “official” USOC travel costs in 2002 for Ward and his wife, Lita, totaled $155,664 in airfare -- about 9% of the $1.786 million the USOC spent for administrative travel.

Lita Ward’s travel, when not accompanied by her husband, totaled $27,813, the Gazette said, citing documents prepared by the USOC. She accompanied him to Lausanne at a cost of $14,795 for two plane tickets to a meeting with IOC President Jacques Rogge and a museum visit, the paper said.

Over the weekend, the Denver Post reported that former USOC marketing chief Toby Wong had billed about $35,000 for travel expenses and meals within a few miles of the USOC campus in Colorado Springs -- on top of $50,000 in relocation expenses agreed to as part of her deal to join the USOC.

Those bills -- and how much to pay back -- were a key component in negotiations over a severance agreement when Wong, hired by Ward only last April, agreed in recent weeks to leave the USOC.

Ward has been a focus of controversy since The Times reported in December that he had directed staff to try to help a Detroit company, with ties to his brother and a childhood friend, that was seeking a contract at the 2003 Pan American Games.

Since then, six USOC officials have resigned, among them the elected president, Marty Mankamyer, and the ethics compliance officer, Pat Rogers. The executive committee, meeting two weeks ago in Chicago, ordered Ward to forfeit his $184,800 bonus but said then he could keep his job.

Ward started at the USOC in November 2001. He had previously served, among other posts, as CEO of Maytag. The USOC has had four presidents and four CEOs since 2000.

Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) has called for Ward to resign as the USOC’s CEO. Campbell is due to visit the USOC’s Colorado Springs campus on Friday.

Martin said Tuesday on the conference call that more disclosures might well invite an audit by the U.S. General Accounting Office and, more problematic from the perspective of USOC insiders, governmental control of the organization.

The USOC has been formally warned, in hearings on Capitol Hill, that Congress could revoke the USOC’s charter, awarded in 1978.

“If there’s one thing we want to avoid, it’s government control of the Olympics,” Martin said.

Martin, who took over as president last month when Mankamyer resigned, also said, “I’m on the verge of walking if I see anything in the press about this tomorrow.”

Urged to stay on no matter what the newspapers bring by Herman Frazier, another vice president, Martin said, “I’ll do it through this crisis because there’s no way we can afford another shock -- as long as everyone keeps their mouth shut.”