Creating Olympians
As a planner of sports events, do you know the kinds of athletes who are participating in your events? Do they perform and conduct themselves like Olympians, who, according to the Olympic oath, vow to respect the rules and participate in a spirit of sportsmanship and without doping?
Commitment To clean competition
Performance-enhancing drug use has invaded virtually every sport—from 2006 Tour de France Winner Floyd Landis to the Major League Baseball (MLB) players named in the Mitchell Report and to the recent sentencing of Olympian Marion Jones. It’s an alarming trend that is sending the wrong message to young athletes, according to U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) officials.
“Ultimately, we are in a battle to protect and preserve the benefits of sport participation for the youth of our country,” said USOC Chairman Peter Ueberroth in a USOC press release. “It is vital that the major sport organizations in America work together to combat a problem that, left unchecked, has the potential to destroy the value and integrity of sport.”
To help combat the proliferation of performance-enhancing drugs in sports, the USOC has formed the Partnership for Clean Competition (PCC), along with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, MLB and the National Football League. Collectively, the founding partners have committed $10 million to “underwrite meaningful and scientifically legitimate anti-doping research” that addresses new and more cost-effective methods to detect and deter the use of banned and illegal substances at every sports level; identification and detection of designer substances; the medical and ethical consequences of doping; and further development of a widely available, cost-effective test to detect Human Growth Hormone.
Founding partners of the PCC will seek to raise additional funds and involve other sport and non-sport entities. Other participating and contributing organizations of the PCC include the National Basketball Association, National Hockey League and Professional Golfers’ Association of America.
Athletes don’t have to be Olympians to act like Olympians. As U.S. representatives to the international Olympic Games and the most elite players of their individual sports, Olympians are held to a high athletic and moral standard, but that standard could—and perhaps should—apply to all athletes. As U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) CEO Jim Scherr explained, “We want to create better athletes and better people by educating young people on the Olympic ideals. We want to expand the pool of athletes and reach out to the country so that more people understand the Olympic ideals and goals of the Olympic Movement, which is to create a better and more peaceful world through sport.”
The Olympic Movement extends beyond Olympic athletes; it’s a “philosophy of life,” Scherr said, that is shared by millions of active sports participants, including youth, who believe and follow the Olympic ideals. “Whether they are successful in their athletic pursuits or not, today’s youth will go on to be leaders in society and sport.”
Olympic ideals include excellence, friendship and respect, according to Scherr. Olympic competition and sports participation in general aren’t about winning, he said, but about the effort to excel and expand in the spirit of fair play, friendship and shared principles, regardless of race, color, creed or national origin. “Athletes serve as an inspiration about what can be achieved through a single-minded devotion to excellence and striving for excellence whether they win or lose.”
The USOC hopes to create better athletes and better people, Scherr said, by educating young people on the Olympic ideals through education and outreach programs, including Real Athletes, the Community Olympic Development Program (CODP), Olympic Opportunity Fund, F.L.A.M.E. (Finding Leaders Among Minorities Everywhere) and other programs. In addition, the USOC’s “Amazing Awaits” campaign for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games inspires young people in sports by “capturing the essence of the Olympic Movement,” Scherr said. “There are amazing possibilities if we all work hard enough and follow the examples of Olympians.”
Olympian Example
Six-time Olympic Medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee (long jump and heptathlon, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996) is among the Olympians helping to set an example for and inspire young athletes. The Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center and Foundation, in Kersee’s hometown of East St. Louis, is one of 11 organizations that received grants last year from the Olympic Opportunity Fund, which “encourages grassroots, urban and multicultural involvement in National Governing Body (NGB) sports to increase the diversity of athletes participating in Olympic sports,” Scherr said.
Kersee said it was important for her to give back to the community that helped her as a young athlete. “When I was coming up through the age-group programs, I didn’t know what all it entailed for coaches and volunteers to send athletes to competitions. Now I know that one of the hardest things…is raising funds for support,” she said. “No one ever told me I couldn’t go, and somehow they made it possible for me to go.”
Since opening in 2000, the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center has serviced more than 15,000 youth and families through work with area schools, the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Flames football program, and senior and wellness programs. “The center isn’t just about athletics; it’s about developing the whole person,” Kersee said. Stressing academics over athletics, the Flames football program requires participants to spend an hour on academics by either doing homework or reading before playing football, she added.
The center’s “Winning in Life” program focuses on youth’s athletic and character development. For 22 weeks, girls on the local high school’s track team come to the center each Wednesday to meet with Kersee, who helps them develop short- and long-term goals. “Running was a passion for me, and I’m sure it is for them also,” she said. “But it’s important to get them thinking about why they do what they do. There are no shortcuts; shortcuts equal shortcomings.”
The 22-week Winning In Life program culminates with a two-day event the first weekend in April, when Kersee and up to 15 Olympic, professional, elite and collegiate athletes work with 1,000 female junior high and high school athletes from the Midwest and hold a competition on Saturday. “It helps them work on humility,” Kersee said. “There is humility in winning and losing alike. Sometimes it’s not about winning but about improving. The discipline it takes to go to school every day is the same as to go to practice every day, and that (discipline) repeats in the work place.”
PLAYS CONFERENCE
The U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) will host the Pipeline Leadership for America’s Youth Sports (PLAYS) conference April 16-18 at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. Six-time Olympic Medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee, founder of the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center and Foundation in East St. Louis, will be the keynote speaker.
The PLAYS conference will bring together youth sport advocates and administrators to work together to create “proactive and imaginative approaches toward youth development, recruitment and retention, diversity, outreach and strategic planning,” according to USOC. Projected goals of the PLAYS conference are to present successful youth sports models and example plans; engage National Governing Bodies (NGB) and youth sports councils on how to develop and enhance outreach and youth development programs; provide tools to implement strategies and programs; develop strategies for recruitment, athlete retention and multicultural awareness; initiate best-practices dialogue involving programs, parents, community support and coaching; and design action plan outlines for each NGB and youth sport administrator.
In addition to Kersee, featured speakers will include Pam Shipp, Center for Creative Leadership; Istvan Balyi, National Coaching Institute of Canada; and Dan Gould, Institute for the Study of Youth Sports, Michigan State University.
For more information, contact USOC Athlete Services, (719) 866-4607, athleteservices@usoc.org.
The Winning In Life weekend event is an example of the importance of giving back as well, Kersee said. “If the Olympics is their dream, it makes a big difference to them for an Olympian to talk to them about working hard for something they love.
“Being a part of the Olympic family is a privilege,” she added. “As an Olympian, I have the responsibility to be accountable for my actions. It’s important for me to be a positive messenger and do everything in the spirit of knowing I am an Olympian. It’s a great honor.”
Another athlete setting an example for young athletes is Ash Nelson, winner of the USOC’s Jack Kelly Fair Play Award. The award, named for the late USOC President Jack Kelly, honors an athlete, coach or official for an outstanding act of fair play and sportsmanship.
Nelson, a student at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, received the award for calling his own foul during the 2007 Wisconsin State Curling Championships. Nelson said he thought calling his own foul would cost his team the championship, but it was something he had to do.
“I couldn’t go to the nationals knowing I didn’t call a foul that should have been called,” he said. “I called my own foul because that’s just the spirit of curling. I didn’t think anything would happen beyond that. Then, in July, my coach called to tell me that I’d won the Jack Kelly Fair Play Award. It’s a huge accomplishment.”
Nelson said he hopes his actions teach other young athletes that being honest is what’s important in sports. “Some athletes are becoming too dependent on performance-enhancing drugs [and other forms of cheating] to win, but winning isn’t everything. Honesty and fair play are perhaps more important in curling than in some other sports because fouls are discreet and hard to call, so it’s up to athletes to call their own fouls when officials don’t catch them.”
Curling for only six years, Nelson said he hopes to try out for the 2010 Olympic team. He’s familiar with the kind of dedication it would require—already practicing two to three hours for three or four nights a week and competing every weekend—but expects training for the tryouts could mean taking off from school. “I think it would be worth it,” he said. “I’m not quite to the Olympic level, but I hope to be.”
Olympic Education & Outreach
The USOC’s Real Athletes education and outreach program helps promote the Olympic Movement and Olympic ideals through Olympian examples. Olympic and Paralympic athletes tell young people about how they adhere to those Olympic values and ideals—fair play, sportsmanship and respect—through public service announcements, posters, videos, speeches and classroom appearances, Scherr said.
Similarly, F.L.A.M.E. was created in 1994 to share the Olympic ideals of focus, commitment, determination, vision and discipline with youth aged 13-18 “to cultivate their desire to rise above the ordinary to achieve excellence,” but in 2006 the program was redesigned toward college sophomores and juniors to give minority leaders and athletes “an inside look at the overall structure of the USOC and its operations, and the opportunity to meet and learn from USOC and NGB minority leaders and athletes,” Scherr said, adding that two alums from the F.L.A.M.E. 2006 class were selected for the 2007 USOC College Internship Program. In addition, a one-day regional F.L.A.M.E. program for high school students was added last year in USOC community partner cities of the CODP across the country.
The CODP is the USOC’s primary way of extending opportunities to those who otherwise might not have the chance to compete, Scherr said, adding that since 1996 more than 380,000 youth have participated in sports at little or no cost through CODP programs. The USOC lends the Olympic logo and USOC support to CODP partners to develop grassroots programs and tie athletes into the Olympic Movement. “For those running grassroots sports programs, the opportunity is significant because they have perhaps the most influence outside of parents,” he said. “The reason for offering sports programs is for the benefit and education of the individual, rather than achievement. It’s fun and lessons are learned from competing, but that’s secondary. The higher purpose should be developing the participants as athletes and people. That development is one of the primary responsibilities of the NGBs, so we are working closely with NGBs to extend their reach and opportunities for educating young athletes about Olympic values and ideals.”