Here is the presentation that accompanied the lecture on the Amateur Sports Act of 1978.

1. Amateurs No More
JRN 589 / 450
The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
Prof. Hanley

2. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
The U.S. Congress framed the
Amateur Sports Act of 1978 to
reverse declining U.S. success in
the Olympic Games.
It stands as evidence of how so-
called amateur sports became
caught up in the Cold War,
requiring a change in how to
define the word amateur itself.

3. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
The act is a watershed in amateur
athletics in the U.S. as it gave the
federal government a seat at the
table.
From that position, the federal
government’s policy focused on
the development of elite athletes
for political rather than
commercial or participatory joy
outcomes.

4. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
The basic function of the act
focused on unifying the disparate
athletic organizations that
operated sports, giving the role of
a central amateur (nominally)
sports authority to the U.S.
Olympic Committee.

5. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
First, it’s important to track the
steps necessary to transform an
idea into law at the federal level.
The process works as follows:
1. Agenda setting
2. Alternative proposals
3. Choice
4. Implementation

6. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
The agenda-setting piece began,
in 1953 when a report found that
European children were physically
stronger than American children,
alarming American president (and
former West Point football player)
Dwight D. Eisenhower.

7. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
Ironically enough, this is the same
attitude, triggered by a different
framework, that led Walter Camp
to formulate football in the 19th
century and thus start the debate
over the definition of amateurism
in America to begin with.
Camp likewise thought America’s
young men had gone soft. The
circle remains unbroken.

8. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
Eisenhower was disturbed over
the desire of American youth to
watch sports on television rather
than participate on the field,
court, track or ice.
Eisenhower linked the study to
another dataset that showed
growth in the number of young
men rejected by the military
because they had failed to meet
fitness levels.

9. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
In July 1956, Eisenhower’s
solution - the President’s Council
on Youth Fitness – opened its
doors to promote fitness through
a mass-media educational
campaign.

10. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
In 1959, the first hint of federal
invention in sports rather than
just fitness emerged after a Soviet
Union basketball team defeated a
U.S. Air Force team in a
tournament in Chile.
New York Times columnist Arthur
Daley raged about amateurism
causing the defeat:

11. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
Daley wrote that the “old, Anglo-
Saxon principle of sports for
sports’ sake no longer is
operative.” (if it ever was that way
under the American model of
amateurism)
New Hampshire Senator Styles
Bridges agreed:

12. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
“The United States is in direct
competition with Russia in all
aspects and on all fronts. . . . Can
you imagine the fuss and furor
that would result if the United
States government sent a group of
college students down to Cape
Canaveral to take over the
important job of beating the
Russians in the race for space?”

13. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
In 1961, President John F.
Kennedy took the baton and
beefed up the council. JFK had
written in a 1960 Sports Illustrated
article that “all departments of
government must make it clearly
understood that . . . Sports
participation . . . is a basic and
continuing policy of the United
States.”

14. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
Kennedy rebranded the council as
the President’s Council on Physical
Fitness and Sports but followed its
basic mission to promote exercise
through mass-media messaging.

15. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
Kennedy framed physical fitness
as a countering force against the
Soviet Union, as had Eisenhower.
Sports, Kennedy reasoned, could
be weaponized politically in the
global test of strength between
the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

16. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
But an obstacle stood in the way
of restructuring amateur sports:
the governing bodies themselves.
The NCAA and AAU had long
fought over which group ruled
amateur sports and players,
including U.S. Olympians.

17. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
In 1962, former General Douglas
MacArthur – yes, a World War II
hero – arbitrated the dispute in
time for the 1964 Summer
Olympic Games in Tokyo.

18. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
As it turned out, the U.S. won 36
gold medals at the Tokyo Games
while the Soviets won 30.
But problems with amateur sports
governance persisted.

19. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
In 1966, Vice President Hubert
Humphrey said the federal
government would not assert
control over amateur athletics,
but he insisted that the
administration gave “very serious
consideration right now to this
whole problem of amateur
sports,” which he compared to the
problem the nation encountered
when the Soviets launched
Sputnik.

20. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
In 1972, the NCAA withdrew
membership in the USOC and
formed what it called a Committee
for a Better Olympics.
University of Illinois athletic director
Cecil Coleman asked President
Richard Nixon after that to create “a
new superstructure to coordinate all
international competition, including
our Olympic problem.”

21. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
After the Soviet Union won 17
more medals than the U.S. at the
1972 Summer Games, Vice
President Gerald Ford wrote in
Sports Illustrated that if the U.S.
did not reorganize amateur
athletics, it would continue to fall
short of the Soviet Union.

22. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
He wrote that: “it is not enough to
just compete. Winning is very
important. Maybe more important
than ever. . . . It has been said . . .
that we are losing our competitive
spirit in this country, the thing
that made us great, the guts of
the free-enterprise system.”

23. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
With the agenda in place,
different proposals were floated
to re-organize amateur sports
under a central body.

24. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
In 1975, Ford, saying that “the
Government does have a role in
helping to promote United States
competition in international
sporting events. America’s best
amateur athletes can represent us
in the Olympics only if the
federally chartered [USOC] and
related organizations are
sufficiently organized to recruit,
screen, and develop the athletes
on our teams,” forwarded a plan.

25. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
The committee Ford appointed to
implement his ideas forwarded a
proposal to the U.S. Congress to
form a single organization to
oversee amateur athletics.
Both the NCAA’s Walter Byers and
AAU opposed the idea.

26. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
That opposition led to provisions
in the bill that limited the U.S.O.C.
to serving only “as the
coordinating body for amateur
athletic activity in the United
States directly relating to
international amateur athletic
competition.”
The NCAA and the AAU would
continue to control domestic
amateur sports.

27. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter
signed the Amateur Sports Act. He
said at the signing: “This
legislation, based on the
recommendations of the
President’s Commission on
Olympic Sports, establishes
procedures and guidelines . . .
without placing the Federal
Government in control of amateur
sports.”

28. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
“The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
was thus a product of a Cold War
perception in the late 1960s and
1970s that Soviet dominance on
the Olympic fields had a
detrimental impact on American
prestige abroad,” wrote scholar
Thomas Hunt in his 2007 study of
the bill and its history.

29. The Amateur Sports Act of 1978
He added, however, that the bill
strayed from its original intent
framed in the 1950s and 1960s to
make physical fitness a priority for
all Americans.
Instead, the bill passed by
Congress and signed by Carter
focused on elite athletes, who
would soon be paid and rewarded
with endorsements.