Brundage, Avery (1887-1975)

American sports executive, who headed the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) from 1928 to 1953 and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 1952 to 1972. He strongly supported the policy of banning professional athletes from competition at the Olympic Games, and he firmly believed in the separation of politics from international sports. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Brundage received a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Illinois at Champaign in 1909. A versatile athlete, he competed in the decathlon and pentathlon events at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. He later became a successful businessman but also remained involved in sports administration. In 1928 he was elected president of the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States (AAU), then the governing body over many amateur sports in the country. He served seven one-year terms as AAU president (1928-1933, 1935). In 1928 Brundage was elected president of the American Olympic Committee (later known as the USOC). By the mid-1930s he had become embroiled in the controversy over whether the United States should send a team to compete in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. It was believed that the Nazi Party, then in power in Germany, was preventing Jewish athletes from participating on the German Olympic team, and many Americans wanted the United States to boycott the games. Brundage, a believer in the purity of amateur sport and the importance of separating politics from the Olympics, pushed for the American team to compete, which it eventually did. Brundage's stance drew criticisms that he was a Nazi sympathizer and an anti-Semite. Brundage became a representative of the IOC in 1936, serving as IOC vice president from 1946 to 1952 and IOC president from 1952 to 1972. During his career he was known for his advocacy of strict amateurism in international sports, believing that athletes should participate not for compensation but for the sake of participation and competition only. Issues such as commercial endorsements and for-profit athletic instruction by athletes, which constitute indirect payments for sporting activities, made it difficult to establish a definition of amateurism in athletics. Although Brundage levied various suspensions and penalties for what he deemed professional activities, it became increasingly difficult for him to prevent athletes from earning money from their sports careers. This was because some of the other IOC members, as well as some of the international sports federations governing each individual sport, did not share his vision of pure amateurism. Brundage's other major belief was the absolute separation of politics and sports. But, near the end of his tenure as IOC president, it became increasingly difficult to exclude politics from the games. In 1964, over his objections, South Africa was banned from the Olympics because of the political views held in the country. Brundage also opposed the 1972 banning of Rhodesia from the Olympics, because that action was politically motivated as well. (Rhodesia, by then renamed Zimbabwe, was readmitted to the games in 1980. South Africa was readmitted in 1992.) Also in 1972 at the summer games in Munich, West Germany, several Israeli athletes were taken hostage and killed by a band of terrorists. Brundage spoke forcefully against this act of political violence. After the 1972 summer games ended, Michael Morris, Lord Killanin of Ireland, who had been elected IOC president earlier in the year, assumed leadership of the organization. Brundage retired from the IOC later that year. In 1983 he was inducted posthumously into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame, as a member of the first class of inductees.