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Tuesday, September 19
For those affected, boycott still lingers
By Wayne Drehs
ESPN.com
Bruce Kennedy was driving to work that morning, minding his own business, when some 2,500 miles away President Jimmy Carter was finalizing a decision that would forever change Kennedy's life and that of countless other amateur athletes.
Two months earlier, Soviet tanks invaded Afghanistan and Carter wasn't pleased. He pledged to boycott that year's Summer Olympics, to be held in Moscow, if the Soviets didn't pull the troops. When the Soviets failed to budge, Carter did the same. A few weeks later, despite threats of lawsuits, protests and overall dissension in the country, the United States Olympic Committee voted 2-1 to support the boycott. And just like that, for the first time ever, the United States pulled out of the Olympics.
For Kennedy, it was the third straight time politics blocked the path of his Olympic dream. In the 1972 and '76 Games, Kennedy's home country of Rhodesia (which later became Zimbabwe), was banned from the Games due to apartheid. After getting married and becoming a U.S. citizen in 1977, he qualified in 1980 as an American. It was of no use.
"I'm getting a complex," Kennedy said at the time. "It's a bitter disappointment. It's kind of ironic that everything fell into place except for the one thing I can't control. It's like I'm doing everything right and then this little hitch comes up."
For hundreds of other athletes, the news was just as disappointing, as the long, sweaty days of hard work and determination were for naught. Many, like Kennedy, supported the decision, citing patriotism, and a commitment to their country. Others, like marathoner Bill Rodgers, were strongly opposed to being told they had to stay home.
"We are simply a tool, an implement," Rodgers said at the time. "No one cares at all, until we can be used for their purposes. Then they can use it."
Fellow long distance runner Mike Shine responded similarly when asked if he was being selfish for opposing the boycott. "Damn right I'm being selfish. It's just like anything else -- the U.S. is made up of a lot of No. 1s that look out for No. 1 first."
Now, 20 years removed from the boycott, much of the pain and sorrow felt by the athletes still exists. While many have come to understand the boycott's importance, others point to Russia's eight-year reign in Afghanistan as proof that it was useless. Sixty-one teams, including Japan and West Germany, joined the U.S. cause, leaving the number of participating countries at 80. It was the first Olympic Games held in a communist country.
"There are two types of athletes from 1980," former Olympic hurdler Tonie Campbell said, "those that moved on with their life and learned from the boycott and those whose life was never the same. I have friends who still don't like to talk about it, who are bitter, and whose whole life derailed from that point. It's hard for an athlete, a person who could have gotten a medal to look at the Olympics today and see all the endorsements and then think how their life could have been different.
"They could be in a whole different financial bracket, with celebrity status, and now they're just a person with an asterisk by their name in a history book."
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I was right then and I'm right now. It's the athlete who does all the work so it should be the athletes' job to decide. That right was taken away, by the federal government of all people. ” |
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— Anita DeFrantz |
After the boycott was announced, the athletes did everything they could to work around it. A group led by rower Anita DeFrantz, the spokesperson for the U.S. Olympic Committee's Athletes Advisory Council, took legal action, contending that the boycott violated a constitutional right to compete in the Olympics. DeFrantz cited the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, which specifically barred anyone from denying another the opportunity to compete in the Games. DeFrantz' claim was dismissed in a federal appeals court.
"I was right then and I'm right now," DeFrantz said recently from Sydney. "It's the athlete who does all the work so it should be the athletes' job to decide. That right was taken away, by the federal government of all people."
Carter suggested moving the Games to another city, such as Athens. After garnering the support of the USOC, Carter petitioned the International Olympic Committee, which had little choice but to deny the request, considering there were just six months until Opening Ceremonies. Another option discussed was postponing the Games until 1981, but that idea too was dismissed. Instead, the Freedom Games were held in Philadelphia, pitting athletes from 30 of the countries that decided to boycott.
"I'm not sure the government or any of President Carter's advisors knew how complex the Olympics really were," said Kennedy, who called it a "hypocrisy" that the Soviets were allowed to compete in that year's Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. "They immediately proposed this alternate Olympics, but there was no way that would happen."
Frustration among certain U.S. athletes led to an underground movement to defy the boycott and compete in Moscow anyway. A group of track stars concocted the plan, which consisted of a succession of busses and trains that would lead the group from Budapest, Hungary into Moscow. But the Secret Service got word and a memo was issued that any U.S. Olympian attempting to compete in Moscow would lose his passport and visa and be considered an ex-patriot. Campbell, as well as the rest of the group, reconsidered.
"It was scary, very scary," Campbell said. "You're talking about some serious stuff."
Weeks later, Kennedy, Rodgers, DeFrantz, Campbell and the rest of the 1980 U.S. team got its chance to go eye-to-eye with the man who kept them home. Each athlete and two guests were invited to Washington to tour the White House, meet President Carter, and be honored for sacrificing their participation in the Summer Games. A performance was put on at the Kennedy Center, where Pattie Labelle, Andy Gibb, Irene Cara, and others performed. Special gold congressional medals were handed out on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
While some of the athletes ate it up, others wore T-shirts that read, "I'm here so this will never happen again." Still other individuals refused to shake President Carter's hand, instead walking up to the platform, staring him in the face, and walking away.
"It was quite unnerving when you stopped to think about it," Campbell said. "A lot of individuals had no clue what was going on and they were running around the whole White House lawn like it was the greatest thing, but to those of us who understood the impact, we were pissed. And then there was the CIA, watching us, taking pictures of us. I figure they've probably got a file on me somewhere."
For every former athlete that is resentful, that still wonders, "What if" and "What Might Have Been," there are those like Kennedy, who would have every right in the world to complain, but don't. Instead, they've shrugged the boycott off as "bad timing," and have moved on.
"I watch the Olympic trials now and I get tears in my eyes," Kennedy said. "I can appreciate what those athletes have done, what they've gone through, even the guy who just makes the U.S. team and doesn't a chance to medal. He's still on the U.S. Olympic team. And that's a gift. It's a rare opportunity that is at the peak of it all."
Wayne Drehs is a staff writer for ESPN.com.
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