(August, 2004) Top 10 Most Controversial Olympic Moments
10. 1912: Jim Thorpe, professional athlete
Professionalism was a very sticky issue in the early games (but more of that anon). Jim Thorpe was the first ever super athlete of the early games; Bruce Jenner, Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson all in one. He won both the Decathlon and the Pentathlon by insurmountable margins, prompting King Gustav V of Sweden to crown him "The greatest athlete in the world". Those words still echo today, and are always ceremoniously bestowed to the winner of the gruelling Decathlon.
No endorsement deals, no contracts, no Wheaties boxes, no basketball shoes, not even a thanks for coming out. Without Jim Thorpe, ESPN would have to find some other ancient athlete to mine nostalgia from about the purity of unrewarded athleticism.
It was only later learned that Thorpe had played professional baseball and football, which annulled him of his amateur status, and hence participation in the Games. Despite heated protests, the IOC bitterly stripped him of his gold medals (only to re-award them to him in 1982, posthumously).
Professionalism was as much a taboo in the early games as doping is today. Even more so. Though the reasons are completely hokey. The ancient Greeks' interpretation of professionalism was different than ours. They saw a professional as someone performing for money, not someone performing for pride, heart, or the passion of the game. To them, professionals were scorned; people chasing something much lower (money) than the lofty ideal of human perfection. In addition, it was reasoned that professionals could not be trusted. Like mercenaries, they held no loyalties and no convictions. They traversed to where the money was. Thus, amateurs only were permitted, to preserve the purity and sanctity of the Games.
In the modern era, professionalism and amatuerism was wrapped around a more practical and somewhat sleazier angle: it was to preserve the delicate social order of snobbish Victorian society. Invented in the mid-19th century for the emerging field sports of association football and Rugby, amateurism was classism, pure and simple. It was a way to prevent the upper classes from mingling--much less competing--with commoners, and the Olympics, the bastion of amateurism, reflected such aristocratic bias in making things habitually difficult for the working class to participate. The modern Olympic definition of amateurism, vaguely defined and of British origin (not Greek), slowly began crumbling as the skill level of the Games and the standard for achievement escalated over the course of the 20th century into a full-time commitment, and communist countries, who acknowledged no distinction in such an outmoded concept, held a gross advantage over capitalist ones.
With the breaking down of the amateur/professional barriers in the last 20 years and the transforming of the Olympics into a "best against the best, bar none" affair, this controversy seems archaic and silly in hindsight. But it was exemplary of how far the IOC was willing to go to maintain the social order--even if it meant dispatching arguably the greatest athlete of the first half of the twentieth century. This is like kicking out Michael Phelps and stripping away his medals because he eats with his mouth open. Dummies.
