Amateur Sports Act Established USOC in 1978-???
On Thursday, July 30, 2020, the shining $96 million U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum (USOPM) celebrated its grand opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“Like the champions honored in the museum, we persevered. Now the USOPM is not only a popular travel destination, but a symbol of beauty, success, and hope in the face of adversity,” spoke Michelle Dusserre Farrell, USOPM’s VP of Athlete Engagement.
Since then, thousands of museum guests and visitors passed the below blurb of the exhibit cage, but they did not notice the first sentence reading, “The Act created the U.S. Olympic Committee...”
On the first of my eight visits to the USOPM on May 15, 2021, I was puzzled by that first sentence, so I took a picture of this blurb (pictured). Then, with the attachment of this photo, I emailed people involved in the progress of the Amateur Sports Act at Capitol Hill and wrote, “Was the USOC established in 1978????? Nay, it was 1894.”
The loudest reply was from Michael “Mike” Harrigan, former Executive Director of the President’s Commission on Olympic Sports (1975-77), and he exclaimed, “Howie...It is worse than that. It is absolutely factually INCORRECT. The Act did NOT create the USOC…”
However, many sources have claimed that the United States Olympic Committee was established in 1978. Read the below!
The USOPM website shows a picture of Senator Ted Stevens and mentions, “A U.S. senator for more than 40 years, Ted Stevens wrote the Amateur Sports Act, which established the U.S. Olympic Committee …” Same in USARugby.
The Govtrac website wrote, “The Amateur Sports Act of 1978, signed by President Jimmy Carter, established the United States Olympic Committee…” It is the same in Wikipedia and many unfamiliar websites.
Profiles in Diversity Journal wrote, “According to a section of the ASA (Amateur Sports Act), the 1978 legislation which established the U.S. Olympic Committee…”
A West Virginia Gazette article mentioned, “The Amateur Athletic Union was founded in 1888, but it was not until a century later, with the passage of the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, created the United States Olympic Committee…”
A Swimming World Magazine article wrote, “To support this Olympic Dream, the United States government created the United States Olympic Committee…”
The opening sentence of the federal court ruling read, “The Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act ("Sports Act") was originally enacted in 1978, and it created the United States Olympic Committee ("USOC").”
Now, when was it exactly created?
The answer is 1894-!!! The purest accuracy came from the legendary USOC Chief Communications Officer Mike Moran. He wrote, “In 1894, two years before the launch of the Modern Olympic Games in Athens, a pair of American business and sports leaders, James E. Sullivan and William Milligan Sloane, gathered in New York and created the United States Olympic Committee.”
Unfortunately, Moran passed away 24 days before the USOPM opening. Morgan could be the first person to notice this blurb's error if he were alive.
How did the Olympians, Paralympians, and Olympic experts not notice a similarly worded mistake?
I believe that most of them did not stop at the exhibit cage to look because it was placed in the most invisible spot of the entire four-story-high, 60,000-square-foot building.
Six months after my first USOPM tour, I had no choice but to blow a whistle to the Colorado Springs Gazette about this wrong blurb.
Two months later, on January 30, 2022, they ran an article titled “On the trail of display errors at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum.”
“I’d also really like to know where they got their information. That’s the real question: How did it happen? And how do we go about fixing whatever incorrect source they got their information from?” Mike Harrigan told Gazette Reporter Stephanie Earls.
USOPM Senior Director of Communications and Marketing Tommy Schield explained that the Barrie Projects provided for the USOPM:
A feasibility analysis.
Guided the selection of an architect and exhibit designers.
Gathered objects to display or arranged loans.
Developed a storyline.
Coordinated exhibit design.
“Barrie Projects consulted a panel of experts who specialize in Olympic and Paralympic history to fact check all content,” said Schield.
To avoid more embarrassment, the USOPM reworded the below last October.
This blurb is temporary until USOPM’s “Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act and Title IX” working group will finalize the new one. Led by USOPM’s Michelle Dusserre Farrell, the group has consisted of Mike Harrigan, Howard Gorrell, Donna de Varona (a two-time Olympic swimming champion), and Gary Johansen (a former aide to Sen. Ted Stevens.)
“One historical record, at least.” Gazette Reporter Stephanie Earls paused, “A similarly-worded error to one on the museum display exists in the entry for the Amateur Sports Act on Wikipedia, the user-generated online encyclopedia created, edited and maintained by a global community of "volunteers." Thus the entry has read since 2007, leaking into history via news stories, class reports, speeches and more — and thus it will, until someone with the knowledge, savvy and gumption steps up to champion a change.”
Now, we must find out who these Olympic experts on the Barrie Projects panel are! And the source that first mentioned, “The ASA established the USOC in 1978.”
TO BE CONTINUED
