Team USA Athletes’ Commission Seeks For Independent Status
This morning at 12:14 am PDT, The Sports Examiner beat a huge drum to reach the national media, as the Gallaudet University football team’s drummer does.
As of this writing, no national media has picked up the Examiner’s new release.
Thanks to my deafness, I felt this vibration from Rancho Mirage, California, and got it.
The release states:
● U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC)● The Team USA Athletes’ Commission is pushing for Congress to pass legislation which would make the entity “independent,” with its own funding, although where that funding will come from is not stated.
American athletes are being urged to add their name to a letter to sent to Representatives and Senators which notes the recommendation of the Commission on the State of the U.S. Olympics and Paralympics [CSUSOP] to make the Athletes’ Commission independent:
“One recommendation is to make Team USA AC completely independent of the USOPC. This is a monumental step for all Team USA athletes, and a long-awaited change in the right direction to ensure a truly empowered athletes’ voice within the Movement.”
The letter says this entails “fairly easy amendments to the Ted Stevens Act to … ensure a steady revenue stream for Team USA AC and any method of securing independent funding must guarantee a revenue stream with which an empowered Team USA AC can hire professional staff with a legal duty to act in athletes’ best interests.”
Observed: Nothing dealing with the Congress and money is ever “easy.”
Click “Sign Our Letter to Congress” and read it.
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BUT-!!!!!
In Team USA AC’s Other Summary CR Note, Team USA Athletes' Commission Manager Meryl Fisler outlined:
Recommendation #8: Access and equality for Paralympians and those participating in para sports at all levels must be improved.
• Congress should require that funds raised from Paralympic trademarks be earmarked by to support para-athletes.
• Stakeholders should build on the momentum of the LA28 Games by launching national nonprofit organizations to increase access to movement.
• Congress should direct the newly created HHS Office of Sports and Fitness to establish dedicated competitive-grant programs to help state and local governments make public-school gymnasiums and fitness facilities accessible.
• NCAA is encouraged to work with its member institutions to add/expand para sports.
Ms. Merly Fishler decided not to list another recommendation #8 from the Final Report of the Commission on the State of U.S. Olympics and Paralympics:
Congress should also study further the challenges faced by deaf and hard-of-hearing athletes and proposals to integrate deaf sports into the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic movement; in the meantime, USOPC should work with the U.S.A. Deaf Sports Federation to remove impediments to its full use of Deaflympic trademarks and access to sponsorships.
I have wondered if Ms. Fishler has read one paragraph of USADSF President Jeff Mansfield’s testimony:
Third is the issue of unequal opportunity. Neither the Amateur Sports Act nor the U.S. Copyright Office recognized the term “Deaflympics” as the ICSD’s intellectual property, even though the IOC has granted ICSD the right to use this term. This creates a double injustice, in which the USOPC provides zero funding to the U.S. Deaflympic program and we are precluded from pursuing a wide swath of sponsor funding. Meanwhile, Deaflympic medalists are also excluded from Operation Gold awards.
Another frustration for our athletes who are deaf and hard of hearing!
Image courtesy by Deaf Websites. Read Deaf Athletes: Excelling in Sports and Shattering Myths