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ABSTRACT
This article explores the decline of amateurism in the sport of track-and-field between the years 1968 and 1982. In doing so, it pays particular attention to Cold War politics as well as the role played by shoe companies such as Nike, in facilitating that transformation.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 John Brant, ‘Frank’s Story’, Runner’s World, August 31, 2011, http://www.runnersworld.com/elite-runners/franks-story (accessed November 11, 2015).
2 Kenny Moore, Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: The Story of Oregon’s Legendary Coach and Nike’s Cofounder (Emmaus, PA: Rodale Books, 2006), 299.
3 Brant, ‘Frank’s Story.’
4 Joseph Turrini, The End of Amateurism in American Track and Field (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2010). Turrini’s study argues that primarily the end of amateurism ‘resulted from the discontented athletes’ ability to harness new sources of power and leverage, wrought in part by changes in the economic opportunities of the sport’. This analysis is partially correct but does not give enough credit to the economic power that arose during this era.
5 Studies into the history of the running industry as a business remain limited to popular histories. Barbara Smit, Sneaker Wars: The Enemy Brothers Who Founded Adidas and Puma and the Family Feud That Forever Changed the Business of Sport (New York: Harper Perennial, 2009), the story behind the rivalry between brothers Adi and Horst Dassler, details the creation and rise of German behemoths Adidas and Puma. J.B. Strasser and Laurie Becklund’s Swoosh: The Unauthorized Story of Nike and the Men Who Played There (New York: HarperCollins, 1991) provides a glimpse into Nike’s humble beginning and subsequent highs and lows. Kenny Moore’s Bowerman and the Men of Oregon gives biographical information on Bill Bowerman and helps provide context of the times. Jamie Schultz recently gave scholarly attention to the development of the Jogbra in her work Qualifying Times: Points of Change in Women's Sport (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2014) but this remained focused on its development.
6 For Title IX see, Susan Ware, Title IX: A Brief History with Documents (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2014).
7 Laurie Becklund and J.B. Strasser, Swoosh: The Unauthorized Story of Nike and the Men Who Played There (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc, 1991), 151.
8 Ibid., 13.
9 Ibid.
10 Gary Bastien, ‘Run for Us … Run!’, last modified March 8, 2014, http://mi.milesplit.com/articles/122817-run-for-us-run.
11 See Darcy Cree Plymire, ‘Positive Addiction: Running and Human Potential in the 1970s’, Journal of Sport History 31, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 297–315; and Aaron L. Haberman, ‘Thousands of Solitary Runners Come Together: Individualism and Communitarianism in the 1970s Running Boom’, Journal of Sport History 44, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 35–49.
12 Pamela Cooper, ‘26.2 Miles in America: The History of the Marathon Footrace in the United States’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Maine, 1995), 294.
13 Alan Latham, ‘The History of a Habit: Jogging as a Palliative to Sedentariness in 1960s America’, Cultural Geographies (2013): 1–24.
14 Darcy Plymire, ‘A Moral Exercise: Long-distance Running in the 1970s’ (Dissertation, University of Iowa, 1997), 32–33.
15 Cooper, ‘26.2 Miles in America’, 223.
16 David W. Zang, SportsWars: Athletes in the Age of Aquarius (Fayetteville, AK: University of Arkansas Press, 2001), xii.
17 Ibid.
18 ‘There’s Nothing More Powerful Than A Shoe Whose Time Has Come’, Track & Field News, December 1978, 9.
19 ‘Buy A Poster, Help An Athlete’, Track & Field News, February 1979, 9.
20 Ibid.
21 ‘Man vs. Machine’, Track & Field News, October 1978, 9.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 Benjamin Houston, ‘Creating the Consumer-Runner: The Impact of Medicine, Commercialization, and Public-Awareness on the Popularization of Long-Distance Running in the United States During the Twentieth Century’ (Masters diss., University of Western Illinois, 2015), 39.
25 Shelly McKenzie, Getting Physical: The Rise of Fitness Culture in America (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2013), 112–114.
26 James Texas, ‘Take the Money and Run’, The Runner, January 1979, 21.
27 ‘Olympic Restrictions Tightened to Prevent Equipment Scandal’, The New York Times, November 10, 1970, 61.
28 Texas, ‘Take the Money’, 21.
29 Ollan Cassell, Inside the Five Ring Circus: Changing Global Sports and the Modern Olympics (Indianapolis, IN: Ollan Cassell, LLC, 2015), 137. One poll distributed by Coubertin to IOC members intended to help him create a clearer line between amateur and professional athletes underlined the difficulty of enforcing amateurism laws. Coubertin remarked that one questionnaire contained ‘madly contradictory answers … [and that there] did not seem to be any agreement whatsoever between one sport and another in the same country, or between different countries in the same sport’. A few decades later, money and television amplified the problem.
30 Texas, ‘Take the Money’; ‘Athletes: Tread Lightly’, Track & Field News, June 1982, 54.
31 Cassell, Inside the Five Ring Circus, 139.
32 Pamela Hollie, ‘Race Is On for Running-Shoe Money: Race for Running-Shoe Money Is Hitting Its Stride’, The New York Times, October 24, 1977, 55.
33 Elliott Almond, ‘Running: There’s No Business Like Shoe Business for Nike’s Workers’, Los Angeles Times, July 17, 1980, 17.
34 James Texas, ‘Take the Money and Run’, The Runner, January 1979, 18.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid, 19.
40 Francie Larrieu-Smith, interview by the author, October 28, 2015.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid.
44 Francie Larrieu-Smith, interview by Austin Duckworth, October 28, 2015.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid.
47 Texas, ‘Take the Money’, 20.
48 Ibid.
49 Alberto Salazar, ‘How Money Will Help Marathons’, New York Times, October 28, 1984, 2.
50 Larry Merchant, ‘Dwight Stones Makes War’, New York Times, June 12, 1978, sec. C, 3.
51 Ibid.
52 ‘Amateurism & The IOC’, Track & Field News, January 1980, 86.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.
55 Ibid.
56 Neil Amdur, ‘Payments Become Way of Track Life: “Golden Mile” Aptly Named Some Sidelines Permitted’, New York Times, November 18, 1979, sec. S.
57 Elliott Almond, ‘Running: There’s No Business Like Shoe Business for Nike’s Workers’, Los Angeles Times, July 17, 1980.
58 Bastien, ‘Run for Us … Run!’
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid.
62 Cassell, Inside the Five Ring Circus, 142.
63 ‘Open Road Racing Closer’, Track & Field News, June 1980, 59.
64 Ibid.
65 ‘There Are No Amateurs’, Track & Field News, March 1981, 70.
66 ‘ARRA’s Big Step’, Track & Field News, August 1981, 62.
67 Frank Litsky, ‘Open Road Races Debut June 28’, The New York Times, June 12, 1981, 24.
68 Moore, Bowerman and the Men of Oregon, 365.
69 Turrini, End of Amateurism, 157.
70 Cassell, Inside the Five Ring Circus, 143.
71 Ibid, 144.
72 The development of this system is detailed in Turrini, Tne End of Amateurism, 160–4.
73 Frank Litsky, ‘A Second Wind in the Running Boom: A Second Wind for Running’, The New York Times, April 16, 1984, 1.
74 Turrini, End of Amateurism, 167.
75 Ibid, 166.
76 Neil Amdur, ‘Salazar Prefers Under-Table Payments: Power Over Athletes How the Race Was Run’, New York Times, October 27, 1981, sec. D.
77 Dwight Stones, interview by Austin Duckworth, October 30, 2015.
78 Alberto Salazar, ‘How Money Will Help Marathons’, The New York Times, October 28, 1984, 2.
79 ‘Your Time Will Come’, Track & Field News, January 1979, 9.
80 Ibid.
81 Ibid.
82 ‘The Race Is Its Own Reward’, Track & Field News, December 1980, 9.
83 Dwight Stones, interview by Austin Duckworth, October 30, 2015.
84 Bob Hersh, ‘Keeping Track’, Track & Field News, February 1980, 45.
85 Ibid.
86 Turrini, End of Amateurism, 136.
87 Ibid, 5.
88 Thomas M. Hunt, ‘Countering the Soviet Threat in the Olympic Medals Race: The Amateur Sports Act of 1978 and American Athletics Policy Reform’, International Journal of the History of Sport 24, no. 6 (2007): 797.
89 Turrini, End of Amateurism, 181.
90 Cassell, Inside the Five Ring Circus, 142.
91 Hunt, ‘Countering the Soviet’, 797.
92 ‘Kudos due to TAC’, Track & Field News, January 1982, 78.
93 Ibid.
94 Ibid.
95 Paul Thatcher, ‘He Likes Liquori’s Style’, Track & Field News, August 1978, 70.
96 Ibid.
97 Dwight Stones, interview by the author, October 30, 2015.
98 Eric Olsen, ‘Running Into Money’, The Runner, June 1983, 37.
99 Ibid, 36–7.
100 Ibid.
101 Ibid.
102 Ibid, 40.
103 Ibid.
104 Ibid.
105 Ibid.
106 ‘XXXIIIrd IAAF Congress’, Track & Field News, October 1982, 42.
107 Ibid.
108 Bob Hersh, ‘Politics’, The Runner, August 1982, 74.
109 Ibid.
110 Jack Welch, ‘One Man’s View of the Decade’, Track & Field News, February 1980, 31.
111 Bert Nelson, ‘Of People & Things’, Track & Field News, February 1980, 45.
112 Ibid.
113 ‘Paulen Wants Evolution’, Track & Field News, February 1980, 38.
114 ‘Athletes: Tread Lightly’, Track & Field News, June 1982, 54.
115 ‘Hendershotts’, Track & Field News, March 1981, 63.
116 Ibid.
117 Ibid.
118 ‘Athletes: Tread Lightly’, 54.
119 ‘Flash from the Amateurism Front’, Track & Field News, November 1980, 7.
120 ‘The IAAF Amateurism Report’, Track & Field News, June 1981, 21.
121 Ibid.
122 Ibid.
123 ‘The IAAF’s 3 Big Steps’, Track & Field News, December 1982, 54.
124 Ibid.
125 ‘Clarifying Money Issue’, Track & Field News, June 1981, 62.
126 Ibid.
127 Ibid.
128 Turrini, End of Amateurism, 166.
129 Joseph Turrini, Running for Dollars: An Economic and Social History of Track and Field in the United States, 1820–2000 (Wayne State University, MI: 2004), 19.
130 Dwight Stones, interview by Austin Duckworth, October 30, 2015.
131 Ibid. To this day, shoe companies hold the power over athletes. Francie Larrieu-Smith recognised that the shoe industry ‘have paid for [the] sport … [and] they are so big and popular that unless [an athlete has] a really big name [the athletes are not] going to get anything’. This fact directly impacts those outside of the top echelons of the sport. Smith argued that, in today’s fully professional world, ‘it is much tougher than it was in [her] day for athletes … if you make it to the top you can make money … [but] it is really tough on the athletes developing’.