James Ring Adams on amateurism and exclusion at the Olympics

[The stripping of Jim Thorpe's two gold medals at the 1912 Summer Olympics] also set a precedent for an extreme interpretation of amateurism, which was not at all settled at the time and which now has been completely abandoned.  This version held that an Olympic competitor should not have received any compensation at any time for any sport, even one unrelated to his event, or for a line of work related to sports.  The great Native Hawaiian swimmer and surfer George Freeth, mentor of Duke Kahanamoku, was excluded from the 1912 Olympics because he worked as a lifeguard.  This principle would seem quaint now, if it were not so vicious. 

This version of amateurism was said to be modeled on English upper-class sportsmanship, and that is the tip-off.  The English rules were overtly designed to keep lower and middle classes from competing with the aristocracy.  The Henley Royal Regatta explicitly excluded anyone who “is or has been by trade or employment for wages a mechanic, artisan or labourer”; it barred entry, for instance, to the American Olympic champion sculler John B. Kelly, Sr. father of the actress Grace Kelly, future Princess of Monaco.  (Kelly went on to win three gold medals, in the 1920 and 1924 Olympics, even though he had previously played professional football.)  Historians would say that this doctrine of amateurism was a case of status anxiety, a means of protecting privilege against a rising class challenge.  It’s significant that the one group of professionals that were allowed to compete in their Olympic sport were fencing masters, because they were by definition “gentlemen.” 

When the newspaper scandal broke around Thorpe, the unwashed masses remained strongly on his side.  Many editorials defended him and ridiculed the AAU.  “All aspiring athletes will do well to ponder this action of the American Athletic Union,” wrote the Philadelphia Times sarcastically, “and not play croquet, ping-pong, tiddly winks, or button-button-who’s-got-the-button for compensation.”  Thorpe left Carlisle and turned pro athlete with a vengeance.  As a major box office draw, he helped put professional football on its feet.  He served as first president of the forerunner of the National Football League.  Thorpe was a main reason pro sports are now so deeply a part of American life.

~ James Ring Adams, "The Jim Thorpe Backlash: The Olympic Medals Debacle and the Demise of Carlisle," American Indian, Summer 2012

George Freeth