“ane cra areca ppeneteren mers seen

% A state sponsored sports plan pays off +&

Mel

What can be accomplis.

lbourne
success story ©

MELBOURNE

hed when the state backs a
national sports and recreational program was ably demon-

strated in the recent Olympic Games here. And we're
referring to a capitalist state, not the Soviet Union, for
this first-hand example. Australia, with a population

just half that of Canada, plac-
ed third in the Olympics.
Their swimmers and women
Sprinters were in many ways
the sensation of the competi-
tion.

Australia’s success story has
a simple background. It is a
80vernment-sponsored, coun-
try-wide sports program, the
most extensive in the English-
Speaking world and a keen,
competitive urge to excel.

Gordon Young, a native of
Guelph; Ontario, is one of the
key men behind this success
Story. Young has been physi-
cal education director for New
South Wales since 1938. Prior

to coming to Australia he was °

a YMCA instructor at London,
Ontario.

_ In New South Wales he is
in-charge of. the sports activi-
ties of 250,000 children, age 12
and over,

“There is nothing complica-
ted about our system,” he told
reporters. “It is the same
throughout Australia. The key
ls that every primary teacher
Must take a two-year physical
education course.

--“As a result every teacher
has a background of sports
Knowledge. Every school in the
country devotes one afternoon
@ week exclusively to sports

~ pions.

and every school child is
taught the fundamentals of all
sports.”

Fundamentals are put into ~

practice on sports afternoons,
and. better-than-average ath-
letes compete with other
schools every week in their
school life as part of the plan-
ned program.

“Our idea,” Young said, “is
to avoid stupid searching for
potential champions. If you
have thousands interested it’s
only natural you’ll get cham-
Youngsters of 12 are
the real potential and they
should show world class ere
finishing high school.”

Truth of Young’s assertion
is that 17-year-old Murray
Rose won three gold medals
in swimming, 17-year-old Betty
Cuthbert won three gold med-
als in sprints and teeners Lor-
raine Crapp and Dawn Fraser
splashed their way to several
world records.

There are no professional
coaches in Australia and most
of the Aussie athletes had no
international competitive ex-
perience prior to the Games.

Before the government took
over supervision of sports
there wasn’t one cinder track
in the couhtry. Now there are
eight.

South Africa may be
hit with sports bar

>-~-Is it time to put up the sports bar to the country which by
its vicious application of the color bar has rendered itself liable
to that extreme penalty? Father Trevor Huddlestone, leading
figure in the fight against apartheid in South Africa until his
return to a post.in Yorkshire, certainly thinks so, and marshals

these arguments in his favor:

. lm view of the immense

Importance of the trial on a

treason charge of over 140

South Africans, I wish to re-

iterate a suggestion made long
€fore this new horror. __

“It seems to me highly in-
congruous that England should
80 on playing cricket against
(white) South Africa at this
Most crucial moment of racial
tension.” : ’ :

Father Huddlestone links
the size of the present. trial
With those of Nazi Germany
and asks: ~

“Would the M.C.C. have
taken cocktails with Goebbels?
Or played a friendly game with
the S.8.? Or stayed in a hotel

within a mile or two of Bel-
sen?” ;

Many British sportsmen,
who have considered the prob-
lem, believe that the right ans-
wer is not in using sport to
further political demands,
however right they may be,
but in taking the strongest
possible action when sport it-
self is affected.

And that it most certainly
is by the policy of apartheid.

British sportsmen, for their
own good name, should press
for the end of the color bar in
South African sport — and an
end before the Empire Games
at Cardiff. Canadians, who are
also looking forward to Car-
diff, should take a similar
stand.

a

* Olympic star Jon Hendricks (above) is one of the many swim stars produced by Aus-
tralia’s state-aided sports program, which other countries are now discussing. The
plan has turned out top tennis players, track and field medal-winners, and a galaxy of

superb swimmers,
Empire Games.

Hendricks performed at UBC pool in Vancouver during the British

Subject for debate: should the —

Olympics be thrown wide. open?

By MICHAEL DOWNING

Revolutionary suggestions came recently from two well-known athletic com-_
mentators: that future Olympic Games should be declared open to both avowed pro-
fessionals and amateurs. What the blood pressure reactions of Avery Brundage, the

voluble American president of the Internat

one can imagine.

Brundage was the man who
led an abortive attempt to

* make amateurs swear not only

that they were amateurs but
that they did intend to re-
main so after the Games in
Melbourne.

The latest Open Games sug-
gestion comes from Norris and
Ross McWhirter, co-editors of
the specialist British monthly
Athletics World. '

Their attempt to untangle
the complex of contradictions
that has arisen over the defi-
nition of amateurism is a
worthy one.

‘It may even have anticipat-
ed in premature-fashion the
day when the distinction in
sport between amateurism and
professionalism finally dis-
appears.

I am not one of those who
see anything intrinsically good
in being an unpaid sport per-
former rather than a paid one.

In fact this attitude of su-
periority toward profession-
alism has largely been wiped
away. :

For example, when the cost
of sending the British athletic
contingent to Melbourne was
being discussed at a press con-
ference, Olympic team manag-
er Jack Crump was quite un-
equivocal in his: statement:
“We are more than grateful
for the financial support which
our professional brothers are
giving,” .

The fact that sportsmen
from the East and the United
States, either by state aid or
by state scholarships, are al-
lowed to devote the lion’s

s)

share of their time to train-—

ing is said to affect their ama-
teur status.

As a matter of fact, state-aid
seems just about the biggest

oF {
retty mermaid Esther
Williams (above) may
play the leading role in a
movie based on the life of
Babe Didrickson Zaharias, who
succumbed to cancer last Sep-
tember at the age of 42. Babe’s
career included basketball,
baseball, lacrosse, golf and
track. She was often called
“the world’s greatest athlete.”

ional Olympic Committee, will be to this

bogy of the lot. ‘

What does it involve? In
Eastern Europe, in some cases,
athletes’ jobs are sinecures (at
key times like Olympic year)
which continue to pay wages
despite absence on training or
trips abroad.

In many cases the charges
are exaggerated, but in any
case there are parallel cases
in Britain just as unworthy
of these sneers.

But if is easily forgotten
that the much maligned state
assistance makes the very
games themselves possible,
for amateur sport could never
stage such a spectacle un-
aided.

It is also as easily and as
conveniently ignored by some
that in this modern day and
age state-aid for the provision
of all the necessary sports and
recreational facilities is a very
proper charge on the state.

But back to the McWhirter
point of departure, what's to
be done about the 1960 Games
in Rome?

They suggest open events,
but with no cash prizes, just,
the traditional gold, silver and
bronze medals.

At least this recognizes the
only real amateur definition
that is worth anything at all—
that the amateur does not get
paid for actually performing
at his sport.

I think Messrs. McWhirter
have hit on something, but I
am equally sure the idea is
at least two Olympics before
its time — from officialdom's
viewpoint anyway.

JANUARY 18, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 15-