As an elementary school student in the 1960’s, I can remember my father commenting on the issue that the Soviet bloc athletes were professionals (paid by the state) and that America’s athletes were amateurs.   I thought that was unfair until “we” redefined the participation rules and many of our professional athletes were allowed and encouraged to compete in the Olympics, where there are probably few examples of self-supported amateurs competing in any event regardless of the country that the athlete represents.

With the advent of popular marketing, the world has also seen the rise of professional athletes competing in what used to be an amateur-only arena, the Olympics.  The first Olympics to allow professional athletes to compete were the 1988 Games for some sports and the 1992 Games for the remainder.  It is no coincidence that this era also saw an unprecedented sports marketing boom.  The emphasis on professional sports, often to the detriment of amateur sports, has had a trickle-down effect on sports at the college and high school levels.

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Every four years, we experience the summer Olympics.  They formally open today in Beijing, although women’s soccer has already kicked off.  The Olympics are a major media event, one that NBC paid $1 billion for the rights to televise. While the athletes are there to perform at their best and many great athletes will be participating, the side shows are almost as interesting.

Illegal substances or “doping” may appear to be a recent issue, but have actually been around since the 1960 Olympics in Rome when Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen died during his event after injecting a doping agent.  At the same Olympics, American and Soviet weightlifters acknowledged taking anabolic steroids.

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