Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 16, 1990 TAG: 9007160132
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The New York Times and The Associated Press
DATELINE: MINNEAPOLIS LENGTH: Medium
The Festival opened with U.S. Olympic Committee President Robert Helmick announcing that a panel had been formed to reassess the focus of the nine-day event.
He also left open the possibility that foreign athletes might be invited to compete in the future.
Between the opening statements and the closing ceremony, the Festival lived up to its reputation for producing inspired performances from young athletes, some of whom were competing at the national level for the first time.
Bill Roth, a 19-year-old gymnast from Temple University, won five gold medals and two silver in a stunning series of performances; and Damon Bailey, an incoming freshman basketball player at Indiana, showed his court savvy and served as a catalyst for two of the North's comeback victories.
Indira Allick, a 15-year-old swimmer from San Antonio, Texas, won five medals - a gold, two silver and two bronze - while Jeff Commings, a 16-year-old from Blackjack, Mo., became the first black swimmer in Olympic Festival history to win a gold medal by winning the 100-meter breast stroke.
Seven session attendance records were broken and 11 total attendance records fell.
The 1990 Festival, however, also may be remembered as the first after a split between the NCAA and the national governing bodies of many sports, which rely on the NCAA to train many of their elite athletes.
In the wake of a proposal by the NCAA that effectively would eliminate year-round training, college presidents find they have stepped on toes they hadn't realized existed.
The first sounds of dissension were registered during the early days of this Festival.
"If this rule is passed, competitive swimmers will be forced to drop out of school in order to train for international competition," said Jeff Diamond, the director of swimming services for U.S. Swimming.
While they often are associated with intercollegiate athletics, the federations are, in essence, private groups that rely on colleges to provide many if not most of the athletes for national teams.
But the presidents are suggesting colleges should not be in the business of training fencers, gymnasts, swimmers, volleyball players and track and field athletes for national governing bodies.
Perhaps the central issue between the colleges and 19 federations whose sports are contested by the NCAA and in the Olympics is that the federations are not educational organizations and their goals are not always consistent with those of the NCAA.
For example, during the Festival basketball competition, some coaches pointed out the inconsistency of allowing athletes who did not qualify for freshman eligibility in the fall under the NCAA's Proposition 48 to compete in the Festival.
Bill Wall, the executive director of USA Basketball, said his group's mission was separate from that of the NCAA.
"The Olympics is a free enterprise," Wall said. "We play the best person that's out there. He doesn't even have to be in school."
by CNB