'Amateur' a tough word to nail down

Jim Thorpe’s professional baseball contract — which paid the famed athlete as little as two dollars per game — got him into a lot of trouble with the Olympics of yesteryear, which took its amateur eligibility rules quite seriously.

Compared to today’s athletes, however, the most amateurish thing about Thorpe may have been his business sense. After all, among the many “amateurs” at this year’s Summer Olympics, there were quite a few millionaires.

Consider supernal American swimmer Michael Phelps, who earned a $1 million bonus from Speedo for setting an all-time record for medals earned.

Phelps’ achievements are widely and rightly touted. Every one of his eight gold medals is the product of years of tireless dedication, unbelievable amounts of hard work and once-in-a-generation talent. But that doesn’t mean we should overlook the fact that Phelps earned roughly $120,000 for each race in which he participated and won — compensation that puts him in the highest tax bracket in his home country.

I’m dealing with some major cognitive dissonance right here. Common sense tells me that a professional athlete is someone who obeys a simple rule: play for pay. An amateur is someone who is uncompensated for his or her endeavors. Think Roger Bannister, who broke the four-minute mile barrier while studying to become a medical doctor.

I’m not sure quite what word should be attached to modern Olympics athletes and their “sponsorship” deals. The harshest that comes to mind is “hypocritical.” Of course, “lucky” isn’t far behind as I free-associate on the subject.

I don’t have a problem with the way things have changed. Realistically, athletics is now a full-time job. It’s not something that you can do while practicing at nights and twice on weekends. If Nike jumps in and offers to cover all the costs, how can anyone refuse?

I do think we need to be more honest about terminology. A horse is a horse, of course, of course. And a professional athlete is someone who receives money for playing a game. It’s not a complicated definition, though it is a troubling one.

The purity of the “amateur” is crucial to the spirit of the Olympics, which is surely the reason why the pretense has been maintained for so long. But the games revolve around money. Dollars and cents are so deeply ingrained in this supposedly sanctified realm that Carl Lewis, a legendary American sprinter, refused to deliver any public comment on Usain Bolt’s electrifying, record-setting races. The rivalry that concerned Lewis wasn’t the conflict between the traditional powerhouse United States and rising upstart Jamaica.

It was between the two athletes’ respective shoe companies: Nike for Lewis, Puma for Bolt. Bolt’s golden shoes may have sparked most viewers’ memories of Michael Johnson’s famous Swoosh-adorned spikes, but Lewis — or the company that pays him — certainly noticed the difference.

It is interesting to compare this complex, “amateur” system with another one: that of college football, and the Ivy League in particular.

The NCAA initially appears fairly good at saying, meaning and carrying through on the promise that its participants are truly amateur athletes. Yet the largest schools aren’t without their scandals. Maurice Clarett, the disgraced former Ohio State running back, revealed after leaving the team that Buckeyes boosters regularly gave him “one-thousand-dollar handshakes” — a euphemism for under-the-table payments that allowed Clarett to afford a nice car and a luxurious apartment. The allegations were never confirmed but still damaged the program’s image.

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Even without such wild stories, the standard athletic scholarship can potentially be viewed as a form of payment. If a college education costs $10,000 or more for a student at Ohio State, it stands to reason that a player attending the school on a scholarship has effectively earned $10,000 a year for his services.People like to point out that schools make millions of dollars off those services, which is true. But amateur status doesn’t depend, in my mind, on how well or fairly one is compensated; it depends on being compensated at all. In my opinion, I’m fine with paying these young men what they deserve. But we may need to stop attaching the word “amateur” to a business that deals with as much money as major college football does.

In this entire morass, the Ivy League stands out as a beacon of amateur athletics. For better or worse, Princeton hands out no athletic scholarships. Athletes at Ivy League schools cannot be accused of playing for pay. Around here, the boosters generally reserve their one-thousand-dollar handshakes for President Tilghman, and that money is always exchanged over the table. After about 70 of those, crew gets a shiny new boat.As a diehard fan, I’m always happy — and always proud — to talk about amateur athletics at Princeton. After all, the proper usage of that word seems to be exceptionally rare in the modern day.