[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 87 (Thursday, June 21, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6618-S6619]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. WELLSTONE:
  S. 1085. A bill to provide for the revitalization of Olympic sports 
in the United States; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and 
Transportation.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, the foremost responsibility given to 
the United States Olympic Committee when it was created by Congress is 
to obtain for this country ``the most competent representation possible 
in each event of the Olympic Games.'' However, in too many sports, the 
USOC is decidedly disadvantaged in achieving that goal. A key reason 
for the USOC's difficulty is that our colleges and universities are 
eliminating many of their teams in those sports each year. Colleges and 
universities have been the traditional route to participation in the 
Olympic Games in these non-revenue sports, but many of America's 
prospective participants in the Olympic Games are having opportunities 
blocked as these programs disappear.
  As a former college wrestler and someone who continues to follow that 
sport closely at the high school and college levels, I have noticed as 
wrestling programs have been discontinued by colleges and universities 
at a high rate in recent years. Too often, this occurs through a 
process that leaves student-athletes with few options if they want to 
continue wrestling at another institution. As a result of my concerns 
about wrestling, the sport I know best, I worked with now-Speaker of 
the House Dennis Hastert to include in the 1998 reauthorization of the 
Higher Education Act a study by the General Accounting Office on 
patterns in the addition and discontinuation of athletic teams at 4-
year colleges and universities. The study investigated the forces that 
lead to team additions and discontinuations, as well as the processes 
through which discontinuations have occurred. The report from that GAO 
study was recently released. It both reaffirms what Speaker Hastert and 
I already knew about the state of college-level wrestling. And it 
demonstrates that wrestling, where 40 percent of teams have been 
discontinued during the past two decades, is not alone. A number of 
men's and women's sports have experienced a significant net decline in 
the number of programs during the same period. There has been a 53-
percent decline in the number of women's gymnastics teams, a 10-percent 
reduction in the number of women's field hockey teams and a 68-percent 
decline in the number of men's gymnastics programs. Most pertinent is 
the following fact: 16 of the sports that have lost teams during that 
period, which is nearly all the sports that have lost teams, are 
Olympic sports. In light of the Congressional directive contained in 
USOC's authorizing legislation, a federal response is warranted.
  Guided by the findings of the recent GAO report, the bill that I 
introduce today, the Olympic Sports Revitalization Act, seeks to 
counteract the problems faced by these 16 sports, plus three emerging 
women's sports. The first group of 16 sports consists of the following: 
women's gymnastics, women's and men's fencing, women's field hockey, 
women's and men's archery, women's badminton, men's wrestling, men's 
tennis, men's gymnastics, men's rifle/shooting men's outdoor track, 
men's swimming, men's skiing, men's ice hockey, and men's water polo. 
Also covered are the three emerging women's sports: synchronized 
swimming, team handball, and equestrian. The bill would assist in 
developing a competitive American Olympics program that spans the 
spectrum of high- and low-profile sports. Because there is no single, 
shared reason that each of these sports has faced difficulty in recent 
years, the bill has four sections, each of which seeks to address an 
obstacle to their vitality in the United States.
  First, the GAO report indicates that in some cases, declining 
interest in the sports is a key factor in decisions by colleges and 
universities to eliminate their programs. We know that those who will 
go on to become Olympians realize their talent and passion for their 
sport at any early age which means they need to become interested at an 
early age. Therefore, this bill establishes a grant program to assist 
local community-based athletic programs in providing opportunities for 
youngsters to participate in these sports. The bill authorizes funds 
for the USOC itself and the national governing bodies in the sports 
covered by the Act to award grants to community athletic organizations 
to initiate and expand youth sporting opportunities. In particular, it 
encourages a focus on providing such opportunities in communities where 
the sport has not traditionally been available as an option for young 
persons so that the pool of participants in the sport will expand.

  Of course, relatively few of the young people that will participant 
in these programs will ever become Olympians. But aside from building 
interest in otherwise declining sports, these programs will provide 
additional benefits for young men and women. My colleague from Alaska, 
Senator Stevens, for whom the existing Olympic and Amateur Sport Act is 
rightly named, has an ongoing commitment to enhancing the physical 
fitness of Americans. This program offers fitness outlets that can put 
young people on a path toward lifelong commitment to exercise and all 
its physical and mental health benefits.
  As someone who was given the opportunity to develop personally 
through the challenge of wrestling, I also know how important 
involvement in athletics is at an early age in building character. 
Sports help youngsters develop some of the most important skills for 
success in life: the ability to think strategically, the courage to 
overcome fears, and the tact of being a good winner and, yes, a good 
loser.
  I encourage my colleagues to learn more about two existing community 
sports programs that are exactly the type of locally-controlled 
endeavors that this grant program is meant to promote. Peter Westbrook 
grew up in the projects of Newark, New Jersey. He was lucky enough to 
be introduced to fencing at an early age and by focusing on that sport, 
he escaped the desperation of the environment in which he came of age. 
Peter pursued the sport as he became older and he went on to win the 
Bronze Medal in Men's Sabre at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Seven 
years later, he began a non-profit program in New York City dedicated 
to helping kids in the five boroughs of New York gain access to the 
benefits that he has as a youngster in fencing. Over the past decade, 
hundreds of inner-city kids have participated in the program.
  Like the Peter Westbrook Foundation, the ``Beat the Streets'' program 
begun in 1999 in inner-city Chicago is a model for the grant program to 
be established by this legislation. ``Beat the Streets,'' a program 
with which Speaker Hastert has been involved, focuses on mentoring 
youngsters who typically would not have access to wrestling training. 
The youngsters are coached in a number of wrestling techniques, 
conditioning and nutrition. The program also focuses on developing 
social and intellectual skills that go beyond the mat. ``Beat the 
Streets'' has grown throughout Chicago and, working in coalition with 
the YMCA, its advisory board recently began planning the expansion of 
that program to other cities around the country. I hope that this 
legislation can plan a role in the expansion of such an outstanding 
program.
  As I mentioned earlier, three women's emerging sports, that is, 
Olympic sports that have not traditionally been an option for women in 
this country--are also covered by the pertinent sections of this Act. 
That makes sense because the fact that they are not fully established 
sports means that the USOC faces a particular challenge in developing 
the most competitive team possible in those sports.

[[Page S6619]]

  The second section of the Olympic Sports Revitalization Act more 
direct focuses on ensuring participation in the covered sports during 
college. It does so by providing funding for scholarships in those 
sports. College and university athletic programs that have discontinued 
the non-revenue sports covered by this Act also cite budgetary strains 
as a frequent reason for those decisions. While the GAO report cites 
numerous cased where colleagues and unikversitues have successfully 
maintained existing sports while adding new sports to meet the 
interests and needs of women athlete, it is important to realize that 
colleges and universities do face real financial contraints. This 
portion of the Act would help protect existing non-revenue sports that 
might otherwise be eliminated. Through this section's provision, the 
USOC would be authorized to provide 4-year grants of between $25,000 
and $50,000 annually to college athletic programs to provide 
scholarship to student-athletes participating in the sports covered by 
the Act. At any one school, a limit of three covered program could be 
grant recipients at any one time. Schools would be required to maintain 
the sport to continue to receive the grant money. This Olympic 
Revitalization Scholarship grant program will reinforce the already 
existing Bart Stupak Olympic Scholarship Program, also in the Higher 
Education Act, which provides financial assistance to athletes who are 
actually in training for the Olympic Games.

  The bill also seeks to ensure that, as they decide where they will 
attend college, prospective student-athletes will be able accurately to 
gauge the relative health of the sports programs at different schools 
they may be considering. Present law requires that all 4-year colleges 
and universities with athletic programs report to the Department of 
Education the number of participants and coaches in all sports, as well 
as further information regarding funding for their teams. This data, 
particularly when examined over time, gives an excellent picture of the 
health of the sport at that college. It also provides insight into the 
continued vitality of the program during the period that the 
prospective student-athlete would hope to participate in the sport. The 
problem is that, while the Department of Education has collected this 
required data, it is not readily available to the general public. The 
Olympic Sports Revitalization Act would authorize funds and require 
that the data over a several year period be posted on the Internet in a 
usable format so that the student-athletes and those involved in their 
college decision can have easy access to that information.
  Finally, one of the most troubling findings in the GAO report is that 
student-athletes are, quite often, given no forewarning that their 
sport is being discontinued by the athletic program. They also have no 
mechanism by which to appeal that decision. Generally, such decisions 
by athletic programs go into effect immediately. In addition to defying 
fairness, this reality means that student-athletes often have their 
college athletic careers disrupted in a manner that makes it difficult 
to stay on track for post-college amateur competition. The data in the 
GAO report indicates that the stories I have heard about the 
termination of wrestling programs in my home State of Minnesota and 
around the country are part of a pattern in other similarly situated 
sports. Therefore, the fourth section of the bill requires that 
colleges and universities provide written justification for a decision 
to discontinue a sport to team members. It also requires that a process 
for appealing the team's termination be established.
  We have a responsibility to field ``the most competent 
representation'' possible in the Olympic games. Just as important, we 
should do all we can to promote the continued vitality of a set of 
sports that have proud traditions I our country and that have provided 
health and character-development benefits for thousands of participants 
through the years. To quote Pat Zilverberg, a constant guardian of the 
sport of wrestling in my home state, from his letter supporting this 
legislation: ``The opportunities to develop athletes and, subsequently, 
good citizens, are at risk.'' This legislation would play a key role in 
revitalizing these sports and I strongly encourage its adoption.
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