One-on-One: Peter Ueberroth

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 | 8:00 p.m. | By Patrick Kinmartin | Comments | Print

USOC Chair Peter Ueberroth

Business visionary, Major League Baseball commissioner, international athletics figurehead -- Peter Ueberroth has been credited for serving in a host of prominent roles during an accomplished career.

But for a few minutes during his keynote address to the World Congress of Sports audience in Dana Point on Wednesday afternoon, Ueberroth played the part of a concerned doctor.

"America has a disease," Ueberroth said. "We see and we monitor countries all around the world, we look at how they change. Yet we don't think we change.

"If you are close to something, you can't see change."

That diagnosis was the theme that Ueberroth, now the head of the U.S. Olympic Committee, tied into several areas of his speech to a ballroom packed with members of the sports industry.

When going over the hot topic of performance-enhancing drugs, Ueberroth stressed the need to step back, to realize that studies show that high school girls are more prone to substance misuse than professional baseball stars and to consider creating an affordable "test not for athletes."

He pointed out that the "sponsorship business didn't exist" at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, and how that has dramatically changed in 20 years thanks to "work in the private sector."

Ueberroth, however, seemed intent that his message about change shouldn't be mistaken as the latest political rhetoric. The heart of his address centered on this summer's 2008 Games in Beijing -- not in terms of the way they will affect China years into the future, but how they are affecting the mood of the country now.

"They're going to open their country like they never have before, times five," he said. "These Games will be terrific.

"(China has) changed the way sponsorships are being done. This country will be of more significance in the international marketplace than the U.S. in many aspects ... because some old, agrarian economy started to change."

While discussing China's eagerness to embrace the benefits that come with emerging from a state of solitude, Ueberroth cited the 1980 Games hosted by Russia's Communist-led parliament as an example of the Olympics' power over national development.

"They were terrific Games because they opened up the country," he said. "(Russian leaders) said that when they were over, we're going to shut (the society) back down. (History showed) that's not the way it worked."

Ueberroth wrapped up his address by urging members in attendance to stay on "the razor's edge of change."

"You can build ties between nations, ties between cultures," he added. "That builds peace between nations, and business prospers."

Other areas Ueberroth touched on:

The establishment a location for new USOC headquarters: "We have three final cities and should make a decision in six to eight weeks. We have to get cities bulletproof so they don't back out. We have to describe to them what bulletproof means."

The future of youth sports in America: "(Kindergarten) through 12th grade is a problem. Don't worry about the old couch potatoes, worry about the young ones. Two of the three major sports right now, your kids are (physically) disqualified from."

U.S. politicians going to Beijing for this summer's Games: "Any Americans, including politicians, should be there if they want to. Maybe we shouldn't have been at the 1936 Games, but Jesse Owens opened the world to diversity."