United States Sports Academy - "America's Sports University"

Introduction

In the process of organizing the Beijing Games, the Organizing Committee launched an Olympic education programme which touched such a number of young people that the record threatens to out-live generations of today’s youth. With schools across the nation participating, 400,000,000 young people partook of this programme to complete a daunting task that began just six years earlier, one year after Beijing was awarded the Games. While these numbers are staggering and the Olympic education programme was solely a national production, be it with great similarities to the IOC’s Olympic Values Education Programme (OVEP), it remains a fact that it has inspired a number of National Olympic Committees to dream of such a reach. Pro-rated, the percentages are achievable. Rwanda, with a population of just over 120,000,000 would, under this assumption, need to reach a youth population of around 3.5 million. The Indian Olympic Association is hoping its own start-up programme will touch around 20,000,000 young people through the inaugural Indian National Club Games and the ever popular Indian National Games.

Introducing an Olympic Movement innovation, in collaboration with the Department of Sports Organization and Management of the University of Peloponnese (UOP), Sparta, the International Olympic Academy (IOA) now offers a Master’s Degree Scholarship Program for the Academic year of 2010-2011. The course title is, “Olympic Studies, Olympic Education, Organization and Management of Olympic Events.”

The program’s philosophy is consistent with the values of the Olympic movement aimed at worldwide diffusion of the Olympic ideal, global participation, and promotion of knowledge and research in Olympic issues. Grounded in Olympism and Olympic Pedagogy, the academics are based on the three pillars of the Olympic Movement: Education, Sports, and Culture.

Objectives

• To provide students with specialized knowledge at a postgraduate level on issues related to Olympic Studies, as well as the necessary skills for their academic, professional, or research careers.
• To promote knowledge and research on issues of Olympic philosophy and education, and on organization and management of Olympic Games, big athletic events, and general Olympic and athletic studies.

Dear participants and friends, with the conclusion of the works of the 10th Joint International Session for Presidents or Directors of National Olympic Academies and Officials of National Olympic Committees, I would like to express my gratitude for your presence in the International Olympic Academy and my conviction regarding our future cooperation for the propagation of the Olympic Education and the management of crisis and challenges in the sports world and the Olympic Movement.

The National Olympic Academies and the National Olympic Committees constitute the two pillars for the cultivation and the dissemination of the Olympic Ideal in cooperation with the International Olympic Academy and the International Olympic Committee. As Henry Tandau aptly mentioned in this room, you are “the key players in the development and spread of Olympic Education,” and we must have a common perception and try to reinforce the communication for the realization of Olympic Educational and Training Programs all around the world.

IOA Today

The International Olympic Academy (IOA) established in Olympia, Greece, serves a multi-national community as an International Academic Centre for Olympic Studies. It is an outstanding academic resource for students and researchers around the globe. Run by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Greek government, the IOA makes available a broad spectrum of educational programs and studies aimed at disseminating the vision of Olympism.

Introduction

From its inception, the Modern Olympic Movement has fused education with sport and culture to improve both the body and mind. Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the Modern Olympic Games, crafted a vision of universal education through Olympism, spreading such ideals as discipline, focus, vision, commitment, and persistence.

Introduction

Interpreting the place and role of Olympism in higher education is a necessary and pertinent issue. The close relationship between the Olympic Movement and universities dates back as far as 1894. The fact that the IOC was established at Sorbonne University – the “temple of science,” as Pierre de Coubertin called it – contributed to this, as did Coubertin himself. The development of sport, as well as the importance and social impact of the Olympic Games, later prompted interest among individual researchers and teams of scholars at universities. The general interest among universities in Olympism and the Olympic Games in the 1980s intensified their direct and indirect cooperation with the Olympic Movement, both in terms of education and research (c.f. Morgas, 2006). Another mediator in this process comprised the activities of the IOC and the IOA, as well as the establishment of a new Olympic Museum, which has been illustrating the connection between Olympism, sport, and culture since 1993, whilst also developing and supporting the concept of education and research projects at universities. Nonetheless, the educational and research leanings of universities, as well as the forms in which they cooperate with national Olympic Movements and the themes that have been dealt with, often differ. National specificity is important in this regard. Consequently, the starting point for our report is the Czech Republic, which makes no claims to represent the general situation.

First of all, I wish to thank the President of the IOA, Mr. Isidoros Kouvelos, and the Director, Mr. Dionyssis Gangas, for their honoring invitation to speak as a lecturer at this Session. I share with both of them a sincere, enduring friendship and sports cooperation.

Introduction

The title of my contribution is exactly as requested of me by the International Olympic Academy (IOA). However, the methodology adopted and the contents of this paper may disappoint my hosts, as I am not going to focus solely on the role of the National Olympic Academies (NOA).

Dear friends and participants of this 10th Joint Session of National Olympic Academies and National Olympic Committees, it’s a pleasure to welcome you to Ancient Olympia and the International Olympic Academy, at an extremely difficult period for Greece and the international community.

Socrates was famous for questions rather than answers. Even his one recorded intervention in Athenian politics was accomplished without a speech or a statement. Socrates was one of five men who were ordered by the Thirty Tyrants to detain Leon of Salamis. The others complied, and Leon was arrested and killed, but Socrates simply went home. He was likely saved from death only by the democratic restoration soon after. We should, therefore, pay all the more attention to what Socrates said on another occasion when his life was on the line, at the end of his trial for corrupting the youth of Athens (among other offences). Found guilty as charged, Socrates faced the death penalty, but had the opportunity of proposing an alternative sentence. He opted (or so Plato says) for the greatest honour the Athenian community could bestow: