by Zach Bigalke

Created on: May 15, 2008   Last Updated: August 07, 2008

The Olympics were ostensibly formed under the guise of amateurism. But what, exactly, IS amateurism?

If an amateur is a person who engages in an activity, especially a sport, on an unpaid basis, then wouldn't by nature every participant at the Olympic Games be considered an amateur? Not a single athlete is paid by the International Olympic Committee or their respective national federations to represent his or her nation at the Olympics. So by the basest definition of the term, professionalism per se has no impact on the Olympic movement...

But this question delves deeper than mere definitional debate. Where the abstract notion of amateurism developed plays a large part in how people today perceive the Olympic movement and the advancement of professional sportsmen and women to the medal podium and the gold medal. A derivative of the English school system of the nineteenth century, codes of conduct and amateurism was developed from their natural forbears in Greek philosophies of athletics as an extension of education. Mens sana in corpore sano: a sound mind in a healthy body...

Athletics, however, proved too great to be merely restricted to those who could afford to enroll in elite schools. Not merely the best and brightest were capable of showcasing physical prowess. And, furthermore, there was much profit and enjoyment to be made from the spectating of these sports spectacles. Therein lies the connection to another bygone culture - that of the Roman empire and its history of placating the masses through bread and circuses.

Not every locale, however, grew a sports culture in the Victorian vacuum of decorum and notions of playing games to become better educated. The Olympic movement was formed to showcase the burgeoning desire for great feats of athleticism, yet even as the first Olympiad took root in Athens in 1896 a larger movement was growing in sports to commercialize the events. Cycling had captivated audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, with bicycle companies swooping in to sponsor riders and teams in droves in road and track races. Baseball grew in stature from the beginning in the United States as a professional enterprise, setting the tone for the current American sports landscape, where young athletes pay lip-service to college (or eschew school altogether if league bylaws permit it) and bolt for the professional ranks at the first chance. No longer are athletics an extension of a holistic education; now education is a necessary evil to strike it rich

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