McCook man has Olympic memories

Monday, August 18, 2008

Each four years, when the Olympics come around, memories, some good and some not so good, stream back for one McCook man, who had strong ties to many of the athletes who competed in the Olympic Games during the '60s and '70s.

Gary Power, now of rural McCook, was a standout track performer at Gothenburg High School in the early '60s, after which he competed two years for Hastings College (in basketball as well as track and cross-country) and at Oklahoma State University, before graduating from the University of Omaha.

Following graduation, Gary migrated to California, where he could make a living as a science teacher, and still compete year around, as a member of the Southern California Striders. Power spent memorable summers in the '60s and early '70s touring Europe and Asia, taking part in track meets as a member of AAU Track and Field teams. He was frequent teammate of Tommy Smith and John Carlos, the black athletes who created such a stir at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico.

In 1970, Gary was ranked fourth in the world in the 110 yard high hurdles, his specialty. At the Sunkist Invitational meet in Los Angeles in 1970, Power edged the great Willie Davenport in the hurdles by 1/10th of a second, which was a huge victory, ending Davenport's win streak at 40-plus races. Davenport had not been beaten in the hurdles for over two years and at the time was considered unbeatable in that event -- yet Power beat Davenport three times that year.

(Note: Willie Davenport competed and won medals in three Summer Olympics, winning Gold in 1968, and once in the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid in 1980, after he had retired as a hurdler. He was the first black athlete to compete as a member of the USA four-man bobsled team, becoming just one of eight athletes to win medals in both Summer and Winter Olympic Games. Davenport died of a heart attack in 2002 at the age of 59.)

Power had a distinguished career as a hurdler on the International Stage. Untimely injuries in both 1968 and 1972 kept him from competing in either the Mexico City or the Munich Olympics. Never the less, Gary has fond memories of his globe trotting years with AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) teams, and especially of the athletes (worldwide) he competed with and against during those years. He was in the stands, as a spectator, at the Olympics in Mexico City when Smith and Carlos made their famous gesture.

Gary Power was a friend of both Smith and Carlos, and generally supported their stand for civil rights and against the political system represented by the Olympic Committee. Forty years after the event, he added a bit of perspective on the controversy.

Power points out that the late '60s were years of unrest in many fields -- the war in Vietnam, civil rights, women's rights, both professional and amateur sports, and within the AAU and Olympic Committees.

Television was becoming a major factor in the sports scene. The gulf between the AAU/Olympic Committee and the athletes was widening. As TV money rolled into the AAU/Olympic coffers those executives lived like kings; at the same time treating the athletes much like indentured servants.

If the situation was bad in the U.S., it was very much worse in Europe, where track was, and is, a very major sport, just below soccer in popularity.

There had always been money paid to athletes, but these payoffs had to be secret, to protect the athlete's amateur standing. Those who didn't cooperate could be reported and their amateur status revoked. The athletes resented that they had to be liars and cheats to be paid, yet they very much wanted and needed their share of the TV revenues.

About the time of the Mexico City Olympics, a group of U.S. track and field athletes attempted to form a players union. Among other things, they petitioned the AAU & Olympic Committees to appoint athletes to committee membership, and set up training camps to help athletes prepare for the Olympic Games. They also inaugurated a news letter to promote solidarity among the athletes.

To counter the players' union, a group of investors started a short-lived Pro Track & Field League. This movement attracted some Olympic athletes, who of course gave up their amateur status, effectively barring the "troublemakers" from future AAU/Olympics events. After two seasons the Pro League was allowed to quietly die. (The players' union movement failed, but reforms eventually did come about. Today there are Olympic training sites at various locations in the U.S., and athletes are now free to take money from sponsors and still compete as Olympians.)

Power takes no side in the dispute between Smith and Carlos, but did comment on Smith's gold medal victory, which Carlos claims that he allowed Smith to win, and has been a major source of friction between the two.

Gary Power says that for whatever reason, Carlos clearly let up near the finish line, putting a question mark on what had promised to be a very good close race.

In 1972, Power was coming off a very good year when he was again plagued by an untimely injury that kept him from competing in the Olympic Trials. But, as he did in 1968, he made his way to Germany to watch his teammates compete in the Munich Games. Because of his association with many of the athletes Gary had quite a favored status at the Olympic Games, with a pass to come and go within the Olympic Village, and the event was very much like a reunion of old fraternity brothers.

Germany was determined to make the '72 Olympics a success, in no small part to offset the negative image that Hitler's '36 Olympics gave to the world. The Germans had encouraged a free and open atmosphere at the '72 games to erase the memory of the militaristic nature of the '36 games, and a joyous feeling was very much in evidence.

However, the free and open atmosphere led to a minimum of security, and many athletes and friends (and terrorists as it turned out) freely scaled the chain-link fence to avoid check points going into and out of the Olympic Village.

On the night of Sept. 5, five Palestinian terrorists climbed that fence and took 11 Israeli athletes hostage and demanded an aircraft to take them to Palestine. Before the incident ended, the terrorists had killed the 11 hostages, and three of the five terrorists, and one German commando had been killed in the botched rescue attempt.

Gary Power says that during that time the Olympic Village was very much in disarray, rumors were rampant, and there was mass confusion, but he never did feel that he was in any personal danger. There was a great deal of interest as the helicopters picked up the terrorists and their captives to take them to a plane that was to whisk them off to Palestine. Later, when they learned of the carnage at the airport there was much soul searching and sadness as the athletes came to grips with the loss of their Israeli counterparts.

And Gary Power? Some years ago he gave up his teaching career and "amateur" sports to return to Nebraska, to become his own man, doing carpenter work and being largely self-sufficient on an acreage, northwest of McCook. He is grateful for his experience as a world-traveling athlete, and appreciates the people he met, but does not miss the politics and intrigue of big time sports -- not even a little bit.

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: