Date of this Version Avery Brundage liked to say that
revolutionaries were not bred on the playing field. That theme
neatly expressed Brundage's distrust of any challenge to the
established political and social order he cherished and
garnished his speeches to countless audiences during the forty
years in which he was the single most powerful figure in both
the American and international Olympic movements, first as
president of the American Olympic Committee (1929-53), and then
as president of the International Olympic Committee (1952-72).
Although the Iron Chancellor of amateur sport regarded himself
as the last true defender of the strict separation of sport and
politics, he also frequently insisted that more than the future
of amateur sport was at stake in shielding sport from political
manipulation. Upon sport for sport's sake depended the healthy
psychological valuation of individual effort and excellence that
was at the very heart of a democratic way of life. Moreover, fit
bodies and competitive spirits