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By FRANK LITSKY (New York Times, 25May2002)
Sandra Baldwin, the first woman to become president and chairman of the United
States Olympic Committee, resigned yesterday, a day after she acknowledged that
she had lied on her résumé about her academic credentials.
Mrs. Baldwin's resignation was the latest embarrassment for the American
Olympic movement, and the latest example of a sports figure inflating
professional and academic achievements.
According to Mrs. Baldwin's U.S.O.C. biography, she graduated from the
University of Colorado in 1962 and received a doctorate in American literature
from Arizona State in 1967. On Thursday, she acknowledged that she left
Colorado in 1959 after three years at the university, and received a bachelor's
degree from Arizona State in 1962. She said she completed doctoral studies at
Arizona State, but did not have time to do the dissertation because she had to
care for her two children and run the family farm after her parents died. Mrs.
Baldwin subsequently taught English at Arizona State for 11 years before
starting a real-estate firm in the early 1980's.
She disclosed the discrepancies on her résumé after she learned that a
University of Colorado student who had interviewed her for an alumni
publication was going to reveal the information.
On Wednesday night, Mrs. Baldwin left a meeting of the International Olympic
Committee in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and returned to the United States. On
Thursday, in a letter to members of the U.S.O.C. executive committee, she said:
"I do not think I have hurt the credibility of the U.S.O.C. I have certainly
hurt my own, and I ask you to carefully consider the best course of action for
the organization."
Yesterday morning, Mrs. Baldwin, 62, held a teleconference with the 23 members
of the U.S.O.C.'s executive committee. Later, while the committee was
deliberating without her, she resigned, saying in a statement released by the
U.S.O.C., "I accept full responsibility for the mistakes I have made."
"I should have changed it a long time ago, but once it was published it got
paralyzing," Mrs. Baldwin said. "Now I'm going to have to live with it for the
rest of my life."
Bill Stapleton of Austin, Tex., a U.S.O.C. vice president and former Olympic
swimmer, took part in the teleconference with Mrs. Baldwin.
"She was on for 15 minutes, and questions were asked," he said. "She was
embarrassed. She said it was a big mistake and said she should have corrected
it. Nobody asked for an explanation. When she hung up, we discussed it and
recommended that it be referred to the ethics committee. By then, I think she
had made the decision to resign."
She resigned, effective immediately, during a telephone call with Lloyd Ward,
the U.S.O.C.'s chief executive officer. In making the announcement of her
resignation, Mr. Ward said: "She did what she considered best for the U.S.O.C.
and the Olympic movement."
The U.S.O.C. president is deeply involved in pulling together the disparate
governing bodies of the various Olympic sports to set goals and policy for each
Olympic Games. Mrs. Baldwin's departure is not expected to change the
U.S.O.C.'s direction significantly because preparations are already under way
for the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.
Mrs. Baldwin became the U.S.O.C.'s 22nd president at a difficult time for the
American Olympic movement. Allegations were swirling that international Olympic
officials had been bribed to award the 2002 Winter Games to Salt Lake City;
several high-profile sponsors had withdrawn their support for the Games; and
the U.S.O.C. was having financial difficulties.
Despite a figure-skating scandal that threatened to become all-consuming, the
Salt Lake Games were widely regarded as a commercial and competitive success,
and Mrs. Baldwin was praised for her role in salvaging them.
Under U.S.O.C. bylaws, the executive committee will meet as soon as possible to
nominate one or more candidates to replace Mrs. Baldwin. A mail ballot will
then be sent to the organization's 119-member board. If no candidate receives a
majority vote, the executive committee will submit one nominee to the board in
November. One committee spokesman said a decision on the next president could
be reached within weeks.
One prospective nominee is Paul E. George of Wellesley, Mass., a former
president of the United States Figure Skating Association. Mr. George, one of
the U.S.O.C.'s five vice presidents, lost a close vote to Mrs. Baldwin in the
2000 election for president. Another potential candidate is Bill Hybl, Mrs.
Baldwin's predecessor.
Until a successor is chosen, the bylaws specify that the vice
president-secretariat serves as acting president. She is Marty Mankamyer of
Colorado Springs, a board member since 1990.
Mrs. Baldwin, a real-estate broker in Phoenix and a former president of USA
Swimming, had served the U.S.O.C. as treasurer and vice president before she
was elected in December 2000 to a four-year term as president.
Since February, Mrs. Baldwin has been one of four American members of the
International Olympic Committee. Dr. Jacques Rogge, the I.O.C. president, said
Mrs. Baldwin would automatically lose her seat.
The resignation was yet another setback for the Olympic movement in the United
States. Thomas K. Welch and David R. Johnson, once the chief organizers for the
Salt Lake Winter Olympics, were indicted on federal charges of misusing funds
to induce I.O.C. members to award the Games to Salt Lake City. A federal judge
threw out the charges, but the government has appealed.
In 1991, Robert Helmick resigned as the U.S.O.C. president after he was accused
of using his position for personal gain.
The resignation marked another instance of sports figures inflating their
résumés. In December, six days after being named head football coach at Notre
Dame, George O'Leary resigned after acknowledging he had lied about his
football and academics achievements.
On May 2, a day after he moved from Colorado State to Vanderbilt as the women's
basketball coach, Tom Collen resigned after discrepancies were discovered in
his résumé.
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