Avery Brundage — The Villain Who Did Not Quite Fit The Role

Any account of Jim Thorpe and the amateurism controversy has to contend with Avery Brundage, because Brundage has been cast, with some regularity, as the villain of the piece.

Brundage competed at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics himself, in the decathlon and pentathlon — finishing fifteenth in one and fifth in the other, nowhere near Thorpe’s level.

He went on to become one of the most powerful figures in American and international amateur sport, eventually serving as president of the IOC from 1952 to 1972.

He was a rigorous, some would say fanatical, defender of amateur principles, and he dismissed petitions for Thorpe’s reinstatement repeatedly over his twenty years as IOC president.