In practice, this meant that the Olympics were, in 1912, designed for athletes who could afford to train and compete without earning income from sport.

Athletes from wealthy families could train full-time and compete freely.

Athletes who needed to work — and particularly athletes from working-class backgrounds or from communities without economic security — faced a structural disadvantage that the rules formalized and protected.

The Amateur Athletic Union of the United States was the gatekeeper of amateur status for American athletes, and it enforced the rules with varying degrees of consistency and rigor.

It was widely known, and widely tolerated, that college athletes frequently played summer baseball for modest pay under assumed names — specifically to preserve their amateur status for the purposes of collegiate and Olympic competition.