olympic medal money prize and ncaa??

[teresa greene]

I have a question concerning the Olympic medal "prize"money that Joey Cheeks donated to charity. When did this prize money associated with the Olympic medals (is it $25K for gold, $15k for silver and $10K for bronze??) come from - has it always been there or is it new? Where does the money come from? How does that affect a student athlete's college NCAA eligibility to go back and play for college? Does each player on the women's USA olympic team receive $10K for their bronze medal?? Just curious...

[Puck Swami]

The US Olympic Committee pays out the medal bonus money and has been doing it since the mid-90s, as I recall. I don't believe NCAA players (who wish to retain NCAA eligibility) are able to accept it, but I could be wrong.

[teresa greene]

It makes you wonder why - perhaps with opening the games to the professional NHL players - there seems to be a big debate going on that the Olympic spirit is lost on the millionaire "professional" athlete v. the amateur college kids of the 1980's "miracle" team. The magic spark seems to be lacking on both USA teams ...is it "been there, done that" with trying to revive the 1998 glory for the women??? the "mature" leadership of the Men's team didn't seem to get results either. Has the commercial sponsorship/perks detracted from the pure athletic competitiveness spirit so its just big business

[dave1381]

Nope, you can't take it... and if you read Angela Ruggiero's autobio, there was some sort of screwup involving her stipend with the US team, but it turned out not to be a problem.

[dave1381]

The money has been there for a while, and it means a lot more to the players from niche sports than it does to NHL millionaires, that's for sure. And of course not letting NCAA players take the money is pretty consistent with everything else the NCAA does.

[HU2K4]

I believe there's an NCAA-permissible way for the families to store the medal bonus in trust so the athlete can collect it upon completion of eligibility.

[Hux]

The NC$$ just kills me with their eligibility nonsense when it come to National team and Olympic athletes. It is one thing to want to maintain the amateur status of student athletes by barring them from having agents, endorcements and so on. But it is another thing entirely when they prevent these athletes, that they love to market themselves, from appearing on a box of Wheaties etc. after they win an Olympic gold medal.

Is that really "endorcing" a product? I think not, and they should be allowed to be showcased and recognized for their achievements. And if they don't already, the company that uses the athlete's image should pay into a fund for the USOC as a whole, or the governing body of the sport of the featured athlete.

[BKDad]

Even the various National Governing Bodies have their own rules about what you're allowed to keep.

Unless the NCAA has changed their rules, Olympians who qualify for a medal bonus have to turn them down in order to maintain their NCAA eligibility. If you look back, there's at least two former Olympians who accepted the bonus and gave up one or more years of NCAA play.

The NCAA can't have athletes who represent the NCAA in the best and most visible ways gain financially.

[Puck Swami]

It makes you wonder why - perhaps with opening the games to the professional NHL players - there seems to be a big debate going on that the Olympic spirit is lost on the millionaire "professional" athlete v. the amateur college kids of the 1980's "miracle" team. The magic spark seems to be lacking on both USA teams ...is it "been there, done that" with trying to revive the 1998 glory for the women??? the "mature" leadership of the Men's team didn't seem to get results either. Has the commercial sponsorship/perks detracted from the pure athletic competitiveness spirit so its just big business

Don't buy that mythology. Money has alsways been part of the Olympics for 3000 years! Even the Ancient Olympics had huge prize money for victors, given out by Greek City States. In the modern Olympics, the whole point of Pierre de Coubertain's "amateurism" was to keep working class people out of the games and keeping the competition for rich people who could afford to train and didn't need to work.

Flash forward to the post-WWII era, as The Soviets were state sponsored professionals playing in the Olympics, skating 11 months of the year together as bogus 'army officers'. Yes, the Americans were lucky enough to beat them once in 1980, but mostly, we got drilled by them, as did everyone else, incluing the NHL all stars. Even the US team that won in 1980 had four players that had played pro hockey (including Mike Eruzione, who played in the IHL after BU) as an 'amateur' (as long as his 'payment' was handled as a corporate internship rather than a direct payment to him.

My point here is that "amateur" era is over, long over - and that toothpaste is out of the tube and it's not going back in. Juan Antiono Samaranch was smart enough to end the charade of amatuerism and let the best athletes compete, regardless of where they get funded, and the Olympics is better for it.

Nostalgia makes people misty for the good old days when people played "for the love of the game" but I really don't think those days ever really existed. Today, people decry commericalism but forget that these Olympic sponsorships and TV revenues enable so many marginal countries to compete that never would have been able to be part of the Games before these big money programs existed. Without commerical involvment, there would be no Olympics - they are simply too big and too complex to run without the money.

[Hux]

Flash forward to the post-WWII era, as The Soviets were state sponsored professionals playing in the Olympics, skating 11 months of the year together as bogus 'army officers'. Yes, the Americans were lucky enough to beat them once in 1980, but mostly, we got drilled by them, as did everyone else, incluing the NHL all stars.

Don't forget that the US also beat them in 1960.

http://www.nhl.com/olympics/2006/1960_team011906.html