Avery Brundage was the fifth President of the International Olympic Committee, from 1952 to 1972. He is remembered as a zealous advocate of amateurism and for his involvement with the 1936 and 1972 Summer Olympics. He competed in the 1912 Summer Olympics, where he participated in the pentathlon and decathlon, but did not win any medals. He died of natural causes in Chicago, Illinois, in 1975, at the age of 87.
About Avery Brundage in brief
Avery Brundage was the fifth President of the International Olympic Committee, from 1952 to 1972. He is remembered as a zealous advocate of amateurism and for his involvement with the 1936 and 1972 Summer Olympics. He competed in the 1912 Summer Olympics, where he participated in the pentathlon and decathlon, but did not win any medals. He won national championships in track three times between 1914 and 1918 and founded his own construction business. After his retirement from athletics, he became a sports administrator and rose rapidly through the ranks in United States sports groups. In retirement, he married his second wife, a German princess, and died in 1975 at age 87. He was the only American to attain the position of president of the IOC, and the only person from the U.S. to hold the position. He died of natural causes in Chicago, Illinois, in 1975, at the age of 87. His son, Chester, was a professional track and field athlete. His grandson, Michael, is a professional golfer and golfer-turned-architect. His great-great-grandson, Michael Schulder, is also a former Olympian and Olympic gold medalist. He also served as the chairman of the American Olympic Committee. He served as president of USA Olympic Committee from 1968 to 1972, and was a member of the US Olympic Committee until his death in 1975. He never accepted pay for his participation in sports, and never accepted any money for his work. He disliked corruption of the Chicago building trades, and wanted to benefit from his uncle’s influence as a young engineer.
His uncle, Edward J. Guttmann, pointed out that if he had wanted to influence the Chicago trades, he would have had to work for his uncle as an engineer, not his father. Brundages moved to Chicago when Avery was five, and Charles soon thereafter abandoned his family. Avery attended Sherwood Public School and then R. T. Crane Manual Training School, both in Chicago. At age 13 in 1901, he won a trip to President William McKinley’s second inauguration. In his senior year, he was a major contributor to Illinois’ Western Conference championship team, which defeated the University of Chicago. He played basketball and ran track for Illinois, also participated in intramural sports and participated in his campus intramurals. He wrote for various publications and continued his involvement in sports until his retirement. In 1972, he refused to cancel the remainder of the Olympics after 11 Israeli team members were murdered by Palestinian terrorists. At the memorial service, he decried the politicization of sports and declared that the Games must go on. His decision to continue the Games has since been harshly criticized, and his actions in 1972 are seen as evidence of anti-Semitism. In 1980, he wrote that Horatio Alger had canonized him as the “American urchin, tattered and deprived, who rose to thrive in the company of kings and millionaires” He died in Chicago in 1975 aged 87.
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