SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — While money, politics and professionalism have dominated recent Olympic Games, a new organization with an unusual concept is trying to revive the original Olympic ideal of goodwill through athletics.
It's called the Institute for International Sport, and it's already brought Catholic and Protestant youngsters together in Northern Ireland, introduced basketball and other sports to a tiny African country and dusted off ideas such as ethics and sportsmanship.
The Olympics have gotten "too big, too competitive, too commercial, too nationalistic," Wally Halas of the institute said. The modern Olympics were started 100 years ago to foster positive relationships between countries and athletes, and that need remains, he said.
The institute, a privately financed organization located at the University of Rhode Island, is trying "to help the world get better," Halas said. "We truly believe sports can do something."
Dan Doyle, former basketball coach at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., created the institute in 1986 because of his lingering dissatisfaction with the United States' decision to boycott the 1980 summer Olympic Games in Moscow. The boycott was to protest the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
The institute, financed by state and corporate donations, offers a graduate program in international sports management. It also coordinates a program called Sports Corps in which students work with young people through sports.
Recent envoys from the institute include Brian Gowdy, who spent six months teaching retarded children and adults in six Caribbean countries how to play soccer and volleyball, and Wendy Smith, a top lacrosse player who was assigned to work at the U.S. Association for Blind Athletes in Colorado Springs.
The institute's most visible effort has been in Northern Ireland, where it has used sports to promote peace.
The program picks teams of six Catholic and six Protestant teen-agers, not so much for their athletic ability, but for their leadership qualities. The hope is that, as future leaders, they will have a deeper understanding of the religious conflict that has torn apart their country.
"These are the people who can change things for the better," Halas said.
A program of soccer and, soon, volleyball, is secondary to teamwork of a different kind. Each team of 12 not only practices together, but eats together, lives together in volunteer homes and attends seminars together to talk about world and local issues.
