‘We’re All Professionals Now’: Frank Shorter, Deregulation, and the Battle to End ‘Shamateurism,’ in the 1970s

Abstract

In the 1970s, Olympic Gold medallist marathoner Frank Shorter and other Olympic athletes advocated for reforms to the American amateur athletic system. Their efforts culminated in the passage of the Amateur Sports Act of 1978 and the eventual move to greater professionalization in Olympic sports. Historians of sport have asserted various reasons for the success that amateur athletes had in spurring Congress to enact changes to the amateur system in the 1970s. These explanations include the importance of the Cold War context, the US’s declining Olympic performance, the rise of collective organization by amateur athletes, and the increased monetization of the Olympics and some amateur sports like long-distance running. A close examination of Shorter’s efforts to reform the amateur system adds to the historical dialogue on this issue by showing that part of the success of amateur athletes in the 1970s stemmed from their articulation of the problems of, and solutions to, amateurism in the language of deregulation. Such language in a time period of ascendant conservatism gelled perfectly with Congressional leaders who wanted to make American athletes more competitive but without increasing the power of the federal government or moving it into the area of regulating amateur sport.