Cortland Sport Management

WORLD LEADER AGAINST DRUGS IN SPORT RICHARD POUND TO SPEAK AT CORTLAND SPORT MANAGEMENT AWARDS CEREMONY APRIL 19

World Anti-Doping Agency Chair and former International Olympic Committee Vice President Dick Pound will speak at the Cortland Sport Management Awards Ceremony April 19.

CORTLAND, N.Y. (April 10, 2005) – Richard Pound, a former vice president of the International Olympic Committee and the chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), will deliver the keynote address at the 2005 Cortland Sport Management Awards Ceremony on the campus of the State University of New York College at Cortland on Tuesday, April 19. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 6 p.m. in Brown Auditorium in the Old Main Building. The doors open at 5:30 p.m.

Pound’s leadership of WADA, an organization established in 1999 to promote and coordinate the international fight against doping and illegal drug use in sport, has made him one of the most powerful people in the sport industry. This is especially true given the recent steroid and illegal drug scandals in the Olympic Games and Major League Baseball. Pound has been particularly critical of MLB’s new drug policy and is supportive of the House Government Reform Committee's hearings on steroids in baseball involving current and former professional baseball players.

Currently the Chancellor of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Pound is a native of Canada and a partner in the Montreal law firm of Stikeman & Elliott. He joined the International Olympic Committee in 1978 and served on the Executive Board from 1983-1991 and 1992-2000, serving as Vice-President of the IOC from 1987-1991 and from 1996-2000. He was also Chair of the IOC's Coordination Commission for the 1996 Olympic Games. His investigation of the Salt Lake City scandal led to the creation of a new ethics watchdog to monitor future interaction between bidding cities and IOC members.

As a competitor in the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Pound was a double finalist in the 100-meter freestyle (sixth) and 4 x 100-meter medley relay (fourth). In 1962, he won a Gold Medal in the 110-yard freestyle event, two Silver Medals in the 440 and 880-yard freestyle relay and one Bronze Medal in the 440-yard medley relay for Canada at the Commonwealth Games. The Canadian champion in freestyle for 1958 and 1960-62, and butterfly in 1961, Pound was widely considered to be one of Canada's best competitive swimmers of this period.

Pound is the author of three books: “Inside the Olympics” (2004), a behind-the-scenes look at the politics, the scandals and the glory of the Olympic Games, “Chief Justice W.R. Jackett: By the Law of the Land” (1999), a biography of the first Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Canada and “Five Rings Over Korea” (1994), which deals with the political negotiations leading to the success of the 1988 Olympic Games.

The awards ceremony is organized each year by Cortland’s sport management program to spotlight student excellence in both academics and service learning activities. The following awards will be presented: Outstanding Sophomore, Outstanding Junior, Outstanding Senior, the Bogard Scholarship, the Excelsior Award, the Sport Law Award, the Information Technology in Sport Award, the Wingate Scholarship and the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence.

Cortland’s innovative sport management program currently has over 350 students enrolled in its undergraduate degree program. Students are provided with both the formal academic foundation and the additional key experiential learning opportunities necessary to gain access to a career in the extremely competitive sport industry. The only four-year sport management degree program in the SUNY system, it is housed in the exercise science and sport studies department in the college's school of professional studies. SUNY Cortland is located in Cortland, N.Y., a Central New York town located at the eastern gateway to New York State’s Finger Lakes Region.

This event is supported by the SUNY Cortland Campus Artist and Lecture Series, the SUNY Cortland Sport Management Club and the Hampton Inn.

RECENT RICHARD POUND QUOTES

On the Congressional Hearings (March 2005) – “Steroid use is a lot like alcoholism. Unless you acknowledge a problem, it's hard to move on to a cure. Nobody believes baseball anymore, and they shouldn't, but though baseball is the deer caught in the headlights now, [doping is] in other sports, too."

On Mark McGwire’s testimony at the Congressional Hearings (March 2005) – “What I saw and heard was a confession.”

On Major League Baseball’s drug policy (December 2004) – "It’s somewhere between and joke and a sham. They pretend the only problem is steroids. It's not. There's human growth hormone and all the uppers and downers they take through the season. And they have a completely ludicrous set of sanctions."

On Marion Jones at the 2004 Olympic Games (August 2004) – "If she's innocent, she comes here (Athens) and that's fine. And if she's not and comes here and has made all those statements, it's going to be a dark and deep hole into which she goes. It would be a shame."

On why it is important to fight drug use in sport (January 2003) – “Well, sports is so important to so many people, particularly young people, and it's a precursor to how you're going to behave in other aspects of your life. You respect the rules, you respect your opponents, you respect yourself. You play fair. I think that bleeds over into life as well. I don't want my grandchildren to have to become chemical stockpiles in order to be good at sports and to have fun at it.”

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