"Scholar-athlete games set, International event looks at '93 start"

Jim Brady
The Washington Post
January 31, 1992

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Dan Doyle has never been one to shy away from projects based in ideology, but the director of The Institute for International Sport may have outdone himself by organizing the World Scholar-Athlete Games.

The World Scholar-Athlete Games, which will make their debut in the summer of 1993 in Newport, RI, were formally introduced at a news conference at the Russell Building on Capitol Hill. The Games will be for those between the ages of 16 and 19, and Doyle hopes to attract participants from 150 countries and all 50 states.

While this event sounds much like the other Olympic-type events, there are some eye-catching differences. The Games are only for athletes who excel on the field and in the classroom, and there will be no national teams. Each team in the four sports – basketball, volleyball, tennis, and soccer – will be made up of players from different countries. Tennis will use only doubles to keep individuals from attracting the spotlight.

Artists, singers, poets and writers from the participating countries will be invited to work at the Games and have their work displayed in Newport.

The idea was the latest from Doyle, whose other IIS programs include Sports Corps, a Peace Corps-like organization that assigns graduate students to develop recreational programming in foreign countries; Belfast United, which unites Catholic and Protestant athletes in Northern Ireland; and Project Burundi, a major Sports Corps project in that small African nation.

The Games' honorary chairman, Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), said his participation in the 1964 Olympics made him aware of nonathletic benefits of its of an event of this type.

"During the opening ceremonies, you march into the stadium as a member of your national team, a team where there's a strong sense of feeling about one's country," Bradley said. "At the closing ceremony, you walk in as individuals...It's the manifestation of individuals together in competition and sharing life experiences that is, in my view, one of the high points of any type of international competition.

As of now, the Games are scheduled to be held once every four years, although Doyle said there is a possibility there will be games held on a smaller scale every two years. Athletes who will participate in the games will be selected by Dec. 1. To qualify, someone must be a member of a varsity team and their school and on the honor roll.

"I think there's a void for this kind of thing," said Wally Halas, commissioner of the games and nephew of late Chicago Bears owner George Halas. "The emphasis is on leadership so that when these people move into a position of leadership, they will have had this experience that will have taught them that people all over the world are not so different.

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