Visionary that he was, Baron Pierre de Coubertin foresaw obstacles in pursuing his "grandiose and beneficent work," the founding of the modern Olympic Games. "I am disillusioned," he said, "with the secret war going on between the universities of America and the Amateur Athletic Union."
That was in 1893. In the decades since, the infighting between the A.A.U., which governs nonprofessional sports outside the college orbit, and its campus equivalent, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, has become anything but secret. Their rivalry has reached the stage where Congress is again considering demands that the Federal Government act as referee.
The latest ruckus began...
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