1930's Sports | Amateurism vs. Professionalism

Battle over Definitions.

Whether sports should be played for physical wellbeing, competition, recreation, and character building, or primarily for profit and the accumulation of victories has been a longstanding debate in this country since the middle of the nineteenth century. The definition of amateur has blurred, depending upon the governing rules of the sport or of the AAU and often upon the athlete in question. Sportswriter Paul Gallico defined an amateur as "a guy who won't take a check." But many amateur athletes could earn money in a variety of other ways, including endorsing products, padding expense accounts, or cashing in the gold and silver prizes they won. Many factors, including the Depression, forced officials to look the other way; but once in a while someone got caught: Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi was barred from the 1932 Olympics because he had made a small profit on his expense account during a trip to...