DISABILITY SPORT RESEARCH INITIATIVE

Researh Fellows

Eli Wolff

Dr. Mary Hums

Dr. Ted Fay

PRESENTATION ABSTRACT :

Integration of Paralympic Athletes Into National Sports Organizations:

Selected Comparative Models

Presented by
Mary A. Hums, University of Louisville
Anita M. Moorman, University of Louisville
Eli Wolff, Brown University

Location: t.b.d.

Date: September 2000

Sport for people with disabilities is often an overlooked segment of the sport industry. Scholars have spent an enormous amount of time studying athletes with disabilities in terms of skill development, self esteem, and teaching adapted physical education. However, very little scholarly work has focused on management issues in this segment of the sport industry. The work which has been done focused on Paralympic marketing issues (Hums, 1996; Hums & Fay, 1995), women working in the management of sport for people with disabilities (Hums & Moorman, in-press; Olenik, in press, 1998), organizational change (Fay, 1999; Wolff, 1999), and increasing employment opportunities for people with disabilities in the sport industry (Hums, 1997). One area which has only recently been studied and which is becoming more complicated is the governance of sport for people with disabilities (Hums, Moorman, & Wolff, 2000; Wolff, 1998).

The Paralympics represent the pinnacle of competition for elite athletes with physical disabilities, and include athletes who are dwarfs, amputees, visually impaired, or have cerebral palsy, or who compete using wheelchairs. These athletes represent their countries just as Olympic athletes do at the summer or Winter Olympic Games. Although Paralympic athletes represent their countries, they often treated differently in terms of funding, access to training facilities, uniforms, equipment, and travel expenses. The question facing National Sports Organizations (NSOs) is how, or if, to integrate athletes with disabilities into able-bodied sport organizations.

There are a number of policy considerations involved when examining vertical integration. It is important to note that most disabled sport organizations are organized and named by disability (cerebral palsy, hearing or vision impairments), whereas National Sports Organizations are named by sport (USA Basketball, USA Hockey, Judo Canada). If athletes with disabilities are fully integrated into National Sports Organizations, there are issues of identity. Is it better for athletes with disabilities to have separate organizations, or be fully subsumed into able-bodied sport organizations?

If sports for people with disabilities become integrated into the NSOs, the identities of the disability-types might be lost. Is that a positive or a negative? On one hand, athletes with disabilities are powerful visual images of elite athletes, and disabled sport organizations provide a place for people with disabilities to be proud of their accomplishments. Paralympians are the flagship athletes for the disabled sport organizations. Will those athletes be lost among their able-bodied colleagues, and treated as second class citizens by the NSOs? What political power will they have within the NSOs?

For example, how many athletes with disabilities will be on athlete councils and have a real voice and vote on the future of their sport? On the other hand, the resources available for elite athletes with disabilities have the potential to increase, helping them increase their performances. There are an array of financial implications as well. Where will the money come from to support athletes with disabilities, and will able-bodied sport organizations be willing to share their wealth? How will corporate sponsors respond? When integrating athletes with disabilities with NSOs, a basic question arise concerning whose rules to use. This has to do with which forms of the game will be accepted.

Disability specific sports programs often use different rules than the mainstream form of the sport. These programs make adaptations to meet the needs of the players with disabilities. For the disability-specific sports programs to become involved with an NSO, the NSO will need to determine how it will recognize the rules from the various programs. Will the NSO be able to recognize all the rules from all the groups? Will the NSO only recognize one form of the game? What does it mean not to recognize the rules from disability sport? Is it saying that the NSOs feel the changes some how devalue the nature of the sport?

The purpose of this presentation is to examine alternative models of integration for elite athletes with disabilities into existing National Sports Organizations. In the United States, the United States Olympic Committee is currently being confronted with this issue, and is struggling to develop a model of what is known as "vertical integration" of athletes with disabilities into able-bodied sport organizational structures.

This paper presents and compares alternative models of integration from several countries. In some models, able-bodied athletes and athletes with disabilities are integrated, and in other models, they are separate. Differing models of integration across countries will be presented and discussed.

References

• DePace, P. (1999, November 12). An update of the progress of the disabled sports movement within the United States Olympic Committee.
• DePauw, K., & Gavron, S. (1995). Disability and sport. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
• Fay, T.G. (1999).Race, gender and disability: A new paradigm towrads full participation and equal opportunity in sport. Unpublished dissertation, University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
• Hums, M.A. (1996). "Marketing the Paralympics: Increasing visibility for athletes with disabilities". Proceedings of the Third Annual European Congress on Sport Management. Budapest, Hungary.
• Hums, M.A. (1997). "Increasing employment opportunities for people with disabilities in sport". Proceedings of the Second European Conference on Adapted Physical Activity and Sports: Health, Well-Being and Employment, Leuven, Belgium.
• Hums, M.A., & Fay, T.G. (1995). Who owns "The Triumph of the Human Spirit?": The legal battle over Blaze. Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport. 5, 95-103.
• Hums, M.A., & Moorman, A.M. (in-press). Women working in the management of sport for people with disabilities: Career questions and considerations. Proceedings of the VISTA '99 Conference on Sport for People with Disabilities, Cologne, Germany.
• Hums, M.A., Moorman, A.M., & Wolff, E.A. (2000). The inclusion of the Paralympics in the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act: Legal and policy implications for integration of athletes with disabilities into the United States Olympic Committee. Presented at the annual conference of the Society for the Study of Legal Aspects of Sport and Physical Activity, Albuquerque, NM, March.
• Jones, J. (1999, April 19). Letter to USCPAA Family on Vertical Integration Plan.
• Michaelis, V. (1999, December 7). NGB chief: Integrated disabled a wrong move. Denver Post, D-02.
• Olenik, L. (1998). Women in elite disability sport: Multidimensional perspectives. Unpublished dissertation, University of Alberta.
• USSA wants disabled skiers to form their own organization. (1999, November 5). Associate Press.
• Wolff, E.A. (1999). Inclusion and integration of sport opportunities for the disabled into non-disabled sport organizations. Presented at the VISTA '99 Conference on Sport for People with Disabilities, Cologne, Germany.
• Wolff, E.A., Fay, T., Hums, M.A. (2000). Implementation document: Inclusion and integration of soccer opportunities for disabled players within the United States Soccer Federation. Unpublished paper, Brown University.

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