Hirthler and Partners

Coubertin: An appreciation
By George Hirthler 1993

No modern institution so important as the Olympics owes its existence so fully to the actions of a single person ... Moreover, for all the vast changes that have accrued to the Games since their first celebration in 1896, they still bear indelibly — from their flag to their official ideology — the stamp of Pierre de Coubertin."

— John J. MacAloon, This Great Symbol

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the French educator who founded the Modern Olympic Games, stood five feet three inches tall, but the shadow he cast over the last 100 years indicates that he was, by every measure, a giant of the 20th century. His legacy, which has been magnificently expressed in the pageantry of 22 Olympiads, has captured the imagination of the world as no other movement has. His dream of worldwide brotherhood and peace through sport provides timeless inspiration to idealists everywhere. His work continues to mobilize nations, modernize cities and transform the lives of countless individuals.

The influence of his vision on the world of sport is inestimable. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), 46 international sports federations, 180 national Olympic committees such as the United States Olympic Committee, and hundreds of other organizations — including the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games — can all trace their origins or their current stature to Coubertin's vision. And few would argue that his influence has reached into the realms of education, politics, international relations and the arts.

Such a lasting and pervasive legacy — especially as it is enshrined in the annals of Olympic history and sustained in the formal rituals of IOC protocol — seems to indicate that Coubertin was something more than mortal, that perhaps he belonged to the pantheon of gods on Mt. Olympus who entrusted him with the modern rules of the games. But when you examine the life of Pierre de Coubertin, you find pure humanity. The historical Coubertin is an open, approachable, even encouraging personality. There is clear evidence that he lived by the Olympic values he espoused. The hardships he endured, the setbacks he encountered, the challenges he faced and overcame offer examples of the kind of perseverance and dedication practiced by the finest contemporary athletes and leaders. His existence was marked by dreams and aspirations that many of us share today. He certainly achieved more than most do, but his was a life of struggle, a struggle that can provide us with inspiration for the quest we face today.

Given what we know of Olympic history, it is surprising to learn that near the end of his life, in 1937, Coubertin felt that his magnificent obsession had failed. Although the Olympic spectacle in Berlin in 1936 awed the world with its unprecedented grandeur, Coubertin was haunted by rumors of war. His dream was never limited to sports. Sports were always a means to a greater end. At first, as a method to improve education. And then, through the brotherhood of the Olympics, as a platform for achieving world peace. The fact that the Games reached a new zenith in Berlin while Europe marched inexorably toward war was to Coubertin the most insulting irony of all.

In some ways, Hitler's Olympics were the final humiliation. Coubertin died of a stroke in 1937 while strolling through a public garden in Geneva, not far from his beloved IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. At the time he was practically broke and maintained the pretense of success only through the generosity of the municipal government which provided his stately apartments. His marriage provided little solace. His domineering wife denied him pocket money and the respect he sorely needed. Theirs was a union marred by tragedy. Baroness Marie de Coubertin had inexplicably left their first child, a son, exposed at the age of two to the blistering summer sun. He suffered a stroke from which he never recovered. Coubertin's daughter, Renee, who was evidently gifted at poetry and painting as a young girl, became the sad focus of her mother's guilt. The Baroness dressed her in masculine clothing from late childhood and turned her into an eccentric, peculiar young adult.

Faced with such circumstances, Coubertin nevertheless walked vigorously every morning or rowed in endless circles on the glistening surface of Lake Geneva. In the afternoons, he wrote prolifically in his study, holding the implications of his life at bay while he penned essay after essay encouraging others to support the development of sport, work for equality in education and strive for international peace.

In these images, there is, of course, a call for sympathy, though not pity. Coubertin invested everything — his money, his energy, his family and his life — into the Olympics. And though he died without the recognition he sought, history has been more generous in its judgement of his work than he was himself.

Pierre was born on January 1, 1863 into a world of privilege. His family name and its baronial title were linked to the courts of King Louis XI in the fifteenth century. Although the French revolution of 1789 had, in essence, deposed the aristocracy of its powers 74 years before Pierre's birth, his parents remained staunch royalists. Always at odds with the new Republic and the society it fostered, they harbored the illusion that the restoration of the monarchy was imminent, and remained loyal till their deaths to Henry V, Comte de Chambord, who lived in exile in Austria.

Deposed though they were, the Coubertin family lived well. As a boy, Pierre enjoyed the comforts of three aristocratic homes, a castle at St. Remy les Chevrevse, an elaborate town house in Paris, and a chateau near the English Channel in Normandy. Pierre's father was a painter of minor distinction, but earning income was never a pressing priority. (The family's fortune served until Pierre, the final Coubertin, reached old age and exhausted his funds in nurturing the growth of the modern Olympic Movement.)

At the age of 11, Pierre began a classicist education at Externat Saint-Ignace, a Jesuit college where the emphasis on Greco-Latin humanities was infused with the disciplines of moral rectitude. For seven years, he studied Latin, Greek, writing and rhetoric. The young Coubertin excelled in a highly competitive academic environment that involved 8 1/2 hours of classes a day — and no organized sports. After graduation in 1880, Coubertin joined the army — the French Military Academy at St.-Cyr — but resigned within months.

Like many young French aristocrats of his day, he began to search, with his father's prodding, for an appropriate cause for his energies and resources. In 1883, at the age of 20, he traveled to England — a favorite destination of wealthy young Frenchman exploring their options — for the first time. His stated purpose, according to John J. MacAloon and other historians, was to study the English educational system and "to found a great pedagogical reform."

Throughout the 1880s, Coubertin traveled between England and France continuously, visiting prestigious institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge, Harrow, Eton and Rugby. He interviewed leading English educators and evaluated the impact of sport on the educational process. It was at Rugby where Coubertin's vision crystalized, for that is where he encountered the legacy of Dr. Thomas Arnold, the legendary headmaster who became Coubertin's lifelong hero.

By 1886, Coubertin was publishing articles and giving lectures that positioned Arnold as "the father of present day English education." Arnold's system of school sports, student self-government and post-graduate athletic associations provided Coubertin with the impetus for launching a new educational campaign in France. La pedagogie sportive — athletic education — became the foundation of Coubertin's dream. He envisioned a new French educational system "for republicans, bourgeoisie and workers" that would even include scholarships of merit for workers. All public education at the time was actually private education, requiring tuitions no child of the working class could afford.

Such ideas were costly at home. Coubertin's growing republicanism alienated him from his family. His emphasis on sport seemed particularly obnoxious. Sport and exercise were seen as common, unprofitable pursuits by most aristocrats, in direct opposition with the prevailing intellectual notions of the refinement of humanity. As Coubertin embraced the Republic — and worked to create a more democratic society like the English had — he betrayed, in effect, the royalist heritage of his family. But in his evolving view, the Republic was good for France, and sports could "rebronze" her youth, and help France recover the pride it had lost in its ignoble defeat by Germany in the Six Weeks War of 1870. Republicanism and patriotism went hand in hand.

A visit to the United States in 1889 confirmed Coubertin's view of the value of sports in education and its potential for mass popularity. He was enraptured by the open pursuit of sports by all classes in America. He visited 25 universities — including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Chicago and Michigan — and attended the Physical Training Conference in Boston. In New York City, he met Theodore Roosevelt, an outspoken proponent of the sporting life and athletic democracy. He also surveyed the vigorous, multisport pursuits of the New York Athletic Club, which awakened his interest in non-educational sports organizations.

Back in France, Coubertin lent his full support to the Republican call for free, universal and compulsory primary schools. His articles, speeches, opinions and tireless devotion to the cause earned him the respect of his peers. Within ten years of graduation from Saint-Ignace, Coubertin was recognized as one of the leaders at the forefront of educational reform in France.

In the same year that he visited America, Coubertin experienced the grandeur of a public spectacle that may have played a seminal role in turning his energies toward the restoration of the Olympic Games. No one knows exactly where or when the idea of restoring the Olympics came to Coubertin — his own prolific writings are vague on the matter — but it is certain that the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889, which introduced the Effiel Tower to the world, left an indelible impression on Coubertin's planning for the Olympics. At the Exposition, which attracted more than 30 million visitors in all, Coubertin witnessed an opening ceremony that involved a parade of dignitaries, a flag raising, the playing of anthems, and an official welcoming speech by France's head of state, Sadi Carnot. He even participated in organizing a seminar on sports that included a modest number of competitions.

The thrust of the Exposition was, of course, to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution and celebrate the international character of humanity and industrial progress. For Coubertin, whose republican sentiments were now fully developed, the symbolic power of these ceremonies and events, rooted in history and conducted in the shadow of an architectural wonder, must have inspired a dream of the potential of an international spectacle of sport. Further inspiration could well have come from the numerous national exhibitions that provided visitors with insights into the native cultures of foreign lands. Perhaps Coubertin toured the Greek pavilion and was awestruck, as so many were, by the faithful recreation of the entire site surrounding the ancient stadium at Olympia, Greece where the ancient Games originated. To the fascination of the European community, German archaeologists had unearthed Olympia between 1875 and 1879 — 1300 years after it had been buried by an earthquake and 1500 years after the last Olympic Games. They discovered the entire Altis (sacred grove), including the stadium, statues of athletes, pottery, poetry, and numerous artifacts and buildings surrounding the Temple of Zeus. The Greek pavilion provided historical evidence of the power that the ancient Games held in Greece — the power to move warring city-states to lay aside their weapons and unite in a sacred truce while the Games were contested.

Coubertin's concept of restoring the Games was by no means original. There had been various attempts at reviving the Olympics, some dating back to the 18th Century. Sweden had managed to stage its own Olympic Games in 1834 and 1836, but failed beyond that. It was in England, however, in 1890 that Coubertin received his most direct revelation of the potential of the idea. As a guest of Dr. W.P. Brooks, President of the Olympian Society of Much Wenlock, a village on the outskirts of Shropshire near the border of Wales, Coubertin witnessed the complete organization of a small scale Olympic competition. Dr. Brooks and his countrymen had organized annual multisport festivals in their "Olympian" fields for 40 years. Coubertin was sufficiently impressed to later name Dr. Brooks an honorary member of the committee that evolved into the IOC.

What was unique to Coubertin — in his educational ideas and later in his Olympic concepts — was his emphasis on sport as a means to develop the whole person in the classical Greek tradition. In Coubertin's analysis of the English school system, athletics fulfilled the educational mandate to develop the entire human being, physically, emotionally, socially, intellectually, morally. In his evaluation of Arnold's success with sport at Rugby, he wrote: "It is the application according to modern requirements of the most characteristic principles of Grecian civilization: to make the muscles be chief factor in the work of moral education."

The ancient Greek ideal — and the aim of its educational process — was the development of the kalos kagathos, literally the good and beautiful man. To the Greeks, intellectual and physical development could not be pursued separately since the mind cannot exist without the body and vice-versa. In fact, the ancient Greek term for education implied the cultivation of the whole man and could not be divided into physical and mental categories. That is precisely why Socrates and other great Greek teachers conducted their classes in the gymnasium, where students exercised while they learned.

Coubertin grasped this ideal completely and made it the foundation of his Olympic vision. "Why did I restore the Olympic Games?" he would write in retrospect, "To ennoble and strengthen sports, to ensure their independence and duration, and thus to enable them to better fulfill the educational role incumbent upon them in the modern world." The emphasis on education is key to understanding Coubertin's primary motivation.

Despite the fervid European interest in ancient Olympia and the growing influence of sport on education, Coubertin's first public proposal to reestablish the Games was greeted with rejection, if not ridicule. In 1892, the tireless organizer had brought together a gathering of influential colleagues to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Union des Societes Francais de Sports Athletiques, of which he was president. They met at the Sorbonne and responded to his proposal with laughter, asking sarcastic questions about whether Greeks alone could compete, as they had in the ancient games.

The set-back did not diminish Coubertin's drive. Two years later, he convened, again at the Sorbonne, a meeting of leading educators and sports dignitaries from around the world. This time, representatives from Belgium, France, England, Greece, Italy, Russia, Spain, Sweden and the U.S. stood and cheered his proposal. Before they left the Sorbonne, they voted to hold the first Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 and return to Paris for the second Games in 1900.

Their enthusiasm, however, shortly encountered an obstacle of seemingly insurmountable proportions. The Greek government declined the honor. A letter to Coubertin from Prime Minister Charilaos Tricoupis summarized the Greek position: "It will be easy for you to understand how strong is our regret at having to decline an honor graciously offered to our country and to lose at the same time an opportunity to associate our efforts with those of elite men who preside over the work of restoring a glorious ancient institution. Aware of the feeble means presently at the disposal of the Greek people and convinced that the task exceeds our resources, we haven't had the liberty to choose."

Coubertin traveled to Athens and met with Tricoupis, who was gracious, yet intransigent. At the end of their meeting, he suggested that Coubertin "take a look, examine, study our resources at your leisure: you will convince yourself that it's impossible." Coubertin was not to be deterred. Using his aristocratic contacts, he turned to the royal family. King George I and his son Crown Prince Constantine became his allies in a vision to restore the Games to modern glory in Athens.

The first Modern Olympic Games commenced on April 6, 1896 and drew 311 athletes from 13 nations. King George proclaimed the official opening before 80,000 spectators, a remarkable figure since Athens population at the time was only 135,000. There were 12 sports on the program. The marathon, which Coubertin had conceived, was the most popular event. More than 100,000 supposedly witnessed parts of the run, which was won by a Greek, Spiridon Louis, who was immediately recognized as a national hero. In the end, these first Olympics exceeded the expectations of the organizers. They succeeded in establishing the pattern for all the Games that have followed. For Coubertin, however, they were both a vision realized and a cruel experience. Although everyone involved had him to thank, his name was not once mentioned officially during the entire celebration in Athens. Perhaps that is why, in his official report, he felt compelled to write, "As for myself, I hereby assert once more my claims for being sole author of the whole project."

Once Greece had tasted the glory of the Games, King George insisted that all future Games be held on Greek soil. Coubertin was intransigent this time. He believed that the international character of the Games could only be developed by moving the site of the celebration from nation to nation. His opinion and his forceful leadership at the fledgling IOC prevailed and the Games moved to Paris. But in 1900, Coubertin was once again shuffled aside by the organizers. The Paris Olympics became a sideshow to a much larger international exposition. The athletic competitions were called Championships Internationale instead of the Olympics. They were spread over small venues, with no central stadium for the ceremonies and major events. The same thing happened again in St. Louis in 1904. Pushed by U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt, who was also honorary president of the American Olympic Committee, Coubertin agreed to move the Olympics from Chicago to St. Louis, where they would be part of the World's Fair. That was a mistake Coubertin would not repeat. The World's Fair completely overshadowed the Games, which drew only 681 competitors from six nations, about half of the 1,319 athletes who had competed in Paris.

In an effort to restore the prestige of the Olympic Movement, which had diminished greatly as a result of the debacles in Paris and St. Louis, it seems that Coubertin yielded to Greek pressure in 1906 and approved the organization of an "interim" games. Coubertin was hopeful that a second quadrennial competition, held in Greece every two years between the real Olympics, would help promote international sports and restore some of the grandeur achieved in Athens in 1896. While the 1906 events were a modest success, Greece was unable to afford the expense of organizing an interim competition again.

Under Coubertin's careful direction, the Games in 1908 in London and 1912 in Stockholm began to command the symbolic power and prestige of the finest international celebrations. London attracted 1,999 athletes from 23 nations. The numbers rose to 2,490 competitors from 28 nations in Stockholm. The Stockholm Games were also the first to introduce a cultural celebration through five competitions in architecture, painting, sculpture, music and literature. It is said that Coubertin won a gold medal for poetry under a pseudonym. At the closing ceremonies, he pronounced the Games of 1912 "an enchantment." He believed the organizational effort was almost perfect.

His satisfaction was once again short lived. Two years later the world was at war. The 1916 Games, which were scheduled for Berlin, had to be cancelled, but despite certain pressures, Coubertin would not relinquish the idea that the Games could become a force for international peace.

He labored hard toward the goal of the 1920 Games in Antwerp and was transported with joy at their success. With the war over and peace settling throughout Europe, the celebration in Antwerp, which drew 2,543 competitors from 29 nations, slightly more than Stockholm, indicated that the Olympic Movement had established a firm foundation in its first quarter century. From Coubertin's perspective, it was in Paris in 1924 that the Olympic Games truly demonstrated their power to rivet world attention. With 2,940 competitors from 44 nations, the Games of the VIIIth Olympiad in Paris became the international spectacle that Coubertin had envisioned as early as 1892. When these Games concluded, Coubertin expressed his satisfaction by retiring. Paris, he said, proved that "My work is done." He passed the baton of the IOC presidency to his hand-picked successor, another European aristocrat, Belgian Comte Henri de Baillet-Latour, who had organized the Antwerp Games so effectively.

Coubertin never attended another Olympic Games. He followed the celebrations in Amsterdam in 1928, Los Angeles in 1932, and Berlin in 1936 from IOC headquarters in Lausanne. The Berlin Games, which some have hailed as the most spectacular and efficiently organized of the century, were almost wholly engulfed in the brilliant, though detestable propagandist strategies of the Third Reich. The allure of the Olympics had risen to new heights, clearly beyond the reach of their founder. A record 3,738 athletes from 49 nations competed. More than 110,000 people gathered in the grand stadium for the opening ceremonies, but amid the spectacle few paid much attention to the aged voice broadcast from a gramaphone recording in which Coubertin uttered his most famous quote, "The important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part. Just as in life, the aim is not to conquer but to struggle well."

Although Coubertin was haunted by the Nazi's political manipulation of the Olympic Movement, the Games themselves asserted their spirit and demonstrated that their destiny and glory were beyond the control of any man. In a performance that history has infused with spectacular symbolic meaning, Jesse Owens, the Alabama born grandson of slaves, defeated the assembled power of Hitler's athletes and restored a sense of justice and virture to the whole celebration.

Eleven months later, Coubertin died. His body was buried in Lausanne, but first his heart was removed and transported to its spiritual home in Olympia, Greece, where it is encased in a marble column that commemorates the undeniable force of his vision and its manifestation in this century. There is no way to assess the debt the world owes to this diminutive Frenchman. Beyond the success of the Olympic Movement itself, beyond the legendary athletic triumphs and their suggestions of immortal youth, beyond the inspiration of the ceremonies and the glistening gold symbols, there is the very real and invaluable legacy of the personal, international friendships the Games have fostered.

As Jesse Owens aged and reflected on his Olympic experience, it was this concept of friendship that he valued most highly. "Awards," he said, "become tarnished and diplomas fade... Championships are mythical things. They have no permanence. What is a gold medal? It is a trinket, a bauble. What counts, my friends, are the realities of life: the fact of compeition and, yes, the great and good friends you make..."

Coubertin would have drawn great satisfaction from Owens' remarks, for he once summarized his own perspective in these words: "The most wonderful thing at the Olympics for me is that, at the end of everything, all the competitors from all over the world who have not known each other before get together for the closing ceremony. They hug each other. Usually some of them cry. It is as if they were really brothers and sisters, a family, about to separate..."

In 1986, the IOC organized a conference on The Relevance of Pierre de Coubertin Today. At the end of the conference, Coubertin's loyal nephew, Geoffroy de Navacelle, introduced a passage from Coubertin's unpublished Memoires d'un Eclaireur (Memoirs of a Scout). The reflections of the great man provide a bittersweet insight into the peace that always eluded him, yet motivated him to move ahead.

"If I look back, I see that from the beginning to the end of my life as a man, I have been performing the job of a scout. A scout is the one who goes ahead to find the right way and clear the path... It is a fine job. However, it has its sorrows and its setbacks. First of all, it implies solitude. There are hours when one feels terribly alone as if lost in a dark forest or on bare mountain-tops. At such moments, one turns anxiously and longingly back towards the lost regions where the road of "everyman" lies, and one starts to curse this trapper's existence, face to face with the uncertain and the unknown.

"However, contact is found again. The scout returns on his tracks to impart his discovery and check whether the crowd is indeed following in his footsteps. It is at that moment that he sometimes experiences a keen disappointment. Yes, the crowd is following, but it has forgotten him. It credits others with the result of his labour, and he feels like a stranger among his fellows. His opinions are not listened to and his comments are not heeded. Disorientated and misunderstood, he starts to wish to be alone, ahead, once more and he goes off keener and more ambitious than ever, but with a painful sense of injustice in his heart."

Olympic responsibilities have taken me to Lausanne a number of times. Like so many before me, I have stood on the balconies of the Lausanne Palace, the hotel where IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch lives today, and gazed at the wondrous beauty of Lake Geneva and the backdrop of the French Alps that rise above Evian to the south. The atmosphere and the privileges of such moments cannot fail to produce a sense of gratitude. Perhaps you can now understand why my gratitude is most often focused on memories of the little man whose life still ripples on the shimmering surface of the lake — and the world — below.