Every professional sports athlete has one thing in common. each and everyone of them was an amateur at one time or another. Each of these athletics went into a program of some kind that helped them hone their skills to a point where they were able to become a professional. For many of these athletics that program was the Amateur Athletic Union. The AAU was founded on January 21, 1887 to oversee athletics from all over the United States and Canada. At its founding, the AAU was divided into five districts to cover its vast territory.
When the Olympic movement was relaunced in the 1890s the organization obtained for itself a great task. Over the years that task resulted in great successes of our Olympics teams in many different sports. When the United States Olympic Committee took over the task of training our Olympic athletics, the task was made much easier as a result of the groundwork already laid down by the AAU. Even today many athletics are honing their skills as result of the fine work done today by the organization. Many books have been written just on the role of the organization in Basketball alone, let alone the work done in Track and Field as well as Swimming and many others.
Happy Birthday AAU, may you continue to prosper for many more years!!! Tomorrow we will look at the founding of another sporting organization.
No comments:
Post a Comment