WEBVTT - Hitler’s Olympics, Part 4: Outcast in Olympia 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:18.000 Pushkin. Let's begin today's episode with a poem penned in 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.639 the early part of the last century called Ode to Sport. 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:25.840 It was written by a short French aristocrat with a 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:30.440 mouth obscuringly large mustache and a deeply idiosyncratic view of antiquity, 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:34.760 the creator of the modern Olympic Games, the Baron Pierre 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:36.320 de Coubertain. 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:41.960 Oh Sport, you are progress. To serve you, a man 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:47.319 must improve himself, both physically and spiritually. You force him 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.760 to abide by a greater discipline. You demand that he 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:52.680 avoid all excess. 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:55.160 I didn't say it was a good poem. 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:59.360 You teach him wise rules which allow him to exert 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:04.200 himself with the maximum of intensity without compromising his good health. 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:09.279 Ot to sport is terrible, just awful. So of course 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.039 we're going to be playing a lot of it. But 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:15.320 the palm also matters, because it's a time capsule. De 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:17.679 kouper Tank believed that the Olympics should be a kind 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:21.840 of modern religion, embodying the aristocratic values of amateurism, no 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.200 money for sport and internationalism. 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:31.960 Oh Sport, you are peace. You promote happy relations between peoples, 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:36.000 bringing them together in their shared devotion to a strength 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:40.680 which is controlled, organized and self disciplined. 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.400 The Martin Games got their start in eighteen ninety six 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.720 in Athens. Of course, four years later in Paris, they'd 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:52.080 included the most dignified upper crust of sports, such as 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:56.360 pigeon shooting, croquet, and not to be forgotten, the horse 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:02.120 long jump. But the earliest games fell short of the 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:06.200 Baron's epic vision. Mainly they kept happening at world's fares, 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.280 and it's hard to convey a deep connection to antiquity 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.720 when you're handing out medals next to, say, the gigantic 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:17.440 butter statue of Teddy Roosevelt riding a horse. But that 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:26.280 all changed in nineteen twelve. Picture the opening day of 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:30.120 the Stockholm Olympics. That year. Trumpets blared as members of 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.240 the Swedish royal family paraded their way to their box. 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.960 International Olympic Committee members in silk hats and frock coats 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:43.320 processed in ornate facial hair abounded. Thousands of men and 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:47.640 women athletes strode into the stadium to stand before the 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:51.640 Swedish King. The Baron de Kubertan was there too, and 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:56.120 there wasn't a butter statue in sight. These were the 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.359 first games with athletes from every continent except for Antarctica, 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.880 introduced epic sports like the decathlon, and per the Baron's wishes, 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.760 there was an arts competition, which meant there was an 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:11.359 Olympic gold medal for literature, one in nineteen twelve by 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.520 a poem written under a pseudonym by the Baron himself, 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:17.200 ode to sport. 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:22.000 Yours is a prudent, well considered audacity. 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.200 These games were a turning point. But for our purposes 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.120 they mattered not because of the athletic or artistic triumphs, 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.920 or the absence of carved butter. No, they mattered because 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:34.840 of one young man in that mass of thousands of athletes, 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.800 standing on the field, facing the King into kober Tan, 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:42.080 a young man in round wire spectacles who had an 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:46.800 appointment that day with faith, a fate that would later 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:49.520 put him in the position to save the modern Olympics, 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:54.240 and that would twenty four years later cost him his soul, 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.400 a young man named Avery Brundage. 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:07.960 Welcome to Revisionist History, my show about things overlooked and misunderstood. 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:11.920 I'm Malcolm Gladwell. This is episode four of our series 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:16.080 on the Berlin Olympics in nineteen thirty six Hitler's Olympics. 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.760 Over the past two episodes, I introduced you to one 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:24.159 of my all time favorite historical figures, Charles Hitchcock Cheryl, 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:28.880 the patrician dufus who met Hitler and told the world, Hey, 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:32.400 this guy's all right, let's play sports with him. But today, 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:35.320 in the show by Colleague bend A, daph Haffrey brings 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:37.760 us the story of the man who really made the 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.120 games happen, and not only the nineteen thirty six Games, 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.120 but the Olympics as we know them today. The one, 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:49.440 the only Avery Brundage. 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.520 We meet again, Yeah, to discuss yet another member of 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.440 the International Olympic Committee. 0:04:56.480 --> 0:05:02.240 The most he is the most complet the most important, 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:07.320 and when I say complicated, I mean that unlike Cheryl, 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:13.800 he's not a dufus and he's not a cardboard villain. 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:17.080 I feel like the mid century was full of men 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:21.760 like this. Fiction was full of men like this. The 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:27.040 architect in in Coward Runtad and I RAN's the Fountainhead. 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:29.880 He's also just like an epic epic figure. I think 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:31.880 we have to start, we have to begin in an 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:37.640 epic register. Yes, honestly, it's best if he introduces himself, ladies. 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.640 And gentlemen of the press. Usually I'm introduced as the 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:47.119 last living amateur, something like the tattooed man. 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:51.040 You know, that's every brandage late in life. Speaking to 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:52.800 some reporters in Japan, a. 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:55.839 Journalist friend of mine in Chicago, one of the most 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:05.000 sophisticated and cynical columnists there, visited Olympia not so long ago, 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.440 and I was amazed to pick up the paper in 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:16.760 Chicago shortly thereafter and see a headline Brundage may be right. 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:23.119 After all, this man was so impressed by the atmosphere 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:28.560 at ancient Olympia that he was almost converted. I don't 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:31.400 know how long it lasted, but for the moment he 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:36.960 was converted to the Olympic spirit. 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:42.120 Conversion to the Olympic Spirit was Avery, Brundage's great obsession. 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:46.440 The Olympic religion never had a better evangelist. But our 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:49.880 series isn't only concerned with the Olympic Games. The bigger 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:52.800 question here is why do some people see evil for 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:56.679 what it is when others can't or won't. Dorothy Thompson 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.560 could see the dangers of Nazism because she was born 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.919 to a marginalized group herself. She was a woman poor 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.200 Charles Cheryl loved Hitler. He was born upper crust and 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.000 only cared to stay that way. Brundage, though, looks a 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:14.480 lot more like Thompson than Cheryl. At first. He starts 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.200 out as an underdog, and you're gonna want to root 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:21.520 for him, but in the end, well, we'll get there. 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.640 Avery Brundage grew up poor in Chicago around the turn 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.920 of the twentieth century. It was the classic gloomy first 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:33.720 act of an American dream, waking up in the dark 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.480 to work as a paper boy, commuting seven miles each 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.520 way to school. Father who leaves when he's five and 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:44.000 dies alone, the victim as the newspaper reads of business reverses. 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.480 Brundage was brilliant and maybe a little haunted by failure. 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:51.960 He was always top of his class, winning national prizes, 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:56.600 and always passionate about sports. Crucially sports you could play alone, 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:00.920 like track and field. But poor kid remembers his school 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:04.320 didn't have sports facilities. He made his own discus out 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:06.840 of an iron washer, he used a rock for shot put, 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:11.080 and he practiced long jumping in an abandoned lot. When 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.440 I imagine Avery Brandage's early life. I picture him from 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.640 a distance, a little boy in glasses, alone on an 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:21.040 empty parcel of land, jumping again and again into the 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.040 same hole, trying to beat himself. 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:29.720 Oh, sport, you are joy to the sorrowful. You can 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.320 even bring salutary diversion from their distress. 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:36.920 He studied engineering in college, and he was a track star. 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:39.880 Not because he was amazing at any event in particular, 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:42.840 but because he was so relentless in training that he 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.760 was pretty good at them all. Mainly though he did 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:48.880 a million extracurriculars, he just wants to be in the club, 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:51.959 better yet to lead the club. He's like the kid 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:56.640 in that movie Rushmore yearbook board member, fraternity member, literary 0:08:56.679 --> 0:09:01.000 magazine editor in chief, chairman of the sea, your stag dance. 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:06.120 Same deal with sports. He's all about sports organizations. It's 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.120 not enough for him to be on the track team. 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:10.240 He's got to be on the governing body so he 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:12.840 can pass the rule that students who aren't on varsity 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:16.080 teams can't wear the school of colors. So if you're 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.160 a student at the University of Illinois in Brundage's time, 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:21.640 and you're not a track star. He doesn't want you 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:25.680 wearing orange and blue. This, I think is a good 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:30.120 illustration of the first rule of Avery Brundage's universe. There 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:34.080 must be rules, even with food. Like when he's older, 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:36.360 he only eats one lunch every day, and it's an 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:39.000 egg sandwich with bacon, a side of tomato, and a 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:41.640 baked apple, which is like the most Midwestern thing I've 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:45.359 ever heard. The world of Avery Brandage is rule bound, 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:47.800 and a rule bound world is a world of task. 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:52.000 If Charles Cheryl is the classic International Olympic Committee member 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:54.839 born at the top of the pyramid, Avery Brundage is 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.400 born just a bit above the bottom. He knows it, 0:09:57.600 --> 0:09:59.400 and he knows what it's going to take to get 0:09:59.440 --> 0:09:59.920 to the top. 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.600 In all of the interviews I've read with him, he 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.800 always made a point of talking about how unpopular he was. 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.320 Malcolm and I have spent hours psychoanalyzing this man. 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:13.080 There's a version of that where the person owns it. 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.640 But it's not that it's this kind of grim determination that, 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.640 of course all of the weaklings out there don't understand 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:22.839 what I'm doing. That's why I'm who I am, That's 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:23.640 why I'm special. 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:26.480 I found a typewritten note from Brendage that kind of 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:28.840 backs this up. It's in his archive, part of some 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:31.920 ideas he had for an autobiography he never published. He 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.760 reads one summer vacation, when in college, had a political 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.199 job in an office containing two hundred or three hundred appointees. 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:43.080 Became very unpopular because, in order to keep busy, I 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:45.680 did not only all my own work, but all the 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:48.240 work of the score of others. The boss began to 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:50.760 think that if I stayed there much longer, there would 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.360 be no work left. When I took a day off 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:55.520 to go to the ballpark because I had nothing to do, 0:10:56.040 --> 0:11:01.000 I got fired. So this sounds ridiculu us, but I 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:04.800 actually believe it. And more importantly, I don't think he 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.560 realizes how unlikable this story makes him sound. But it 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:11.880 illustrates another one of his rules. If you're the best, 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:14.920 you'll be hated by the rest. That's just the fact. 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:18.840 But after college, our man discovered that the real world 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:22.840 didn't play by his rules. He worked as a construction superintendent, 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:25.600 which was a really bad industry for a man of principle. 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.600 Right away, he was inspecting materials for an architect's new building, 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:33.320 the first shipment of stone had major flaws. He tried 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:36.320 to send it back and the supplier said, better think twice. 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.800 This stuff comes from their architect's nephew. Things did not 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:41.000 improve from there. 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.560 It was a criticism of the climate which exists in 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:47.600 the world today, and it is, as I say, a 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:52.360 very sad commentary on our so called civilization. 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.199 To quote from his unpublished autobiography, Like most young men 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:58.880 who think about it, I was disturbed by the gross 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:02.360 social and economic injustices in the imperfect world in which 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:06.559 we live, and all the inequity, trouble and misery caused 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.880 by the cupidity, the ignorance, and the stupidity of the 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:14.880 peculiar people occasionally thrown into power and authority, as his 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:18.520 biographer Alan Gutman put it, from uneasy involvement in the 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:26.120 imperfect world, Brundage found refuge in amateur athletics. While Brundage 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:28.280 was making his way in business, he kept up his 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:33.240 track and field training, discus shot put running. He got 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:36.920 so good that in nineteen twelve he got the telegram 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:41.360 that would change his life, an invitation from the US 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:43.720 Olympic Committee. 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:46.959 I was a member of the United States team in 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:47.800 nineteen twelve. 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.600 At this point, Avery Brundage was still living with his mom. 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.800 Illinois was the center of his universe. But as soon 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:58.600 as he got that telegram, he quit his job and 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:02.400 headed to New York. Then he climbed aboard the glamorous 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:05.000 SS Finland with all the other athletes for ten days 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:07.719 of all you can eat meals underneath the ornate, filigreed 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:12.679 sunroof of the dining saloon. This was more like it 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.959 when he arrived at the Games in Stockholm in nineteen twelve. 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:22.720 It was a world away from Chicago. In that unpublished autobiography, 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:26.839 he wrote, I shall never forget. As the steamer picked 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:30.640 its way cautiously through the alluring archipelago to the anchorage, 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.160 it was approximately ten o'clock in the evening, and the 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.320 sun was about to set behind us. The myriad of 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.040 beautiful pine clad islands with neat and well cared for 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:45.120 homes with flower gardens, the winding channels containing scores of 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:48.240 boats of all shapes and sizes, and the rosy glow 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:52.000 of the setting sun presented a picture of fairyland. I 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:59.520 shall always remember. I've read a lot of Avery Brundage, 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:02.439 and let me tell you, fairyland is not the kind 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.959 of word he uses. The man was in love. It 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:09.800 was midsummer in Stockholm, and the days were surreal and long, 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.480 with only an hour or two of darkness. Flags fluttered 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:17.640 in streets, flanked by balconies bursting with flowers. Avery was 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:21.080 swept up in a whirl of Olympic parties, banquets, balls, 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:25.560 garden parties, concerts, receptions and entertainments. He rubbed shoulders with 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.120 royalty for a few days. He wasn't the poor kid 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:32.640 from corrupt Chicago anymore. He was an Olympian. 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:38.160 Well, the dime store psychological reading of this. 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.520 Can't we at least upgrade ourselves to like dollar dollar 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:46.120 store dollars our dollar general psychoanalysis? You know, all right, 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:46.520 he is. 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.520 He's the hic from Chicago, right, grows up without a 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:52.920 dad in some you know, cold water flat somewhere in Chicago, 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:55.720 makes his own way in the world. He's not really, 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:59.920 he's not worldly. When he goes to the nineteen twelve Olympic, 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:03.520 I think it's the first time he's left the United States. Yeah, 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.080 Cheryl crosses the Atlantic eighty two times in the course 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.920 of his life, and you know, he some part of 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.920 him desperately wants to be He just gets a glimpse 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:17.880 of this, this kind of the fabulous life these other 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:20.760 people are leading, and I just think he some part 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:22.000 of just like I want that. 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.320 He wanted this perfect world of sport because of how 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:29.880 angry he was about the corruption in the real world, 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:34.880 for bribes and the nepotism. The Olympic religion said, sports 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:39.200 are the opposite. They're objective, they're fair, they're meritocratic. And 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:41.120 I know it sounds like a lot, but if you 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:44.120 don't believe me, then let's consult that gold medal winning 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:49.760 poem by the founder of the modern Olympics. 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:52.480 Oh sport, The perfect equity for which men strive in 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:58.280 vain in their social institutions is your constant companion. No 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:00.920 one can jump a centimeter higher than the height he 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:04.240 can jump, nor run a minute longer than the length 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:08.760 he can run. The limits of his success are determined 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.360 solely by his own physical and moral strength. 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:17.120 Obviously, I think this poem is hilarious, but it's basically 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.000 the worldview that Avery Brandage adopted at the Games in 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:20.880 nineteen twelve. 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:26.040 Oh Sport Pleasure of the Gods essence of life. You 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:28.280 appeared suddenly in the midst of the. 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:32.080 Gray clearing, which writhes with the drudgery of modern existence, 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:37.440 like the radiant messenger of a past age, when mankind 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:39.640 still smiled. 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:44.000 And the glimmer of dawn lit up the mountaintops, and 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:49.480 flecks of light dotted the ground in the gloomy forests. 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.840 Brandage had come from the gray clearing, which writh with 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:58.960 the drudgery of modern existence. A radiant messenger of a 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.240 past age has send him a telegraph, beckoning him out 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.159 to where the glimmer of dawn lit up the mountaintops. 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:11.880 The Olympics were above money in politics. At the Games, 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:17.480 Avery Brundage's exceptionalism, his hard work might finally be recognized. 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:22.800 Maybe there'd be medals, but already there was prestige, respect access. 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:26.879 I want you to picture in your mind again the 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:31.919 opening day at Stockholm, young Avery Brandage, bespectacled, glowing in 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:35.320 the heart of modern Olympia. His world has just gotten 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.800 ten times bigger. He's under the gaze of the King 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.920 of Sweden. Somewhere in the stands is the Baron to 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:46.440 Cooper ten He's caught the Olympic religion, and now he's 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:47.280 going to run with it. 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.560 The trick I think to understanding every bondage is imagine 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:08.280 you're in you're in Chicago and it's nineteen twenty five, 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:12.680 and you know, it's the Roaring twenties, and you meet 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:17.840 this guy in his penthouse apartment on you know, you know, 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.760 it's Lakeshore Drive, and he looks out the window and 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:22.359 he says, I built that, and I built that, and 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:24.439 I built that, and I built that, and you know 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:27.040 where I grew up And he points way way way 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:29.840 off into the furthest end of Chicago in a place 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:33.000 you can barely make out. And then you think to yourself, 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:39.600 you know, oh my god, like he did this. You 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:42.720 have to get yourself in that kind of place to 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:44.200 appreciate every bondage. 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.760 Early last spring, I headed to Chicago to meet up 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:49.880 with Liz Patterson and Julia Backrock. 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:52.639 So I'm just getting back on the main drive. You 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.760 that makes sense, Yes, yes, we need to head south. 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:59.160 So they're both architectural historians, and they've done a lot 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:01.879 of work studying the buildings Avery Brundage built when he 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.080 was back from those games, creating his construction empire in 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:07.160 the nineteen twenties and thirties. 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:12.520 Fourteen forty eight and fifteen forty at Lower Lake Shore Rio. 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:13.159 We won. 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.560 We just passed. Yeah, we pretty much just spent a 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:19.600 day driving around Chicago. I a New Yorker living in 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.280 a shoe box, kept being like a three bedroom costs what, 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:26.040 and they every few minutes would be like Brundage built that, Oh, 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:28.000 and that, and also that. 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.960 Julia I realized that we drove right by a couple 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:35.360 of the other Brandage building's in there. I think that's 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:37.080 gonna have to be okay, Yeah, rather. 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:42.680 Every down Avery Brandage didn't win a medal at the 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:46.119 nineteen twelve Olympics, but he did find his life's calling. 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:50.240 He glimpsed the world held up by two pillars sport 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:54.200 and wealth. He wanted both, so when he got back 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:58.399 from the Games, he got to work first the money. 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.600 Took his engineering decree and built buildings for Illinois Life 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.680 Insurance Company Public Life Insurance Company. He built the Canada 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:11.320 dry ginger Ale plant and the gigantic Chicago Ford Motor 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:13.639 Company plant on the banks of the River. And he 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:17.119 did it all by working harder and smarter than his competition. 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.760 So the concrete work I think people were starting to 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:28.480 use a lot of they're called salamanders, but heaters inside 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:31.399 to get as much out of the winter months as 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:35.720 they could. But he found ways to position them better 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:39.920 so that everything kept warmer, and then the concrete could 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:41.880 be poured and cured more quickly. 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.920 And Brndage was honest. When he finished a project under budget, 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:50.240 he returned the extra money the jobs just like the 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:55.240 concrete came pouring in. He built the twenty third Street Viaduct, 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:59.320 the glamorous Shoreland Hotel, and a huge number of luxury 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:03.560 apartments on Lake Shore Drive, Chicago's most desirable address. 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.320 He definitely got a lot of all the work that 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:08.120 was going on during that period. 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:10.920 How much of Chicago was built in that period. 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:14.119 Oh, thousands and thousands of building permits were issued in 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:14.680 the twenties. 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:16.760 But he was also a bit of a local celebrity 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:18.919 if you search him in local papers. 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.640 He was definitely a known commodity in Chicago. 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.480 Every Rundage made of fortune, but the fame and the 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:30.560 wealth were a means to an end. Rundage was trying 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:34.480 to buy a ticket back to Olympia, to Fairyland. He 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:37.919 became a leader in amateur sport, like to Kubertin, an 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:41.320 evangelist for the Olympic cause, but with a harder edge. 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:45.280 He once wrote, not to develop the latent possibilities of 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.679 the human body as a crime, since it certainly violates 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:53.600 the law of nature. Once again, rules and laws. If 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:56.760 Charles Hitchcock Cheryl is the prototypical member of the IOC, 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.040 cheerfully enjoying life at the top of the pyramid, I 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:02.960 just never quite has the ease of being born to privilege. 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:07.359 He's all about striving and self discipline and the discipline 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:12.000 of others to shore up his position. By nineteen twenty eight, 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.800 Brundage was president of the American Olympic Committee, and given 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:18.919 everything that was to happen next, I have to believe 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:22.320 he'd already set his sights on the International Olympic Committee, 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:23.440 the IOC. 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:29.880 So this is the great paradox of Brundage. So here's 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:32.879 a guy who was resolutely not of the world of 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:36.600 the IOC. The OC is a bunch of pampered aristocrats 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:40.520 whose best days are behind them. He's from Chicago, He's 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:44.840 made millions building big buildings. He has a mixture of 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:51.159 envy and a desire to join this crowd, but at 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:54.679 the same time he must have contempt for them everything 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:55.520 he aspises. 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:59.119 Yes, I think he does. I think some of it 0:22:59.200 --> 0:23:01.879 is a some of it is just he understands that 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:05.080 they have something that he lacks, and he wants the 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:08.719 psychological security of being, you know, one of the as 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:12.800 kuber Tack calls them, trusted men. He wants to know 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:16.280 that within a very strict hierarchy he is at the top. 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:18.919 But I think the more complicated thing about him is 0:23:18.920 --> 0:23:22.120 I also believe that he probably hates these people. It's like, 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:23.919 like you said, he probably knows that he can kind 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:24.960 of eat them for lunch. 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:27.160 I was thinking about this in the context the transition 0:23:27.320 --> 0:23:31.200 from Ryl to Brundage is a transition from the nineteenth 0:23:31.240 --> 0:23:35.280 to the twentieth century. The nineteenth century is the you know, 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:39.840 the world of the aristocrats who are fundamentally unimpressive at 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:42.720 the end of the day, and who who you know, 0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:44.800 are in power just by virtue of the fact that 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:47.600 they were born into some landed gentry family. And that 0:23:47.680 --> 0:23:50.560 is the world of the IOC. He's like, he's the 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:53.600 twentieth century guy. He is and he is everything that 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:57.800 is in some ways fantastic about the twentieth century. It's 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:04.399 a self made, driven, ambitious visionary who just gets stuff done. 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:08.080 The man built half the Scotland of Chicago. But he's like, 0:24:08.160 --> 0:24:10.080 there's something real here. 0:24:10.400 --> 0:24:10.640 Yeah. 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:14.199 It's also like a faith in a meritocracy, like you 0:24:14.280 --> 0:24:17.400 have this, like all of these structures of the meritocracy 0:24:17.400 --> 0:24:19.080 of like, well, we actually want to find the best 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:21.200 people and elevate them. We don't just want to accept 0:24:21.240 --> 0:24:23.920 whoever's been born to the highest class. And I feel 0:24:23.920 --> 0:24:27.320 like he is. He believes that there's a pathway through 0:24:27.400 --> 0:24:31.720 his brains to power and glory. But he's also maybe 0:24:31.760 --> 0:24:35.399 he's still obsessed enough with the sort of nineteenth century 0:24:35.440 --> 0:24:39.320 aristocratic idea where he knows these guys still have some 0:24:39.400 --> 0:24:41.840 ineffable thing that he does not, and he wants it. 0:24:42.720 --> 0:24:46.520 Here's a man who has everything, millions, a construction empire, 0:24:46.720 --> 0:24:50.560 gorgeous lake front housing, but I think he's still dreaming 0:24:50.920 --> 0:24:54.160