This post is guest authored by Garrett Lewis, where he tells of his recent research trip. The Department looks forward to his analysis and further development of his thesis.

From October 5th-8th, I traveled to the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign to visit their archives, as they hold the Avery Brundage collection. This collection is crucial to my thesis research, as I am writing about the early Cold War Olympics and the formation of the narrative of East-West conflict through sport. Avery Brundage, an alumni of the University of Illinois, served as the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 1952-1972. This period not only saw the introduction of the Soviet Union to the Olympic Games, but also extended over a series of Cold War hot points. Brundage, himself, was a staunch Cold Warrior, and my project examines the role he and the IOC played in forming a narrative of East-West conflict. This is important because the Olympics were founded as a tool to bring international peace, and the assertion that these high-ranking officials could have been undermining this mission through their rhetoric and actions complicates a traditional narrative of the role of the IOC during the Cold War.

The Brundage collection at UIUC contains over 140 cubic feet of archival material (over 400 boxes), and I set out to look at 25-30% of the documents. I ultimately spent 4 days in Illinois researching at the archives, putting the poor archivists to work bringing me out cart after cart of boxes. I returned back to Bowling Green with thousands of pages of scanned items that are crucial to the completion of my thesis.

One of my assumptions going into the research trip was that Avery Brundage’s public comments about the growing rivalry between the East and West differed from the opinions and convictions he held in private. This was confirmed, to a degree, as I was able to see not only his private correspondence with other Olympic officials, but his personal notes from IOC meetings. Brundage also set out to write an autobiography, which was never published; however, the notes and unpublished manuscript chapters provide a valuable insight into his personal convictions and perceptions of his role in the establishment of a Cold War Olympic rivalry. Throughout his career as an international sport administrator presented himself as a neutral, apolitical figure trying to maintain the sanctity of the Olympic Games, yet his personal documents have revealed a more complicated narrative. In these documents, one can see a version of Avery Brundage that was staunchly opposed to communists and initially willing to bend rules to keep communist countries out of the Games. 

I owe a great debt of gratitude to the BGSU History Department for helping to fund this trip, as well as the archivists for putting up with me while I was there.