Former USOC President Doesn’t Want Job Again

Bill Hybl, a former U.S. Olympic Committee president who was believed to be interested in running anew for the job, which was vacated last week by the abrupt resignation of Sandra Baldwin, has withdrawn his name from consideration.

Hybl said Wednesday he has also thrown his full support behind Paul George, now serving as a USOC vice president. George narrowly lost to Baldwin in the USOC’s December 2000 presidential election.

Hybl’s two-pronged action gives George a considerable boost as the USOC moves to fill the presidential position. George also can be expected to receive key support from the agencies that oversee individual Olympic sports in this country, called “national governing bodies.”

George, a Boston attorney, has long been active in the administration of figure skating and other winter sports. He was the U.S. team’s chief at the 1998 Nagano Winter Games.

“Bill has been the president twice,” George said Wednesday. “He knows what the job entails. I’m honored.”

No timetable has been set for selection of Baldwin’s successor. The next president will serve the remainder of what would have been her term, through the end of 2004. Baldwin resigned Friday, 17 months into her presidency, after the disclosure of discrepancies in her academic record on her self-supplied USOC biography.

By resigning her USOC slot, Baldwin, 62, a real estate executive in Mesa, Ariz., also gave up her position as a member of the International Olympic Committee.

Marty Mankamyer, a Colorado Springs businesswoman who is the USOC’s secretary, is currently its acting president; she has expressed interest in running for the job. Other potential candidates include Herman Frazier, athletic director at the University of Alabama Birmingham, and Michael Lenard, a Los Angeles businessman who narrowly lost an election for USOC president to Hybl in 1996. Like George, Frazier is currently a USOC vice president; Lenard is not now a USOC officer.

Hybl, a Colorado Springs businessman and politician, had been considered one of the strongest contenders to fill out the remaining 21/2 years of the current presidential term.

Hybl served as USOC president from 1996 to 2000, after being elected to a four-year term, and in 1991 and 1992, when he replaced Robert Helmick, who had resigned amid conflict of interest allegations.

Hybl also served as a member of the International Olympic Committee for about 18 months, from the 2000 Sydney Summer Games to the Salt Lake Winter Olympics earlier this year; he stepped aside to make way on the IOC for Baldwin.

Late Tuesday, Hybl notified Lloyd Ward, the USOC’s chief operating officer, that he would not be a candidate to succeed Baldwin. Hybl said Wednesday, “I considered it. On balance, I’ve endorsed Paul.”

The USOC has endured two decades of management turmoil, and Hybl also observed, “At this juncture, it’s very important that this organization pull together to show that indeed we do represent the Olympic ideals, and the athletes and the [national governing bodies].”

Ward declined to comment on any of the potential candidates. He said only that the USOC now must work through a process “both expedient and effective.”