Scrutiny of Ward Increases

The U.S. Olympic Committee will debate chief executive officer Lloyd Ward’s membership in Augusta National Golf Club at the Nov. 1 meeting of its executive committee, officials said Saturday, raising the prospect that Ward may face the choice of keeping his job or his golf membership.

Ward, who took over as the USOC’s CEO about a year ago, has publicly declared twice -- once in April, again a couple of weeks ago -- that he hopes to work for change from within Augusta National. The club, site each April of the Masters golf tournament, does not permit women to become members. Ward is one of a few African American members of the club.

Ward’s pronouncements, however, have not mollified some on the policy-making executive committee, in particular Marty Mankamyer, elected in August as president of the USOC’s all-volunteer board of directors.

She said she wants each of the executive committee’s 22 members “to examine the duties and responsibilities of serving as a director of an organization whose ideals reflect gender equity, fair play, tolerance and inclusion.”

Ward could not be reached Saturday for comment. He has consistently declined to elaborate on his previous remarks relating to Augusta National.

It remained far from clear Saturday that the USOC is ready to plunge into yet more management turmoil. Ward, whose resume includes a stint as CEO at Maytag Corp., took over as chief executive last Nov. 1, the USOC’s third senior administrator in two years. Since 1978, the USOC has had 11 chief executives; the job has turned over on average every two years.

Also unclear is whether the executive committee has the will to take a decisive stand on the eve of a critical decision -- the Nov. 2 vote by the full 123-member board of directors on the choice of the U.S. candidate for the 2012 Summer Games, between New York and San Francisco. Both the executive committee and the full board will meet at USOC headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo.

After a year in the job, however, Ward’s performance has recently been generating significant internal criticism. For instance, though he came to the job with a reputation as a marketing guru, and though the U.S. team won a record 34 medals in Salt Lake at the 2002 Winter Games, the USOC has not announced a single big-ticket sponsorship deal since the Games wrapped up. And it’s not yet evident whether forthcoming budget figures will show the USOC in the black.

Given those issues, as well as concerns by some over the amount of time Ward’s other activities have taken him away from the USOC -- he has served this year on the corporate boards of General Motors, Belo Corp. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., garnering hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash or stock to supplement his $550,000 annual USOC salary -- the Augusta membership has sparked an “emerging concern” over Ward’s USOC future, as Herb Perez, an influential executive committee member, put it.

At issue, fundamentally, are questions about what moral standards are most appropriate for leadership at the highest levels of the Olympic movement.

Other executives who also belong to Augusta National, in particular Sanford Weill of Citigroup and Kenneth Chenault of American Express, have in recent weeks issued guarded statements of support for female members at the club.

Ward, however, doesn’t work for a corporation dedicated to making money, responsible primarily to shareholders. He stands at the helm of a not-for-profit institution whose central missions revolve around winning Olympic medals and leading by example.

In May, for instance, then-USOC president Sandra Baldwin acknowledged discrepancies in the depiction of her academic qualifications in her USOC biography. She resigned, and has said many times since that her decision was prompted in large measure by a belief that more is expected of top leadership at the USOC.

In a telephone interview on Friday, Baldwin, asked about Ward’s Augusta National membership, said, “I think it flies in the face of everything the U.S. Olympic Committee is all about.”

The search committee that recommended Ward for the USOC job last fall did not know he was an Augusta National member, two sources told The Times on Friday. If that had been known, one source said, speaking on condition of anonymity, there would have been an “absolute demand” that Ward quit the club.

Since taking office, Ward has preached that the USOC’s mission between editions of the Games is winning the “hearts and minds” of ordinary Americans. To that end, in the October edition of Steppin’ Out, a Colorado Springs magazine, Ward says the USOC’s job is to provide “equal access” to the “Olympic dream.”

He says the USOC is “committed to a broad reach into society across all our demographics. We want to provide more opportunity for minorities of all persuasions, gender equity in this process.”

The apparent disconnect between such remarks and Ward’s membership in Augusta National has already proven exquisitely sensitive for the USOC.

On Tuesday, for instance, the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Title IX commission is due to hold a town-hall meeting in Colorado Springs. Title IX is the landmark 1970s legislation that dramatically increased sports opportunities for women. As CEO, Ward would be a logical choice to speak for the USOC. Instead, Mankamyer will do the speaking.