Chapter 5
Control of Sport: The Amateur Ideal and Professionalism
[An amateur is] one who has never competed in any open competition or
for public money, or for admission money, or with professionals for a
prize, public money or admission money, nor has ever, at any period of
his life taught or assisted in the pursuit of Athletic exercises as a means
of livelihood or is a laborer or an Indian.
~ Constitution and By-laws of the Montreal Pedestrian
Club, 1873
The ebb and flow of the development of Canadian sport was not as open-ended or democratic as might be expected. On the contrary, concomitant with the organization andexpansion of sport, governing authorities brought quite rigid control measures that were contrived,in part,ly to maintain fairness in competitions andbut, even more, to control who competed with whom. For most of the nineteenth century, sport was the prerogative of the upper-and middle-class men; there was no need to control sport in that because these gentlemen of the early hunt clubs, tandem clubs, snowshoe clubs, and curling clubs founded their organizations to play sport and to socialize among themselves. ‘Rules’— - for example, those of the first known sport club in Canada, the Montreal Curling Club of 1807, discussed in Chapter 33— - were first social first, second athletic second, in nature. The regulation of sport in those early years was not an issue. With the dispersion of sport among different social classes around Confederation, codes of behaviour and social class exclusion that had been assumedunderstood in sport were contested. The Montreal Pedestrian [walking] Club’s definition of an amateur, cited above, was the first clearly articulated effort by sporting officials in Canada to bring measures of control to sport. As a value system, amateurism dominated the Canadian sporting landscape beginning in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and continuing until well into the twentieth century, buttressed by the like-minded amateur values of the Olympic Games. As Kidd notes in The Struggle for Canadian Sport:
The earliest ‘amateur codes’ restricted participation on the basis of
class and race, reflecting the upper classes’ desire to reproduce the
social hierarchies of Victorian England and the British Empire and
to maintain the primacy of sports as an expression of manly honour
and elegant display.[1]
It is important then to understand hHow, then, did the amateur ideal becaome the prevailing code of Canadian sport during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?.
[A]Amateur Derivations
Some background information is necessary in order to understand how such a value system as amateurism— - so obviously discriminatory— - could become thesuch a ruling force in Canadian sport. Essentially, the ideal of amateurism had its modern roots in Great Britain. The British Henley rRowing cClub stewards promulgated their definition of an amateur in the late 1870s. That definition and restriction stated that an amateur is,‘“one who is not, among other things, by trade or employment a mechanic, artisan or laborer.’”[2] It is clear that this definition is constructed to exclude the lower classes from competing in rowing and that the definition only characterizes what an amateur is notrather than what an amateur is. The latter fact is characteristic of every definition of an amateur or amateurism that ever existed. In the case of the Henley definition, the intent of the prestigious event’s[What event? Change event’s to Club’s] rowing stewards was to maintain social distinctions in sport sosuch that manual labourers would not compete alongside the more privileged classes. And there was some sense that manual labourers held some physical advantage over middle- and upper- class competitors; not only was this perceived to be an unfair advantage, but the whole notion of members of the lower classes beating their higher- class countrymen was [just not conceivable] [or, repugnant?both] in that era. Within 10ten years of the articulation of the famed Henley amateur regulation, payments to athletes became an issue in rowing and rugby football; therefore, the restriction was added that amateur athletes in Englandcould not receive remuneration for their athletic prowess.[3] The whole issue of paid athletes erupted into soccer to such a degree that the very existence of that sport was threatened [4] and led to even tighter amateur restrictions. Several historians interpret the amateur rule in late - nineteenth- century Britain as an ‘“instrument of class warfare’” that had its roots and meaning in a concept of ‘pure’ sport among British sportsmen, who were imbued with the persistent sporting traditions of the upper- and middle-class public schools[5] (called private schools in Canada).
[A]Canadian Amateur Ideals and Definitions
In the United States in the late 1870s, early amateur ‘definitions’ of ‘amateur’ emanated from its national amateur rowing association in the late 1870s.Tthe National Association of Amateur Oarsmen’s, which stated thatthe first such definition of which was:
An amateur is any person who has never competed in an open contest, or
for a stake, or for public money, or for gate money, or under a false name,
or with a professional for a prize, or where gate money is charged; nor has
ever at any period of his life taught or pursued athletic exercise as a means
of livelihood.[6]
Devoid of the social class tinges of the Henley definition, this regulation emphasizes the
escalating ‘problem’ of paying athletes. Any such athlete was axiomatically labelled a ‘professional’,’ more as a term denoting paid-to-play than any inherent notion of quality of player. By implication, amateurism was the absence of professionalism. So, too, in Canada, it was rowing that brought attention to the conceptualization of amateurism with the Canadian Association of Amateur Oarsmen’s 1880 definition:
An amateur is one who has never assisted in the pursuit of athletic exercises
as a means of livelihood, who rows for pleasure and recreation only during
his leisure hours, and does not abandon or neglect his usual business or
occupation for the purpose of training for more than two weeks during
the season.[7]
In Canada, as we have seen, the reach of a landed gentry did not extend as far as it did in Great Britain, but there was definitely an affluent upper class, who were able to afford the time and expense of sporting competitions in the first half of the nineteenth century. As industrialization (see cChapter 4) progressed, more and more members of all classes were able to enjoy sport, either as spectators or as participants. In horse racing, for example, traditionally an upper-class pastime, when the lower classes became able to ‘intrude’ into the racing venues, participate in the attendant gambling, and behave in a manner not in keeping with upper- class ideals (let alone the economic implications when towns and farms were abandoned for days), organizers tried all manner of thingsstrategies— - such as moving the events further from towns and, in some cases, cancelling the races altogether— - to control for the ‘rowdy’ elements.[8] Similarly, in competitive sports like lacrosse, baseball, and rowing, paid players began to infiltrate the contests. Canadian rowing organizers, then, comparable to and following the lead of their British and American counterparts, took the initiative to frame an amateur definition of exclusion in an effort to ensure the influence of certain middle- and to-upper- class values in sport. Inherent in that 1880 definition were the notions that amateurs competed for ‘“pleasure’” and that they were not employed as athletes since they were to have their ‘“usual business or occupation.’.”
And yet Canada was in no way free from the taint of ethnic discrimination in sport. Consider the revealing last seven words of the Montreal Pedestrian Club’s 1873 amateur definition quoted at the start of this chapter:,‘“or is a laborer or an Indian’.” The origins of such discrimination precede this definition by decades. During the early part of the nineteenth century, Bblacks wereconstituted a very small minority group in Canada,who settled in clusters around Dresden and Chatham in Ontario as well as in concentrations in Nova Scotia. In 1835, there was a thriving ‘turf’’ or horse-racing club in Newark[province???Upper Canada]. The written rules of that club were typically social in nature until that same year when it was stipulated thatthe rule,‘“no black man will be allowed to compete under any pretext whatsoever.’”[9]was stipulated. There was never any reason given for this ban on bBlack competitors but we can speculate that horse racing, the ‘sport of kings’, was a socially exclusive affairclub at Newark. Did a Bblack man forget his ‘place’ and attempt to enter a race? Did whiteCaucasian people not want him to compete as their equal? Was the intruder a stable ‘boy’ who knew more about and was more adept at the sport than the white club members? Was he both bBlack and a common manual labourer who should not be allowed to compete with gentlemen? We don’t know the answers to these questions; it’s possibleythat both racial and class biases prevailed. Almost 30 years later, in 1863, one William Berry submitted his application to enter the Toronto Bay Championship Rowing Regatta. On race day, the competitors lined up for the start and, lo, Berry was bBlack. The other competitors, all Euro-CanadiansCaucasian, refused to row the race.[10] Once again, it would seem, a perceived social ‘inferior’ had intruded into sport’s exclusive preserve. Since there were no published rules of exclusion, race officials set out over the next few years to warn other competitors about the racial background of their opponents. So, for example, William Berry was designated on the race card as,‘“William Berry (coloured)’,” or ‘“Black Bob Berry’,” or, ‘“Western Canadian of African descent’.” For the Toronto regatta, Berry kept submitting his name but received the curt response that ‘“coloureds are barred’” from the races. Finally, in 1868, race organizers felt Berry would be defeated easily and allowed his entry to stand. Berry won the event and aroused so much consternation in doing so that one white competitor, Tom Loudon, challenged Berry to two more races, both of which Berry won. Berry went on to win many more races; however, his case and the experience of the Newark turf club demonstratecase are demonstrative of how the way power and control werein sport was wielded in the early years of organized sport. .
Snowshoeing and lacrosse exemplified exactly the same social exclusivity and pattern of control when event organizers decided Indians were determined to be eligible only for certain contestsraces and not others in snowshoeing.; in lacrosse,around At the time of Confederation, Aboriginals were not allowed to compete in ‘Canadian’ lacrosse championship matches. In this instance theythe latter case, Indians were deemed, by implication, not to be Canadian. The real reason forbehind their exclusion was directly related to their outstanding skill levels and the desire of whiteCaucasian officials to control competition.
[PICTURE – C-014065, caption: St John, New Brunswick’s ‘Paris Crew,’ 1871]
<A>The Founding and Control of a National Organization for Amateur Sport
As more and more members of all social classes and races becamewere able to compete in sports that had been socially exclusive by dint of circumstance, the whole issue of control became paramount. What Canadian sport moguls perceived was the trend in the United States and Great Britain towards written rules about eligibility under the banner of amateur restrictions. Clearly, the trend in sport, especially in sports clubs, was away from ‘social first, athletic second’ to clubs and sports whose members and participants placed more of a premium on competition, not social conviviality, through sport. Rowing had taken an amateur regulation leadership role in all three countries— - Great Britain, the United States, and Canada. However, track and field, or ‘athletics’, as it was known,the sport that was becoming more and more popular was track and field, or ‘athletics,’ as it was known. That sport, as we saw in Chapter 3, was highly promoted by the Scots in their Caledonian Games. By the late 1870s, tealentedtrack trackand field competitors could make a tidy sum of money by travelling a circuit of the Games in southwestern Ontario, winning events, and selling their material prizes.[11] Thus, in modern terms, track and field events, at least the ones organized by the Scots, became‘“professional’ ” events in that they fostered a direct, sanctioned commercial aspect. This trend, combined with the use of paid players in lacrosse and baseball, led to the formation in 1884 of Canada’s first parent -body or custodian of the amateur ideal, the Amateur Athletic Association of Canada (AAA of C), at the instigation of the powerful Montreal Amateur Athletic Association in 1884.[12] With the founding of the AAA of C, the control of virtually almost all sports, certainly the propagation of the amateur ideal, was firmly attached to one organization.
The AAA of C’s first amateur definition formulated to control sport in 1884 was patterned exactly after the US National Association of Amateur Oarsmen’s 1879 definition (cited earlier in this chapter), with the addition of this second sentence: ‘“This rule does not interfere with the right of any club to refuse an entry to its own sports.’”[13] This definition followed the international pattern in that it said what an amateur was not. Iwas the definition of a non-amateur, it was negative in tone— - it did not speak ofto fostering or promoting track and field but, it spoke of restrictions; in fact, the stated aim of the AAA of C was to ‘“regulate’” competition on the ‘“cinder path’” (tracks were often made of cinder)— - and it was noteworthy for the sentence granting the AAA of C and its affiliate clubs/organizations absolute right of exclusion. Executive members of the AAA of C promoted a model of sporting regulations based on what many historians refer to as meritocratic principles.[14]That is, amateurism was designed to be highly exclusive and required participants to conform to upper middle-class values of the way to play sport.[15]
To understand how amateur moguls became so stringent, it is important to comprehend how quickly sport was proliferating and how quickly the shift had been made towards high- quality competition. Simply put, sport was achieving higher and higher quality of performance owing to its growth, more highly skilled athletes, better organization by interest groups, and to the technological and social changes discussed in earlier chapters. At the same time, we must also remember that the prevailing notion of a professional athlete in Canada during the late nineteenth century was equated with the notion a form of prostitution.[16] The term ‘professional’ was used to characterize any athlete who sold his— - women were not yet competing at this level— - athletic talent to the highest bidder or for the most gain, or who might be persuaded to fix outcomes of contests and generally dupe the public for profit. There were exceptions to this professional perception. For example, in the next chapter, we will explore how the commercial basis for baseball was established and respected by paying customers who wanted to see good sport played well, and by promoters willing to pay to bring American players to Canadian towns. Similarly, we will see in Chapter 67how Canada’s first individual world champion in any sport, Ned Hanlan, was an openly -declared professional in his quest to become the very best in his sport. However, lacrosse, rugby football, track and field, and ice hockey were ‘semi-professional’ or covertly professional[17] in that some athletes accepted money while pretending to be amateur. Other popular individual sports— - such as bicycle racing and speed- skating— - contained distinct, open categories for professionals and for amateurs, but no mixed events of the two categories were sanctionedapproved by the AAA of C.
As senior leagues in team sports became more competitive, with greater emphasis on winning championships, the more concentrated and numerous were the efforts to build quality teams while pretending to adhere to the amateur strictures of the national amateur governing body. Thus, in many ways, creating and enforcing amateur codes or regulations was akin to the proverbial throwing a blanket over a postage-stamp- sized problem. And yet, at the time, it was as though the middle-class amateur enforcers could not see any other way to control the outbreak of cheating amateurs— - ‘shamateurs’,’ as some called them— - and professional practices and maintain their control over the ‘right’ way to participate in sport. Moreover, the feeling was that two of the fundamental principles of sport would be destroyed by professionalism, those of fair play, in the British tradition, and its corollary, uncertainty of outcome. Fairness, of course, was fairness to a middle-class perception of reality.
ACharges, actual charges of professionalism were rampant during the 1890s, especially in team sports; even paid referees were banned from playing amateur sport of any kind and were fixed instead with the professional label.[18] Jobs or placements, sponsorships, end-of-season performance bonuses, and outright payments to athletes were made under the disguise of amateurism. The staunch AAA of C instigated two-year residence rules in an effort to prevent players during a single season from constantly hopping teams to the next highest bidder. And the same group spent most of its timewas almost monopolized with the arduous and complex tasks of investigating charges of professionalism, suspending proven violators of the amateur code (or, in perverted jurisprudence, suspending athletes whose only guilt was that they could not ‘prove’ their amateur innocence), and reinstating athletes who had transgressed the code, been suspended, and were ready to repent and willing to follow the strictures of simon-pure amateurism.[19] The AAA of C was extremely successful in its quest to uphold the values of amateurism and control competitive sport because of the unified concern over sport corruption and because that organizationthis national body set up annual national track and field championships and required all member clubs in the parent body to host at least one track and field competition per year, thereby boosting track and field’s popularity and the attendant code of amateur regulation.