Jimmy Carter, a former president who passed away on Sunday at the age of 100, spearheaded the ban of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and signed the Amateur Sports Act of 1978.
Carter served as the 39th President, serving one word between 1977 and 1981. In the 1976 vote, he defeated former California governor Gerald Ford, who had won. Four years later, Ronald Reagan. A recipient of numerous awards, including the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, Carter had been in hospital care since 2023.
As president, Carter established the Department of Education, spearheaded attempts to deregulate the aircraft, shipping, telecommunications and various companies, promoted initiatives—including an enlargement of regional parks—to protect the environment, and eased tensions between Israel and Egypt through the Camp David Accords. High levels of inflation, poverty, and a captive problems were likewise aigushed by his leadership when violent university students took control of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held the team prisoner.

The Ted Stevens Amateur Sports Act, which was named in honor of the late Alaska legislator who introduced the bill, transformed aspiring sports in America. Among other results, the Act designated the U. S. Olympic Committee ( after the U. S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee ) as a federally licensed organization and coordinating object for amateur activities. One of the Act’s main objectives was to advance American interests in the Olympics, which were also important given the geopolitical conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Additionally, the Act gave national governing bodies the authority to regulate certain sports, like USA Track and Field and USA Hockey. The Act, in addition to limiting these NGBs ‘ authority, omitted oversight of high school and college sports. State athletic associations and the NCAA ( and NAIA ), respectively, were effectively given control over those areas of sports.
Carter stated in signing the Act that he hoped a new framework would resolve “frequent disputes between some of our amateur sports organizations ] that have hampered the grassroots development of amateur sports as well as the performance of American athletes in international and Olympic competitions.” He also highlighted that the USOC would use arbitration to resolve disputes, since that time, arbitration has played a major role in the U. S. sports industry.

Carter’s use of the Olympics to convey a political message proved to be extremely important later in his presidency as well. At the urging of Carter and Congress—with the House voting 386 to 12 and Senate voting 88 to 4 in favor of nonbinding resolutions—the USOC declined to send U. S. teams to the 1980 Olympics. Following the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the decision was a boycott. Sixty-four other countries joined the U. S, and only 80 countries participated that year. In an effort to win an injunction against the USOC, more than 20 U.S. athletes filed a lawsuit against the boycott. However, a court dismissed the case failing to state a plausible claim. Four years later, the Soviet Union and 14 allies including Vietnam, Cuba and Angola, boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles as retaliation for the 1980 boycott.
Carter, who also served as governor of Georgia and was a lieutenant in the United States Navy, made a mention of his love for sports while he was in office. Carter acknowledged that despite having “never been a really good athlete,” he had “never been a really good athlete” in an interview with Sports Illustrated in 1978. He also stressed the value of running for working adults who want to stay in good shape.
” It’s not time-consuming”, he said. ” I can go out and run, for me, a fairly fast two miles in about 15 minutes, or run three miles in 25 minutes, or take a slower pace—10 minutes to a mile—and run seven miles. Then I can go back to work soon and come back in.”
Carter also recalled how he built a pole-vaulting pit in his backyard as a child to practice jumping and pole-vaulting.
” As a child”, he recalled,” I had dreams of someday being a famous athlete, but that never did happen”.
It didn’t happen, but he did become president of the United States. He was also the longest-lived president in U. S. history.