Organization: Arizona State University
Date: Wednesday, 2 Sep 1992 18:13:55 MST
From: Chee Ng <ASCKN@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asean
Subject:    Time to leave out hangers-on

The following is a reproduction from PAGE ONE of the August 12, 1992,
New Staits Times, Malaysia.

Title:  Time to leave out hangers-on

Somebody said last week that if you had thrown a stone in La Rambla,
the Internationally famous boulevard in Barcelona which is choked with
tourists, flower stalls and souvenir shops, it would have landed on
a Malaysian official.
     While it was meant as a joke, that remark was not without some
 justification when you count the number of officials as against the
number of competitors who were in Barcelona for the Olympic Games.
     The score:  28 competitors and almost equal number of officials
--- 21 to be exact.  Then you ask how many of them had actually earned
their trip and how many were in Barcelona just for the ride.
     And after having followed the contingent from day one, you ask
whether the Olympic Council of Malaysia, which had been stringent in its
selection of athletes, had been generous when it came to officials.
     It's the same old Malaysian story of hopping onto the bandwagon
whether it's the SEA Games, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games or Olympics.
They'll be there with their shopping bags and cameras.
     (And it brings to mind the sad FA of Selangor episode in which
there were more officials than players when they toured the world after
winning the Malaysia Cup sometime in the late 70's).
     Some ride of the back of their competitors, others under the guise
of administrative personnel.  But they are only there for one and the
same reason.
     There are, of course, the genuine hardworking officials without
whose presence the arrangements, training and competition schedules for
athletes and other administrative matters and arrangements would not
have gone without clockwork precision.
     They take the loads off the competitors' minds and they ease the
pressure on the chef-de-mission.  They take the trouble to exchange
notes with their counterparts from other countries.
     But it's the "holiday-makers" that we're concerned about.  Those
who are there at OCM's (tax-payers') expense and who see their jobs
as just trying to get into the lineup for the opening maarch past,
shopping and taking snapshots for their private albums.
     In Barcelona, the Malaysian secretariat was hardly manned and
occasional attempts to get through were most often met with no response.
And when you get through, the voice on the other side was more often
than not a Malaysian competitor who just happened to be beside the phone.
     A worried badminton player complained the other day that the phone
not being manned was giving him nightmares.  "Look, we're thousands of
miles away from home.  Now that phone is our only link.  What would
happen if there was an emergency call from home and there was no one
to answer it?"
    But that's only part of the issue.  The main contention, apart from
nonproductive officials, is that perhaps it would be wiser from now on
to appoint qualified coaches as team leaders, especially when there are
only a handful of competitors from one sport.
    These coaches could learn a thing or two from their experiences and
pass on whatever they have gathered to their charges.
    The benefits are enormous when you look at how professional competitors
and officials from leading countries take their jobs in the Olympics where
to them, "winning is not the only thing, it is everything".
    We're entering a new era of international sports with the Commonwealth
Games in K.L. just 6 years from away.  It's time to be more professional.
Trim the fat.  Don't take officials for the sake of taking them along.
Make everything count.

^^^^^^^  The above article was written by NST's Sports Editor, Tony Francis.