Behind the Bastards - Part One: How Avery Brundage Gave Hitler an Olympics

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Robert sits down with Matt Lieb to discuss Avery Brundage, the millionaire athlete and professional Olympics nerd who stopped the U.S. from Boycotting the 1936 Berlin Olympics.   (2 Part Series)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oh my gosh, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast where unbeknownst up to this moment to everyone who has been listening for years, Matt Lieb and I live in a house that is essentially an exact replica of Bert and Ernie's home in Sesame Street. And we're just, we're in bed, we're getting relaxing from a long day of watching terrible things on the internet. Matt, are you tired? Are you bummed out?

All the time. Every day is a new fresh crop of horrors, which is why I like to go home to our special Bert and Ernie house that we live in together in secret You do it we do that was really tough on your wife, but you know, I think it was the right decision we made Yeah, I mean she hates it But also, you know

Like it was pretty clear in the green up that I would continue to be living with Robert Evans in our Burton Ernie compounds location in our Burton Ernie compounds. Shockingly expensive. In undisclosed locations. Very expensive. Unbelievably, the rent on Sesame Street is a nightmare. It's insane. There's just a lot of gentrification now. It used to be- We are the gentrification, yeah.

Well, sure, but I mean, when we first decided to move in there, it was a nice neighborhood. It had a lot of culture. That's right. And now there's just a lot of Oscar the Grouches Yeah, just say that you know, they're in that trash can and I'm like, wow, maybe Try doing less fentanyl. Mm-hmm, you know

Speaking of fentanyl, you know the emotional equivalent of fentanyl Matt is When you accidentally without trying to have three weeks, or like six straight weeks, of stories about pedophiles on Behind the Bastards. Oh God. I didn't mean to, right? When I started with the Margaret episodes that we were doing talking about those German pedophiles, I didn't realize that the next several weeks

would just happen to, I mean, when I started researching the Thomas Jefferson episodes, I should have realized like, oh no, I'm just doing another pedophile. I got locked into a bad pedophile loop, is what I'm saying, Matt. Sure, it happens to the best of us, you know? It happens to the best of us.

You're trying to do your regular podcast schedule and it's just pedophile after pedophile. Oops, all pedophiles. Oops, all pedophiles. But you finally went outside, you got some fresh air. Yeah, yeah, I went off-roading on a mountain and I came back and spent an entire week reading about the Olympics.

And I am proud to say, Matt, no babies die in this episode, except for like off-screen, and no pedophilia in these episodes, you know? Oh my God. We're safe, we're safe. I'm so excited, here's a round of applause. No, that was laughter. Fuck.

The point is, is I have a soundboard, but I have not figured out exactly which sound does what. So it's going to be a test. We'll see. Okay. Okay. A lot of tests this week. Well, that's good. I just want to promise everyone before the cold open closes,

we got a fun one this week. So when we come back, we're going to start talking about Avery Brundage, who was the American who kind of ran the Olympics in the United States. And eventually he's going to be on the IOC and he's going to run the Olympics for everybody. And he is just a Nazi, just a real good old fashioned American Nazi.

All right, now I understand why, got the call. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna to have fun with this one. Anyway, that's the cold open. From KT Studios, the number one podcast, the Idaho Massacre is back. The new developments in the University of Idaho murder case. It was an unimaginable crime. One house, four victims, only one accused. If this is true, then this guy is the real-life Dexter.

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Seals was found murdered. That's what they gonna learn. Own for death, own for nothing. Every day, Darren would tell her, all right, ma, be prepared. They are going to choose you. Darren Seales was found murdered. That's what they gonna learn. Own for death, own for nothing. Every day, Darren would tell her, all right, ma, be prepared. They are going to try to kill me. All episodes available now.

Listen to After the Uprising, The Murder of Darren Seales on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1980, while El Salvador sat on the brink of war, one man held together the fragile peace, Archbishop Oscar Romero. He was brutally assassinated in front of dozens of his loyal followers.

His death marked the start of a civil war that left more than 75,000 people dead and a million more displaced around the world. My family includes both, those that fled and those that died. Listen to Sacred Scandal, Nation of Saints, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you solve a crime in reverse when you believe that someone was murdered but have no clue who the victim was? We have to do our job was. We have to do our job. And we have to find out who did they kill? If it's possible. How are we going to do that? I'm Jay Calpern and this is Deep Cover, The Nameless Man.

Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts Ah And we're warm Matt. Yes, we roll into this episode. You got any pluggables to plug? Yeah, that's right I waited for after the cold open guys. What other yeah, I mean I do have some pluggables I actually started a new podcast And this podcast is about Israeli propaganda. It's called Bad Hazzabara, the world's most moral podcast. Hazzabara, of course, being the word for explaining, which is kind of a euphemism in Hebrew and in Israel for, you know, PR propaganda.

Yeah. And so, yeah, I started that podcast a few months ago and just, yeah, if anyone out there is looking for sort of, you know, information about what's going on in the news regarding all this Israel-Palestine stuff, yeah, that's what I've been doing. I've been doing it from an anti-Zionist Jewish bent so that people can, you know, more fully understand what they are seeing and hearing with their eyes and why people are telling them not to believe what they see and hear with their eyes and ears.

Well, that does kind of fit in with our subject of today's episode because as is going on right now in Gaza, we are talking about a time when a bunch of horrible stuff was being done by the government of a country and a lot of other countries, everyone just kind of tried to pretend it wasn't because it was really inconvenient to deal with the problem. Now in this case, the country's Germany.

Oh yes. Yeah, so we're gonna get to that, but first we kind of need to start this episode, we really have to peel back a couple of thousand years here because it's worth talking about what the Olympics was We have to start from thousands of years ago. Yeah, we do when I was god damn All right. When was the first oh, that's right. The Olympics is this thing? Yeah, no further than that. This is the ancient Greeks, right? Yeah Yeah, yeah, they, they're much older.

Just once, could you do once upon a time, just one time? Once upon a time, there were these guys called the ancient Greeks. And they invented Western philosophy, and they invented some chunk of mathematics. I don't know which part of mathematics, but I remember learning that some of math was invented by the ancient Greeks.

Sure, sure, sure. And they made a lot of art. That said, while they did a lot of great stuff, I don't know which part of mathematics, but I remember learning that some of math was invented by the ancient Greeks sure And they made a lot of art that said while they did a lot of great stuff They spent the bulk of their time murdering each other in really terrible ways the ancient Greeks loved killing each other Yeah, but in the late 700s BC the ancient Greeks decided. Let's do something besides killing each other and philosophy Let's do sports. I love that and philosophy. Let's do sports. I love that. It's kind of right in between. It's right in between. It's a mix, right? Like everyone fights, OK, but we're not going to kill at the end.

We're just going to, you know, you're not going to give a trophy. Yeah. So this is not a new sports was not a new concept in the 700s. BC people had been sportsing for basically as long as we've had cities at least in some fashion or another. But the idea that became the Olympics was new, which is that all of these cities that are periodically, you know, at war or in conflict with each other, regularly we're all gonna come together

and everybody's gonna compete without murdering each other, right? That is kind of a, that's a novel idea at the time. Yeah. The first Olympics, you know, I think the dates, there's always a little bit of flex in dates this far back, but it was probably around 776 BC. And it was initially not a great show.

It's just a single 200 meter race, which given that people are like, you know, if you're traveling, if you're walking five days to get to another city, you could die on that walk, right? You're gonna watch a guy run 200 meters? I lost three children on my way to watch people sprint for a little. My family died, but boy, that guy was slightly faster

than anyone I'd ever seen before. I mean, it's sad, but also I won $500 and I'm back with DraftKings. With Draft, that's right, but also I won $500 and I'm back with draft kings. With draft, that's right. Draft kings first started in 776 BC. Yeah. So everyone seems to agree, have agreed that like doing a whole Olympics for one little race was kind of bullshit and not worth the trouble.

So they started adding games pretty quickly. Now running is always going to be a staple as it is today, but the Greeks were like modern humans is that once they figured out the idea of big international sporting events, they all kind of solidified that the best thing to gather to watch other people do was beat the shit out of each other. Yeah. And fighting, yeah, I mean, right?

It's so sad because they were probably trying to get away from that. Can we do something like sportsmanship like and peaceful? What's the furthest thing from war? Running. Yeah. Listen, there's got to be blood or else why are these people going to risk the lives of their kids to walk all the way over here? Yeah. I literally can't even get hard without watching a guy die anymore. Like, what are we doing? So wrestling was added in at the 18th Olympiad in 708 BC. Boxing entered for the 23rd Olympiad in 688 BC. And then Pancration was added in the 33rd Olympiad.

You're gonna have to explain that one. It's basically, yeah, it's ancient MMA. It's like the first kind of MMA, right? Like it's like a proto MMA style competition, right? Okay. So this is what eventually leads to the invention of Joe Rogan. Oh, damn.

Yeah, who as we all know is an undying immortal figure. He's the Alpha and the Omega. That's right. That's right. He's essentially the emperor from Warhammer 40,000, but he really just focused on fighting sports and UFOs. The Alpha male and the Omega male. So the ancient Olympics had a pretty good run.

They're doing this for like not far off from a thousand years, something like that, a little over because they finally died. Yeah, it goes like 776 to 393 AD, thereabouts. Again, these are kind of soft dates on the last of the ancient Olympics is too. The end of the old Olympics is generally blamed on emperor Theodosius I, who is said to, he's one of these big Christian Roman emperors and he said to have considered it pagan idolatry. I think that more rigorous scholarship

has cast a lot of doubt on this because he doesn't seem to have actually banned them explicitly, but whatever the truth, whatever specifically kind of leads to the fall of the Olympics, they do stop doing them, right? It sucks. Yeah, it's a bummer. Well, I don't know. I don't actually like the Olympics.

So... Yeah. I mean, listen, I don't know whether or not the Olympics is good. I just, it sucks that there was like the first nerd emperor who's like, oh, no sports ball, please. Maybe. He may have just, it may have just been that he was banning other pagan shit,

but like that stuff was less popular than the Olympics. And so people kind of lied about, I don't know. I'm not an emperor Theodosius, the first expert. I just know people have cast doubt on the fact that the idea that he killed the Olympics. We'll never know, probably. At any rate, by the time the Roman Empire, the Western Roman Empire falls,

we're not doing Olympics anymore. They are a fading memory and they would stay that way until a French man with a ridiculous mustache was born in 1863. I'm gonna ask Sophie to get us a picture of that man's mustache up on the old screen here. Yeah. But his name was Pierre de Coubertin

and he became French French by which I mean He was born at a terrible time to be French because when he's seven or so He's born in like 1863. So he has seven or eight when the Emperor Napoleon the third decides You know who I want to start a fight with? Prussia Yeah, best guy he just he just went in there and was like, I'm gonna be like my great uncle. What was he?

He was like a nephew or some shit. Yeah, he was like a great uncle. We've done the episodes on him. I forget the actual, it's kind of a tortured. Yeah, but he's like, I'm gonna do it, but more shitty and lose faster. I'm gonna be really bad at it. Instead of beating the Prussians at a war,

I'm gonna lose so badly that they create Germany. But look at this guy's mustache. My God. What a, that's a, one thing you can't critique the man on is his facial hair. He looks great. Yeah, he looks like he's just railed a triple. It's incredible stuff.

I love it. Oh my God, this guy. Every pic I click, it just gets better. This man, this man couldn't, it's what, I know he actually did live outside, like past the 1800s, but he shouldn't have. Like that is an 1890s face. That's, he's perfect for the 1890s.

Pierre's family were aristocrats and he was their fourth child. His dad, and again, they're aristocrats. His dad doesn't have to do anything for a living. So he's like a painter and he's a royalist. He believes in bringing, I think it might've been the Bourbons back as kings. And his childhood suffered from the fact that the whole royalist cause in France kind of takes a shit after 1871, which seems to have made his dad miserable and his dad seems to have kind of taken it out

on the family. Unlike a lot of European aristocrats, de Coubertin is gonna grow up profoundly anti-war. He is actually never kind of not unique in this period, but it's kind of refreshing really rare. He's never one of these guys who's like, ah, the gallantry of combat. Because his earliest memories are like,

we got our asses kicked. We should never have a war again. Yeah. We're not good at it anymore. We had one good Napoleon and the other guy sucks. Everything's gone to shit since him. We had bourbons, we had the Duke d'Or Leon guy became the thing.

Like we can't do any of this shit. Yeah, let's stop. So he's a great student. He goes to Jesuit school, which is like those are, that's the, if you're like at all Catholic-y, that's where you wanna go back in this period. But he refuses to follow his father's wishes because his dad wants him to join the military,

which again had been kind of the expected thing for folks in his chunk of the aristocracy. By the time he's a young adult, de Coobertine has decided he wants to study law and history. And he seems to have kind of thoroughly concluded that like my father's France failed, right? Like the culture in which I was raised in is a failure and we need to make changes, which he's not wrong about. At age 20, he encounters a book called Tom Brown's School Days.

This is a really influential, maybe the most influential piece of fiction in educational history, because it both, because of how popular it is, like the English boarding school system had existed before, because this book is literally about it. And in fact, it's like fictionalizing

an actual English, like basically principal, Tom Arnold, who was like- Tom Arnold? Yes, yes, that Tom Arnold. He has deep roots, deep roots. He has also been around for a while, goddamn. And was, yes, this was the thing he did before he was in, what was it, Coneheads?

He was in Coneheads. Oh, he was in the Stupids. The Stupids, the Stupids. Jesus Christ. So this is one of the most influential pieces of fiction in educational history, because not only does it like create the cultural image of the English boarding school system as this incredibly like renowned,

it's part of why people from all over the rest of the world start enrolling like rich people in English boarding schools, right? Is the success of this book. And it also launches the genre of boarding school novel as like a thing. So this is literally like the, this is like the start of the DNA line

that ends in Harry Potter is Tom Brown School Days, right? These are directly related. Like we get Harry Potter because of Tom Brown School Days. It's like the first YA novel. Yes. I love this. Yeah, it, I mean, it has a lot to do with that. Yeah. Tom Brown School Days focused on the Rugby School, like the first YA novel. I love this. Yeah, I mean, it has a lot to do with that, yeah. Tom Brown's school days focused on the rugby school,

which is again run by Tom Arnold. In one later article on the subject, a guy named Volker Kluge writes, Arnold sought to educate his students by including sports and community games for Christian gentlemen. I was confronted with something completely new and unexpected, athletic education, Cuberteen wrote.

Now, Arnold actually didn't like sports. He's one of those guys where he's like, I don't actually, I think this is kind of like a little common for me, but if you don't give boys a way to tire themselves out, they'll masturbate. So this is the best option that we have, right? It always goes back to that.

It's always someone trying to stop you from coming as a teen. What the fuck? The entire root of Victorian civilization is stopping boys from coming. That's all that it's about. How do we stop this? In an article for the Daily Beast, Candida Moss writes, Arnold believed that in order to create Christian gentlemen, he had to replace bad impulses with good.

Arnold himself wasn't a particular fan of sport, but he preferred it to fighting or poaching. If you exhaust young men and promote the idea of sportsmanship, you will keep them out of trouble. So, Cupertine, he takes on this and he's going to take it further, right? But this idea that like sporting kills bad impulses

in young men, right? And he's not as obsessed with coming as he is with violence, right? And he's not as obsessed with coming as he is with violence, right? But he's going to become increasingly convinced that somewhere in sporting lies the solution to all of these wars that keep happening. Yeah, I kind of feel that. There's something to that there,

where you're just like, what if instead of everyone just killing a bunch of people every few years. What if we all just fucking had a Magic the Gathering tournament and figured it out from there? I get it. Yeah, I've seen some, not quite sports riots, but I've seen some really rowdy fights over sports in Germany between German and French fans.

And I thought at the time, was like, well, this is a real move up from World War I. This is so much better than the last time you guys got angry at each other No one's getting gassed, you know, everyone is just kind of like losing a couple teeth. What an innovation Cooper teen spent the 1880s traveling around the world through the US and UK and Switzerland and meeting all sorts of advocates for youth sports and sporting organ associations and Switzerland and meeting all sorts of advocates for youth sports and sporting organizations. Particularly influential was a meeting with the Peace League.

And this is an activist group who taught that boxing was a great way to like prevent war, right? Like if you, and I guess partly, yeah, I get that like giving people a healthy outlet for physical aggression could be useful in that. But also there's a lot of head injuries that come with boxing. And we know that head injuries

contribute directly to war. Yeah, listen, there's pros and cons to this idea, but I get it, I get it. It could've, you know. You can see the logic. It doesn't stop war. You know, they were ultimately wrong. Yes, logic stop or you know, it is ultimately wrong Yes, but I get trying it out for a little bit. It's not like yeah, it is It's one of those things

I both want to make some bit jokes because of how like wrong this guy is But also I can see the logic like at the time you can't he's not It's it's not dumb or like a shitty for like wanting this to work. I also wish it had worked. It's better logic than, you know, oh, this will stop, you know, kids from coming. Yeah. That of course is not going to be. Well, I don't even know what their thought process is, because I've never been too tired to jack off. No, no, no, no, no young man ever has been.

No young man has ever been. We all always have a little extra room for jello Yeah, I know what I mean. Yeah, and it's it's also like he's got better logic than the guys who are like well We've built the deadliest gun ever surely this will stop war No one's gonna want to get in front of one of these guys so yeah over Yeah, no one's gonna feed an entire generation of their young men into these things We built a giant human meat grinder. Anyways, war is over now, right?

Oh no, the conveyor belt is pulling more men into it. Oh, cruel fate. So Cooper Teen wrote that boxing could be a peacemaker. And still, again, this whole process is what culminates in him being inspired to revive the Olympics, right? He revives the Olympics because he has this messianic belief in the power of sports to end global conflict.

And I think he's mostly, when he talks about ending war, he's not talking about ending all these little colonial wars. He's primarily talking about like, avoiding another European war, right? Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah, a war that's that will cost more lives for, you know, his own people. Whereas like a nice colonial war is just like, no, that's just a simple eradication. Yeah, we don't even hear about that on the news.

Yeah, exactly. That's not even people. Don't worry about that, you kill all them. So as de Cupertine wrote, let us export rowers, runners and fencers. There is the free trade of the future. And on the day when it is introduced within the walls of old Europe, the cause of peace will have received a new and mighty stay. Sure. It's a nice idea.

Yeah. Eventually he convenes a Congress in 18, and obviously I am yada yadaing a lot about this process. Sure. We don't need to get into the weeds of it, but they have a Congress in 1893 to decide like, he and a bunch of other folks who are part of like major sporting organizations in the West,

how are we gonna revive the Olympic games, right? It is decided that these games should be for amateur athletes only, not paid professionals. This is the first of what are gonna become mini breaks with the original Olympics. In the ancient Greek Olympics, there was no rule against them making money for winning. You could bet on shit, they didn't have any problem with that.

There's also, as far as we know, there were no rules against doping. Now, doping was different in ancient Greece. We know that they would eat a lot of beef because they thought it was like, it worked the way steroids do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, would like eat a lot of beef because they thought it was like it worked the way steroids do. You know, if you eat a lot of beef, then you become strong as cow. Everyone knows it's simple. Yeah. Beef makes you cow strong. If you eat whole horse, you become run as fast

as horse. It's simple logic. Everyone knows. You eat bald eagle, you can fly real hard. Everybody knows this. Now, the other thing I should note is that like at the start of the revived Olympics, there are no rules against doping. And in fact, people are going to do lots of drugs in the early Olympics and it's fine. Yeah. I'm okay with that. Early Olympics, you know, that's that's they they were figuring shit out It's considered it actually may have been less common than just because it was considered ungentlemanly

But it wasn't like forbidden for a while, right? And so a lot of times people wouldn't do dope just because it wouldn't dope just because like well, I am a gentleman You know, yeah anyway there's a lot of confusion in trying to understand what the Olympics were meant to be when they were revived in the use of the word amateur. Because like, if I were to say, oh, that golf player is a real amateur,

you would interpret that to mean, well, he's not very good, right? Right, right. Yeah, you would not, an average person would never look at a world-class Olympic gymnast and go, wow, what an amateur, right? Right, of course. Like that's just not how we use that word.

Yes. But in the late 1800s and early 1900s, that word had a very different meaning. And I want to quote from an article for Vice by L.A. Jennings here. Sports in the 19th century remained a luxury of the middle and upper classes, with lower class athletes routinely excluded from participation. The rules for the 1878 Henley Regatta declared, no person shall be considered an amateur oarsman or scholar who is or has been by trader employment for wages,

a mechanic, artisan or laborer. Sports historian Alan Gutman explains that in its earliest institution, rules of amateurism were invented by the Victorian middle and upper classes to exclude the lower orders from the play of the leisure class. Will Pierre de Cunha... class. That sounds about right though.

That's kind of what it is. I mean, listen, whenever people talk about, you know, NCAA basketball players, like trying to get a little bit of money for the fact that these schools use their images and sell merch based on them, but they can't make it single dime. It does feel very similar. It's like, no, we've put these rules in place

so that you stay poor and we can make some money. Yeah, and that is, we are talking about the origins of why the NCAA be that way, right? Like that all has its roots in this. And in fact, the bastard for the Avery Brundage is the guy who is like has a major role in why the NCAA adopts those like student athlete regulations. But it's important to know that like kind of where

where we are now with like these student athletes and it's like, well, you know, we can make millions of dollars off of you and you can mortgage your body and your future health but you can't make any money off of it because then you wouldn't be an amateur. That has its origins and like the origins of that are these rich people being like,

well, poor people like sports too. And they're often better at them than us. So let's just say if you make money doing anything, you can't compete with us. If you have to work for a living, you can't play our games. These are just for amateurs. Yeah, it is. That is exactly why it was invented.

They absolutely were just like, man, these guys are way too good at rowing. Yeah, exactly. And to be fair, Cupertine and the Olympics are actually a step forward from this very regressive, it's still regressive by modern standards, but from these, that 1878 rule,

like, yeah, nobody can take part in this if you have to work for a living, right? Quote, when Pierre de Coubertin called for the revival of the Olympic games in 1892, the primary discussion amongst the elite group of educators and public figures who formed the first version of the Olympic committee was to determine who would be allowed to compete in the games.

In other words, who counts as an amateur? Cause it's very, this word is still very important to them, but they are going to kind of redefine it, right? Initially it had meant like, well, only rich people can have the time to become world-class athletes cause they don't have to like work for a living. And it's going to evolve through this period.

In 1894, the workers' rights movement has made enough inroads that even the kind of out of touch elites that the Cuberteen works with to start the Olympics, they're not going to say if you have to work for wages, you can't compete, right? But they are going to try and exclude working class people anyway, by basically saying you just can't make money from sports, right?

Which still excludes people, because only rich people can afford to like practice enough to become world-class without ever making money on it Right? Yeah. It's still mostly excludes people. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I guess it's like someone if they run for a living because they have a job as, you know, a circus performer running away from crazy, crazy lion, but like for the most part it's like, yeah, no one's playing basketball on any other level except for professionally or for money. And there's also a degree of a legitimate concern,

which is that these guys, as much as they hate to admit it, recognize that pro boxers are always going to be better. Like, and most pro boxers are like poor people who came up fighting the nastiest kind of fights you can fucking conceive of, right? To be able to become like, make a lot of money as a boxer. That guy, some like rich dude, he's like the 14th Earl of Chancelberry or whatever.

That guy is going to get his skull turned into powder by 1890s Mike Tyson, right? Yes. We must ban anyone who does it professionally Sculptor into powder by 1890s Mike Tyson, right? We must ban anyone who does it professionally unless we get our heads mashed in by an Irishman. Yeah, a man whose ears are entirely cauliflower. Yeah, they're like, he's not allowed. No, he can't compete.

No, no, not him, not him. So eventually they come up with a new definition for amateur, which is somebody who has profited specifically for their participation in a sport that they want to compete in for the Olympics. As Alan Goodman notes, through most of the 20th century, amateurism was defended with the argument

that fair play and good sportsmanship are possible only when sports are an athlete's avocation, never his or her vocation. Okay. Part of what's going on here, we're going to see this with when we finally do get to Avery Brundage, there's this attitude among like the wealthy and the aristocracy who all have a lot of money that there's something gross about capitalism still. They are the winners of this system, but they recognize that like

the way in which we compete under capitalism kind of ruins fun stuff. But they're right about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. But their way of dealing with it is to just try to keep poor people away. Yeah. So the first actual Olympics is gonna hit in 1896. It is, you know, more gender woke than the original Olympics. Women had not been allowed to participate in the original Olympics, the ancient Greeks. Not really big fans of women.

Yeah, yeah. They didn't even fuck them half the time. Not really, yeah, not famous for that. So they, you know, the new Olympics is going to be a lot better at that, but it is biased heavily towards men and women of means. In the longer term, the fact that this veneration of amateurism

is initially bundled up in the heart of the whole idea will provide an opportunity for Olympic officials to execute petty grievances and fuck with athletes they don't like for whatever reason. We are talking bullshit power trip stuff. And the king of that kind of shit is going to be the future of International Olympic Committee President,

Avery Brundage. Now we finally got into our bastard. So let's take an ad break here and then we'll come back to talk about Avery. From KT Studios, the number one podcast, The Idaho Massacre is back. The new developments in the University of Idaho murder case. It was an unimaginable crime. In the early morning of November 13th, 2022, four University of Idaho students killed. Police have no suspect and no murder weapon.

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Or face death. Listen to season two of the Idaho massacre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It all started with two federal agents who heard a rumor. She mentions, well, there is this alleged murder to have taken place. There was just one problem. They had no clue who the victim was.

We have to do our job. And we have to find out who did they kill? It had been 15 years since this alleged murder. Was it still possible to unearth the truth? I used to watch the Unsolved Mystery shows and I often thought about calling because I was like this is this is not

right how can a person get killed and no one knows anything. I'm Jay Calpurn and this is Deep Cover The Nameless Man. Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. What's the hardest question you've ever asked your mom? Mom, what happened to your sister Margarita? For me, it's about a murder that's haunted my family for decades. They said that they took her, and the next day she was already dead. To find the answers, I went to the place where my family is from, El Salvador, and found

that the story starts with a priest who was killed on the altar and sparked a war. I'm Jasmine Romero, and on Sacred Scandal Nation of Saints, join me as we uncover an unholy war, one that includes government cover-ups and politicians turn death squad leaders. But I'll also tell you the story of one family, mine. Because on this journey, I found out that we had more secrets than I knew. Listen to Sacred Scandal, Nation of Saints, as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeart radio

app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. New from double asterisks and iHeart podcasts, a 10 part true crime podcast series. Emergency 911. This is a fire in my partner life. This court is on fire. In the early morning hours of September 6th, 2016, St. Louis rapper and iconic Ferguson activist Darren Seals was found shot dead. Every day Darren would tell her, they are going to try to kill me.

A young man in 2016 was killed on this block. I'm a podcast journalist. And I'm a former state senator, Maria Chappelle-Nadal. I was in the movement with Darren and I've spent two years with co-host Ray Novischelsky Investigating his death even if I did want to tell you something. That's a dangerous game to play FBI did this to myself. They've been following him for months. That's enough proof right there all episodes available now Listen to after the uprising season 2 the murder of Darren Seals on the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever

you get your podcasts. Hey fam, I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that is guaranteed to light up your day. Every weekday we bring you conversations with the culture makers who inspire us. Like our recent episode with legendary singer-songwriter and mental health advocate, Jewel. All of our hearts are destined to be broken at some point.

It's what we do with the pieces that make us extraordinary. And so it's each of our jobs to learn to become alchemists, to turn the poison into medicine. And we all have some kind of resource available to us. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back! Do you like the Olympics, Matt? Like watching them and stuff? This is an Olympic year, I think.

Yeah, so I don't like them nor watch them, but when it's on, it's something that like occasionally I'll just like turn on a TV and I'll be like, oh shit, losing, you know, or like, Oh, that guy's doing a shot put and I'll sit and watch for a second. And then I'll think to myself, like, how the fuck did they fill up all those seats? Yeah, usually the question I have, but I don't mind people who love it. You know, if you like watching people throw a javelin power to you. I wish I was that easily entertained. Yeah, I'm torn. Cause like you, I don't really like watching the Olympics. And I also recognize that they often destroy the cities

that they're hosted in. 100%. Yeah. I kind of think we should have just picked one place to do them. Right, yeah. And destroyed that. And destroyed that.

Yeah, really fuck up a single city in Greece. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, they're not using it. No, or do it in like downtown Dallas. Just absolutely annihilate, like force all of these international dignitaries to get on the fucking high five for 17 and a half hours. They gotta go to Dallas.

Every two years I'm in fucking Dallas. Just absolutely. Take one of the worst traffics that, I mean, they're trying to do it in LA. That won't be any better. It's gonna be a nightmare. What a fucking nightmare. My mom prides herself in letting me know that I was conceived during the 84 Olympics. Yeah, but which event?

I don't know. I don't want to, she just says it and I run away. I don't want to she just says it and I run away I don't want to know where she fucked during when I don't what don't take this the wrong way But you do seem like a shot putt, baby I mean that as a compliment. Yeah, that's yeah, sure honest sport. Yeah. Yeah top heavy guy Let's see what you're saying. I didn't need that Balls of steel. That's what you read. Yes. Yes. So, Avery Brundage. That's what you meant. Yes, yes, there we go.

Avery Brundage, let's talk about Avery. Born on September 28th, 1887 in Detroit, Michigan. Hell yeah. Avery would be nine years old for the very first Olympics. He was one of the people, the aristocrats behind the early Olympic games actually wanted to keep out because he is definitely working class.

He's going to be very rich, but he is born a working class kid. His dad is a stone cutter. Damn. Yeah, that's like, that's the OG working class job. Yeah, that's the original fucking working class job. Yeah. Stone cutter and pit digger.

And in classic working class fashion, his father abandons the family when Avery is five Which is a thing people could get away with a lot more easy, but easily back before the internet Yeah, you just walk just leave yeah, he goes out for a packet of smoke Where's dad gone forever? Who you gonna ask you're the man of the house now, Avery. Hope you know what to do, taxes. Avery has one younger brother, Charles, and they spend their early childhood

bouncing around with relatives. We don't get a lot of context as to how this impacted him, but it doesn't interfere with his schooling. He is an excellent student. He wins an essay contest in 1901 at age 13 that secures him a trip to see President McKinley's second inauguration Yeah, he really got in on the McKinley train right before the end of it there. So that's the one who oh, yeah Yeah, he gets got yeah Anton show gosh

Was like an anarchist kills him sure was sure that's the one one that we got Was like an anarchist kills him sure was sure that's the one one that we got Yeah, there's a there's a pretty good song from a musical about that sung by Doogie Howser so check that one out Yeah in general aside from the dad abandoned them thing his you know not a bad early 1900s childhood he survives so that's doing good. He makes it past all the cholera and the Spanish flu. So, he's not doing bad. He makes a living as a teenager,

as like a boy delivering newspapers. It's kind of unclear to me how poor he really is. One source I've read claims he had to sell newspapers to help his mother buy bread. And that when he got into sports in high school, he had to build his own equipment to be able to play. I kind of have come to think some of this is myth-making. He is definitely working class,

but he has a big family that seems to have been very supportive of he and his brother. And his uncle Ed is the Republican leader of Chicago's North Side. During a time when that means you are taking every bribe. Yeah. Conceivable. Like his his his uncle Ed is the attorney general of Illinois eventually. Like that man is that man is getting so bribed.

Yeah, there's no way. OK. This is really poking holes in the whole working class thing here. Yeah. So one thing everyone agrees upon is that Brundage was an exceptional athlete. He becomes a track star near the end of his public school life and when he graduates and moves to the U of Illinois to study civil engineering, he plays basketball and continues to do track.

He is sort of a stereotypical jock. He's a popular kid. He's the leader of his fraternity. He's one of those guys who would have posted quotes from Friday Night Lights on their Facebook wall every like hour and a half, if he had lived to see the modern era. Hell yeah.

So a cool guy is what you're saying. So a cool guy. Cool guy, my favorite guy from high school. Why is that the show that pops up in your brain? Because I grew up in Texas, Sophie. No, it is a vibe, that's crazy. My high school sports stadium was more expensive than most state sports stadiums,

and my high school did not have a good football team. That's just, we just had a $10 million stadium cause you do. Yeah, cause you gotta be ready in case someone gets good. Yeah, so you might have a kid who's really good at some point Or is it that you find Kyle Chandler to be very handsome man? I don't even know who that is. Both things can be true Sophie. He's a star.

I didn't watch my parents watched that show. I avoided it like the plague. I just know what it means to people Speaking of what sports means to Avery, since they don't have Facebook, he has to settle with writing articles for his school paper. If he had Facebook, he would have found his dad. He would have found his dad? Yeah. But no. But no.

So he's got to write shit like this, which I found in a 1972 Sports Illustrated article that's talking about his life. One of his contributions was entitled, The football field is a sifter of men. No better place than a football field could be chosen to test out a man. Here a fellow is stripped of most of the finer little things contributed by ages of civilization, and his virgin nature is exposed to the hot fire of battle.

It is man against man, and there is no more thorough a mode of exposing one's true self Yo, you've definitely exposed your virgin nature Football the crucible of manhood touch one boo, bro. You want a fucking game. That's a crucible of manhood There's a burst kashi the afghan version of polo which is played on a horseback with the corpse of a goat as the ball Yeah, that's right. That's a crucible of manhood right there. Yeah, yeah place of burts kashi, right? Don't give me this football shit. You guys didn't even know what a tackle back then So Avery is look they hadn't invented steroids. It couldn't have been very good football.

No, yeah. They were wearing all leather. Exactly, exactly. You know, they were, people were definitely getting hurt, but- Yes, yes. From very little. They would have been demolished.

But not in a way that was as impressive as the way our current professional monsters hurt each other. Yeah, yeah. You don't know shit about CTE. Yeah. So Avery is a smart kid who's obsessed with sports. And like Cuberteen, he comes to see them

as a potential remedy for every problem of modernity. Now, Cuberteen is obsessed with peace because his childhood had been defined by a war and avoiding conflict through sportsmanship. Avery, on the other hand, seems to, because he is a poor kid who makes a lot of money as an adult, he comes to see athletic competition as proof of the fact of the wisdom

and goodness of capitalism, right? Because he's good at capitalism, right? And so sports has to mirror the thing that he has found meaning in. Sure. Avery gets a job as a construction superintendent for a major architectural firm, and he personally supervised the construction of 3% of the buildings built in Chicago during the years that he

had this job. So he is very capable. He's got real money. He has all the bribes this guy has taken, my God. Jesus Christ. Throughout his early to mid-twenties, he continued to compete as an amateur. In fact, working a day job completely outside of the field of athletic endeavor, Avery Brundage was the very model

of what the Olympics now meant by the term amateur. Now the early 1900s are a different time in athletic competition. And Avery was into some stuff that I was going to say was very weird sports shit until I realized this sport is still a sport today. We just don't talk about it because it's kind of lame. But I'm gonna read from a Sports Illustrated article

about his chief sport. Although heel and toe walking, the discus and shot put were his specialties, he became a devotee to the tortures of the pentathlon, decathlon, and most excruciatingly of all, what he fondly calls the old American all around. Now I'm not shitting on the pentathlon and dec cathalon and stuff. Those are like really difficult physically demanding things It's just incredibly funny to me that heel-to-toe walking. It's a sport

I still I I'm trying to picture heel-to-toe walking. Is it just is that I? Gallivanting I what is It looks like If you did you ever like live in a place where like, there would be like groups of usually like, oh, and I don't say this to insult them, but usually like middle-aged women who would have like a walking group together.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And you would speed walk. My mom sped walk. It looks like that to me. But when people describe it, they're always like, this is a shockingly, race walking is actually one of the most intense and physically demanding sports you can do.

And I'm sure they're right, but it also does, I don't believe them. At the same time. Matt, did you picture Chevy at Hills Park? Yes, I did. I was just like, there's a first thing I thought of. I was like, I've seen all these old ladies doing the speed walk and you know.

I'm willing to believe it's good exercise, but like as an adult and president of the Olympic committee Avery Brundage told Sports Illustrated that an 880 yard heel and toe walk he did was quote the closest a man can come to experiencing the pangs of childbirth It's possible, I don't know, man. Come on, bro. It's possible. I don't know, man. That might be a little much. Listen, I bet it's taxing, but the problem is, is that you can't think about it without being like, is there Olympic crab walking?

Is that also a thing? Right. That doesn't seem that bad. Why make it silly? My mom did speed walking, and the only thing she ever compared to childbirth was kidney stones, which seems to be pretty widely done. So I assume kidney stones are a comparable experience in some ways, but I've never had either.

I've never had either. So I would rather do heel to toe walking than push a kidney stone through my dick hole. I'll heel to toe walk all day long. All day long. I don't give a fuck. Anyway, race walking is still an Olympic event, even though I made fun of it. So if you're a race walker out there, I'm sure we're going to get the race walking hive.

Get really angry at us on Reddit or something. Yeah, I'm not trying to shit talk your sport, but it's very silly that he compares this to childbirth. But he is a really good athlete. In 1914, at age 26, Brundage won the US Championship in the American All-Around, which is like, it's a series of 10 events, the 100-yard dash, a high jump, high hurdle shot put, broad jump, 56-pound weight throw, pole vault,

and then that 880-foot walk, plus like a hammer throw and a run, all done in a single afternoon, which is like, that's a whole thing to do, right? Yeah, I know, that sounds taxing. That's a lot. He's very good at Like that is a- Yeah, no, that sounds taxing. That's a lot. He's very good at it. Sports writers in 1918 call him

the greatest athlete of his day. So that's all very impressive. You could look at Avery Brundage's early life as an almost seamless path of success from poverty to like wealth, to athletic greatness, with one gap in his resume of perfection. And that gap is this. In 1912, he partook in his only Olympics as a competitor.

In Illinois, he had been a star, but in the Olympics, he finishes sixth in the pentathlon and 15 in the decathlon. And if we're looking at objective terms, neither of those is bad, you know? You made it to the Olympics, that's pretty good, right? You got to hang out in the Olympic village, that sounds sick. Yeah, you got to, I mean, I assume they That's sick Yeah, you got to I mean I assume they had less sex back

I assume at least Avery wasn't having that much sex definitely was not writing essays like that this guy's about race walking Yeah, yeah, he doesn't have much game anytime he meets a lady he starts talking about how he knows the pain of childbirth Virtues of heel-to- toe walking. You'll never understand it. But he actually drops out of the pentathlon before finishing because he realizes he can't get enough points to actually medal, which I don't know, might kind of seems like bad sportsmanship, but I've never been to the Olympics.

I don't know. Jim Thorpe, the best athlete in the field at the time, wins gold in both events Jim Thorpe is a Native American athlete, right? This is going to be very important because later in life Avery is going to nurse something of a grudge against Thorpe When Avery becomes president of the International Olympic Committee Thorpe loses his medals and there was like a move to like come on give him back is you know he was a great athlete and Brundage is always gonna be like,

no, fuck it. He broke the rules, right? And some people will suggest maybe it's because he was kind of, you know, jealous still. He never got over losing. Despite his frustration or perhaps because of it, the whole experience of participating in the Olympics hit Avery as a sort of religious experience.

He later wrote this, What social, racial, religious, or political prejudices of any kind might have existed were soon forgotten and sportsmen from all over the world with different ideas, assorted viewpoints and various manners of living mingled on the field and off with the utmost friendliness transported by an overflowing Olympic spirit. My conversion, along with many others, to Cupertine's religion, the Olympic movement, was complete." And I kind of think that what's happening here is that people didn't travel as much

internationally back then. It was harder. And he goes overseas as a young man and makes a bunch of friends and has an intense physical experience and he walks away in the same way people do when they go to raves and stuff now for festivals, right? He has that kind of, this is like Burning Man, right? Yeah, yeah. They're like, damn, you know, it's just like, it's the only place in the world where you

can feel at one with all of humanity. And it's like, what are you talking about? It's like, Bonnaroo. Yeah, exactly. And like any kind of person who has that sort of experience as a young person, he's going And it's like, what are you talking about? It's like, Bonnaroo. Yeah, exactly. And like any kind of person who has that sort of experience as a young person, he's going to spend some time convinced this is the way to save the world.

And unlike most people, he never moves past that, right? It's normal to take ecstasy at a really good concert and be convinced that you found the secret to war. But like, you haven't, no one has. A few years later, taking ecstasy just to play some video games at home. And you're just like, you haven't, no one has. But then you find yourself a few years later, taking ecstasy just to play some video games at home. And you're just like, I have a drug problem. Oh, this is no longer as fun as it was.

So it was not uncommon for dedicated Olympians, particularly those who went on to work for the Olympics professionally, to kind of worship the games. This is a religion to the people who are most into it. It really is. In his book, Berlin Games, Guy Walters writes, "'Coubertine was almost regarded as Christ,

"'and Ballet Le Tour, who is like his second "'in the Olympic Committee, as his disciple. "'These men were infallible "'because they embodied an idealism "'that far transcended the grubby, "'quotidian strivings of humanity. "'It was a pagan idealism., it's pageantry godless, but its chauvinist adherents were nothing less than fanatics,

men for whom no other point of view was acceptable. If anyone obstructed their ideals, then they would be subjected to the most vicious ad hominem attacks. So they have a toxic fan base. Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah. The Olympics is breaking new ground there. They're Star Wars nerds.

Yes, yes, yes. This Olympics is breaking new ground there. They're Star Wars nerds. Yes, yes, yes. This is like how everything works now, but it is noted at the time as being pretty unique, right? There's nothing quite like the Olympics and it's toxic fan base. Yeah, I told them that I don't really like the heel to toe running and they called me a slur.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They mailed a bomb to my dad's house because I joked about walking not being hard. Starting in 1919, Brundage began to take on more, because again, by 1919, he's not old, but he's like old for competitive athletics. So he starts taking on more and more roles in sports administration. He initially takes on roles in the amateur athletic association or AAU,

which what is at one point the rival of the NCAA, this is one of those things where they both kind of come up at the same time and they're kind of trying to do at least very similar things. And so they hate each other, right? There's like- No, I'm gonna rip these kids off. Yeah. I want to rip off these children. I'm going to profit from their pain.

They like exploit them. They're pretty nasty fight for a while. They're like, there's a period where athletes will get blacklisted for playing in like NCAA events or AAU events by the other group. Right. And Avery's actually going into negotiate a detente between the AAU events by the other group, right? And Avery's actually going in to negotiate a detente between the AAU and the NCAA. And part of how he does this is he offers the NCAA the power to certify college students as amateurs, right? Oh, shit.

Yeah, he is the start of all this. Now, at the point he does it, college sports is not an industry in the way that it is today. I don't even think it's realistic to say he would have conceived of, sports period, is it? Like the best professional players of the day are making decent money,

but not like they're not getting hundreds of millions of dollars, they're not getting anything close to that. Right? In fact, he probably thinks it's antithetical to sportsmanship to make money off of it. Yes, yes he does. And it's important to note that while that is an excuse now for ripping these kids off at his time,

there's not the industry behind it to profit from. So I do think he comes by this belief honestly, even though I think this is a really dumb move. Yeah. Like I don't think he's actually, I don't think he's full of shit in the way that like modern NCAA officials are. Right, yeah, no, they all know what they're doing,

but he might've been just a little bit more idealistic about it. Right, right, right. And this is a bigger story than we have the time to lay out, but the gist of the problem that comes from this is that colleges are going to immediately realize that taking a hard line on amateur status allows them to let kids work for free

and keep all the money for themselves. This has led to some, this leads very soon after Avery does what he does. This leads to some horrific situations. I'm going to quote from an article by Ellie Simpson and Lauren Changprett about this. Ray Denison was an Army veteran, father of three and a football player for the Fort Lewis A&M Aggies on a scholarship. In September 1955, he shattered the base of his skull on the knee of a ball carrier during a game. He died 30 hours after the incident.

Denison's wife, Billy, filed a lawsuit against Fort Lewis A&M for workers compensation. The National Collegiate Athletic Association argued that Denison was a student athlete because he was on scholarship, meaning he was not eligible to receive benefits. In its defense, the NCAA avoided such terms as club since that was how professionals referred to their teams. The organization added an amateurism pledge to every scholarship signing. The NCAA won the case. Coined by then NCAA president, Walter Byers, for that case,

the term student athlete is used as legal precedent to limit the benefits and compensation college athletes can receive while playing full time. So that happens not all that long. We're talking like 40 years, a little less than 40 years, but like that is the ultimate result of what Avery sets in motion. Yeah.

So in 1928, Avery is elected the head of the American Olympic Association, replacing Douglas MacArthur. Oh shit, D MacArthur. The guy who's not long after this gonna try to nuke Korea. shit, V MacArthur. Not long after this gonna try to nuke Korea. Yeah, I love that. Doesn't that kind of put to rest the whole idea

of sports being a way to stop war when Douglas MacArthur is. He's out, Avery's in, 1928. And by this point, the new Olympics has gone through some growing pains of its own. After almost 20 years establishing itself World War I through a wrench in the plan to 1936 Berlin Games. The games had been basically set

before Hitler came to power, right? I mean, it's not in power in 28, but like Hitler comes to power in 33, the games had been set before then. And once the Nazis take over, this is gonna become a serious issue, right? But the games, even before Hitler is in, the fact that there's going to be an Olympics in Berlin

is a big deal for Germany, because after World War I, Germany is this pariah nation, right? And the 36 Olympics are seen by the Germans, not wrongfully, as being like, this is kind of us re-entering the community of nations. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Everything's cool now. Everyone will be normal. This is the Weimar guys talking. Like, don't worry, by 36, everything will be so fucking chill. People will welcome us with open arms. Yeah, we've got some problems, but we'll have some figured out by September 35 at the latest.

Yeah, it'll just be a few years from now, but people will still love Germany's end. Don't worry. So Brundage gets elected president of the American Olympic Committee in 1929, a role he will hold until 1953. But later that year, disaster struck. The economy crashed and Brundage lost his first company and the bulk of his fortune.

On the brink of bankruptcy, he responded to losing his money by bullshitting that he was still rich. He describes going about town with quote, my chest out and not a nickel in my pocket, but no one knew except my accountant and secretary. He's like, I'm gonna still look rich even though I'm poor. Yeah.

And I don't know if he's really- His monocle just gets bigger and bigger. It's like, oh, I just made more money. Again, he's described as having lost all his money, but the way he writes things, I kind of think he, he took a hit, but like he was not on the streets or anything, right? He was not, it just like hurt him, right?

But he does start another company. He does recover and rebuild his fortune. I kind of think he just kind of exaggerates the degree to which he was down during the depression because it's more impressive if you come back from being completely broke as opposed to like, well, I went from rich to kind of struggling middle class and then I got rich again, you know?

Yeah, yeah. There's no rapper who was just like started from the middle. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Started from honestly doing pretty okay. Yeah, yeah, started from the top, still at the top. Yeah. Everything's fine, has always been fine.

Either way, whatever the truth is, he would later mock businessmen who lost their money and committed suicide in the depression by saying that they lacked the character building discipline of competitive sport. Wouldn't have shot himself if he'd done more heel and toe walking. Yeah, exactly. There's all these people jumping out of buildings.

Have you tried jumping over a hurdle? Yeah, over something slightly higher than you know you can jump over and seeing how well you do Yeah, stop shooting yourself in the head start shooting and javelling But the early 30s Avery is back on top and we were gonna talk about what he does next But you know who's never not been on top Who the sponsors of this motherfucking podcast.

That's right. They started from the top. Still at the top. That's right. We're going to buy some socks or I don't know. I don't know what the product is. Could be socks. Could be the Washington State Highway Patrol. No way to know. Either one. From KT Studios, the number one podcast, The Idaho Massacre is back.

The new developments in the University of Idaho murder case. It was an unimaginable crime. In the early morning of November 13th, 2022, four University of Idaho students killed. Police have no suspect and no murder weapon. A nationwide manhunt captivates the world. Moscow PD saying today they're now looking for a white Honda Elantra. Then a shocking arrest. There is now a suspect in custody.

This is a PhD student in criminology. This is the guy. Will he be found innocent? He claims he has an alibi. Or face death. Listen to season two of The Idaho Massacre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's the hardest question you've ever asked your mom? Mom, what happened to your sister Margarita? For me, it's about a murder that's

haunted my family for decades. They said that they took her. And the next day, she was already dead. To find the answers, I went to the place where my family is from, El Salvador, and found that the story starts with a priest who was killed on the altar and sparked a war. I'm Jasmine Romero, and on Sacred Scandal Nation of Saints,

join me as we uncover an unholy war, one that includes government cover-ups and politicians turned death squad leaders. But I'll also tell you the story of one family, mine. Because on this journey, I found out that we had more secrets than I knew. Listen to Sacred Scandal, Nation of Saints, as part of the MyCultura podcast network,

available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It all started with two federal agents who heard a rumor. She mentions, well, there is this alleged murder to have taken place. There was just one problem. They had no clue who the victim was. We have to do our job and we have to find out

who did they kill. It had been 15 years since this alleged murder. Was it still possible to unearth the truth? I used to watch the Unsolved Mystery shows and I often thought about calling because I was like, this is not right. How can a person get killed and no one knows anything? I'm Jay Calvern, and this is Deep Cover, The Nameless Man.

Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts New from double asterisks and I heart podcasts a ten-part true crime podcast series In the early morning hours of September 6 2016 st. Louis rapper an iconic Ferguson activist Darren Seals was found shot dead. Every day Darren would tell her, they are going to try to kill me. A young man in 2016 was killed on this block.

Well, I'm a podcast journalist. And I'm a former state senator, Maria Chappelle-Nadal. I was in the movement with Darren and I've spent two years with co-host Ray Novoselski investigating his death. Even if I did want to tell you something, that's a dangerous game to play. FBI did this to myself. They've been following him for months. That's enough proof right there.

All episodes available now. Listen to After the Uprising Season 2, The Murder of Darren Seals on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey fam, I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the daily podcast from Hello Sunshine

that is guaranteed to light up your day. Every weekday we bring you conversations with the culture makers who inspire us. Ooh, like our recent episode with Jacqueline Novak, host of your other favorite podcast, POOC. What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? That sounds simple, but if you actually go, wait, if I knew I couldn't fail, you might think of something that you just have not allowed yourself to think of before.

Because you just are so sure that you would fail at it that you've never even considered it. That's kind of how I started doing standup. Listen to the Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. So by the early thirties, he's rich again, I assume. That seems to be when he got rich again. It's a little unclear. I don't have access to the man's bank statements.

Either way, he does get rich again. When he dies, he's worth like $20 million. He seems to have credited his love of the Olympics and sportsmanship with instilling in him the values that made his recovery possible. But he was worried, despite the fact that things are doing better for him. He's worried about the growth of sinister socialist movements in Russia and beyond.

At the same time, he finds himself intrigued by a new political strain in Germany. This Hitler chap has some interesting ideas. Fucking A. Why does it always go back to Hitler, Robert? Why? Part of why it goes back to Hitler is that Brundage is like an Olympics worshipper.

And he comes to see the Olympics in somewhat eugenic terms. And in fact, he seems to have felt about athletes the way Hitler felt towards Germans. Great. And I'm gonna quote from Guy Walters here. Brendage also saw in Olympism an enshrinement of his own racist ideals, ideals he shared with the Chicago Association of Commerce

in November, 1929. Perhaps we are about to witness the development of a new race, a race of men actuated by the principles of sportsmanship learned on the playing field, refusing to tolerate different conditions than the other enterprises of life. A race physically strong, mentally alert and morally sound. A race not to be imposed upon, because it is ready to fight for right

and physically prepared to do so. A race quick to help an adversary beaten in fair combat, yet fearlessly resenting injustice or unfair advantage. Yes. Such a short trip from race walking to race science. combat, yet fearlessly resenting injustice or unfair advantage. Such a short trip from race walking to race science. Yeah, that's less than 880 yards for sure. Some problem with it, you know, just the word itself being you're super into race, that's how you become racist.

God damn it. Great stuff. Like I, it's, it's just, I, I don't want to say I get it, but it's like, it's one of those God damn it. Great stuff. I don't want to say I get it, but it's one of those things where you just, whenever people, this is a problem I have with the Olympics in general that makes me uncomfortable, is there is something of a, when they say like, yeah, all the nations are competing and whatnot, it does feel somewhat like race wars, the sport.

Yeah. It has that element to it a little bit. And it's always made me feel icky. And there's this other thing that like the Olympics, de Cupertine seems to legitimately have come by his, I think that this could help us, you know, get past war as a society. And I respect those utopian ideas.

But it does seem like we eventually walk back around to like, well, this isn't literally war, but like, what do you do in war? Well, you heard a lot of kids. And I think about like Larry Nassar molesting all those gymnasts. He's not the only gymnastics coach to have done that. No, certainly not.

And I think about like, oh, you know, the systematic mistreatment and abuse of young men as foot soldiers, I think about stuff like, you know, Soviet Union doping athletes, or like athletes doping in all sorts of countries, right? Like this obsessive need to like, well, we have to win. And anything that we have to do to these athletes in order to allow them to win is okay.

So let's shoot them up with whatever the fuck we can shoot them up with, right? You might be recreating a lot of this. And the shaming of people, you know, of like athletes. They're trying to like ban fucking at the Olympic Village. Right. That's the one great thing about the Olympics. That's why you get good at sports.

Right. Yes. Yes. You can eventually someday be in some sort of fuck village. Nobody ever became the best at a sport to not get laid. I'll say that. Yeah, exactly. Come on So the fact that Avery is kind of arriving at race science by way of here to toe walking

Leads him to occupy an awkward cultural position as Hitler takes power in Germany before Hitler's election The 1936 Olympics had again been promised to Berlin Hitler's election, the 1936 Olympics had again been promised to Berlin. After Hitler comes to power, many Americans, a lot of them are Jewish American athletes, but not exclusively. There's a lot of just people who don't like Nazis decided like, well, now that the Nazis are in charge, we shouldn't participate in these Olympic games, right? Because it will normalize the Third Reich and its oppression of its Jewish citizens and not just the Jewish.

They're not just, there's a lot of people who are, because it's not just Jewish citizens being oppressed, but in general, the Third Reich is doing oppression of its Jewish citizens. And not just in Jewish, there's a lot of people, because it's not just Jewish citizens being oppressed, but in general, the Third Reich is doing a lot of terrible shit. And if we show up there to play the games, we'll kind of be handing them a win and legitimizing the regime, and we shouldn't, right? A lot of people are arguing. This enrages Avery.

His most rigid principle is that the Olympics should never be political. Now, of course, that's not really true. That's what he says. But the way Avery treats the Olympics is deeply political. He just, because whenever he's thinking about something he believes deeply, he doesn't consider that politics. Right. It's not politics. That's just reality. Everyone else is just perverting his reality, which is the only true reality. Yeah.

And I wanna quote again from that Berlin Olympics book. Quote, he also frequently insisted that more than the future of amateur sport was at stake in shielding sport from political manipulation. Upon sport for sport's sake depended the healthy psychological valuation of individual effort and excellence that was at the very heart of a democratic way of life. Moreover, fit bodies and competitive spirits were in Brundage's view,

essential for the continued success of American capitalism at home and abroad. But we never acknowledged the political coloring of his vision of the Olympics. He regarded them as a kind of international mission for spreading democratic values and the continuing ideological battle between communism and the American way of life. Yeah. But that's not political. That's just the natural state of things. That's just fine.

It's just normal stuff. That's not politics, right? Right. Yeah. God is a capitalist. Reality is a capitalist. Right. Communism is the devil.

And most people who self-identify as apolitical are the most political people I've ever met in my entire life. Yes. Right, of course. That's like, you know, the height of privilege is the apolitical nature of your viewpoint when you're just like, oh, I don't know, I've always felt like politics is weird. Status quo always seems cool and great. Yeah.

You know? Back when I lived out in the middle of nowhere, I ran into one guy who identified as apolitical and actually was. And the reason why I believe him is when I told him that Hillary Clinton was running for president, he was like, wasn't a Clinton just president? Yeah. And I was like, and it like did not seem

to be aware of the Bush years, but this was a man who had been out in the mountains that entire time, not really aware of the Bush year or the Obama year. Just kind of missed like 16 years. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes. No, if you're gonna be apolitical, you have to be like almost literally living under a rock.

No, no, I literally have not talked to anyone in 20 years. Yeah. All my best friends are animals. I really don't know what's politics now. You in fact are apolitical, sir. Yeah, wow. Yeah. All right.

So, Matt, you got any pluggables to plug? Well, if you are an apolitical person like me, I, yeah, no, I have a new podcast out there called Bad Hasbara, the world's most moral moral podcast in which me and some great guests we talk about what's going on in Israel and we break down some of the hilarious new propaganda that seems to be dropping on a daily fucking basis. So yeah, if you want to, you know, check that out, you can get it wherever, you know, podcasts are given away for free or go to YouTube and type in BadHasBara. The channel is called Frotcast,

because I used my old YouTube channel that no one watched and I started posting on there. And now it's mostly BadHasBara content. But Frotcast is the name of the channel. Can I change it? Probably, will I? I don't know. I don't know how YouTubes work.

How do you spell that f-r-o-t-c-a-s-t that's the name of the channel and the podcast again is called bad has bara h-a-s-b-a-r-a check it out uh yeah all right behind the bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. From KT Studios, the number one podcast, The Idaho Massacre, is back. The new developments in the University of Idaho murder case.

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