***Content warning: In this episode, we discuss the ways that individuals used harmful and abusive methods in their coaching tactics and their impact on athletes.***
In the first part of our interview with former choreographer for Béla and Martha Karolyi, the Romanian Communist State, and US national gymnastics team, Geza Pozsar takes us through his experiences living in Romania and working for the famous gymnastics’ duo in the 1970s and 198-s. This is the first part of all the history about the Karolyi’s and the Communist Romanian sport system that is left out of every Western media portrayal of the coaching duo. Geza explains how Bela’s coaching tactics in particular were not representative of the Communist nor Romanian sport system. Rather, their system was much more brutal. Geza does not excuse the Karolyi’s methods and condemns them as he has done for the last 10+ years. Importantly, he contextualizes their world and his role in it by recalling the pressure that the Romanian state placed on winning medals in international sport, and also the high stakes involved for coaches if they did not produce Olympic champions in terms of their daily life at home. These conditions, along with Geza’s assessment of Bela’s limited technical coaching abilities, explain their motivations for defecting to the West to try their hand at coaching careers there. By contextualizing this history for us, Geza moreover confirms the dangerous fallacies in our anti-Communist, pro-American, capitalist narrative of Cold War sport that we have discussed in episodes prior.
For more on Geza Pozsar, check out Dvora Meyers' terrific piece here. You can find Geza on Twitter @GezaPozsar.
After listening to the episode, check out our recent piece "Canceling the College-Football Season Isn't Enough" published in The Chronicle of Higher Education
__________________________________________________________________________
As always, please like, share, and rate us on your favorite podcast app, and give follow us on Twitter or Instagram.
@Derekcrim
@JohannaMellis
@Nkalamb
@EndofSportPod
www.TheEndofSport.com
**For a transcription of this episode please click here. Huge thanks to @Punkadmic for making this happen!**
Episode 120: Another College Sport Apocalypse
Episode 119: The End of College Football (A Preview)
Episode 118: What is Hockey Culture? with Kristi Allain
Episode 117: Decoding Racist Representation in Sport with Kelly Wright
Episode 116: A Football Life with Zack Furness
Episode 115: The Sport Management Episode, Part Two
Episode 114: The Sport Management Episode, Part One
Episode 113: Political Transphobia and Sport in New Brunswick with Susan Holt
Episode 112: Black Ball with Theresa Runstedler
Episode 111: How Women’s Swimming Got So Transphobic
Episode 110: Floridian and national athletic anti-fascist resistance with Joel Anderson
Episode 109: On The End of Sport, College Sports, Labor, and Exploitation
Episode 108: On Racism in Canadian Sport with Ian Kennedy
Episode 107: Abuse and Harm in Canadian Sport with Jennifer Fraser and MacIntosh Ross
Episode 106: Historicizing and Theorizing Harm in Youth Sport w/ Dionne Koller
Episode 105: Racial Capitalism and Football with Joshua Myers
Episode 104: We’re back!
Episode 103: Sport and Empire
Episode 102: On Critical Sports Fandom
Episode 101: Athletes Reimagining College Sport
Join Podbean Ads Marketplace and connect with engaged listeners.
Advertise Today
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Coach Carvalho Podcast
From Corner2Corner
Golf Podcast: next on the tee
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The MeatEater Podcast