***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
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@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 22: Mailbag Time!
Episode 21: Hoop Dreams, High Flying Bird, and Sporting Blackness on Screen with Samantha Sheppard
Episode 20: Communist vs. Capitalist Sport with Johanna Mellis
Episode 19: Behind the UNC Scandals with Jay Smith and Ted Tatos
Episode 18: Edgy Times with Dave Zirin
Episode 17: Beyond Diversity and Inclusion in Sport with Shireen Ahmed
Episode 16: Racism, Rebellion, and the Sport Media Complex with Hemal Jhaveri
Episode 15: Racism and Resistance with Michael Bennett
Episode 14: On The Last Dance with Louis Moore
Episode 13: The Ethics of Football and the Concussion Industrial Complex
Episode 12: Blame Canada
Episode 11: Bootstraps and Baseball
Episode 10: Fans All Day with Andrew Stoeten
Episode 9: Life in the W (and Around the World) with Elizabeth Williams
Episode 8: The Lie of Amateurism
Episode 7: Fandom, Work, and Academic Precarity
Episode 6: Not Your Average Athlete Interview
Episode 5: Food Insecurity and College Athletics
Episode 4: What's Wrong with the Olympics?
Episode 3: The Truth About College Sport
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