Samaranch: A great leader, a man who cared

Maybe no one in the history of modern sport got more bad press than Juan Antonio Samaranch.

He deserves better, and perhaps in the fullness of time the history books will accord a more balanced reading of his incredible tenure as president of the International Olympic Committee, from 1980 to 2001.

When he took over the presidency, the IOC -- a club made up mostly of white men from Europe -- was nearly broke, the Games threatened by boycotts. When his presidency came to a close, the IOC had become a billion-dollar enterprise underwritten by significant corporate support and the 1992 Games in Barcelona, Samaranch's hometown, a model for city planners everywhere; there were more member countries in the IOC than in the United Nations; significant numbers of IOC delegates were from developing nations; real attention had been paid to increasing the numbers of female IOC members; and female athletes were taking part in the Summer Games by the thousands.

As well, the days of sham amateurism were long gone; the Games were for the best athletes in the world, the professionals from the NBA, the NHL -- wherever and whoever.

Observing that the movement had been in "free-fall" before Samaranch took over, Peter Ueberroth, who oversaw the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games, said, "He stopped the slide and made it into a rocket-ship. The movement has moved steadily up from that time."

A fair reading of the Samaranch years will also note that the IOC could have done much more and much earlier in the ongoing campaign against doping in sports. Such a reading would also relate in full the compelling details of the Salt Lake City corruption scandal, which erupted in late 1998 and which revealed far-reaching misconduct in the process by which the IOC awarded the Games.

"I think," Samaranch used to tell me, "the balance is not bad."

That was typical Samaranch. He understood genuinely that he -- like all people -- had his flaws, serious flaws, indeed that the world we live in is imperfect. He was also insistent that if greatness was around Juan Antonio Samaranch it was for someone else, not him, to point out he had achieved great things, and why.

Of this let there be no doubt: Samaranch, who passed away Wednesday, just a few months shy of his 90th birthday, was the savviest figure in international sports in the latter half of the 20th century.

As simple as it might sound, he understood how to lead.

Never did a matter come to the floor of an IOC session, as its annual all-delegates meeting is called, unless Samaranch knew beforehand how the votes would turn. Moreover, he knew how to orchestrate the theater and drama that make for recurring IOC themes.

For instance, in December, 1999, Samaranch asked the IOC to approve a wide-ranging 50-point reform plan drafted in response to the Salt Lake scandal. The key plank: a controversial ban on visits by IOC members to cities bidding for the Games. On decision day, after more than two hours of debate, Samaranch called for the vote. "Those in favor of visits," he said, "raise their hands." Ten did so. One member abstained. From his seat above the assembly floor, he could look all 10 of the no votes in the eye.

As a matter of parliamentary procedure, Samaranch's approach might not have been quite so. But -- it got the job done. "The proposal is approved," he said.

Within the IOC, even by his opponents, Samaranch was immensely respected and appreciated for such political maneuvering.

They understood him, and his big-picture, big-tent methods.

Outside -- not so much. It's why he got such bad press.

Part of this, as Samaranch would acknowledge, was of his own doing.

The IOC is now known in the far corners of the world, the five rings arguably one of the most recognizable symbols on Planet Earth, the opening ceremony of the Summer Games seen on television by two of every three people on the globe.

Yet Samaranch himself was an intensely private man.

Samaranch did not reach out to reporters; indeed, over the past dozen or so years I would venture I am the only American reporter with whom Samaranch had a genuine relationship. I had come on the Olympic scene literally just days before the Salt Lake scandal would erupt; it was in the IOC's interest to get its story out to an American reporter; for a series of complex reasons, I turned out to be that reporter.

Everyone else had to mostly guess at what he was like. Such guesses were for the most part rooted in stereotyped depictions -- Samaranch reportedly demanding, for instance, to be addressed by others as "His Excellency."

Such nonsense.

Call me Juan Antonio, he said to me early on.

This was in 1999, after he and I had flown from Europe to South Africa on the same airplane -- indeed, sitting across from each other in the same row -- en route to what are called the "All-Africa Games," a regional mini-Olympics.

On board the plane, after saying hello, I made the calculated decision to leave him -- and his trusted aide, Annie Inchauspe, herself a brilliant strategist -- completely alone during the flight. Understand: The Salt Lake scandal was in full roar. Here was Samaranch, and I had him all to myself. But no. I decided that simple human dignity demanded I leave him and Annie alone while we flew, that it would be a gross incursion of privacy to badger either of them then and there; whatever questions I had could wait until later, whenever that might be.

When we landed in Johannesburg, the two of them went off. A few moments later, Annie found me. Come to the lounge, she said. There was Samaranch.

Call me Juan Antonio, he said.

From that moment on, he allowed me in measure into his life and his world. And what immediately became obvious, the enduring principle of the Samaranch approach, is that it was because of the way he was as a person that Samaranch inspired in his professional sphere such loyalty and passion -- why, last October at the IOC session in Copenhagen, eight years after his presidency had ended, Samaranch was able to lift Madrid, vying for the 2016 Games, into the final round of balloting. Rio de Janeiro won, of course -- but Madrid made it to the finals, besting Tokyo and Chicago, and President Obama had been there to urge the IOC members to lobby for Chicago.

Samaranch had about him an incredible patience, a gentle nature and incredible resilience.

He had a remarkable eye for detail.

He was always thinking -- a pencil and paper in a pocket, forever scribbling notes. I tried once to show him how he could do the same thing on a BlackBerry; he laughed and said the pencil and paper worked just fine.

If there is just one thing, though, that would explain why Samaranch could do so much and for so long, it's this -- once he knew you, Samaranch knew and cared about you. My mother-in-law fought breast cancer for 10 years before she passed on in March, 2004; while she was alive, Samaranch would unfailingly start every conversation with me by inquiring not only about her but about how my wife, her daughter, was handling the stresses of caring for her mother.

When I spoke to Samaranch at length for the final time, last October in Copenhagen, after the vote for Rio, he started the conversation by asking about our three children and demanded -- as always -- to see photos. Of course he knew their names.

I saw Samaranch in Vancouver in February, at the 2010 Winter Games, but only briefly. He was on his way to an IOC meeting and I dashed across a hotel foyer to say hi to him and to Annie. Let's talk later, she said.

In Vancouver, he looked frail. To know him was to know the end was drawing near.

He lived an incredible life. He had no regrets. As he used to tell me, "The cemeteries are full of people who thought they were indispensable."