He chaired the Olympic basketball committee for 16 years.
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Edward S. Steitz holds a flag used in the presentation of the gold medal to the United States basketball team at the Summer Olympics in Montreal in 1976.Edward S. Steitz, director of athletics at Springfield College from 1956 to 1990, once referred to the 1972 Summer Olympics as “the one I will never forget.”
Steitz, who died in 1990 at the age of 69, served as an executive board member of the U.S. Olympic Committee. As such, he was on duty at the compound housing American athletes on the night of Sept. 5, 1972.
That was the fateful time when members of a Palestinian terrorist organization known as Black September infiltrated the Israeli athletes’ quarters, killed two team members and took nine as hostages.
“It was a sickening, saddening thing that could put a damper on the Olympic Games of the future,” Steitz said, speaking on Sept. 6, 1972, in a transatlantic telephone interview with Jerry Radding, a now-retired member of The Springfield Union’s sports staff.
“We began hearing rumors of what happened – first, that a bomb had been dropped, then that Israelis had attacked Arabs. We finally got the right story, and it was just unbelievable,” Steitz said in the interview.
The day before the attack, Steitz had spent time with Moshe Weinberg, coach of the Israeli wrestling team.
When Black September broke into the Israeli compound, Weinberg was one of two Israelis who were killed as they tried to intercept the raiders.
“I felt close to the situation because I knew some of the people involved,” Steitz said in the interview.
Nine members of Israel’s Olympic team were taken hostage and brought to a nearby airport. The terrorists demanded the release of 234 prisoners held in Israeli jails. They also demanded the release of all members of the German “Red Army Faction” being held in German prisons.
West German police attempted a rescue at the airport, but failed and all nine hostages were killed, along with a West German police officer and five of the terrorists.
Speaking on behalf of the U.S. Olympic contingent, Steitz said, “We don’t really feel that the Germans can be faulted. I know it’s hard to conceive that it could have been worse, but they (the terrorists) could have captured the entire Israeli team.”
Israel and Egypt both withdrew their Olympic teams following the killings.
“Everybody feels deep sympathy for the Israelis, but there is hope that the Olympics can continue. I feel that all athletes would perform with greater motivation in the remaining events,” Steitz said as Olympic officials were wondering if the Munich games should continue.
Avery Brundage, chief of the International Olympic Committee, settled the question when he ordered a ceremony in Olympic Stadium to honor the dead, then announced, “The games must go on.”
Because of the killings, known as “The Munich Massacre,” tighter security measures were put in place for the next Olympiad, which began with the Winter Games of 1976 in Innsbruck, Austria.
Along with his Olympic committee duties, Steitz also headed the Amateur Basketball Association of the United States, the governing body for American involvement in international competition. (That organization is now known as USA Basketball). American teams in those days were composed of college players, with an occasional player from the AAU or the military making the roster.
As the 1972 Olympic games returned to their schedule following the killings, the U.S. basketball team lost the gold medal for the first time, bowing 51-50 to the Soviet Union in a game marred by confusion at the finish. A controversy regarding how much time remained finally was resolved, putting three seconds back on the clock when it appeared that the game was over with the U.S. winning 50-49 on two free throws by Doug Collins (current coach of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers).
Upon his return to the Springfield College campus from Munich, Steitz called a press conference to blast the way the gold medal game was handled in its closing seconds.
“It was an injustice and a travesty, and I think they blew it. It was the biggest steal in Olympic history,” Steitz said.
Going into that game, the U.S. had a 63-0 record in Olympic basketball, which began in 1936.
After that Olympiad, Steitz remained closely involved with basketball worldwide. He served on the Olympic hoop committee as its chairman from 1964 through 1980.
With the 1972 loss in mind, Steitz campaigned for a rules change which would allow the U.S. to send its best team to the Olympics – meaning professional players from the NBA, rather than non-professionals. Steitz and others argued that the Olympic ideal of “amateurism” no longer applied because other countries had national teams that were basically composed of professionals.
The proposed rules change finally passed in 1989. It led to Uncle Sam’s 1992 Olympic “dream team” that featured Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.
Steitz also played a significant role in the evolution of basketball rules. As national rules interpreter for 35 years, he was mainly responsible for such dramatic changes as reinstating the dunk (1977), adopting the shot clock (1985) and introducing the three-point field goal (1986). In 1987, Steitz led the way in having the jump ball eliminated, except for the start of a game or the start of overtime.
Indiana coach Bob Knight often referred to Steitz as “the father of the three-point field goal.”
Steitz coached men’s basketball at Springfield for 10 years before settling into a full-time role as athletic director. In 1984, he was en-shrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor. In 2007, the International Basketball Hall of Fame enshrined him, also as a contributor.
Garry Brown can be reached at geeman1918@yahoo.com.