Editor’s note: In the Colorado Classics series, The Denver Post takes a weekly look at individuals who made their mark on the Colorado sports landscape and what they are doing now.
Even though he’s among the last remaining Olympic officials who were there, Bob Paul hasn’t seen the movie “Munich,” which tells a dark side of the 1972 Summer Olympics in the Bavarian city in southern Germany.
Paul, who was the U.S. Olympic Committee’s top man in dealing with the media 34 years ago when the Munich Organizing Committee attempted to conduct a “Smiling Games” to change the leftover image of Germany from World War II, has read a review of the movie.
It was at the Munich Olympics that the Palestinian terrorist group Black September took nine members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage after killing two in the Olympic Village. The terrorists demanded to be allowed to leave by air from a small airport outside of Munich, but the episode ended in a gun battle at the airport that took the lives of all of the Israeli athletes.
“I’m probably the only person in America who doesn’t think the Germans were lax on security,” said Paul, 89. “It’s my understanding that both the U.S. team and the Israeli team knew of possible terrorist activity when we checked in. Extra security was offered, but I don’t think either one accepted it.”
Paul looked at the happenings as an “awful time” in Olympic history, but he believed that allowing the Munich Games to continue after the tragedy was the right thing to do.
Paul has other memories from Munich, some on the lighter side and others that still rankle.
“The biggest breach of security that I heard of as far as the U.S. team was concerned was the basketball player who brought his girlfriend into the village by having her climb over the fence,” Paul said. “We told him later he could have just brought her in the front gate.”
But there were a number of disappointments for the U.S. The top of the list was the men’s basketball gold-medal game when the final seconds of the game were replayed until the Soviet Union beat the Americans. The U.S. team members still haven’t accepted the silver medals.
It also was the Olympics where American sprinters failed to show up on time to run a heat of the 100 meters. But it also was the Games where American swimmer Mark Spitz put on a show with seven gold medals.
“The thing with the sprinters was disgraceful,” Paul said.
Paul is retired and lives in Little Neck, N.Y., and is working on his memoirs. His work with the USOC began in 1967 and ran through 1996. His first Olympics were the 1968 Winter Games in Grenoble, France, and his last were the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
“I probably have 2,500 pages. It’s not all on the Olympics, but a lot of it is,” Paul said of his memoirs.
The Olympic part will tell of his time in Colorado Springs when the USOC moved its headquarters from New York to the old Ent Air Force Base in July 1978.
“We had a staff of 16 people in New York and 12 of us moved to Colorado Springs,” Paul said.
The Olympic pages also will tell of his favorite Olympic athlete, Bill Toomey, who won a gold medal in the decathlon in Mexico City in 1968. Toomey was a former athlete at the University of Colorado.
“I’ve never understood how CU would ever lose a recruit who visited that campus,” Paul said.
The move to Colorado Springs was a new experience for Paul, whose roots were in the East and the University of Pennsylvania.
“It was so great for me to be in Colorado Springs because it was entirely new to me,” Paul said. “But I got a picture of another section of the country. I wouldn’t trade my Olympic experiences for anything. I met a lot of people from all parts of the world. I found that there are a lot of others than Americans who are pretty neat people.”
Mike Moran, who followed Paul as the USOC’s director of communications, said Paul is the most interesting person he met on the Olympic scene.
“He was an institution here and a legend in the information business,” Moran said. “He knew more about the Olympic movement then and he probably still does.”
Paul became part of the local sports community in Colorado Springs. He is a diehard baseball fan, but his allegiance has shifted. He saw his first big-league game in 1924, with storied pitcher Walter Johnson on the mound.
“I was a Philadelphia Athletics fan until the team moved to Kansas City (1955),” Paul said. “Before that I hated the New York Yankees. Now, they’re my team.”
Paul jokes he has slowed down as a sports fan.
“I don’t think about sports more than 20 hours a day,” Paul said. “I probably don’t go over six hours a day anymore watching sports on television.”
It’s safe to guess that his six hours of TV are filled with the action from the Winter Games in Turin.
Irv Moss can be reached on 303-820-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
* This story has been corrected. Because of a reporter’s error, this story incorrectly stated Bill Toomey won the pentathlon at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. He won the decathlon.
