Independence through Sport?

Ed Ayers: Next up, I want to take you back to 2004. It’s summertime and the Olympics have come home to Athens, Greece. The American men’s basketball team, known as the Dream Team, was stacked with talent. NBA superstars like Allen Iverson and LeBron James were there, and the US was looking to defend its title as the gold medal champions of men’s basketball.

Ed Ayers: Then, they played Puerto Rico.

Brian Balogh: South Florida Sun Sentinel, August 18, 2004.

Brian Balogh: “Puerto Rico stunned the United States 92 to 73 in the opening game of the Olympic Men’s Basketball Tournament. The loss was a huge blow to whatever basketball ego Uncle Sam has left. People knew the world was catching up to the United States. Now, one of its own territories has zoomed past.”

Ed Ayers: Last year, Brian spoke to scholar Antonio Sotomayor about the historic upset. Here they are, along with some help from Nathan and me, recounting the game and what it meant for Puerto Ricans.

Antonio S.: We organized a party at the graduate apartments.

Brian Balogh:

Antonio S.: And everybody brought food from their countries, and we were playing, and then the game started, and a lot of attention. Of course, the Mexicans were rooting with us for Puerto Rico, and we were there, and you know, all of a sudden, basket and basket and steal, and they were missing, we were making the shots, and we were up by 20-something points at the end of the half.

Ed Ayers: Oh my goodness!

Antonio S.: It was crazy. There was a lot of jumping, screaming. There was hugging, there was some crying, pulling hairs even. It was just an unbelievable scene. At the end of the game, we were extremely tired, exhausted, the energy, but exhilarated at the same time.

Ed Ayers: Wow. That’s inspiring stuff. It almost makes me want to lace up my old basketball shoes and get back out on the court.

Brian Balogh: That’s a lot of laces, Ed, because as I recall, you were still wearing high-tops. At any rate-

Ed Ayers: That’s true.

Brian Balogh: I wouldn’t advise it. These were highly trained athletes representing their countries on the world stage.

Nathan Connolly: Now wait a minute, I just want to get this straight. Now, Puerto Rico, a territory of the US, could compete against the United States?

Brian Balogh: I don’t blame you for being confused Nathan, but you’re correct. It’s all down to this thing called sports sovereignty. It dates back to 1948 when Puerto Rico was first invited to participate in the Olympics by the International Olympic Committee. The invitation was part of a larger effort to express anti-colonial sentiment and expand the Olympic movement. Puerto Rico has competed internationally as an independent nation ever since, but before 1948, that wasn’t yet the case.

Antonio S.: Early on in the 1930s when they started participating in the Central American Caribbean Games, the delegation was composed of Spanish Caribbean peoples with a history of plantation society, with a history of the Spanish empire economy, mainly Catholic society. They brought those things to these events, but they did it back in the 1930s holding the US flag, not the Puerto Rican flag.

Antonio S.: So technically, the delegation was a United States delegation at the Central American Caribbean Games where the US officially doesn’t play because they’re not in the Caribbean, but they did have that possession, that territory, and they send to these games as a way to be present.

Antonio S.: So, Puerto Rico’s first incursion into the Olympic movement was not necessarily out of an intrinsic motivation like, “Oh, we need to participate, we have to get there.” No. There were multiple instances where Puerto Ricans themselves didn’t want to participate, and wanted to participate with the US.

Brian Balogh: Well, you know that the Olympic stage is a very big one. Are there any examples of Puerto Ricans using that stage to enhance political agendas?

Antonio S.: The best example is the 1966 Central American and Caribbean Games held in San Juan. And at that time, 1966, you had in Puerto Rico around, the sources vary, 18,000, 20,000, 26,000 Cuban exiles living in Puerto Rico. Very tied close to the political leadership, and who were putting pressure to the organizers of the games to not invite the Cubans because, of course for them, Cubans were war dictators, Castro was a dictator, it was a dictatorship. And You bring, let’s say, 200 Cuban athletes, which back then were claimed to be an export of the Cuban revolution and soldiers of the revolution, the athletic soldiers of the revolution.

Antonio S.: So, the Puerto Rican leadership, the political leadership, didn’t ask for the visas for the Cuban government, so that they said, “We are not going to invite the Cuban delegation to these games.”

Antonio S.: Now, the problem is that according to the IOC’s rules, you have to invite every delegation in the region for these games, for this regional games. Otherwise, you are in risk of losing the right to host those games because then you’re not following the principles of Olympism. Everybody should get together and celebrate these things. So it was a very tense few months where the Cubans were attacking both the Puerto Rican government and the US government of mixing politics and sport. Everybody was calling everybody for mixing politics and sport.

Antonio S.: So what happened then, at the end, is that the US says, “Okay, we’re gonna issue the visas because Puerto Rico is part of the US and if we don’t allow those visas, then the IOC can then say, ‘Well no, you are going against the Olympics’ rules US, so you are not allowed to host anymore Olympic Games.'” Right there, even though Puerto Rico had Olympic sovereignty, and supposedly an autonomous government, they US imposed the permission and the visas to the Cubans to go to the island.

Brian Balogh: It sounds like their one hand is shaped as a fist and the other is a handshake. It sounds like one step forward, two steps back in terms of real independence.

Antonio S.: It’s a true negotiation. They don’t know. It’s not a delegation that is trying to seek independence through sport. It’s not a delegation that is saying, “Hey, we are here. We want independence.” It’s a delegation that is saying, “We are here, we exist as a nation, we are proud of being Puerto Ricans, and we do it being US citizens, by being US citizens, and by having all the benefits of being within the US political system.”

Brian Balogh: So when you step back and look at that strategy, Antonio, would you say that’s been successful?

Antonio S.: Well, it depends on what you consider success. You know, in terms of reproducing the structures of consent to our subordinated political relation or colonialism, it is successful. Puerto Rico’s Olympic delegation allows for the reproduction, allows for the fueling, the nurturing of a national identity, but by doing so as US citizens, by doing so without the need of having an independent republic, you allow for that escape valve of that nationalistic sentiment, and then continue with the political relation, whatever it is.

Antonio S.: And so it’s been successful in those regards, and I say it’s successful in helping to maintain a colonial relation.

Ed Ayers: That was Brian speaking with Antonio Sotomayor. He’s the author of The Sovereign Colony: Olympic Sport, National Identity, And International Politics In Puerto Rico.