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Volume 4 - Spring 2003
The Supreme Court Sets the
Standard: Drug Testing at the Interscholastic Level
Paul M. Anderson
Invoking Sovereign
Immunity to Protect Public University Athletic
Departments and Administrators
Paul J. Bautista & Michael
Shaunessy
Negligence in the Air:
Safety, Legal Liability, and the Pole Vault
Russ VerSteeg
Dispute Resolution in
Intercollegiate Athletics
Brent C. Moberg
Arbitration in Olympic
Disputes: Should Arbitrators Review the Field of
Play Decisions of Officials?
R. Jake Locklear
Locklear takes a critical look at the role of
arbitration in sports. In particular, this note
examines the preference for arbitration in resolving
Olympic disputes through a historical and procedural
study of the contested Lindland/Sierecki match
during the 2000 Greco-Roman Wrestling Olympic
Trials. In defining the role of arbitration in the
Olympics, Locklear compares the deference given to
officials’ field of play decisions and courts’
deference to arbitrators’ awards as mandated by the
Federal Arbitration Act. Locklear argues that the
rationale for court deference to arbitrators in
matters such a as labor disputes can be applied to
sport. Where parties have agreed to have an expert
arbiter interpret their agreement, deference should
be given to the arbitrator, or official, that the
parties bargained for. Locklear concludes his
discussion of arbitration in Olympic disputes by
asserting that sports officials or referees should
always have the last word. Only the sorest losers,
Locklear suggests, would call for revising field of
play decisions after the fact when competitors have
agreed on an expert official to interpret the rules
of the game.
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