USOC acting CEO Streeter won't seek permanent post

Stephanie Streeter announced Wednesday plans to resign as chief executive officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee in March, then an aggravated group of national governing body leaders called for her immediate departure and the dismissal of chairman Larry Probst.

A former USOC board member, Streeter has angered NGB executives and created waves in international circles since taking over for Jim Scherr seven months ago, and Probst, the chairman of video-game maker Electronic Arts, has been perceived as nonresponsive and shortsighted since replacing Peter Ueberroth last October.

Both took a majority of the blame Friday for Chicago’s failed bid for the 2016 Olympics, awarded to Rio de Janeiro, the first South American host, after Chicago was eliminated in the first round of International Olympic Committee voting.

In a 63-question Association of Chief Executives for Sport (ACES) survey, Streeter got a scathing review, with a 40-0 vote of “no” on a question asking if she “has the ability to be an effective leader of the Olympic movement.” Probst also was blasted, with a 38-4 vote of “no” on a question asking if he’s “handling his job” correctly.

Streeter informed the nine-person USOC board she doesn’t want to be considered for the permanent CEO job, even though her family moved to Colorado Springs from Wisconsin, and she’ll continue serving as acting CEO through the Paralympics in Vancouver, which end March 21. Her base salary is $560,000 – about $132,000 more than Scherr made.

A nine-person search committee chaired by USOC board member Bob Bowlsby will pick as many as three finalists with help from a national search firm, and the board will select Streeter’s replacement by the end of the first quarter of next year. The USOC has had six chairs, six CEOs and seven chief marketing officers the past nine years.

Probst said the chairman’s position, an unpaid job, “really needs to be done on a fulltime basis, and I’m prepared to make that commitment” in a term that lasts until October 2012. Assuming he doesn’t resign, the board needs a two-thirds vote to remove him with cause and a three-fourths vote to dismiss him without cause, according to USOC bylaws.

ACES chairman Skip Gilbert demanded change because his group went “six months with trying to bring some pretty significant concerns to the table, and we have not gotten any movement. … If nothing happens, it would not be a stretch to see a call placed to several influential people in Washington.”

Under Streeter, the USOC topped budgeted revenues by 10 percent and reduced expenses by 17 percent – savings that resulted in a 20 percent increase in funding for winter NGBs. The USOC also doubled government funding for Paralympic programs, and it signed four corporate partners in Adecco, Deloitte, Polo Ralph Lauren and Procter & Gamble.

But Streeter couldn’t solve a simmering debate with the IOC in which the USOC receives a lion’s share of Olympic revenues, she looked foolish when the USOC put a TV network on hold following IOC protests and she never found big-money sponsors to fill voids left by Bank of America, General Motors and The Home Depot.

“I’ve spent most of my career in the corporate arena and feel that I can make the greatest impact there,” Streeter said. “My decision is about returning to the corporate sector.”

In its next CEO, Probst said the USOC is searching for “a truly extraordinary individual because this is an extraordinarily challenging position. We want to do this right.”