Tonight we extinguished the flame at the Rio Olympics.
I'll never be able to see an Olympic flame again without thinking of the only one I've ever seen in person: Atlanta 1996. Growing up in Atlanta (and attending the University of Georgia at the time), we saw the flame endlessly from the time we were awarded the Games in 1990 until the closing ceremonies in 1996.
I only saw it in person once, as it made its way past the Dekalb County jail on Memorial Drive in Decatur. My Mom worked there at the time so I drove down from Snellville and we joined thousands on the sidewalks cheering as the torch continued its year-long journey to Centennial Olympic Stadium. We had watched it travel across the U.S. and, in that moment, it was finally "here".
You have to have lived in Atlanta during the run-up to the 1996 Games to understand what we felt at that moment. A city that lay in ashes just more than a century before, and that spent the few decades prior gaining a reputation as the place where sports dreams go to die, was suddenly going to be the global capital of dreams.
The fact that we even had the Games was a miracle in itself. The assumption at the time was that Athens, Greece, which hosted the first Games in 1896, was a lock to host the Centennial Games. It was such a foregone conclusion that I honestly don't remember paying much attention to Atlanta's bid prior to the announcement. I was sitting in Coach Mudd's biology class at South Gwinnett High School when it happened. Usually when a teacher stops class to turn on a TV something bad is happening, but not this time. The sports-minded among us stared at the screen. The rest talked amongst themselves. But when International Olympic Committee chairman Juan Antonio Samaranch (who later became a villian in Atlanta, but we'll get to that) said those magic words, "
To the city of...Atlanta", we all jumped up and down just like the thousands that turned out at Underground Atlanta to watch the announcement that morning.
The next six years saw our city subjected to international scrutiny on a daily basis. It seemed that pretty much everyone outside the 404 area code wanted the sentimental choice, Athens, to host in 1996 and, therefore, every move Atlanta made was going to be done under a microscope. Any slight misstep would result in every journalist (I use the term loosely) from Milan to Minsk questioning the decision to place the Games in Georgia.
Meanwhile, those of us living through the process leading up the Games were delighted at the transformation of our metropolis. The Olympic rings were everywhere you looked. Venues replaced blighted areas. Centennial Park transformed one of the ugliest parts of the city into one of the best. Each day something new and shiny came into our lives.
The only bittersweet part of the Games for me, personally, was that part of the plan was to transform the Olympic Stadium into a new home for the Braves. That meant the end of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium (which hosted baseball during the '96 Games). While Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium will never go down in baseball annals with the likes of Wrigley or Fenway, it was where I first experienced live baseball. It was where I went to games with my family. For many it was a concrete donut. For me it was a cathedral. I also defy anyone to show me a better baseball atmosphere than Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium provided in the early '90s.
At some point during my junior year at the University of Georgia, I was walking through the Tate Student Center and noticed an ad seeking students to work the Olympics. I signed up immediately and it will always be one of the best decisions I made in my life. A few months later I found myself at Hartsfield International Airport officially checking in as an employee of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG). Had I known I was going to have to pose for a picture that I would keep forever, I probably wouldn't have worn a hat all day.
In a bit of foreshadowing, I was assigned to work for Atlanta Olympic Broadcasting. My official title was "runner", but basically my job was to drive foreign journalists from their hotels to the venues and back. I was the Olympic version of an Uber driver. BMW was an Olympic partner so I spent the summer of 1996 tooling around the ATL in any variety of mint condition beamers. I was also assigned the overnight shift, meaning once we got all the journos to their hotels at night, we didn't have a whole heck of a lot to do until around 5am when rides to the early events were necessary. I never drove anyone famous, but I did learn that Japanese journalists were very polite (and GREAT tippers) and British and French journalists were just the worst. If one more person from East Something-something-shire tried to tell me a faster route to a place I'd been going to my whole life I may have aimed that beamer at a brick wall. I almost went to London in 2012 just to return the favor.
But I digress.
During that time we got to explore a lot of Atlanta at night. I learned a lot of card games (which I've since forgotten) and made a lot of late night runs to the Taco Bell on Howell Mill and the Burger King on Northside. Our "office" was a trailer in the parking lot of the old Omni coliseum. We played football in the parking lot. We went to what was then Jocks & Jills (now Dantanna's) in CNN Center after work most mornings where everyone else's breakfast became our happy hour. I made friends with whom I am still in contact to this day.
My most memorable ride was one I don't really remember. I have no idea where we went or who was in the car. All I know is that on my way back I exited the downtown connector onto Williams Street to head back to the office. When I took the left onto Marietta Street I was immediately met by an officer screaming "Turn around! Turn around!" I rolled down my window to explain that I worked for ACOG and was on the way back to work. I'll never forget his next words: "Turn around and keep driving until someone tells you to stop". I drove for a few miles before our supervisor came across the radio and told us to go to a Holiday Inn a few miles outside of downtown. They had opened their lobby to us and that's where we spent the rest of that night...watching live coverage of the bombing at Centennial Park. I had no idea that I was a few hundred yards away when it happened. The reaction among us employees was one of rage. Honestly I'm still angry about it. How dare this fool put a black mark on something we worked so hard for for so many years? We spent that night in that Holiday Inn lobby. To ACOG's credit, the Games went on as scheduled the next morning. We spent the next two nights under a tent in a parking lot that is now occupied by the Georgia World Congress Center annex while officials secured the area around the Park.
I'm still angry.
I'll never forget the final night of those Games. It wasn't the final night for us. We worked a few days after the Games ended taking the cars we'd driven to lots around the metro area to be sold or moved on to whatever their future held. But that final night we became looters, of sorts. The official instructions we got upon arriving at work that night were "You are not supposed to take any of the official Olympic paraphernalia for personal use". One of us then asked what would happen if we did, indeed, acquire a few personal souvenirs and the response was essentially a shoulder shrug.
So we set out.
To this day I am the proud owner of the Coca-Cola table that served as the security guard's resting spot to get into our office lot below the Omni. It now sits on my balcony. I protect it from the sun with a table cloth.
From the first night I reported for work I had my eye on an Atlanta Olympic Broadcasting clock that hung in our office. On the final night, our boss gave it to me. It still works and I still hang it in the living room during the Summer Olympics.
I still have the official Olympic shirt I wore to work and, yes, it still fits just fine.
I also still have plenty of Olympic pins from those Games, as my Mom was a voracious trader at the time and gave them to me for Christmas a couple of years ago.
My most prized possession? I have a large portion of the Olympic bunting that surrounded Sanford Stadium in Athens during the soccer tournament. It still sits in my parents' basement awaiting its permanent home as wallpaper for my future game room. How did I get it? That's another story for another day...
My most random possession? A police barricade bearing the words "New Orleans Police Department". Atlanta security borrowed barricades from surrounding departments for the Games. I have no idea why we took it other than the fact that we were Falcons fans and wanted to take something from much-hated New Orleans. It remained in my parents' basement for years but I noticed it was gone the last time I was down there. I hope it's serving someone well!
In the end, I still glow with pride when I think about those Games. I think we got a raw deal from the international community, many of whom wanted the Games in Athens. I've read the critiques of those Games and can truthfully tell you those were not the Games I experienced. I was on the ground for the Atlanta Olympics and I never met a single person that wasn't having the time of their lives.
Meanwhile, Mr. Samaranch refused to bestow his customary "greatest games ever" designation on our Games during the closing ceremonies, instead calling them "most exceptional". But where I was, even the stuffiest of journalists admitted that we created a party that hasn't been duplicated until, possibly, Rio. Most of the criticism was based on "over-commercialization", which the International Olympic Committee itself has embraced in subsequent Games.
The Atlanta Games were iconic. We had possibly the
most memorable torch lighting of all time (though, even as an Atlantan, I'm partial to
Barcelona in '92). We had Kerri Strug. We had Michael Johnson in gold shoes. We had soccer Between The Hedges (which were removed for the Games).
We also had a plan for
AFTER the Olympics, unlike many host cities. Don't believe me? Click
here.
Unfortunately our efforts to open the Games to everyone left us vulnerable to attack. But that attack has led to heightened security at subsequent Games. And the open-air, carnival atmosphere remains. In many ways Atlanta changed the Games forever and for the better, whether we get credit or not.
I still dream of seeing Atlanta host another Olympics. I certainly don't think it's impossible. And for those who think it is...I would say I've heard it all before back in 1990.
I'm still angry.
