Olympic gold medalist to speak at Feb. 19 Atlanta symposium exploring sports media lessons from 1996
Briana Scurry, the starting goalkeeper for the U.S. women's soccer team when it won the 1996 Olympic gold-medal game at Sanford Stadium, will deliver the keynote address at a Feb. 19 symposium co-hosted by Grady Sports.
With the Olympics heading for Rio de Janeiro this year, UGA and a consortium of other universities with sports journalism and communication programs are looking back to Atlanta’s turn at hosting the Summer Games.
The one-day symposium, “Atlanta, 20 Years Later: Lessons in Sports Media from the Last American Summer Olympic Games,” takes place 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, 235 Andrew Young International Boulevard NW. There will be a break midway through where participants can get lunch on their own. A 5 to 7 p.m. reception, sponsored by Grady alumnus Dick Yarbrough, follows at STATS Sports Bar, 300 W. Marietta Street NW.
The event and reception are free to University of Georgia faculty, staff, students and alumni who register at http://t.uga.edu/23u.
In addition to Scurry's speech and several competitive papers sessions, the program features:
• A Q&A with Yarbrough, who served as managing director of communications and government relations for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games
• A discussion of how the 1996 Olympics changed women's sports coverage with Christine Brennan, columnist for USA TODAY; Phil Hersh, Olympic specialist with www.globetrottingbyphilhersh.com; and Kevin Blackistone, columnist with The Washington Post and ESPN commentator
• A retrospective of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing coverage with Bert Roughton, managing editor/senior editorial director at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The competitive papers sessions will cover the legacy of the Olympics and how they have shaped, and continue to shape, sports media.
The symposium is being presented by the Sports Media Consortium. Member institutions include the University of Georgia, the University of Alabama, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Montclair State University and Penn State University.
Date: February 8, 2016Author: Morgan Beavers, marymorganbeavers@gmail.com
Contact: Vicki Michaelis, vickim@uga.edu