Tag: countdown to the Olympic Games

Countdown to the Olympic Games: Vicki Michaelis

Posted on by Dayne Young

The Olympics in Tokyo will be the first Summer Games Vicki Michaelis has not covered in nearly three decades. Between Summer and Winter Games, Michaelis has reported from nine Olympics.

The press badges Michaelis has collected over the years. (Photo: submitted)

Her Olympics coverage for the Denver Post, USA TODAY and TeamUSA.org has taken her to Sydney, London and Athens, Greece, among other global hubs.

She witnessed every Olympic victory from Michael Phelps, including his historic performance in 2008 in Beijing when the swimmer won eight gold medals. Michaelis wrote about documenting that history for TeamUSA.org in 2016.

“The Olympics are a potent mix of everything I love about covering sports,” Michaelis said. “You have an endlessly rich array of athletes and their narratives to explore. You also have the social, political and cultural layers of the athletes and teams competing against each other.”

Michaelis is now rooted in Athens, Georgia, where she is the John Huland Carmical Chair in Sports Journalism & Society and director of the Carmical Sports Media Institute.

Her first visit to UGA’s campus was for the 1996 Olympic Games when soccer was played in Sanford Stadium. Little did she know then that her career would one day be planted steps away from that same stadium.

After Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal in Beijing in the medley relay, Michaelis captured this image. Phelps and his medley relay teammates are visible in the background on the top step of the podium. (Photo: Christine Brennan)

“It is very special to me now,” Michaelis said. “But, to be honest, my memory of covering that game isn’t vivid or anywhere near complete. More than anything, I remember being deeply grateful for the cold hot dog that UGA sports information legend Claude Felton (ABJ ’70, MA ’71) offered after the game, as I filed my story from the Sanford Stadium press box.”

That small gesture of kindness was received with much gratitude considering Olympics coverage deadlines make sleep scarce and good meals rare. The multi-week grind was always worthwhile for Michaelis because it was a small price to have a first-hand account of athletic history.

In Atlanta in 1996, she covered the U.S. women’s gold-medal games in soccer, basketball and softball.

“I saw and chronicled those watershed moments in U.S. women’s sports,” Michaelis said. “Both soccer and softball were new to the Olympics, and it was the first time Americans — a generation after the 1972 passage of Title IX — really embraced women’s teams and not just individual women’s athletes at an Olympics. The Atlanta Games changed how we view professional women’s sports leagues and women in sports overall. That I was there for those historic Olympic victories is a career highlight.”

Michaelis was part of the ecosystem of professionals around the Olympics. Many of her best memories and connections were created in the shadow of the iconic five-ring logo. Now, she and the Carmical Sports Media Institute create similar opportunities for young journalists.

Students in the Carmical Sports Media Institute began covering the Paralympic Games in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro and will continue in perpetuity thanks to the generosity of the Carmical Foundation. This coverage is in partnership with The Associated Press.

Professor Vicki Michaelis talks with Miranda Daniel, left, Nikki Weldon and Zoe Smith as they plan out coverage at the US Air Force Academy of the Department of Defense Warrior Games in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Thursday, May 31, 2018. (Photo: Mark E. Johnson)

“The Paralympic Games offer all that I love about the Olympics, amplified,” said Michaelis. “Media outlets, though, generally don’t devote resources to amplifying the Paralympic stories. That gives us the opening to give our students the social, cultural and practical experience of covering a Paralympic Games while also giving them the chance to get their stories and photos published by high-profile media outlets.”

With every Olympic Games competition comes new stories from athletes and their home nations. It is where local cultures meld with sporting achievement serving as a common and universal language. For a sports storyteller, the Olympic Games are bountiful garden of meaningful narratives.

“You have the heightened drama and emotion of the competition, because every moment and every result is so consequential when the chance to shine comes only once every four years,” said Michaelis.

The Olympic Games in Toyko will be different for Michaelis. She will enjoy the spectacle as a spectator and through the eyes of the audience she’s long served. It will surely stir up a variety of emotions and memories.

Just as many athletes find themselves coaching the next generation of gold medalists, she now serves as a coach. Some Olympics content she consumes in July and August will be created by students she trained.

“As fulfilling as it was to be an Olympics reporter,” Michaelis said, “the reward of seeing our Sports Media Certificate graduates live their dreams is beyond compare.”

Countdown to the Olympic Games: Dick Yarbrough

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This year officially marks 25 years since the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. These games have gone down in history for bringing international attention to the south and also for the tragic bombing in Centennial Park. 

University of Georgia broadcast journalism graduate Dick Yarbrough was instrumental in planning these Games and in the subsequent crisis management after the bombing. In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Atlanta Games, Yarbrough has re-released his book And They Call Them Games detailing his experience. 

He served as managing director for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games from 1993-1996 where he was responsible for media relations and government relations. Yarbrough worked hard for three years alongside his team to ensure that the United States — and the state of Georgia — was prepared to host an event with as great a magnitude as the Olympics while the entire world was watching. 

While there were certainly stressful times that came along with the Games and the planning, Yarbrough says this time in his life was filled with fond memories.

A page from Yarbrough’s book.

“There were many. Seeing the Olympic Flame lit in the ancient city of Olympia. Having the opportunity to travel to many countries across the globe. Watching young Olympic athletes interacting with each other in the Olympic Village, not caring about their own countries’ political positions,” he remembered. “It was brought home to me that no matter how well an athlete fared in their competition, they were and always would be known as Olympians. I was also heartened by the enthusiasm of the five million who attended the Games and the 50,000 volunteers who showed everyone the true meaning of the term ‘Southern Hospitality.”

After the Games had ended, Yarbrough said he kept waiting for someone to write a book about everything that had happened, from the idea to host the Olympics in Atlanta to the planning stages to the fruits of the ACOG’s labors to the bombing. 

While working on the planning committee, Yarbrough recorded tapes of what had happened each day on the way to and from work. His habit of documenting everything had been reinforced by his career, which had him regularly visiting the White House, working with Congress, navigating “high-profile issues” and traveling the globe.

“After the Games, it became clear no one was planning to do a book on the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games,” Yarbrough said. “I asked if I would be interested in taking on the project. With 82 tapes as a resource, I produced the book in roughly six months.”

Yarbrough’s book is available for purchase on Amazon. (Graphic by Sam Perez)

His goal for his book is that readers would see the complexity surrounding the planning and staging of the Olympics. As for the name, And They Call Them Games, Yarbrough says it holds a very intentional meaning.

“It is easy to forget that the Olympics are a chance for nations to put aside their differences for even a brief period and allow people to engage in peaceful competition,” he explained. “With all the politics, money, controversy, special interests involved, the title was meant as a dig at those who forget that.”

Dick Yarbrough graduated from Grady College in 1959 and has gone on to accomplish many impressive achievements. Most recently, he has been named Georgia’s most widely-syndicated columnist with his name appearing regularly in over 40 newspapers across the state. 

“The Georgia Press Association has recognized my column with first place awards for humor, although a number of politicians would like a recount. They don’t find me that funny,” he said. 

Throughout his exciting — and impressive — career, Yarbrough has managed to stay connected to his alma mater. He served as president of UGA’s National Alumni Association, received the university’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1995, was recognized as an Outstanding Alumnus and Fellow of the College at Grady, has the C. Richard Yarbrough Laboratory named in his honor and established the C. Richard Yarbrough Chair in Crisis Communications Leadership. 

“I owe more to Grady than I have the words to express,” he said. “A chance internship led to a job in radio upon graduation. That led to an opportunity to join Southern Bell as a public relations manager. Twenty year later, I was a corporate vice president of BellSouth Corporation.  Having developed a reputation for crisis management, I was offered a once-in-lifetime opportunity to become a managing director of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games.  And it all started with a dedicated faculty who saw some merit in a raw kid from East Point, Georgia.”

The revenue from Yarbrough’s column goes toward fellowships for students at Grady. He also funds the Crisis Communications professorship under the leadership of Dr. Bryan Reber, which he says is a “small effort to repay Grady for all it has meant to me and done for me.”

You can buy his book on Amazon here. 

Editor’s Note: This feature was written by Sam Perez, a 2021 Yarbrough Fellow in the Grady College Department of Communication. As part of the fellowship, she is helping market the re-release of Yarbrough’s book.

Countdown to the Olympic Games: Emily Giambalvo

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Emily Giambalvo graduated from the University of Georgia in 2018. Now just a few years later, she is in Tokyo covering the Olympics for The Washington Post. 

While this is the first time Emily is covering the Olympics post-graduation, this actually marks the third olympic game she has worked at. While at UGA, Emily pursued a Sports Media Certificate through Grady College. This opportunity combined with her work for the student-run newspaper The Red & Black helped introduce her to the world of sports writing and reporting. 

“I think that Grady sports program was what kind of opened my eyes to the fact that this could be a career,” she said. “Before that I don’t think I even really knew what a sports writer was, like I didn’t grow up reading sports journalism.”

An athlete herself, Emily was a gymnast for 15 years. It was a sport she loved competing in and a sport she loved watching, which has helped launch her into her current role as a reporter covering University of Maryland athletics for The Post. In Tokyo, she will be primarily covering the sport she’s grown up practicing.

“It’s just kind of like this dream to even be going to the Olympics and then also to be covering the Olympics,” she said.

Right now Emily says she is doing absolutely everything she can to prepare for the Olympic Games. 

“It’s my first time doing this with The Washington Post and I don’t really know if this is the best way to do it but I’m just trying to be really proactive so I can have deeply reported stories in Tokyo,” she said.

This prep work includes brainstorming potential stories, researching all the American athletes and familiarizing herself with past contestants. While this is her first time covering the Games with The Post, Emily has a unique experience that she can look to — she has covered two Olympic-related games in the past for Grady.

Emily sits writing a story at the Olympics in Pyeongchang. (Photo: submitted)

 

In 2016, she covered the Paralympics Games with Grady College in Rio de Janeiro for the Associated Press. The following year, she covered the 2018 Winter Olympics with Grady in Pyeongchang, South Korea through TeamUSA.org. Over the course of three weeks, she helped produce more than 20 stories covering the mountain and snow sports from ice skating to snowboarding to hockey and more. 

All of these roles eventually helped her land an internship with The Washington Post after graduation, which turned into a full time offer. 

Emily particularly points to her experience with the Paralympics as something that makes her stand out to employers. “It was the thing that everyone asked about and almost started that snowball effect of just getting more and more opportunities so I’m a big, big advocate of what Grady does with sending students to the Olympics,” Emily said. “I think it’s just this really great way to get people unique experience that not a lot of other college students have.”

Because she’s covered the Olympics before as a student, Emily says she has a better idea of what she will be walking into. In fact, she said she finds herself wanting to prepare for the Tokyo games in the same way that her professor instructed her to for the 2018 games. That being said, the experience is different since a few years back when she was preparing as a student journalist.

Emily poses for a photo at the Olympics in Rio. (Photo: submitted)

“There’s just I guess a little more pressure to do a good job and to write stories that are Washington Post-quality stories,” she said. “And, you know, that’s kind of true with all aspects of my job, but I think The Post has historically done such a great job covering the Olympics so it’s really cool to be part of that, but you just kind of hope you can contribute to that good coverage,” she said.