Olympic Ambassador Program

Tonight consisted of my final Olympic Ambassador Program of the Games - it was also my eighth! Here I am speaking to my attentive audience of athletes...

 The Olympic Ambassador Program is all about discussing the roles, responsibilities and expectations of being a U.S. Olympian and representing the United States on the world’s largest stage. It’s about instilling a greater sense of Team USA, inspiring the athletes to greatness, sharing insight on the Olympic experience, discussing how to avoid common distractions at the Games, and cultivating a supportive environment where our athletes can learn from and get inspired by each other.

I helped brainstorm and create the content for the program, which we executed for our athletes in three phases leading up to the Games. The first one was back in September at the Media Summit, where we had 90 minutes with our athletes and focused on legacy. We had Olympic soccer player Brandi Chastain help us deliver our program here.

The second was a 3.5 hour program we delivered for each sport individually by going out to their training camps and national championships this past season. Each OAP had different Athlete Ambassadors, including speedskater Dan Jansen and Miracle on Ice hockey player Jack O'Callahan.

The third OAP was put on my shoulders to deliver at Team Processing for each of our 216 athletes on the 2010 U.S. Olympic Team, which we did every morning and every evening as the athletes filtered through the Delta Hotel. It went really well, and I had some legends backing me up… I worked with speedskater Bonnie Blair, skier Picabo Street, decathlete Dan O’Brien, bobsledder Vonetta Flowers and aerialist Nikki Stone. This is Nikki and Dan...

Overall it went really well, and I enjoyed interacting with all 216 U.S. athletes. We started with a 30 minute team briefing, where we introduced the U.S. delegation here at the Games, went over athlete cell phone plans (they each get a phone while they’re here to stay connected), anti-doping policies, International Olympic Committee rules on topics such as blogging and uniform guidelines, and other topics rather boring to the athletes.

Then we had 45 minutes for the OAP. I introduced the Athlete Ambassadors working that morning or evening, and they took it from there. Here is the program we put together for them:

Part I – Welcome from all Athlete Ambassadors

Video – Congratulations from President Obama: Our Government Relations Division worked with the White House to get Obama to tape a segment congratulating the U.S. athletes and talking about being good ambassadors for the United States.

 

Part II – Stay the Course: Athlete messages on sticking to their training, their plans, listening to their coaches, “the hay is in the barn.”

Part III – Introspective Exercise: We created a worksheet for the athletes to spend 5 minutes of silent time filling out and reflecting on, including their goals, the legacy they want to leave, the plan they will follow, etc.

Video – America the Beautiful: This one was a tearjerker – images of U.S. athletes on the podium, the U.S. flag, winning gold, all set to “America the Beautiful.” Usually the athletes would hoop and holler when this one ended.

Part IV – Patriotism: Athlete messages on representing America, the importance of wearing USA on their back, on feeling the support of the entire country behind them, on their power to change negative impressions of Americans around the world.

Video – 300 million strong: Interviews with a cross-section of Americans on why the Olympics matter to them and their well wishes for the U.S. Team. This included regular Americans and famous Americans, including Michael Phelps and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold made everyone laugh while proclaiming in his full accent: “You are true action heros,” and other cheesy but well-meaning encouragement.

Part V – Closing: Our Athlete Ambassadors’ final messages of support and motivation.

Video – The Climb: A final inspirational video showing U.S. athletes competing and celebrating their Olympic dreams coming to life set to moving music. Lots of slow-mo. Lots of tears and hugs. Lots of fist pumps.

It was a fun program to deliver and be a part of. All of our athletes came through, including Shaun White, Johhny Weir, Hannah Teter, Chris Klug, Shani Davis, Apolo Ohno, you name it. Hopefully it gave our athletes just one last push before they headed off to the Athlete Villages.