Three years ago this summer, our overachieving citizens took a collective deep breath and heaved ourselves across the finish line of one of the greatest achievements by an underdog: the successful winning and staging of the largest Olympics in the 100 years of the global games.<\/p>\n
Now we are going through an excruciating process that has become an American tradition in the last years of this century: turning the bright lights of hindsight on the past behavior of (insert name of politician, founding father, pro player or Olympic leader here). This dribbling out of information, draped across daily headlines, must be akin to being nibbled to death by ducks.<\/p>\n
It could have been so different.<\/p>\n
We spent so much of the early 1990s wringing our hands over our \u201cOlympic legacy.\u201d Who among us, if asked in 1995, would have predicted that as we prepare for the 2000 games, we would be focused on a tug of war over boxes of old documents stored at the Atlanta History Center.<\/p>\n
People who complain about the Atlanta Journal-Constitution conducting Chinese water torture on our Olympic heritage are missing the point. The AJC is only performing its historical watchdog role, albeit a bit late. Why weren\u2019t we asking questions about the incredible odds of Atlanta winning IOC votes back in 1991? Didn\u2019t we have the same open records laws back then?<\/p>\n
The media\u2019s current tenacious pursuit is the sad result of a history lesson many of today\u2019s leaders refuse to learn: When You Screw Up, Come Clean.<\/p>\n
Surely, they watched the same pursuit of Bill Clinton\u2019s impeachment that we did. When some of the Republican congressmen were confronted with similar charges, they called a press conference, admitted to the wrongdoing and moved on. Do we even remember their names? When one of the more prominent Atlanta Braves went public with his indiscretion, he took his lumps honestly and responsibly. Last time I picked up the sports page, the writers were focused on his on-field batting average.<\/p>\n
How different it would have been had the Atlanta Olympic Committee called a press conference, released the facts that they went a little overboard in their enthusiasm to win the games and asked for public forgiveness? I bet we\u2019d be back to reading about the building of an Olympic museum.<\/p>\n
So, let\u2019s concede this: In their zeal, our local Olympic leaders broke some rules. Do we really need to know to what degree they were broken? If so, let\u2019s quietly assemble an investigative team and have them give us a full report sometime next year. We\u2019ve waited this long. Why must we get incomplete daily drippings from reporters?<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, this month, let\u2019s sit in the warm evening of an Atlanta July and watch old videotapes of gymnasts Kerri Shrug\u2019s injured leap at the Georgia Dome or Michael Johnson\u2019s record-breaking run around our Olympic stadium. While we\u2019re at it, let\u2019s reflect upon some related remarkable events that occurred this decade:<\/p>\n
\u2022 A lawyer named Billy Payne had an inspirational early-morning vision and defied all odds, bring the Centennial Games to Atlanta. His tenacity and focus is an epic lesson for us all.
\n\u2022 Thousands of volunteers throughout the area gave of their time, their homes and hearts to host a superb show for the world.
\n\u2022 Dozens of athletes showed why a big heart and determination often overcome an opponent of Goliath proportions.
\n\u2022 And we as a city pulled together, planted trees, improved streetscapes, erected facilities and built a park that generations after us will enjoy long after we\u2019ve opened the last dusty box of a dissolved Olympic bureaucracy.<\/p>\n\n\n