During his five years at the U, Bernie Machen has spent a great deal of time preparing for the Olympic Games.
With the Olympics over, and the Paralympics underway, he has a look of relief on his face and a large pin collection as part of his Olympic legacy.
As U president, Machen is a member of the Olympic Board of Trustees. He describes himself as one “in the loop” of Games-related information. He claims to have known most of the security precautions, and he sat through hundreds of planning meetings with Olympic officials. But he also describes the U’s relationship with the Salt Lake Organizing Committee as “sometimes difficult.”
“At times I felt like the U was giving too much,” Machen said.
Displacing thousands of students?kicking them out of their dormitories mid year?the disruption to the academic schedule and the parking shortage were the more obvious problems created by the Games.
But there were others, Machen said, dozens of “smaller problems.”
“I went to Opening Ceremony holding my breath,” Machen said.
Worried about the potential for security problems, media coverage of the Games and its reflection on the U, Machen admits he had his doubts.
“I’m hard to please,” he said.
Now at the beginning of the Paralympics, looking back on the Olympics, Machen said, “Basically it was a big win for us. I don’t need to hold my breath any longer.”
The U tried to use the Games as an attempt to gain more national recognition and attention. Machen believes this plan worked.
He hopes the little media attention the U received for being host to Opening and Closing ceremonies and the athletes village will help in recruitment of faculty, staff and students.
Perhaps the first U recruit attracted by the Olympic flame was Machen. “One of the big factors in deciding to move to the U was the Olympic Games,” Machen said. From the focused attention, the world and the country more fully understand Utah and its culture, he said.
“Utah and the U will be forever linked to the Olympics,” Machen said.
The links aren’t just in memories, but in physical monuments, buildings and scholarships.
The U’s Olympic legacy translates into a new $750,000 Olympic Legacy Scholarship endowment, collected from the U’s sale of Opening Ceremony tickets to prominent donors. Fifty-six new merit-based scholarships will be created from the donations.
Plans are also underway to create a fountain to place the Olympic cauldron in on the south side of Rice-Eccles Stadium for campus visitors to view.
For use of the Heritage Commons as the Olympic Village SLOC paid $29 million, and for use of Rice-Eccles Stadium SLOC will pay an additional $9 million due January 2003.
These are facilities the U would not have today without the financial help the Games provided, Machen said.
The last chapter of the U’s Olympic story will be written as SLOC cleans up its mess, dissembles fences and returns things to they way they were.
The U has file footage to make sure campus is restored to the way it was, and U officials are closely monitoring the clean-up process, making sure crews don’t cut corners, Machen said.