The Olympics and Paralympics are over, but U President Bernie Machen refuses to douse his fire within.
Crews removed the Olympic cauldron from its location south of Rice-Eccles Stadium last week. The stadium itself is being transformed into its former grandeur and the fences put up to secure the Games are coming down.
The campus seems to be readjusting to post-Olympic life, except for Machen. According to his personal secretary, Liz McCoy, “He just won’t go on.”
McCoy said she noticed a change last Monday?the day after the end of the Paralympics.
At 10:30 a.m., she walked into his office for a weekly planning meeting. “At first, I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but he just kept repeating it while peering into something in his hand. He didn’t even notice I was in the room,” she said.
With the blinds all shut, Machen sat at his desk hunched close to a lamp, holding a piece of metal that shimmered, reflecting the lamp’s light.
“He repeatedly whispered, ‘They’re mine. They came to me. My precious?’ That’s when I saw the rest of the pins placed carefully in rows and sorted by colors,” she said.
As a member of Salt Lake Organizing Committee’s Board of Trustees, Machen met with many dignitaries and made a practice of trading pins with everyone he met during the Games, McCoy said.
“Now the pins are all he has to hold on to. The rest is just memories,” McCoy said.
She said Machen sits in his office more than five hours a day polishing the pins.
He feared that last week’s precipitation could possibly rust the pins, “or fog the pins’ glossy finish,” so he consulted Ann Johnson, preservationist at the Utah Museum of Natural History, on what type of climate-controlled case would be best for displaying and preserving his collection.
“He ordered the top of the line. A mahogany box, enclosing a stainless steal case with a built-in computer which will regulate humidity and temperature,” Johnson said.
She reported the case will cost Machen nearly $1,600.
“It’s an expensive price to pay,” Machen told McCoy, “but remember, the Olympics were a once in a lifetime opportunity. I don’t want to lose my precious pins to time.”
McCoy hopes Machen “pulls out of it” before a scheduled meeting with Gov. Mike Leavitt at the end of this week.
“When he meets with the governor, I hope he doesn’t do what he did to the Regents,” she said. “Last weekend, he spent his campus master plan presentation time discussing the value of a pin the Japanese delegation gave him. Everyone seemed so confused. Usually, he doesn’t give the Regents the time of day, but he carried on for more than 13 minutes.”
U administrators seem relieved by his pin fascination.
In fact, to keep him out of the way, U Vice President for Academic Affairs Dave Pershing gave Machen the “20 or so” pins he had collected during the Games.
“I would have given him my time-share in Honolulu to keep him out of my hair this long,” Pershing said.
McCoy refused to allow Machen to be interviewed until after he meets with his psychiatrist, Dr. Janice Law, this weekend.
“She worked wonders resolving his fear of overbites. I hope she can save him from the pins.”
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