 | |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
IN ATLANTA, TWO HEADS OF THE SAME MIND
PAYNE, JACKSON LEAD OLYMPIC EFFORT May 2, 1993 ATLANTA - For years, Billy Payne went about his life with little fanfare. He played football at Georgia in the 1960s ...He became a real estate attorney. Maynard Jackson, on the other hand, has lived most of his adult life in the public eye. ...Jackson is mayor of the city that awoke on Sept 18, 1990, to find out it had won the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. With Payne, he is leading the city’s Olympic effort. ...they are inextricably linked at the top of Atlanta's effort to organize the nations most-scrutinized sporting event of the decade. Underdogs to Minneapolis in the bid for the USOC nomination for the 1996 Games, Atlanta’s team came to Washington in April 1988 for the organization’s vote - and stole the show. The night before the election both cities held last minute, arm-twisting parties. Minneapolis’s was poolside at the USOC headquarters hotel, the Washington Hilton. Atlanta's organizers, gambling that voters would venture out of the hotel and down the block, held a lavish party at the Bancroft Place home of the relatives of an organizing committee official. To this day, USOC members talk about that party. Andrew Young, then the mayor of Atlanta and former United Nations ambassador, met every guest at the door, where tuxedoed musicians played violins and waiters offered champagne. Elaborate dessert trays graced elegant antique tables. Atlanta sports celebrities mingled with the guests. “The violins,” Payne said, smiling as he recalled the moment. “I think that’s when we distinguished ourselves. We got the reputation as going the extra mile.” “These guys knew that schmoozing was the key,” said one former Atlanta official, who asked not to be named. It continued at IOC meetings around the world, from Puerto Rico to Seoul. Payne spent hundreds of thousands of his own dollars to meet IOC members and convince them to vote for Atlanta over favorites Athens (site of the original modern Games in 1896), Melbourne and Toronto. At every IOC meeting, there was an “Atlanta House,” where IOC members were wined and dined, with or without violins. -Christine Brennan, Washington Post Staff Writer |