1996_08 The Daily Collegian August 1996

              Monday, August 26,1996
SPECIAL REPORT
Road Trip
through the
Summer
Games
The Daily Collegian's Paul Martinez
spent two weeks at the Summer Games
in Atlanta and brought back not only
photographs, but also a unique
perspective on the historic centennial
games from the back of the Nissan
Pathfinder he called home during his
Olympic odyssey.
|giniB< •
JSiSsssk
She's gold. Fresno State softball standout Laura Berg takes the
plate during the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. (Bottom
right) Fresno State Softball coach Margie Wright coaches Laura
Berg on base during an Olympic game. Wright was an assistant
coach for the U.S.A.'s first gold medal softball team.
By Paul Martinez
The Daily Collegian
In Columbus, Ga. site of the
Softball competition, the merchants
were angry.
The vast crowds had failed to
materialize at the street fair they had
paid so dearly to sell their wares at.
Columbus, in fact, was almost
empty despite the fact that the com¬
petition was supposed to start the
next day. As I wandered the de¬
serted aisles of tbe street fair, words
formed in my mind: "Botched!
Bungled! Bust!" Not since I entered
an empty Yosemite during the fed¬
eral budget shutdown had I experi¬
enced such a feeling of surreal deso¬
lation.
At that point an off-duty Colum¬
bus police officer, seeing my press
badge, appointed himself my guide.
Over the course of the next hour,
the badly out-of-shape cop, puffing
alongside me as we walked around
the fair, told me that the citizens of
Columbus had taxed themselves
and built a brand-new softball com¬
plex and ten million-dollar civic
center in anticipation of the games.
Incredibly, the Olympic organiz¬
ers, the Atlanta Committee for the
Olympic Games had forbidden
them to use the word Olympics or
any of the logos or symbolry in their
* promotion of the Olympics there!
The cop complained bitterly about
the oppressiveness of ACOG. That
wouldn't be the last I would hear
about that.
The recommended hotels in Co¬
lumbus were on the "white" side of
town, some distance from the soft-
ball stadium. The recommended
approach route, indicated by festive
Olympic sjgnage and arrows along
the route, tookyyjsitors, most in
Columbus for the first time, seven
miles out of their way, past half-
empty motels and about 14 strip
joints, topless bars and nude danc¬
ing on the road to nearby Ft.
Berihing. **
Where was everybody? Well, the
locals who hadn't cleared the hell
out in the face of grim warnjngs
from ACOG of traffic gridlock and
legions of tourists had entrenched
themselves in their homes for the
duration, not daring to come out.
Merchants who had hired extra staff
in anticipation of increased busi¬
ness stared at their empty restau¬
rants and stores. Motel rates which
had been priced at $250 a night
were cut in half, then quarters as the
buyer's market became apparent. A
motel in the outskirts of nearby
Phenix City dropped rates to $8.50
a night. The strip clubs sent home
their extra dancers.
The street fair moved from the
"historic district" to the waterfront
and the merchants who stayed on
were rewarded as crowds increased
marginally.
This was the story in all the sat¬
ellite cities which had helped At¬
lanta by taking some of the more
specialized sports off its hands. In
Savannah, where yachting and
sailboarding were held, ACOG or¬
dered the city's promotional litera¬
ture destroyed because it used the
word "Olympics."
Even in Atlanta, merchants out¬
side the Olympic center reported
decreased sales as travelers who
would ordinarily  be passing
through avoided the city: Like Co¬
lumbus, a large percentage of the
population had left the city for the
duration.
A happy, cheerful security guard
was waving people past the secu¬
rity checkpoint at the first day of
the softball games. I was carrying
my camera bag and a lens the size
of a Bazooka and when he saw me
he said "Ah! Media!" and practi¬
cally carried me and my 60 pounds
of gear into the press area. That
would be the only time I would be
treated so cordially by security.
I was supposed to meet a group
of boosters from Fresno State,
where I am a senior in the fall, be¬
cause five members of the softball
team plus the assistant coach were
either graduates or current members
of the school and they had a big
contingent out here. One of them
was supposed to sneak me a sack
of fresh film which I was going to
shoot as a free iavor for my school,
behind the back of my Boss who
had sent me here at such great cost.
As expected, the Americans devas¬
tated their Opponent, Puerto Rico.
Incredibly there was a Fresno State
graduate on the Puerto Rico team!
I located the boosters, but did not
stay with them that night. I wanted
to see what was going on in Atlanta
so I made the 110 mile drive up
there that afternoon.
In Atlanta, gas is 91.9 cents a
gallon.
This at a Race Trac station on S.
Cobb Parkway, right in the middle
of Newt Gingrich's House district.
If Republicans are elected in the fall
and gas doesn't drop here in Cali¬
fornia 60 cents a gallon, something
is very wrong.
Other than gasoline, everything
else was expensive\ What you save
in gasoline is instantly expended at
the $10 a pop ACOCkparking lots.
If you avoided those lots or found
them full you could take advantage
of privately-run lots with dubious
security at$15ajpop.
If I'm gonna go through all that
it's going to be for something cool,
like pool action and women's plat¬
form diving. So I pay my $10 and
learn the parking lot is nowhere
close to the diving pool. The jour¬
ney, in fact, had just begun.
The people at ACOG, in a crimi¬
nal act, had decided that no private
vehicles would be al lowed \in At¬
lanta for the duration of the Games,
and that everyone would ride the
Atlanta-area mass-transit system
called MARTA. And this $10 lot
was not evenxlose to a MARTA
station. Everyone there boarded a
shuttle bus to the MARTA station.
A bunch of jovial Canadians sat
across from me. Eyeing my cam¬
era and its meter-long lens (my in¬
stant conversation starter) one of
them said: "What are you going to
today?"
"I'm going to watch women's
diving."
"Ahhh! Anne Montminy!" more
than one of them said. Cans of beer
magically appeared in their hands
and I found a Coors Lite in mine.
And this was fortified Canadian
stuff and I am a total lightweight.
The Canadians had launched
into a beer-drinking song. Hey!
These guys really know how to
have fun! Four jovial giants who all
looked as they played offensive line
for the Canadian Football League
I guess Anne Montminy was
their heroine, at least in the sport of
diving. I remembered her from the
'92 Olympics when she was em¬
broiled in controversy because she
was not supposed to be there be¬
cause she was only 14. The Cana¬
dians were in too good a mood for
me to remind them of that.
After a brief sprint down the
freeway, the bus stopped at the train
station. After we climb the stairs,
we are confronted by a horribly
crowded platform Three or four
train's worth of passengers waited
on the platform for a train that was
still nowhere in sight.
This did not kill the Canadian's
mood. "We're going to see the
Dream Team tonight!" one of them
told me
"lUit tlk* game's not till eight,
and it's «>nl\ three right now!" I
said.
"Well, you know the system.
You gotta allow time to get there."
he said.
Wow. My diving started in less
than 30 minutes. I told the guy so.
"You're not going to make it." he
said. '♦But maybe you can gel to the
last half of it."*-
The train had finally arrived. The
train was already impossibly full,
and passengers had already started
shoving near the doors. As the doors
opened, the people on the platform
started pressing their way in, reach-
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