Olympic Experience
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Nineteen years ago in February, Salt Lake City welcomed the world for the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympic Games! There was a tangible excitement in the air in the months leading up to the games. As is with each Olympic experience, it takes an immeasurable amount of volunteers to pull it off!!! And the people of Utah willingly stepped up to the plate. Salt Lake had more people volunteer and complete the training than they could use, an Olympic first! My husband Ron and I both signed up to be volunteers. He was assigned to be a driver for the dignitaries, and was based out of the Grand America in downtown Salt Lake City. I was assigned to work with the wardrobe department for Opening and Closing Ceremonies. We each had a final interview, and I received a call shortly after with a full-time job offer from Don Mischer Productions, to be over all the volunteers in the costume department as the Wardrobe Volunteer Coordinator.
I had no idea what I had signed up for!!! I worked 16-17 hours days, driving to the Utah State Fairpark early each morning, sometimes seven days a week, and driving home many times in the early morning hours to catch a couple hours of sleep. I watched with eager anticipation each morning on my drive into the city from Kaysville, as I watched our beautiful city transformed! Building wraps began to appear on many of the large buildings in downtown Salt Lake City, the Olympic rings lit up on the mountains East of the city, and everyone had to have a 2002 Olympic beret - not to mention the pin trading frenzy!
I’m convinced I had the very BEST in the 300 volunteers who were placed in my care! Many had no sewing experience at all, but were willing to learn whatever we needed them to do. Men who had never held a needle in their lives sat and patiently hand sewed labels into thousands and thousands of costumes and all the accessories that went along with them.
There were over 6,000 costumes involved in Opening Ceremonies, and over 2,000 for Closing Ceremonies. 600 of those were “Children of Light”! When I went to my first top secret meeting and learned what the theme would be, I literally got goose bumps . . . and maybe even walked out with happy tears running down my face. Yes, even back then I was addicted to light!!!! The football field at Rice Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah was transformed into the world’s largest man-made ice-skating rink, and it was breathtaking! The employees involved in Opening/Closing Ceremonies and their families were invited to a special dinner and skating party to initiate the new rink. This is a night I will never forget, and my now grown children still talk about it as well.
600 children from Utah were selected as “Children of Light”. They were a big part of Opening Ceremonies as they performed both on ice skates and in the stands in their winter white yak fur coats, fleece pants, scarves, hats, mittens, and Ugg boots – along with a lantern they carried with them as they left the stadium to go and “Light the World”. The Children of Light could be found all throughout the games at all the venues and activities. These particular costumes had been pre-made in California (which was not the case for most of the other ones), but as the kids were brought it to do their final fittings, it was discovered every single costume was much too big. My volunteers began the pain staking task of unpicking zippers out of 4” long yak hair jackets, re-cutting new jackets, and sewing them together again. The same had to be done for the fleece pants. It would have been much easier to start from scratch, but we didn’t have the luxury of having that much extra fabric on hand . . . so as Utahn’s have been know to do for over 170 years now, we dug in and did what needed to be done! Extra sewing shifts were added, and almost all of my 300 blessed volunteers clocked more hours than any of the other volunteers who worked the games. Working with that much yak fur, made us all look and feel like crazy cat people as we were covered in it from head to toe, and coughed up hair balls for weeks afterward! This is just the story of one segment . . . miracles happened every single day, friendships were forged in stone, and the people of Utah pulled off a miracle as the world saw and felt of our LIGHT!!!!
My daughter Errin got to be the model for the picture that was shown to the world on the big screen as the Children of Light were introduced and their role in the games was explained.
I will never forget the feeling I felt that night as I had the opportunity to have full access to all the areas of the production. I watched backstage in reverence at the men and women chosen to carry the flag in from the World Trade Center, you could have heard a pin drop when they brought it out. I stood at the base of the cauldron and watched as the men from the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic USA hockey team stood united and lit the cauldron. There was a brief gasp when the flame appeared to go out as it traveled up to the top, but then came back fully to ignite the flame at the top. My wardrobe volunteers were rewarded for their hours and hours of work, as they were assigned to be in the forefront and behind the scenes at the stadium for opening as well as closing ceremonies. They helped wrangle the Children of Light, serve as personal assistants for the star talent, (Not gonna lie, I was a little envious of the volunteer who got to be the personal assistant for Harry Connick Jr. and his band. He is just as adorable and nice in person as you see on screen.) help dress the performers, monitor the entry points, ring the bells, and serve as a human shield around the skating rink to name just a few of their assignments. Each one serving their role with a smile on their face and a happy heart! I finished the games sitting in the stands in the middle of the athletes from the USA, never more proud to be a citizen of the United States, and Utah with our amazing work ethic and pioneer heritage!
So much has changed in the world over the past nineteen years, but one thing that hasn’t changed are the friendships formed, the fact that we can still Light the World every day, and be good examples of brotherly love even when we have differing opinions.
Love Ya, Les