Read More Behind the TorchMargaret-Anne Dyson, Aaron Williams, and Brea Armstrong
Graduate Students in Sport Management
Margaret-Anne Dyson
Well, the final day has come. We are all sitting in the lobby of the Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center for the last time. This trip has been packed with educational experiences, sport management lessons, physical activities and 14 friends becoming closer than imagined.
This morning, we presented our projects to members of the CSOTC. Our projects were about ways to enhance the Visitor’s Center, as well as a project on TrueSport, a new values-based initiative in athletics. Our project judges were impressed with our presentations and discussed implementing many of our ideas.
The amount I have learned in just seven days is unbelievable. Granted, it feels like we have been here for a month. Our lectures ranged from strength and conditioning to business and operations, from nutrition to anti-doping, from transportation to diversity and inclusion. I have done things this week that I could have never imagined attempting, especially that Incline.
Waking up each morning in the shoes of an athlete was unimaginable. We ate in the same dining facility as Michael Phelps, we walked the same hallways as Missy Franklin and we climbed the same Incline as Apolo Ohno.
We were in the lives of these athletes for a week. We spoke to gymnasts, boxers, swimmers, shooters and cyclists, including Paralympic blind cyclists. We talked with them daily, and we learned about their journeys. We watched them train mentally and physically. We watched them interact with athletes from other sports and countries.
Never did I think I would gain as much as I did from this experience. I gained so much knowledge from the more than 13 speakers we heard from, burned a countless number of calories from our climbs and sports, strengthened my relationship with 13 fantastic people and got a taste of the Olympic Movement.
This organization is like no other I have seen. The true passion for the Movement is evident in everyone with whom you speak.
This is an experience I will never forget, and I cannot wait for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games to see everything we have learned put into action, as well as see the athletes we met compete on the world’s stage.
Aaron Williams
Where do I even begin to summarize my time and amazing experiences in Colorado Springs, Colorado? I must start with tipping my hat to one of The University of Alabama’s finest professors, Dr. Ken Wright, the sport management program director and coordinator of our interim course in breathtaking Colorado.
Without Wright, this seven-day trip filled with professional networking opportunities, career development skills and memories to last a lifetime would not be possible!
I am extremely blessed to have had the privilege and opportunity to take part in this adventure with an amazing group of people — a group that I barely knew but evolved from just fellow classmates to what I can now call good friends!
I knew this trip would be fun, and I would learn a lot, but I never imagined it would impact me as it has. How often do you get the opportunity to volunteer yourself to jump in the ring and box the gold medalist hopeful for Rio 2016/World Medalist/5x National Champion/9x Gold Glove Winner Woman Boxer Christina Cruz, or listen to the organization that served justice in high-profile cases such as Lance Armstrong/Barry Bonds/Marion Jones?
When do you have the opportunity to watch gymnasts train, play wheelchair basketball and hear from elite sport professionals ranging from CEOs of leading sport governing bodies and Olympic committee members to strength coaches and nutritionists to marketing geniuses and premiere business developers?
These are among the people who make it possible for our country’s top athletes to one day fulfill their dreams of being the one at the top of the podium, watching our nation’s flag fly high while hearing the national anthem in the presence of the world.
I was in the presence of nothing short of greatness. What a feeling!
To be able to stay at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs has been an incredible experience, and I am extremely grateful for everyone that played a part in making this possible.
I may not have gotten altitude sickness during my time in Colorado Springs, but I now have the Olympic fever!
Seeing and experiencing all the moving parts in real time that goes into the planning, preparation, budgeting and organizing the Olympics, Paralympics, Pan American Games, etc. is incredible and fascinating and is something I would have never fully understood unless I went on this trip.
It has been more than an educational experience. It’s a trip that allowed me to grow as a person and as a man. Without registering for this trip, I would have never been exposed to what the Olympic Movement truly means.
Brea Armstrong
Today was our travel day back to Tuscaloosa, but, before we left, we had two presentations to give. All week groups have worked on a project for the Visitor’s Experience at the Colorado Springs Training Center and an initiative for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, TrueSport.
Each group presented their work, and we both received immediate, positive feedback. The business development guys even mentioned adding some of our ideas to their presentation later that afternoon.
After the “work” was done, a group of us ventured around the training center for as many photo ops as we could get and even had a swimmer ask us where the weight room was — as if we were actual Olympic Athletes.
We said goodbye to our new Olympian friends and ate our last meal in the dining hall just before receiving grades and feedback from Dr. Ken Wright, UA graduate course instructor.
It feels like we have been at the Training Center for months, not just a week. The week has moved fast, and we have stayed busy.
We have learned so much and met so many people, and although most of us are more than ready to get back to our own beds and personal bathrooms, the experience we’ve had here has been next to none.
We have seen inside how Team USA works and runs as a business. We have experienced Colorado Springs from the incline to the Garden of the Gods, the AirForce Academy and weather that was all over the place.
We have even been mistaken for Olympic Athletes on several occasions, which has been an incredibly cool feeling. This group has grown close, and we have all learned from each other.
The connections we have made, as well as seeing how large-scale operations work, has given us experience we will apply when looking for internships and jobs. The sports industry is one for which you must have passion. We have seen that passion and energy in the people working at the Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center, and it has transferred to us for our next adventures.
The Olympic Movement is addictive, and I have a whole new love for the games.
Fifteen prospective sport management professionals from The University of Alabama will have an opportunity to interact with the nation’s sport managers during a graduate-level, interim travel course at the United States Olympic Committee headquarters. Three of these students – 23-year-old Margaret-Anne Dyson, of Pensacola, Florida, 23-year-old Brea Armstrong, of Memphis, Tennessee, and 24-year-old Aaron Williams, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin — will blog about their learning adventures over the next seven days.