For most Atlantans, the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games live on as a handful of snapshots: the opening ceremony, the torch, a downtown packed with visitors from around the world. For Chuck Reece, the memories are more specific, because he spent the entire Games working inside Centennial Olympic Park. Marking 30 years since the Games opened, Reece, now editor of Salvation South and a regular commentator on Georgia Public Broadcasting, sat down with GPB's Peter Biello to talk about that summer.
A Coke employee on park duty. In 1996 Reece worked in corporate communications for the Coca-Cola Company, and nearly the whole department was assigned to the park for the Games. Coca-Cola had built a sprawling fan attraction called Coca-Cola Olympic City at the park's northern end, where visitors could try simulated Olympic events. Much of Reece's job was hosting visiting journalists on tours of the grounds; among his guests was the late Tim Russert of "Meet the Press."
Each day he rode MARTA between the park and his home in Candler Park, walking the length of the park to the station at what was then CNN Center.
The morning after. Reece didn't learn about the bombing in the park until the next morning, when a colleague called to tell him not to come in. Reading the news, he realized he had walked past the spot only about 20 minutes before the blast. He told Biello the experience frightened him and stayed with him, the kind of near miss he would feel again years later, living about a half mile from the World Trade Center on 9/11.
What he remembers most is the return. The only day Reece missed was the day after. His team was back at Coca-Cola Olympic City the following day, and he recalls being struck by how quickly attention turned back to the competition. Visitors had come from all over the world with tickets to watch their countries compete, and they kept going. The city, he said, kept doing its job as host. He found that heartening.
A park that kept its promise. Reece's recollection fits a larger story downtownATL has been telling all anniversary summer. Centennial Olympic Park, built as the Games' gathering place, became a permanent civic front yard, and 30 years later it served the same role on an even bigger scale when the FIFA Fan Festival drew 536,000 people during the World Cup. The leaders who won the Games reunited this July at an anniversary dinner, other Georgians shared the moments that rerouted their lives, and another communications veteran wrote a firsthand account of downtown that July. The city even marked 30 years since the Olympics as the World Cup wrapped.
Reece's account adds a quieter perspective to that history: an ordinary workday rhythm of tours, train rides and long walks through the park, interrupted by a moment that shook him, and followed by thousands of people choosing to come back the next day.
Interview by Peter Biello for Georgia Public Broadcasting.
