A Weekend with Champions

Last weekend the USOC hosted the "Reach the Peak" seminar for about 30 potential and current Olympians. We started on Friday and had sessions on Saturday and Sunday. In a nutshell, the purpose of the program was to learn how to improve our performance and to achieve your personal peak in sports.


One of the high points of the weekend was seeing two athletes whom I have tremendous respect for. The first was Brandon Slay, a gold medalist wrestler from the 2000 Olympics. The other was Dan O'Brien, the 1996 decathlon gold medalist but better known for the Reebok "Dave and Dan" commercials.


Brandon and I go back a ways. In the summer of 2000, my aunt and uncle decided to buy me a ticket to watch the Sydney Olympics because they believed it would be motivating for me in my own Olympic pursuit. My brother Justin did not want to be left out so he joined me on my way to Sydney. After a spectacular 10 day trip which culminated with an American woman winning the silver medal in pentathlon, we boarded the Sydney to LA flight for the 15 hour trip. Like good frequent fliers, Justin and I had made sure that we had window and aisle bulkhead seats to stretch our legs. When we boarded the plane, there was a girl sitting in the seat between ours who introduced herself as Tiffany. Over the course of the flight, she told us that she had been down in Sydney watching her brother wrestle. We asked how he had done and she told us he won the silver medal. Tiffany and I exchanged contact information because I was going to be in Dallas where she lived a few weeks later. When I went to Dallas, my friend Wendel and I took Tiffany and one of her friends out to eat one night.


A couple days after returning home I saw in the news that Tiffany's brother had been awarded the gold medal following a doping violation of the wrestler who defeated him. Brandon had been a resident athlete in Colorado Springs, but had taken a hiatus from wrestling following his win and came back about a year later. A number of months later I met Brandon for the first time at the OTC. I had a lot of respect for him and got to know him over the next year or so. Somewhere around 2002, Brandon decided to retire and I had not seen him since until this weekend.


So to culminate a long story, I was surprised to see Brandon on the bus to the conference this weekend. As we were getting off the bus, he said hi, I said hi, and I asked how his sister was doing. This turned several heads as a number of the other athletes questioned the wisdom of asking an Olympic gold medalist wrestler about his sister! Anyway, Brandon worked with us all weekend and here is a picture from the last day of the conference.





Growing up, I was a huge Olympic fan. I remember watching the Olympics as early as 1984 when I was only 6. By 1992, I was glued to my parents 13 inch black and white TV for the two weeks of the Games. In the lead up, Reebok decided to run a series of ads on Dave Johnson and Dan O'Brien, the top two decathletes in the US. They were expected to finish 1-2 at the Olympics and the marketing campaign was about which one would win. Dan failed to qualify for the Olympics after not clearing a single jump in the pole vault. Dave went on to win. I have read Dave Johnson's book and I met him a number of years ago. Dan's story is also very interesting. It was obviously devastating for a medal favorite to fail to qualify for the Olympics, and it was interesting to hear how he dealt with it. Dan also had a lot of tips on how to get your mind ready for competing at the Olympics. He really has the mindset of a champion and it was an honor to be able to pick his brain for a few hours. His advice was especially pertinent because pentathlon and decathlon have similar complexities. So here is a picture of me with Dan.
All in all, it was a very inspiring weekend. It is such a privilege to have two of the greatest athletes in the world take the time to mentor me and the other athletes as we strive to follow in their footsteps. Thanks a bunch guys and I hope we all make you proud some day!


I'll try to get better about posting blog updates. The Russian and Egyptian teams are here training with us right now and I'll post some updates on that over the weekend. Until next time...