USOC Chef : "I Do This for a Living"

(ATR) Mike Plant put the U.S. Olympic Committee staff on notice as soon as he was named chef de mission for the Vancouver Games.

"I said, 'Hey look, there's going to be a difference between me and probably any other chef that you've had in here: I do this for a living,'" he tells Around the Rings.

Rather than quaking in their ski boots, Plant says of the staff, "There was a big sigh of relief."

Plant has been president of the Goodwill Games, an international event that included many Olympic sports; organized the first cycling stage race in China and is now Executive Vice President of Business Operations for the Atlanta Braves baseball team.

He says he told the USOC staff: "I don't want you wasting a second of your time thinking that you've got to educate me about what you're doing, because I'm not going to waste my time worrying about all the logistical infrastructure or planning when we look at 'meals, wheels , pillows,' as I call it in the event business.

"I already know they're making all those arrangements based on a good, solid blueprint that we've used a number of Games. We're one of the best NOCs in the world at this."

That doesn't mean Plant plans to slack off while he's in Vancouver. He'll work nearly around the clock, going to meetings and visiting venues. "I told them the driver they have for me, make sure he knows how to ride in the backseat," Plant says. "I don't need somebody driving me around like a king. I know how to drive a car."

Plant Brings International Experience

The USOC staff also didn't have to bring Plant up to speed on who's who at the Games. While the experience of the Beijing chef de mission, Judge Charles Lee, was confined to serving as envoy to the Chinese team at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, Plant already knows most of the movers and shakers in the Olympic Movement.

He not only has met with many international federation presidents and secretary generals, he convinced some to change their schedules to accommodate the Goodwill Games. He was an Olympic speedskater, so he knows Cathy Priestner Allinger, the VANOC executive vice president for sport and Games operations. "Cathy and I go way back," he says.

Plant also has a good relationship with Rene Fasel, chair of the IOC coordination commission.

"That's where I see my value - with doping issues, athlete issues, referee/judging issues," he says. "I understand how to deal with crisis. There's a good way to do it and a bad way to do it."

If Plant had been in charge when U.S. speedskaters Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick were feuding in Turin, "I would have sat down with them right away and said, 'Guys, let me make sure you understand what a bunch of jackasses you look like back home to our entire country, because I know that you're not. You're in a fishbowl here that's magnified like something you've never seen before. And that's not what you want your image to be."

Plant says that the Olympians, like the Atlanta Braves baseball players, understand that "I'm not just a suit."

"They know that I was an athlete, that I had a certain level of success at an elite level," he says. "I've been in the trenches."

Plant, 50, was a six-time member of the U.S. World Championships speedskating team and made the 1980 U.S. Olympic team. He served as chair of the Athletes' Advisory Council, was Executive Director of the U.S. Canoe and Kayak Team and associate executive director and president of USA Cycling. He was a member of the board of directors of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games.

Most importantly, he is one of the few Americans serving in the highest level of international sport -- as a member of the management committee for the international cycling federation -- and he's a member of the USOC board of directors.

"He understands every part and every element of what it is to have a team at the Games," says Harvey Schiller, the former executive director of the U.S. Olympic Committee who has been Plant's boss at Turner Sports and best man at his wedding. "He can understand the challenges of 1,000 or so Americans showing up in another country."

Not His First Olympics

This will be Plant's 15th Olympics. Although he made the team in 1980, he didn't get to skate a race. His best event was the 3,000 meters for men, which isn't an Olympic event (long track goes from 1,500 meters to 5,000 meters). There were also only three slots in every event per country then, and one spot went to Eric Heiden, who went on to win five gold medals.

Although Plant didn't race, that Olympics launched his business career. Knowing that speedskating was a "kitchen-table organization," he took it upon himself to find a sponsor for the team. Working with sports marketer George Taylor, Plant "banged out my first proposal on mom and dad's electric typewriter." He and Taylor landed a $400,000 deal with Atari Corporation.

Plant was still a competitive speedskater, too, and was having success in European races. "I was potentially kind of a shoo-in to make the 1984 Olympic team," he says.

He came home 8-10 days before the trials only to be struck by a flu that was so bad his parents had to help him go back and forth to the bathroom. Plant skated his first 1,500 meter race seven or eight seconds slower thanhe had in Europe, and "a couple of guys who made the team hadn't beaten me in a race in a long time," he says. "It was hard."

Plant went to the Sarajevo Olympics anyway, working for ABC television. He attended the Los Angeles Olympics as a guest, then went to Calgary in 1988 with the U.S. cycling federation. In Seoul, he was manager of the cycling team.

"I could get cycling vans into the Village, right up to our door. I never told how I got it done," he says with a laugh. "Little tricks of the trade. And I've been using a lot of them over the years."

In Albertville, Plant was chair of the athletes' group and had to avert a potential disaster. Cross country skier Bill Koch, who had been elected flag bearer in a close vote over speedskater Dan Jansen, made it known he was thinking about dipping the U.S. flag toward the dignitaries' box.

Since 1908 and the legend surrounding shot-putter Ralph Rose ("This flag dips for no earthly king"), the U.S. flag has never been dipped at the Olympics.

"I said, I don't think that's his choice," Plant says. "You're representing this organization, the U.S. Olympic team, you follow protocol.

"I said, 'You look me in the eye and tell me you'll respect that.' He said, 'I can't do that.' I said, 'Give me the flag. I'm going to give it to DJ.' He said, 'Are you serious?' I said, 'I'm dead serious.' You can't respect the protocol of our country, the laws of our country, that's what I'm going to do.'"

Koch capitulated and said he wouldn't dip the flag, but Plant wanted to make sure he understood one thing as they marched in the Opening Ceremony: "I'll be right behind you."

At the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Plant also helped reach a "reasonable compromise" when basketball team members such as Michael Jordan didn't want to wear the Reebok official gearbecause they were sponsored by other companies. Jordan draped the U.S. flag over the Reebok logo.

Plant went to the 1994 Olympics as a guest, and served with the ACOG board in 1996. For the 1998 Games, he wore his Turner Sports hat, and in Sydney two years later he represented both cycling and Turner. He was a guest at the Games in 2002 and in 2004, 2006 and 2008 he attended the Olympics as a member of the USOC board.

Married to the Olympics

Plant has so many Olympic connections in his life that he's even married to an Olympian. Mary T. Meagher, known as Madame Butterfly, won three golds at the 1984 Olympics and a bronze in 1988. Her world record in the 100-meter butterfly stood for 18 years; her 200-meter butterfly record 19 years.

"I handed Mary the flag in 1985 in Kobe, Japan," Plant says. "I was one of the leaders on the World University Games delegation on the staff side and she was the flag bearer, just this young 21-year-old kid going to Cal.

He told her not to dip the flag, too.

They got to know each other better while serving on the athletes' council together, but Plant said he waited until his term as chairman was over before asking her on a date.

"She invited me to the Kentucky Derby two months later and we married in 1994." They have two children, Maddie, 14, and Drew, 12, and Plant has an older daughter, Erika, from a previous marriage.

A Return to the USOC

Plant walked away from the USOC in 1996 after Michael Lenard lost the election for president to Bill Hybl. Plant had helped run Lenard's campaign and was so disillusioned he never went to another USOC meeting. Plus, he had a business to run and a busy home life.

When the USOC reorganized, drastically cutting the board from 100-plus members to only about a dozen, he was asked if he would consider serving on the board.

As a representative of the national governing bodies to the board, Plant felt that former chair Peter Ueberroth and current chair Larry Probst didn't utilize or appreciate his experience in international sports.

He had clashed with Probst about the direction of the board, but the two have reached an understanding.

"I told him he got bad advice at the beginning of his tenure," Plant says. "He's obviously an incredibly bright person. In the last couple of months, we've basically put the past behind us."

When Probst made it clear that he was not resigning and would become fully engaged, Plant told him, "I've got two choices: I can either continue to work against you, because I don't think you're the right guy, or now that you've declared that 'I am the right guy,' I can work with you. I care more about this organization and what it stands for than your interests and my interests put together."

Plant was part of the search committee that selected Scott Blackmun as CEO, and they have known each other for 20 years.

Plant believes Blackmun's selection will help the USOC get back on the right track.

"We've got to repair our international relationships," Plant says.

Take it from the guy who once flew to Monte Carlo to talk to Primo Nebiolo, then the IAAF president, for two hours.

"I got points for that," Plant says.

He knows what he's doing.

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Written by Karen Rosen in Vancouver.