9 News employee reflects on growing up with the Olympics

Ted Wilson is the Executive Producer of Good Morning Tri-State. You can see his behind the scenes work Monday through Friday from 4:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. on GMTS.

CINCINNATI-- It seems unlikely there is anywhere where so many different people from different places get along so well as at the Olympics.

As the London Olympics kick off Friday, spectators are sure to see triumphs, controversy and even some unity among the competitors.

I've been fortunate enough to witness the power and controversy of the event several times both in my own house growing up and when I went to four different Olympic Games. I went to Montreal in 1976, Lake Placid in 1980, and Los Angeles and Sarajevo in 1984. I worked as a driver for a Canadian news crew at the Lake Placid games and was a spectator at the other three.

Thursday on Good Morning Tri-State we featured a few pieces of memorabilia from those and other games including ABC Olympic pins, some tickets to events and from the very pre-digital days, an album of the official soundtrack of the Montreal Games.

Some of the mementos are mine and others are from my dad, Doug Wilson, who worked with ABC Sports for 50 years. He worked at every Olympics ABC Sports broadcast from 1964 to 1988, nearly all of them as a producer/director. The Olympics were a very big part of my family’s life as my brothers and I grew up.
The Olympics were a huge part of my childhood and with the start of the London Olympics, it’s easy to get nostalgic and sappy about the Games. However, we all know the Games aren’t a fantasyland of global brotherhood. My memories of Munich are vivid and filled with me worrying about my father’s wellbeing as tragedy shook the event when a Palestinian terrorist group held the Israeli Olympic team captive.

What is amazing is how well the great global vast majority of people get along give the size of the event. Consider this: On Thursday, about 250,000 people passed through Heathrow Airport on their way to the London Olympics. The entire population of Clermont County is about 194,000. The Olympics can be a mad house.

Even in the chaos, you find few foul moods. Perhaps it is because everyone there recognizes how lucky they are to be there, even when it’s well below zero degrees — as was the case in Lake Placid. Perhaps it’s because people recognize themselves as ambassadors of their countries and are on their best behavior. Perhaps it’s the Olympic spirit.

For a few days we can focus on the extraordinary things human beings can accomplish rather than the worst. We can all recognize, celebrate and honor excellence, even when we lose.

The Olympics gives us an opportunity to focus on the best. It’s a reason to believe that even in the darkest days, there is hope that the better natures of most people everywhere will win in the end.