Mayor Richard Daley goes 'on a rant' at 2016 group's final meeting

Chicago Tribune ^ | not December 14, 2009, but December 9, 2009 | Melissa Harris

[re_tail20]

When Mayor Richard Daley spoke at the private and final meeting of Chicago 2016 volunteers, he was, according to one attendee, "in rare form." Another described him as "on a rant. It was straight off the cuff. ... He looked angry, and he was angry."

Now, we weren't there. The press was barred from last week's meeting at the Aon Center and the reception that followed at the private Mid-America Club on the top floor of the building. About 150 to 200 volunteers attended, and four shared their impressions on the condition of anonymity.

Daley started his remarks by calling on the federal government to financially back all future U.S. Olympic bids. It was too difficult for U.S. cities to raise the necessary funds in such short amounts of time, while their competitors often received financial assistance from their national governments, he said.

"He started by saying we spent $75 million, and the next city was going to have to spend $100 million, and we didn't even have a chance," said one attendee, paraphrasing the mayor, who was the driving force behind the bid. "It was all politics and all money. All politics and all money. (The International Olympic Committee) didn't care about the athletes, and they didn't care about the quality of the bid."

Another attendee said she came away from the 15-minute speech believing the city never understood the depth of its disadvantage. And Daley reportedly told the group that had the city known from the start that the International Olympic Committee was intent on taking the games to new regions of the globe, they never would have spent the time or the money on the effort.

[Ditto]

The staggered manner in which they are now doing it really dilutes Olympic anticipation that used to be there.

That does not bother me as much as blowing away the amateur status for the Olympics. The "Dream Team" was the end of giving a damn about it for me. They are the same guys you see all the time in different uniforms. I loved it when the college guys could take on the world. Michael Jordan taking on the world??? Big Deal.

Think about this. If the 1980 US Hockey Team had been made up of a bunch of NHL players, would it have meant anything? The answer is Hell NO.

Today, the Olympics is nothing but a marketing machine. It has little or nothing to do with sport. Last winter Olympics, all I watched was the Curling because I can't imagine that any of those guys are making a living from some marketing corp. practicing curling five days a week. They are doing it for fun --- and I'd think the beer.