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| CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock works in the USOC's media relations office at the Games. |
College Football Playoff Executive Director Bill Hancock is on vacation. It might not have looked like it on swimming days at the Rio Olympics, when he had to wade through dozens of requests from reporters wanting a ticket to see Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky take the podium, but he really is on vacation.
Every four years since he was communications director for the Big Eight Conference in 1984, Hancock has taken three weeks to travel to the Summer Olympics, where he temporarily joins the U.S. Olympic Committee’s media relations staff to help stage the biggest show in sports.
“People have come in and said, ‘What are you still doing here? You’re the executive director of the College Football Playoff,’” Hancock says from the hardscrabble main press center at Barra Olympic Park. “But this is my vacation, and they wouldn’t say that to me if I took my vacation to go fly-fishing, or golfing, playing 36 holes of golf a day. This is what I love to do. This is my fly-fishing and my 36 holes of golf a day.”
Hancock first started working the Games in Los Angeles ’84, back when Olympic sports governing bodies were volunteer-driven and lacked full-time communications pros. Over the years, NGBs got better funded and hired their own, but there’s always work to do at the Games. Now Hancock runs ticketing for those high-demand events when reporters need both a credential and a ticket in hand.
He kept coming back as he moved on from the Big Eight, then to the Final Four, and then to the BCS in 2005. Since then, a football schedule has allowed him to attend the Winter Olympics, too. He’ll do it as long as they’ll have him.
“There’s nothing more rewarding than international travel, and for me the great part of the Olympics is we’re all right here together,” Hancock says. “I don’t have to go to Estonia to meet somebody from Estonia. We’re all here together, working it out, finding the buses, you know, finding out where there’s some food. We’re all in this together, that’s the best thing about the Olympics for me.”
■ Have you taken lessons home for college sports from the way media is handled at the Olympics?
HANCOCK: Yes, I have. Through the years at the Final Four, I brought a lot of things back from the Olympics to the Final Four. One concept, just one little concept — to have the person at the front desk have a smile on their face. That’s just a little thing, but first impressions are everything. People who are lost just need a friendly face.
Some things in signage, I’ve learned a lot. One thing is, everything you do, you have to manage it as if everybody in the stadium has never been there before.
■ What has been your favorite Games?
HANCOCK: That’s like asking which of my 12 children I love the most. It’s so hard to answer that. … I’ve loved every single one. They’re all so different. If you made me say, I’d probably say Sydney (in 2000). The Games were very well-organized, the Australian people are such gracious hosts. Barcelona (in 1992) right behind it. I’ve loved everyone. Beijing was a remarkable experience. I’m sorry you didn’t get to experience that, you would have seen that it was very, very well-organized, and precise, yet accommodating. And London, too; London was fabulous. I’ve never had a bad experience.
■ Which is most distinctive in your memory?
HANCOCK: Beijing was distinctive in every way. It’s such a different culture, such remarkable venues and hospitality and precision. And I know the problems that people in China have; I’m fully aware of that. But just taking the Olympics as a stand-alone event, it was remarkable.
■ How’s the media changed over the years?
HANCOCK: As far as the media culture, the way media behave, the way it is for me to interact with media, not a bit. There are fewer newspapers here than in Barcelona, and that’s the way it’s gone in the newspaper business.
The IOC ensures that the playbook is consistent, and there are not a lot of differences from Games to Games. There’s always a (main press center), and it’s always set up like this one. The IOC does a terrific job of being accommodating to reporters, and even better, the USOC does a remarkable job in assisting reporters to do their job. It’s clearly a priority for the USOC. They have a wonderful staff who works very hard, and they’re very, very accommodating.
■ You were very helpful to me on the opening ceremony day, when I didn’t realize I needed a ticket and my credential, and I was afraid I’d missed out.
HANCOCK: Rookie Olympics people are my favorites, because I was a rookie Olympics person. I didn’t know what I was doing in L.A., until somebody showed me the ropes. So I decided to pass it on.
