There is an Olympic story about the crusty Hall of Fame New York Daily News sportswriter Dick Young. He was known for his insider coverage of balls and bats, but not the five intertwined rings.

As the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal were about to get under way, Young thought it might be cool to catch a couple days of the event. On the road with a baseball team, he called his sports editor and asked if someone could arrange to leave a press pass for him at the stadium's will-call window.

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Ah, well, Dick, no.

It doesn't work like that. Besides, which stadium?

As I prepared to cover the Beijing Olympics, my seventh Summer Games on top of seven Winters, I thought of that somewhat apocryphal tale and Young's assumption of logistical ease. That's not the case in the 21st century. Credentialing for full "all-access" reporter and photographer credentials began in March 2006, soon after many of us returned from the Torino Winter Olympics. It came to editors and news organizations across the nation. They then had to decide the quantity of writing, photography and tech support folks they needed on the ground in Beijing ‹ more than two years ahead of the opening ceremonies.

And, more importantly, more than two years before knowing their travel budgets in an ever-shrinking media economy.

Housing requests began soon after and, if you delayed, by June 2007 you risked not getting one of your top three choices, a full 14 months before the opening ceremonies.

By the way, wiring money to the Bank of China to cover housing fees was an adventure in exactitude. Even a large U.S.-based bank like mine, US Bank, experienced two rejections before the Beijing Organizing Committee would accept my money.  Indeed, for these Games, it seemed, there was always an extra hoop to jump through. Like the e-mail we received about our arrival details.

It came on May 16, two months before I started packing. Organizers wanted to know exactly how many pieces of luggage we would be bringing. And a description of each. My answer was due by June 1.

I've covered the previous 13 Winter and Summer Games for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, or every Games since 1984. At my first Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, here's how we sent stories: A group of about 10 newspapers each bought a chair at a table that had a couple of dedicated phone lines to the Associated Press in New York.

We had to write our stories right there at those chairs. We had to send from there. We couldn't store our work. We had to type and send. The AP would then bounce our stories to our respective offices in each newspaper's city.

As hard as it might be to believe, there were no cell phones.

I remember the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics as the first fully cell-phoned Olympics. I remember Sydney as the first e-mail-able Olympics. Torino was fully wireless.

And now, Beijing. The Web-focused, video-centric, iPhone and BlackBerry Games. It will be fascinating to see just how free and open the wireless, but polluted, skies of Beijing will be for these Games.

One other note, and a somewhat personal one. The media landscape has changed dramatically since those days. Major newspapers like the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Long Island Newsday aren't sending any reporters. Zilch. Newsday, where I once worked, used to send three writers or more. Meanwhile, Web monsters ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine have seven credentials and Yahoo! has 12.

Me? I might be part of a new entrepreneurial journalism/business model. I am covering the Games for SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily, but also have pieced together a one-man Olympic bureau, with my credential through the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch and my work in Minnesota, where I live, for a new, not-for-profit news Web site called MinnPost.com. In advance of the Olympics, I've written for, among others, The Des Moines Register, ESPN, The Christian Science Monitor and BusinessWeek.

In the old days, I would bring a separate duffle bag with printed-out notes, statistics and media guides of every national governing body. Once, before the Sarajevo Games, a railway worker in Austria cursed me in German for the weight of my bag. Must have been all the batteries and file folders.

Now, I bring an external drive with notes, downloaded media guides and even audio of interviews stored in my wireless laptop that no longer needs a power converter.

By the way, the credentialing process for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics began July 15. It's not Dick Young's Olympics anymore.