DALLAS — Grady Hicks' case of what he calls "ring fever" dates back 22 years to watching the 1976 Winter Olympics on television.
"I remember very vividly Franz Klammer coming from behind to win" in the men's downhill skiing event, said Hicks, 32, an Arlington resident who today is vice president of marketing at Alco Environmental Inc. in Mansfield. "I've always been for the underdog, and that got me hooked. Since then, whenever the Olympics were on TV, I watched every night."
Hicks is doing more than watching now. For the last two years, he has led north Texas' push to host the 2012 Summer Olympics.
According to Hicks, it was during the 1996 Summer Olympics that he became convinced that if Atlanta could host the Games, the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex could, too.
"It stuck in the back of my mind and was one of those things that just never went away," he said. "To satisfy my itch, I called the U.S. Olympic Committee to see what it would take."
In September 1997, the USOC sent him a packet of information indicating, among other things, that a mayor's signature and a $150,000 fee were required by Oct. 20.
As the deadline approached, Hicks got an audience with Arlington Mayor Elzie Odom, who gave his support to north Texas hosting the Games. Odom and other City Council members obtained the money from the private sector. Just in time, they unanimously passed a resolution making the city of Arlington a bidder for the 2012 Games and transferred the money to the USOC.
Since then, Hicks and his organizing committee have spent countless hours in meetings all over the country to discover everything they need to know, legally and logistically, to make the dream a reality.
Their all-out effort gained support from many Metroplex municipalities, but it stumbled and nearly flamed out last spring with a deadline approaching and a decided lack of enthusiasm from the Dallas City Council and Mayor Ron Kirk.
But Hicks and his committee were understanding of Kirk's busy agenda, and that patience paid off. The Dallas City Council recently unanimously approved a resolution to take over the lead bid position from Arlington in planning a Metroplex bid for the 2012 Games.
Hicks said he is elated that Dallas will be the anchor city — pending USOC approval of the change.
"It will still be a regional project, but we now have a national nameplate if we are to go up against other cities like London, Toronto and Paris," he said. "This is no slight at all against Arlington. It is a great gift that they have given us in getting the ball rolling, but Dallas must take a high-profile role if we are to be taken seriously by the USOC."
Hicks' own career is a testimony to gaining recognition.
While earning his communications degree at the University of Texas at Arlington, he sold cars at a Ford dealership. Soon after graduation, he sold a truck to Mike Smith of Browning-Ferris Industries Inc., who was so impressed with Hicks that he offered him a job at the waste disposal company. In the first year, Hicks sold BFI's largest account to date — and its first national account — to Steak and Ale/Bennigan's Restaurants.
Several years later, competitor J.C. Duncan Cos. hired Hicks as sales manager for the Dallas-Fort Worth area and later for the entire state. When he needed a sales rep, he called Smith, who went to work for Hicks, reversing their roles.
"Grady thinks big, globally and logically. He's very good at large ideas and knows how to attack a situation," Smith said.
In keeping his Olympic dream alive, Hicks said his relative anonymity may have been a blessing.
"I'm just an unknown guy, but that may be an advantage," he said. "I don't have any baggage or any reputation to live down, or to live up to."
Hicks' role in the bid process, however, could be changing. With Dallas poised to assume a lead role in the north Texas bid, Dallas city officials might appoint their own committee to head the Olympic movement from this point on. But, according to Hicks, that's a change that would be fine with him.
"I'm not a power broker at all," he says. "Although I anticipate that I will still have a leadership role, we need to diversify and bring more Dallas people into the limelight. I'm just an ordinary citizen who was lucky enough to garner the support of the community to get things started."
Shana Boals is a writer living in Dallas.
