It felt like a miracle.
On Sept. 18, 1990, in a ballroom in Tokyo, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Juan Antonio Samaranch opened an envelope to announce the host city for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games.
Samaranch paused. Was he surprised? Was there a mistake?
Tension high, he spoke.
“The International Olympic Committee has awarded the 1996 Olympic Games to the city of … Atlanta!”
“There was a volcano of joy and disbelief and surprise,” recalls Ed Hula, a radio production company owner and early Olympic torch bearer. Hula was among roughly 400 Atlantans who had traveled to Japan hoping to hear their city’s name called at the 96th IOC meeting.
“Everybody was shouting,” Hula says. “There was Mayor Maynard Jackson hugging Billy Payne. People jumped up and down. I was literally crawling through the crowd with my equipment getting the sounds.”
(Check out The Phoenix Rises: Atlanta’s Olympic Journey, an exhibit at the Georgia State Library showcasing much of Hula’s donated Olympic memorabilia, as well as other imagery, programs, buttons and keepsakes from the 1996 Olympic Games.)
Upstart Atlanta had defeated some of the most famous cities in the world to host the 100th anniversary of the Olympic Games, including the sentimental favorite, Athens, Greece, birthplace of the modern Olympics.
Atlanta had pulled off one of the greatest upsets in sports history. The victory would alter the trajectory of the city for decades and, by extension, help transform Georgia State University.
WINNING THE BID
The driving forces behind Atlanta’s successful bid were civil rights icon Andrew Young and attorney Billy Payne, who first imagined bringing the Olympics to the city.
Young, whose name later became part of Georgia State’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, brought international stature and credibility to the effort. A trusted lieutenant of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he had served as the first Black U.S. congressman from Georgia since Reconstruction and as the first Black U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. As mayor, he worked tirelessly to position Atlanta as a global business center.
After decades of practicing law and dealing with significant health challenges, Payne found renewed purpose through civic service. He assembled a group of supporters known as “The Atlanta Nine” and began championing what many considered an impossible dream: bringing the Olympics to Atlanta.
When Payne approached Young, the mayor saw an opportunity that extended beyond sports. Atlanta represented a city where Black and white leaders worked together toward a common future. It was the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement and a city increasingly admired around the world.
Young’s argument was simple. Even if Atlanta failed to win the bid, the effort would unite the city.
Instead, Atlanta won.
A TRANSFORMATIVE MOMENT
With the bid secured, preparations began almost immediately. The Olympics would become a catalyst for development across the region. Centennial Olympic Stadium rose in the Summerhill neighborhood as the centerpiece for the opening and closing ceremonies and track and field competition. After the Games, it became Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves, before eventually becoming Georgia State’s Center Parc Credit Union Stadium, now home to the GSU Panthers football team.
Downtown, Centennial Olympic Park transformed former industrial land into a gathering place for visitors and residents alike. The park remains one of Atlanta’s most recognizable destinations and continues to host major international events.
Existing facilities received upgrades, including Georgia State’s Sports Arena, which hosted Olympic badminton.
These investments were designed with a purpose beyond the two weeks of competition. The Games would modernize Atlanta’s sports infrastructure while accelerating urban revitalization efforts that continue to shape the city today.
Georgia State also had a role in the Olympic legacy plan.
GSU’S NEXT ACT
From its founding in 1913 through its first quarter-century as a university, Georgia State had no student housing. The Olympics would change that and help propel the institution from a commuter school into a major urban university.
Michael L. Sanseviro (Ph.D. ’06), now Georgia State’s vice president for Student Engagement, was working with an engineering school in New York and had experience developing university housing when he received a recruiting call from Atlanta.
“The pitch got my attention,” Sanseviro recalls. “‘The Olympics are coming. We need people with expertise. We want to develop residences for students for the first time. It’s an amazing time to be here. Oh, and you’ll be working directly with the Games.’”
He accepted the challenge and moved to Atlanta in May 1996.
The Olympic Village had been designed with a second life in mind. Once the athletes departed, Georgia State would convert portions of the complex into student housing. Before that could happen, however, Sanseviro had to help manage housing operations during the Games themselves.
The assignment was anything but ordinary.
CONTROLLED CHAOS
Sanseviro and another complex director remained on call around the clock, working 12-hour shifts six days a week as thousands of athletes rotated through the Village.
“As soon as a team finished competition, they threw a full-on party,” he says.
One large contingent of Russian athletes imported their own vodka rather than rely on local supplies.
“We were carefully coached that it was a deep insult to Russians to turn down a drink of their vodka if offered,” Sanseviro says. “They always offered. Whenever we got a service call to the Russian residences, somebody met us with a shot.”
Sheila Hula, wife of Ed Hula, (their son, Ed Hula III (B.A. ’09), was a GSU 40 Under 40 honoree in 2023), took time off from her job as executive producer of a CNN travel show to be a high-level volunteer. One of her assignments wasn’t so high-level.
“I flushed every single toilet to make sure plumbing worked,” she says. “Every single one.”
Her Olympic experience eventually became far more memorable.
When the delegation from the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu departed Atlanta before the closing ceremonies, no one remained to carry the country’s flag into the stadium. Organizers turned to Sheila, who had worked closely with the team during its stay.
“They asked if I would do it for them,” she says.
“It’s an experience that can’t be replicated — waiting with gold medalists, then walking into a stadium carrying a national flag with thousands of people cheering. It was just a dream.”
Deniece Griffin, now marketing manager for Georgia State’s Entrepreneurship & Innovation Institute, contributed to a different side of the Games.
As an assistant art director for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, Griffin helped coordinate artists and visual designers responsible for creating the event’s look and feel.
“We had to make sure everything was on brand,” Griffin says. “From the pictograms to the posters, we had to make sure the Games were represented in a fun and exciting way.”
LEGACY OF THE GAMES
The Games left a lasting imprint on Atlanta, but perhaps nowhere was the impact more visible than at Georgia State.
The creation of student housing fundamentally changed the university’s future. What began as an Olympic Village conversion evolved into a broader vision for a residential campus. Additional residence halls, classrooms, research facilities and student spaces followed.
Today, approximately 5,000 students live on Georgia State’s Atlanta Campus.
“When you’re a residential university, you attract a broader population,” Sanseviro says. “We added diversity. On-campus residences brought different types of students from different backgrounds. And we started to see many more international students.”
For Ed and Sheila Hula, reminders of the Games remain close at hand. One item carries particular significance for Ed: the Olympic torch he carried during the relay’s journey across the United States.
“My father had died a couple of weeks before I carried the torch,” he says. “He and mom lived near Cocoa Beach. He almost made it to the Olympics. He almost got to see me run with the torch.”
The torch’s journey ultimately ended in Atlanta, where boxing legend Muhammad Ali delivered one of the most unforgettable moments in Olympic history by lighting the cauldron during the opening ceremony.
Griffin also carried the Olympic torch during its journey to Atlanta. Decades later, she wondered whether it still worked.
“My brother was able to get it working,” she says. “It still had fuel in it.”
Thirty years after the Games, the memories linger for Deniece, Ed and Atlanta. But the Games also left much more.
The Centennial Olympics pumped golden adrenalin into Atlanta and Georgia State. Outpacing all expectations, the Games gave the city and university a boost onto the world podium.
Today, 30 years later, Andrew Young’s prophetic words about the Games ring more true than ever.
It will bring people together.
Photos courtesy of Michael L. Sanseviro (Ph.D. ’06), Deniece Griffin and the Georgia State Library’s Digital Collections.
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