1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics cauldron
The 1996 Summer Olympic Games were held in Atlanta, right? Yes . . .well, mostly. For whatever reason, the soccer tournaments – men’s and women’s – were instead spread over five sites: Athens, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Orlando, Florida; Washington, D.C.; and Birmingham, Alabama. Although this struck me as odd at the time, the scattered sites ended up providing me with one of most memorable soccer experiences I’ve ever had. Allow me to explain.
Cleveland’s ticket from the quarter-final game
In 1996, I was living in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but thankfully had two good friends in Atlanta who were just as excited as I was to attend the Olympic Games that summer in their adopted city. Securing tickets was a rather unusual affair, though, as they were only available in “bundles.” To gain access to one of the more popular events (e.g., soccer, track and field or basketball) you also paid for tickets to, say, archery, fencing or judo. Since we were determined to attend a soccer match (we had all been teammates on our high school soccer team in New York), we also ended up with tickets to badminton (which was actually highly entertaining – picture a series of remarkably athletic participants smashing the poor shuttlecock at one another at seemingly impossible velocities!), men’s field hockey (not nearly as exciting) and baseball (mildly entertaining – we saw the U.S. drub a woeful Australia team). With tickets secured, we – myself, another friend from high school, and my future wife – flew to Atlanta from Boston eager to witness the spectacle that is the Olympic Games!
View across Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta during the games
Fortunately, our soccer tickets were for a quarter-finals game in Birmingham, though we, of course, didn’t know who the teams would be ahead of time. That was also to be the last event we attended. But, it was worth the wait. We attended the baseball game the evening of July 27th, the night before the soccer match. As some readers will recall, tragedy struck later that evening. The bomb placed in Centennial Olympic Park detonated at 1:20am, killing one person and injuring over 100 others. At the time, we were all out celebrating in Buckhead, which hosted one of the many outdoor fan venues with plenty of spaces for revelry, including huge television screens and ample beer stands. After the news of what had transpired began to filter in – recall that this was prior to smartphones – the mood rapidly changed from unapologetically celebratory to numbly somber in a relatively short time. For some time thereafter, we just stared silently at the giant television screens trying to understand what at happened, newly staring at our beer cups, searching for answers. As we finally decided to leave and walk back to our friend’s house where we were all staying an uncertainty permeated the air. Who had done it? And why? How many casualties were there? Would the Olympic Games be cancelled? No one had any answers.
The next morning, we remained stunned by what had happened. Sleep had done little, if anything, to lift the mood. But we did learn that the Games would go on. Feeling like the best thing for everyone was to try to regain the spirt we had rapidly lost following the bombing, we began to rally for the trip to Birmingham. While excited to watch Mexico take on Nigeria, none of us were overly excited about the two-hour-plus drive to Birmingham. As we merged on to Interstate 20 , though, we quickly realized that this was going to be anything but an ordinary journey.
It became abundantly clear that we were not the only ones traveling from Atlanta to Birmingham for the match. First one car, then another, followed by countless more, were cruising to Alabama with either Mexican or Nigerian flags flying out the car windows, often accompanied by (loud) music, and flagbearers in high spirits. Just like that, the interstate itself had become a party zone. Although I was personally planning to root for Nigeria, we exchanged “woo-hoos” and horn beeps equally as fervently with fans from both countries as we proceeded down the highway. As is always the case, some cars quickly outpaced us, while we overtook others; in both cases, they provided opportunities to engage – loudly – with new sets of fans. This revelry continued for two hours until we were all funneled into the access roads to Legion Field, at which point the celebration only intensified with the compacting of our impromptu multi-national caravan.
Mexico’s 1996 Olympic team
If any readers have attended a game at Legion Field, they’ll know that there’s not sufficient parking to handle the volume of spectators. As such, owners of the modest homes adjacent to the stadium rent their lawns out for parking for sporting events. We spent the afternoon tailgating on one of the lawns, building up our excitement ahead of the 3:00pm kick-off. The revelry didn’t entirely eclipse the previous evening’s tragedy, but it went a long way toward restoring the energy and enthusiasm that everyone had displayed prior to the bombing. I wish I could find the photos I took of our afternoon celebration, which included countless engagements with fans of both teams, with whom we shared food, drink and soccer talk, but fond memories will have to suffice.
Nigeria playing Hungary during an earlier stage of the games
As readers who have attended matches in Latin America or Africa will know, the game itself is a two-hour party, complete with incessant music, singing and cheering. This match was no different. The mood from the tailgate carried into the late afternoon inside the stadium and was undoubtedly buoyed by additional merry-makers who had come to celebrate, but didn’t have tickets, content with remaining outside to dutifully keep the party going there.
The game itself was hardly unforgettable. An early goal by Jay-Jay Okocha gave the Nigerians a lead that they would never relinquish. The outcome was sealed in the 84th minute with a goal by Celestine Babayaro. Nigeria had prevailed 2-0 and, in fact, would go on to capture the gold medal, beating both Brazil and Argentina along the way. It was the first Olympic gold in soccer for an African nation, though Cameroon duplicated the accomplishment at the subsequent Games in Sydney.
Thoroughly and satisfyingly entertained, we reluctantly piled back into our cars to head back to Atlanta. To no one’s surprise, Interstate 20 once again transformed into a celebratory artery. Unfortunately, unlike on the way to Birmingham, this time half the fans were on the losing side. But, it didn’t deter the Mexico supporters for long. It was clear that at some point along the drive – reasonably early on, I can confirm – their supporters had decided that there was no use in remaining dejected following the defeat and they consequently ramped up their celebration and, once again, joined in on the fun. The ride back was every bit as joyful and cacophonous as the ride to Birmingham had been, marked by serial engagements with passing fans in passing cars, smiling, waving, beeping, singing and just celebrating – the win, the loss, whatever.
Nigeria celebrating a winning goal against Argentina at the Men’s final
I recall arriving home that evening utterly exhausted, as if I, not the Mexican and Nigerian players, had run around the pitch for two hours. But, of course, it had been a long 24 hours – actually, not even 24 hours – since the senseless bombing had forever altered the course of the 1996 Olympic Games and, tragically, the lives of its many victims. For roughly five of those hours, though, we had all gravitated away from our thoughts of the victims and the nefariousness of the perpetrator(s), and cathartically channeled our energies into celebrating – at roughly 70 miles per hour – with total strangers the joy that soccer delivers to so many followers, as we barreled down Interstate 20 to and from Legion Field. Upon reflection, I can confidently say that if, as the saying goes, “getting there is half the fun,” getting to Birmingham, and, in this case, back, to Atlanta, was definitely way more than half the fun.
Todd Cleveland is a professor in the Department of History, where he teaches classes on African and Sports History, including one (admittedly uncreatively titled) course that combines those two areas of interest: “History of Sports in Africa” (see, I told you it was uncreatively titled). His passion for soccer began while playing during high school (albeit as a back-up striker with limited goal-scoring abilities), watching those atrocious MISL games, and eventually living in London, where he discovered and subsequently fell in love with Arsenal Football Club. He has now been a long-suffering Arsenal fan for over thirty years, patiently awaiting a return to the glory years of “The Invincibles,” Arsenal’s undefeated 2003-2004 squad. Along the way, he has published Following the Ball: The Migration of African Soccer Players across the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1949-1975 (Ohio University Press, 2017), as well as a series of soccer-related articles, but readily admits that his own writing pales in comparison to his favorite soccer author, Eduardo Galeano. His favorite soccer quote comes from Arsenal legend, Tony Adams: “Play for the name on the front of the shirt, and they’ll remember the name on the back.” If only we all wore jerseys.