KING A UNIFYING FORCE WHO MADE US BETTER
He introduced idea of using volunteers to host Games, Crosbie Cotton writes.
Michael Phelps, gold-medal swimmer and the most decorated Olympian of all time, oft says: “Don’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the further you get.”
“Limit” was a word erased from Frank King ’s vocabulary. King was the ultimate dreamer. A BIG dreamer and all Canadians should be thankful he did not put a limit on anything — except, of course, fighting the wanton demands of the International Olympic Committee he considered wasteful and unnecessary.
For almost a decade in the 1980s, my life and Frank’s were intertwined. We travelled the world together connected at the hip, both pursuing what would become the best ever Winter Games in Olympic history.
He was the inspirational chair of the winning 1988 Winter Games bid committee. I was the reporter in the third row of the Congress Hall in Baden-Baden, Germany, who watched Frank leap joyously into the air as Calgary was announced as the winning city.
Ever mindful of the billiondollar debt legacy of the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal, for the next seven years I shadowed and reported on every aspect of the Games Organizing Committee board, chaired adroitly with ethical prowess by King.
Even when the relationship became testy and we clashed — as King did regularly with city board representative Mayor Ralph Klein — he never wavered from the pursuit of a neversince-matched Calgary dream.
When the IOC demanded individual drivers and vehicles be assigned 24 hours a day to every one of its 81 members — a process that had occurred at every previous Olympics — King stood tall and said “no” to the Lords of the Rings.
He believed it was not only a waste of money but a human abuse of volunteers who would be needlessly sitting around doing nothing while the IOC slept or attended myriad functions in a host hotel. It just wasn’t right for volunteers. The result: a car pool, which has become the norm ever since.
Nothing typifies more how Calgary has changed since 1988 than comparing the bid then to the one Calgary is now considering for the 2026 Games. Three decades ago, at a meeting of the Calgary Booster Club (which supports scholarships and selects the top male and female athletes of the year), King and acquaintance Bob Niven raised their hands when attendees were asked for volunteers to explore a Games bid.
The Booster Club provided $5,000 and said go for it — unlikely realizing the tremendous gusto with which King chased seeming insurmountable challenges. It was a bid run by the volunteer spirit for which the city was renowned — King never earned a penny from years working almost full time on the Games — and it was backed by huge corporate financial support. Today, everyone is paid from a $30-million tax pot.
He had a contagious enthusiasm that engaged Calgarians. To fund the bid, he hosted a sold-out $1,000-a-plate dinner at the convention centre with Anne Murray as the entertainment. The cost was unheard of at the time, but city corporations willingly responded.
Perhaps of utmost importance King — and he was a true team player — introduced two new concepts: the use of volunteers to host a Games and, for the first time ever, the use of the Olympics to create a lasting financial and facility legacy. Both are mainstays of today’s Olympic world, especially Canada’s.
Astoundingly, 81 per cent of Canada’s medals at the most recent Winter Games were won by athletes who trained or competed at legacy facilities in Calgary and Canmore.
Most live in the area, mentoring and acting as role models for future generations of athletes to inspire a nation.
As a nation split in so many ways, Frank King was a unifying force who made us all better.