College Sports Communicators Logo

Special Awards Profile: CoSIDA Hall of Famer Mike Moran recognized for Lifetime Achievement Award

Date postedMay 10, 2011
Awards,

College Sports Information Directors of America

Special Awards Profile: CoSIDA Hall of Famer Mike Moran recognized for Lifetime Achievement Award

Today's profile on 2011 CoSIDA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Mike Moran is the 19th in a series of profiles and features on CoSIDA's 2011 Special Awards recipients.

Moran will be honored in Marco Island during a luncheon presentation on Tuesday, June 28. Moran served for nearly 25 years at the U.S. Olympic Committee from 1978-2003. Here, he made a significant contribution to CoSIDA when he started the media coordination committee that assisted in all USOC events. Through this program hundreds of sports information personnel were able to travel the world and work Olympic Games, World Championships, Pan American events and U.S. Olympic Festivals.

See link to original release and the March/April/May schedule of the Special Award profiles/features, below.

by Tamara J. Flarup, University of Wisconsin/Chair of the CoSIDA Special Awards Committee

Mike Moran, who retired from the U. S. Olympic Committee in 2003 as longtime managing director for media and public relations, will be recognized with the CoSIDA Lifetime Achievement Award this summer at the national convention in Marco Island, Fla.

Many will recognize Moran for his nearly 25 years of service to the USOC from 1978-2003. This is where, in his own words, he made his most significant contribution to CoSIDA when he started the media coordination committee that assisted in all USOC events. Through this program hundreds of sports information personnel were able to travel the world and work Olympic Games, World Championships, Pan American events and U.S. Olympic Festivals.

A native of Omaha, Neb., Moran ‘s first Olympics were the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” games in Lake Moran USOC Placid. He was the USOC's spokesman and media coordinator through 13 Olympics and two boycotts.

Indeed, some of his more memorable moments were the ones he would like to forget such as the Tanya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan figure skating episode in 1994, or the millionaire basketball players ‘Dream Team’ which was inserted into the Barcelona Games in 1992.

There were steroid scandals and boycotts, but there were also the high-points such as Mary Lou Retton, America’s little sweetheart and 1984 all-around gold medal gymnast, or that Miracle on Ice team that beat the Soviets and unpredictably won the gold medal.

Of his experience Moran said, "Controversy and dysfunction is part of the structure of the organization," he said. "We've taken our hits but we haven't ducked anything."

Described as “a towering presence with a quick wit and powerful voice tailor-made for a microphone,” Moran began his career as SID at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, his alma mater, and was the University of Colorado's sports information director from 1968-78 ,before taking the USOC job.

He quickly became one of the most visible sports public relations executives in the nation while coordinating the USOC’s strategies, responses and programs that dealt with the news media and the American public through numerous controversies and crises related to the world’s most visible sporting event. His efforts helped to produce unprecedented coverage of America’s Olympic athletes, the USOC, and the Olympic Games.

The USOC honored Moran with its highest award, the General Douglas MacArthur Award, on November 3, 2002. Other recipients of the award include Nobel Peace Prize Winner and former U.S. Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger, former USOC President and Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon, USOC President Emeritus William J. Hybl, New York Yankees principal owner George Steinbrenner, former USOC President William Martin, and 1936 Olympic sprinter Marty Glickman.

He was inducted into the Colorado Springs Sports Hall of Fame in October, 2005, and also received the 2006 Distinguished Service Award from the United States Sports Academy. He was a 2002 inductee into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame.

He is enjoying his 43rd year in the sports media and public relations field in 2011, and his eighth year as a professional consultant where he serves as the Senior Media Consultant for the Colorado Springs Sports Corporation, an organization which stages the annual Rocky Mountain State Games, the Colorado Springs Sports Hall of Fame, sports luncheons and events, and promotes the activities of other area sports events.

THE CoSIDA SPECIAL AWARDS FEATURES SERIES

March

April

May

other profiles in the schedule to be announced; schedule subject to change

Calendar

Important Dates

Categories

Most Recent Posts