When I moved back to Tampa from Atlanta in 1999, I wanted to quickly reacquaint myself with my favorite city and get re-involved. I signed on as a volunteer with the Florida 2012 Olympic-organizing effort. I helped out with media lists and press releases and worked the national media when Tampa hosted the 2000 (Sydney) Olympic Trials in boxing. I was impressed with the leadership of Ed Turanchik and the caliber of key professionals and volunteers that had signed on.
I knew it was a relative long shot and Tampa, the hub of a regional effort that also included St. Petersburg and Orlando as well as Jacksonville and Miami, was infrastructure-challenged. But I was genuinely moved by those who dared to think big. How, well, un-Tampa, I thought. I no longer think that.
Sure, we had already landed two Super Bowls by then, but there still persisted a stubborn, equivocating mindset–aided and abetted by a typically cynical media–that Tampa didn’t really belong with the big boys. OK, we had a nice airport and a deep-water port, but we were best known for lap-dancing joints. We didn’t even have a “real” downtown. And shouldn’t we, candidly, be more accepting of our eclipse by Orlando World?
Well, two more Super Bowls, some NCAA championships, an imminent GOP convention, a fast-forwarding Riverwalk, a Curtis Hixon makeover, a state-of-the-art CAMLS, a Floridan Palace, a research-ratcheting state university and 3,000 downtown residents later, Tampa is a player on the biggest stages. Great, Florida-ravishing recession and grate, Tampa-tampering Scott notwithstanding.
Yes, the Olympics are in London as we speak and not here. So, yes, Ed Turanchik, the 2012 Dreamer-in-Charge, came up short. But then so did every other bidding city. And, yes, some called Turanchik, a sometimes lampooned mass-transit visionary, a windmill tilter–or worse.
But no one ever accused him of thinking small. His critics said he dreamed dreams too big for upstart Tampa. Exhibit A–modern rail. Exhibit A-1–a Tampa-centered Olympics. But come to think of it, isn’t that what the Olympics are all about? About those with a dream who are also grounded with a real-world plan and a work ethic second to none?
We don’t typically admire those who think small, play it safe and succeed at the margins. We reserve our visceral admiration for those who refuse to settle and by so doing risk falling short because they dare to think big.
In an ironic way, Florida 2012 helped kindle Tampa’s own version of an Olympic torch. The flambeau of opportunity. The kind that comes to those in pro-active pursuit, not to those lying in wait. The kind that values, if you will, the immediate push for the infrastructure and jobs and possibilities of tomorrow. The flame that ignites real regionalism because Tampa’s future lies in its synergistic leadership with regional partners. That was a key part of the Florida 2012 initiative. That increased awareness is part of the Florida 2012 effort’s legacy.
Yes, Tampa and its regional partners were an also-ran for the 2012 Games. But an also-ran that pushed the envelope on what it can become and what it can still accomplish. The Olympic motto, “Citius, Altius, Fortius,” seems somehow fitting.
Chances are, Bob Buckhorn would agree: Faster, higher, stronger, Tampa.