An ‘unreal’ experience: Connecting with Olympic and Paralympic alumni

Seated on the starting block of lane five during the USA swimming trials, the full impact of Lisa Milne’s (BSSpS ’02) new job came to her.

“It’s an alumni swim,” she recalls. “You have Olympians, and you have Team USA athletes…bringing their kids.”

In her capacity as director of alumni relations, Milne’s role was to interact with the  Team USA Alumni swimmers. In this instance, that meant soaking in the ambience and snapping photos as the athletes reunited with former teammates from different points in their illustrious careers.

“They were like kids again,” she says, going on to describe the experience as “unreal.”

That’s when the gratitude hit her.

“So I'm firing off emails and texts to every woman that ever got me where I am,” she recalls.” I was like, can you believe this?”

Milne has been with the Olympic and Paralympic Movements  for just under a year, continuing work she’s done for multiple universities by coordinating alumni relations. Her official title is Director of Alumni Relations for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, but Milne says she has found “her calling,” and has a simple way of describing the role.

“I don't know how to put it into words other than I like to give hugs and collect stories.”

That’s exactly what she’ll be doing in Paris over the course of the 2024 Olympic Games. Milne is spending three weeks building relationships with the alumni who visit the Team USA House in the Palais Brongniart, where she will get to collect more stories like the ones she hears in her meetings with the athletes.

“We usually spend about an hour and a half just talking about rowing or like, the good old days … and learning how those moments impacted their lives,” she says. “And how they still use those things to be the successful person that they are. So that's just amazing.”

Milne rowed crew as an exercise physiology undergrad at OHIO, and her time as a seven seat in the Bobcat boat has influenced almost everything she’s done since.

“I was learning how to network and connect when I was at OHIO,” she says. “I had all these random pieces that came out of that [rowing experience] that I really utilized the rest of my life and still to this day”

After graduation, Milne would go on to coach rowing and work in various capacities at several institutions, eventually finding her way to alumni relations—and back to her alma mater, where her husband Spencer continues to work as the assistant athletics director for the Bobcat Club.

When she saw the job supporting Olympic and Paralympic alumni, she knew it would be a chance to continue her “hugs and stories” work, this time with world-class athletes from across the United States. Part of her role is to expand alumni operations to encompass all Team USA athletes, whether they made it to the Olympic or Paralympic Games or not.

“We are really developing a journey for these athletes,” Milne says, describing the approach of the organization to its alumni. “We are the people that are supporting their journey and trying to make it the best one that we can possibly do.”

An especially poignant example of the unique Olympic journey came her way recently, when a contact shared a “beautiful letter” written by the 1976 US men’s swimming team to the women’s team.

“There was a lot going on [that year],” Milne explains. “And the letter said ‘Hey, we support you. We are proud of you. With luck,’ and the entire men’s team signed it.”

Back at the USA Swimming trials  alumni swim, Milne was sending her own version of that letter. Messaging the people who helped her get there, she reflected on the “power of building a great network and community.”

“As long as you've got this little power corner, you can get wherever you need to be.
And that was definitely what happened to me.”

Whether they're working for the USOPC or covering the Games, we're seeing news of OHIO alumni in Paris in various capacities. Here are a few of their stories:

• Matt Barnes (BSJ '08), no stranger to the Games, is attending as an NBC4 morning anchor for WCMH in Columbus. Barnes seems to take his OHIO flag everywhere, bringing it out for photo ops with fellow Bobcats. (Catch the photos on his Instagram feed!)
• Todd Fraser (BSM '09) serves as a technical delegate for the track and road para-cycling events of the Paralympics. “I take a lot of pride in organizing a really strong event that helps the sport grow," Fraser says in this story from the Niagara Gazette.
• Amy Stell ( '16) will help Team USA look their best at this year’s Olympics. As a volunteer with Team USA, Stell will make the most of her background as a French teacher.