Green Comes Before Gold For Families of Olympians

By Les Carpenter
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 4, 2008

In the evenings, after he has finished with his children's boxing training, brought them home and made them dinner, Gary Russell Sr. can begin baking the cakes. It is an incongruous vision, this image of a husky boxing man -- his knee balky from an old hunting accident and voice raspy from cigarettes -- sliding cake molds into the oven. But his German chocolate and pineapple upside-down cakes are a big sell at $2 a slice down at the Small Business Administration, where his wife, Lawan, works.

And they need to sell every slice they can, because the oldest of his five boys, Gary Russell Jr., whom he trained for years in the basement of the family home on Omaha Street in Capitol Heights, made the U.S. Olympic boxing team last August. The moment left the elder Russell dabbing tears from his eyes.

Then, a few weeks later, Olympic boxing officials told him how much it probably would cost him and his wife to go to Beijing to watch their son: at least $25,000.

Gary Sr. was stunned. He asked if the sport's governing body in this country -- USA Boxing -- or the U.S. Olympic Committee paid for parents to go to the Olympics. He was told they only have enough to cover expenses for the athletes, that they could point him in the direction of a travel agent that could offer reduced rates. But otherwise, he was on his own.

"Serious money," said LaShaun Yates, a local YMCA executive who is working to help the Russells raise money for the trip. "This is beyond what even wealthy folks can afford."

This is the side of the Olympic dream few athletes' parents realize. After years of 5 a.m. drives to practice and thousands of dollars spent on personal coaches, they are forced to pay out of their own pockets for sky-high airfares and hotel rooms. While the International Olympic Committee took in $4.2 billion in revenue over the past four years, the Olympians' parents often were resorting to fundraisers and T-shirt sales and taking out home-equity loans just to see their children compete.

A few months ago, Matt Farrell, the managing director of business development for USA Swimming, phoned Hilton, one of the sport's sponsors, for help in trying to put together a rooming package for parents. The hotel chain came back with a deal: 11 nights for $9,000 for hotel only, leaving families to buy their own plane tickets and find transportation around Beijing. Several parents took the offer, knowing they will at least be guaranteed a room at a name hotel and be close to the pool.

But that doesn't include event tickets, which have been in great demand because the Chinese government has kept the majority for its own citizens. Normally the USOC, which will send 605 athletes to Beijing, gives athletes two tickets for each of their events. A few months ago, when each sport learned what its ticket allotment would be, panic set in. There weren't enough. Several sports, including boxing, warned parents to be prepared to buy tickets through brokers. Recently the USOC was able to procure more seats and there is cautious optimism -- though no certainty -- that families indeed may get the two free tickets.

Still, the process has been so arduous that USA Swimming decided to offer another package for its families: hotel and transportation around Beijing for two along with guaranteed tickets for $36,000. That doesn't include airfare, and the cheapest fares generally are running between $2,000 and $3,000.

"You know in your mind the Olympics is going to be a pretty expensive trip, but you don't imagine it being more expensive than your car," said Farrell, who added that most swimming families have chosen the hotel-only option. "It's a little like Disneyland. You think it's going to be expensive but then your jaw drops. You were mentally prepared but you weren't mentally prepared."

Further complicating matters, U.S. Olympic officials have been told that Beijing hotels will enforce a two-person limit in most rooms, meaning families of three and four are going to be forced to get a second room. Rates vary widely from hotel to hotel, with the only constant being that all of them are expensive. For instance, Yates thinks she has found the Russells a hotel for about $400 a night for the three weeks they would be in Beijing. It is probably not one of the nicer hotels; those will cost much, much more.

Athletes who have sponsorship deals can get some help. Speedo, a prominent sponsor of American swimmers, can get its athletes into the company's hotel, according to Stu Isaac, the senior vice president for sales and marketing for the swimsuit company. And while the rooms will cost around $800 a night, the same price as hotels elsewhere in Beijing, the parents at least know it will be a good hotel and close to the venue in which their child will be competing. Likewise, Isaac said he is able to use Speedo's tickets to move parents down from the upper reaches of the pool's grandstand when their kids are racing.

Some top athletes have stipulations written into their endorsement contracts that their parents will be provided hotel and transportation to the Olympics. Isaac refused to say if any of Speedo's athletes have such a provision, but it is widely assumed among parents that the athletes who are expected to win multiple medals have such deals. For instance, many parents and officials say the family of swimmer Michael Phelps, who won six gold medals at the Athens Games in 2004, will have its costs covered in Beijing. An agent for Octagon, which represents Phelps, would not reveal the details of the swimmer's deals but said the endorsements have left Phelps with a large pool of money from which those costs will be deducted.

"Some athletes do have endorsement agreements that help underwrite the expenses associated with family member travel," USOC chief communications officer Darryl Seibel said. "But those agreements are unique."

More common are stories such as that of Jim and Julie Weir, who were ecstatic when their daughter, Amanda, made the 2004 Olympic swim team, only to learn minutes later that it would cost more than $20,000 for the trip to Athens.

Barely a month remained before the Games and the Weirs, who hardly are destitute (Jim is an engineer for the Atlanta area office of a Danish acoustics company and Julie is a schoolteacher), nonetheless looked at each other, with Jim remarking, "Well, I guess we'll watch it on TV." It was only after many other swimmers' parents expressed shock that they would not attend the Games that they scrambled to find the money to get to Greece. Their neighborhood swim team contributed money, as did Jim's employer. Someone they knew explained their plight to Coca-Cola, which is headquartered in Atlanta. Coke executives offered a room at the hotel the company had rented in Athens and tickets to the opening ceremonies.

"It's so expensive. I know families who have mortgaged their houses to go," said Robin Vanderkaay, the mother of swimmer Peter Vanderkaay, who is expected to compete in the 400-meter and 200-meter freestyle events in Beijing.

"I think people would think we would have no trouble finding a way to go," added Vanderkaay, whose husband is a dentist in their home town of Rochester, Mich. "It's hard for everyone. But we'll figure it out and do what we have to do. Maybe we'll dissolve some assets or use an equity line, get another Visa card. We'll be able to do something."

The Russells cannot afford to take out a second loan, not with Lawan as the family's main wage earner working as a program support specialist at the SBA and Gary Sr., disabled from the knee injury, taking care of the children. They have enough to hold on to their house but not much more. They cannot absorb more debt.

Even though Gary Jr. -- whom they also call "Little Gary" -- is a legitimate medal hope in the 119-pound weight class, amateur boxing does not generate the same sponsorship opportunities that a sport such as swimming usually does. If the money doesn't come from cake sales and the generosity of others, the Russells probably won't be able to go to Beijing.

Back in December, the YMCA's Yates put together a fundraiser for the family at the Capital Sports Complex in District Heights. She portrayed the event as a celebration of the success of a young man in an area in which such commemorations are rare. She did this in the hopes of drawing prominent leaders from Prince George's County. The plan worked. U.S. Rep. Albert R. Wynn (D-Md.) spoke, as did Darrell A. Miller (D), the mayor of Capitol Heights, and James L. Walls Jr. (D), the mayor of District Heights. Tommie Broadwater Jr., a former Maryland state senator, served as caterer, serving heaps of chicken, potatoes and beef.

Julie Goldsticker, USA Boxing's media director, spent her own money to fly out from the organization's headquarters in Colorado Springs and speak at the banquet. "I just can't say no to that family," she said, wondering if maybe she should have just donated the cost of the airfare instead.

Some of the guests promised money, and a few presented Gary Jr. with plaques of appreciation. "It's important to have someone like him," said Miller, who donated $250. "Especially in communities like Capitol Heights. When I talk to youth, they don't have a lot of hope for themselves. They get beaten down."

The fundraiser helped, but not much. So far, Lawan Russell said, they have raised $3,000.

"I wish I had more guidance to give them," said Goldsticker, who brought two people of each fighters' choosing to Colorado Springs in September and explained the potential costs, urging them to start planning. "I told them they could make a lot of money just off the T-shirts of Gary if they sold them at all the boxing events around D.C. because there are a lot of events there."

Yates is taken by the Russells' stubborn optimism. They talk about their trip to Beijing as if it's a certainty, even though they have raised less than a quarter of what they need. "I don't see it any other way," she said. "I believe somebody is going," even if it's only Gary Sr.

Lawan Russell is a religious woman, convinced God is looking over her family. Therefore, she says, she doesn't worry about Beijing. She pushes on, selling her husband's $10 cakes and the $10 T-shirts with Little Gary's photo on the front. She occasionally checks the jar, with their name written across the front, that the manager of the Family Dollar store on Marlboro Pike in Capitol Heights placed by the register.

"I'm not considering not going because the Lord promised," she said. "I don't know how, but somebody's going to come through. He will do it, I know it. And I know that as long as we do all we can as the Russell family, He will do the rest."

Late one night a few months ago, Gary Sr. received a strange call on his cellphone. The man on the other end introduced himself as a boxing promoter of some note. Gary Sr. asked the man how he got his number, and the man said only that it came from someone in the "boxing community." The man then said he had been following Little Gary's career and was certain the younger Russell will medal this summer. So certain, in fact, that he wanted to sign Little Gary to a contract. And, by the way, the man said, he had heard the family was having trouble affording the trip to Beijing.

If Little Gary agreed to sign with his company, the man said, such things could be taken care of.

Gary Sr. was stunned. Sell his son's future for a trip to the Olympics? Not a chance. "It was like there was this one pitchfork on one shoulder and on the other shoulder there was a little voice saying, 'Don't listen,' " he recalled with a laugh.

But soon there were more calls from more promoters with similar pitches. Let them have Little Gary after the Olympics and Gary Sr. and Lawan's expenses magically would be paid. Each time Gary Sr. refused. He has been around boxing long enough to know that the promoters' offers might sound wonderful now, but the promise would come with a price in the form of bad contracts with little control.

Gary Sr. said he would rather miss the Olympics altogether.

As the one who has trained Little Gary his entire life, Gary Sr. does not trust others with his son. He always has been something of an iconoclast in the local boxing scene, bickering with other coaches and officials, perceiving their actions to be less than honorable. He sees this battle to go to Beijing in much the same light.

"We've done it our way for so long, it's always been an uphill battle," he said. "Not just with Gary but in trying to keep the whole family focused [and off the streets]. We want to keep them interested in things. So we're going to do this the right way. This is one more little trial for us."