As much as we have talked about crisis management and the need to be prepared for when the clouds roll in, being prepared to strike when the moment of victory comes is just as important. two cases in point from the Olympics…Octagon's prep work for Michael Phelps and USA Wrestling's advance work for now gold medalist Henry Cejudo. The Phelps work by Octagon is detailed even more clearly in the Washington Post this week, while Cejudo's win and his amazing backstory, wa.told to media in an advance trip to New York by USA Wrestling in May, and was profiled in the New York Times as he won today..The USA Wrestling media trip to New York in advance of the Olympics planted some nice seeds with media of all types…for Cejudo it was with Hispanic TV and radio and a trip to ESPN Magazine among other places…and set the stage for him and other wrestlers if they won.For both Phelps and Cejudo, the future is now.USOC has set up a great program to get the athletes ready for success with the media for the short term, with that program also documented by the Times this week and worth reading.
Some other good reads…Yahoo's Dave Meltzer has a good piece on how the future MMA stars are prepped for success by their work in Olympic sports like wrestling and jiu-jitsu…si.com's Grant Wahl has a solid q and a with USSF head Sunil Gulati…and the UK Telegraph has a great profile of how Doetmar Hopp's spending has made TSG 1899 Hoffheim into a Bundesliga power in Germany.
