The USOC: a good first week in Vancouver

VANCOUVER -- It's the sort of thing that's off the radar now, as well it should be, a full week into the Winter Games,  the spotlight appropriately on the first-rate performance of the U.S. team but -- the U.S. Olympic Committee is already having itself a fine Games.

Very fine.

Really.

The USOC?

Yes, and for all of you who over the years have so often found so many reasons to criticize the USOC -- oh, wait, that would be me -- it's also appropriate to give credit when credit is due.

And credit is due.

This does not, in and of itself,  suddenly mean the USOC has addressed all its many challenges. That would be wholly unrealistic.

The USOC and the International Olympic Committee were never going, for instance, during the Vancouver Olympics to fully resolve longstanding tensions over certain broadcasting and marketing revenue shares. That dispute has run for years. To expect it to be solved during the 17 days of the Games would strain credulity.

Nonetheless, the two sides are clearly talking to each other. It says something when both the USOC spokesman, Pat Sandusky, and the IOC spokesman, Mark Adams, use almost exactly the same words to describe the goings-on -- "friendly" and "positive." It's all the more interesting because each was interviewed separately; there was no agreement between them on talking points.

It says something even more interesting when, amid the talks, the USOC holds a glorified cocktail party, as it did a couple nights ago, and 37 IOC members show up.

37? From the same organization that stiffed New York in 2012 and Chicago for 2016? That bumped both baseball and softball from the program of the Summer Games? That reacted with so much outrage when the USOC last summer announced a television network that the USOC had to backtrack and cancel?

Here's a little secret: The food at USOC events is never that good.

So when 37 IOC members -- more than a third of the membership -- leave the cocoon of the security bubble around the IOC hotel, that speaks volumes.

It tells you, to be specific, both that the USOC is committed to outreach and that a significant share of the IOC membership wants to listen to whatever it is the USOC now has to say.

Oh, and IOC president Jacques Rogge had nice things to say at that event about the U.S. team's traditional strength on the field of play. A week into the Games, U.S. athletes lead the overall medals table, with 18, and the gold count as well, with six. Four years ago in Torino, the U.S. won 25. There are still 10 days to go here.

The USOC's communications department is so on it that it issued a statement Thursday that quoted new chief executive Scott Blackmun, and included a reference to the six medals the U.S. team had won the day before, most-ever in a single day by an American Winter Games team:

"The Olympic movement's ability to inspire is on full display here in Vancouver.  I'm obviously thrilled by the incredible performance of Team USA but even more inspiring, and as much a critical ingredient to true success at the Games, is the way in which an athlete competes. Yesterday's record-breaking performance is made all the more special by the character on display from our athletes and the spirit in which they are competing.

"I'm incredibly proud of the American Olympians participating in these magnificent Games, and I can't wait to see what happens next."

What has happened already, away from the snow and ice, is that Blackmun and Larry Probst, the chairman of the USOC board, have done way, way more than just have 37 IOC members over for a drink.

The evidence is manifest. By themselves, none of these next few items might make for rock-your-world headlines. In concert, they show consistency of purpose and new energy:

- The USOC on Monday, for instance, announced a new sponsorship agreement with global energy firm BP.

- It renewed a bilateral agreement with Chinese authorities on an exchange of business practices, sport performances and marketing.

- It announced a campaign to help earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

- It has moved strongly to defend its relationships with existing sponsors. A USOC press conference here a few days ago included the assertion that the U.S. government stood behind recent USOC sharp rebukes of Subway, not a USOC sponsor -- which turned out to be one statement issued by U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). Skeptics would point out that Hatch is himself hardly the U.S. government. Skeptics would do better to understand the audience.

A look around the room that day would have shown executives from the McDonald's, a top-tier IOC sponsor, and the IOC itself -- the USOC showing the IOC that it wants to play ball IOC-style.

Such moments are but steps on a long journey that Blackmun and Probst have undertaken, and it's literally going to take years and years to get to a new place of purpose; that means a number of Americans must first gain positions, and then become senior figures of considerable influence, within the various component pieces of the Olympic movement.

Still, this first week of the Games in Vancouver is a start.

A good start.