L.A. Still Carrying Torch for Olympics : Coliseum Ceremony Rekindles Passions on Games’ Anniversary

The excitement sparked by the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics was rekindled Sunday as former gold medalist Rafer Johnson relit the Olympic torch atop the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to commemorate the first anniversary of the Summer Games.

Nearly 20,000 people stood cheering as Johnson jogged halfway around the Coliseum track and then carried the Olympic flame up the stadium’s steep peristyle entrance steps to re-create the blazing start of last year’s 16-day international athletic competition.

The ceremony was conducted by city officials and AT&T;, sponsor of last year’s cross-country Olympic Torch Relay, to honor volunteers, torchbearers and others who helped staged the Summer Games.

But pride was the main connection to last year’s event for many in the crowd that filled the western end of the Coliseum for the two-hour event. They repeatedly cheered at a gymnastics exhibition, speeches and for the screening of several Olympic films on the stadium’s huge outdoor video screen.

“I wanted to come to catch the feeling that I heard so much about,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Jim Chickles, who was on duty in Japan last year during the Games. “Sure enough, people all around us here today were choked up.”

Chickles said he watched some Olympic events on Japanese television and viewed a videotape of the Games sent to him as a Christmas present by his wife, Santa Monica lawyer Lorna Shepard. “I went to last year’s Opening Ceremonies and two or three events. My only regret is that the Olympics aren’t starting tomorrow, like they did after last year’s ceremonies,” Shepard said.

Emotions had run even higher on July 28, 1984, when 92,655 Coliseum spectators watched a dazzling Opening Ceremony that included an airborne entrance by a man propelled by a jet pack as well as the more traditional march into the stadium by 8,000 athletes.

The 90-minute extravaganza had peaked with a poignant solo by a 30-year-old Canoga Park grocery checker named Vicki McClure, who urged the athletes and spectators to “Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Hand.” Spontaneously, most of the crowd clasped hands and did just that in an impromptu sing-along.

Sunday’s crowd reaction was the same when McClure, who still works at the same Hughes supermarket, returned to sing again. “The excitement hasn’t died down. People still keep wanting to relive the spirit of the Olympics,” she said.

McClure’s song and the familiar Olympic trumpet fanfare that echoed once more through the Coliseum were not the only reminders of the Games, however.

Doris Gilbert, a 48-year-old Los Angeles teacher who worked as a volunteer driver for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, returned in her faded green and gold Olympic uniform. “This brought back fabulous memories. I’ve never felt anything in my life like what I felt the three weeks that I worked last year.”

Keith Kitagawa, 9, of Buena Park showed up in the shirt and jogging shorts he wore last year when he carried the Olympic flame through an Echo Park neighborhood. Keith said the Olympics were enjoyable--although his own torch-bearing effort was “not really fun. The fire was too big. They turned the gas too much and I was afraid it might burn my hair.”

Gary Maxwell, a Corona del Mar resident and computer software company vice president, drove to Sunday’s anniversary ceremony in a car bearing a 1984 Olympic license plate that read “HISTRY.” Its frame announced that Maxwell had played “a part in history” during the Games as a volunteer at fencing and volleyball venues.

“The Olympics helped Los Angeles’ reputation. Pulling it off as successfully as the city did said so much for the community,” said Maxwell, 44. “I have a lot of pride in taking part and contributing to something so successful.”

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley praised such volunteer effort as he helped relight Olympic torches displayed Sunday by Johnson and Gina Hemphill. She is the 26-year-old granddaughter of Olympic great Jesse Owens. Hemphill carried the torch into the Coliseum to end its cross-country trek last year.

Bradley said the $70,000 anniversary ceremony was financed by AT&T;, and the crowd cheered when Bradley promised to stage a similar anniversary ceremony in 1986.

The Olympic flame, which has been kept flickering since last August in a lamp at a Los Angeles sports museum, is expected to burn at the Coliseum through Aug. 12 when 1984 Olympic plaques will be unveiled there, said Craig Lawson, a mayor’s aide who helped coordinate city Olympic activities last year.