Ol’ Billy and the Atlantans Meet All the Olympic Folks in Tokyo : IOC meetings: The energy of the city’s committee and intercession of Andrew Young combine to beat Athens to the gold.

The name is William Porter Payne, but it goes with the man no more than a mint julep goes with chateaubriand. To the 87 members of the International Olympic Committee, whose numbers include kings, counts and captains of industry as well as a couple of princesses, he is just plain Billy.

To hear Billy Porter tell it, his idea to bring the 1996 Summer Olympics to Atlanta was inspired by a religious experience.

Three years ago, the successful real estate lawyer chaired a volunteer committee that raised funds to build a new sanctuary for St. Luke’s Presbyterian Church in Dunwoody, an Atlanta suburb. While sitting in the sanctuary on the day it was dedicated, he said he was overcome by a sensation that his service to the community was not complete.

Much contemplation and prayer later, he said he arrived at the conclusion that the Olympics belonged in Atlanta.

Such epiphany, however, was not part of the Atlanta story a couple of years ago. Some of his colleagues said Porter told them he was sitting in the private room of a house where sports sections often are read when he spotted an item reporting that Nashville was considering an Olympic bid.

“If Nashville can do it, we can, too,” he said.

Whichever story is true, both tell much about Billy Payne. He approaches life with tireless fervor, a keen sense of competition and more than a little bit of harmless bull that easily translates into Southern charm.

Although Payne, 42, is a former all-Southeastern Conference defensive end at the University of Georgia, he once said he never felt that he gave his all.

He cannot say that after Atlanta was selected Tuesday over five other cities, in a vote by the IOC, to organize the Centennial Games.

The Rev. Andrew Young, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, former Atlanta mayor and the chairman of the bid committee, used his connections with government officials throughout the world to get Payne and his associates inside the proper doors.

Once there, they sold Atlanta. That was no small task, considering that many IOC members were not even sure of Atlanta’s location. Some thought at first the bid was from Atlantic City, N.J. But by Tuesday, even IOC members who did not vote for Atlanta seemed to genuinely like the people who represented it.

“Atlanta’s bid was not about money,” Payne said Wednesday, deflecting a collective charge by at least four of the losing cities. “It was about people.”

If not always hail fellows, well-met, Atlanta’s supporters certainly were hail fellows, often-met.

Shortly after the city emerged as the U.S. candidate in 1988, the president of Manchester, England’s bid committee, theater impresario Robert Scott, was asked if he had met the people from Atlanta.

“How can you not meet the people from Atlanta?” he asked.

Even if Atlanta had not won the vote, the consensus Wednesday among long-time IOC observers was that Athens would have lost it.

The Greek capital’s five-year, $25-million campaign--compared to Atlanta’s two-year, $7.3-million effort--suffered from several problems, the most visible of which was political infighting.

Although most of the city’s political factions were represented on the bid committee, that did not necessarily mean they were harmonious.

There was a poignant and historic moment at a dinner sponsored by the Greeks Monday night when the country’s prime minister, Constantine Mitsotakis, leaders of three other political parties and exiled King Constantine sat down at the same table and sang folk songs along with prominent actress, singer and politician Melina Mercouri.

It was the first time King Constantine II, who has not been allowed in Greece since unsuccessfully trying to overthrow a military junta in 1967, had met with one of the country’s prime ministers in 23 years.

But by the next morning, the Greeks’ political unity was beginning to fray from the middle. When she arrived late for a news conference after the committee’s formal presentation to the IOC, Mercouri, the former Minister of Culture, did not have a place on the podium. She hissed at those who did and then kicked a photographer in the ankle so that he would move out of the seat she wanted near the front of the room.

The Greeks were so rude to reporters during the news conference that the chairman of the bid committee, Spyros Metaxas, held another impromptu news conference outside the room later to apologize.

Perhaps the Greeks were in a foul mood because of the vibrations they felt from the IOC. Even before the cities made their presentations Tuesday, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch reported to an aide that Atlanta was gaining ground at Athens’ expense.

But, considering the eccentricities of a few IOC members, one has to wonder whether even Samaranch always knows what the collective body is thinking.

Officials from Birmingham, England, who made an unsuccessful bid for the 1992 Summer Games four years ago at the IOC meetings in Lausanne, Switzerland, were here to observe because they are the organizers of next year’s session.

One of them was approached last weekend by an IOC member, who promised his vote for the 1996 Summer Games would go to Birmingham.

“But we’re not a candidate,” the man from Birmingham tried to tell the IOC member.

“Don’t worry,” the IOC member said, patting his friend on the back, “we’re supporting you.”

In his book after the 1984 L.A. Olympics, Peter Ueberroth wrote that Seoul bidders tried to influence the vote for the site of the 1988 Sumer Games by slipping first-class, round-trip airline tickets to the South Korean capital under the hotel doors of IOC members.

Confirming the story, a Seoul organizing committee official said a few years later that IOC members were not insulted by the charge as much as they were by the implication that their votes could be bought so cheaply.

Despite subsequent rules against excessive gift-giving, the IOC decided Wednesday to further tighten the restrictions in light of reports about the generosity of some of the cities bidding for the 1996 Games.

Princess Anne, an IOC member from Great Britain, said she returned all her gifts.

“That was a busy little task,” she said.

Manchester’s Scott said his bid committee was the only one that did not give gifts.

“But that didn’t prevent a lot of IOC members from coming up and thanking me for the gifts we gave them,” he said.

Princess Anne was one of Manchester’s presenters, which did not seem to have a great impact when the city was eliminated on the second ballot. She was only a little more successful than Laker center Vlade Divac, who was one of Belgrade’s presenters. It was the first city eliminated, but that was to be expected from a candidate boasting that its national airline was “often late, never hijacked.”

While on the subject of money, Payne said he thinks the Atlanta Games will attract U.S. television rights fees of about $600 million. The previous record is the $401 million that NBC paid for the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona.

Payne is likely to become intimately involved with the negotiations as the Games’ chief executive officer.

“That very well could be me,” said Payne, who was president of the bid committee. “I think I’ll be offered that, I would hope.”

That would give Payne a chance to make his mark nationally, something he has not done.

He expected to appear Tuesday morning on “Good Morning America,” but Atlanta’s press officer, Bob Brennan, said he received a call from one of the show’s producers informing him that he was attempting to line up Ueberroth instead.

There are nine months remaining before the IOC convenes again in Birmingham, England, to vote for the host of the 1998 Winter Games.

Conventional wisdom says that the U.S. candidate, Salt Lake City, was sunk by Atlanta’s triumph. But with blessings of the U.S. Olympic Committee, the bid committee’s chairman, Tom Welch, said the city will change its strategy but not its direction. “Full speed ahead,” he said.