Utah
I've covered Utah's Olympic dreams for more than three decades. Here's what I've seen
PARIS — You’ll always remember where you were for the big events, right?
After traveling more than 5,000 miles to be in Le Palais des Congres de Paris for the International Olympic Committee’s decision on whether to give Utah the 2034 Winter Games, I was sitting on the floor of a crowded makeshift holding area outside the meeting when the announcement came.
I glimpsed some of the excitement expressed by members of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games being livestreamed on a colleague’s laptop between texting editors and checking the Deseret.com website to see if the story I’d pre-written in the event of a win had posted.
The rest of the day was a blur of interviews, news conferences and an Uber ride with Deseret News Editor Sarah Jane Weaver to USA House, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s gathering place for Team USA supporters, where a private party celebrating the award was underway.
By the time I’d finished updating my stories late that night — alas, without any color from the party since news media couldn’t get in — the time difference and lack of sleep had caught up with me. It would be another day before I’d see the photos capturing the moment more than a decade of bidding paid off for the Utahns determined to bring the Olympics back.
I’ve seen that joy before. And the tense smiles when bidders see a Games go somewhere else.
I’ve been covering Utah’s Olympic dreams long enough that when our public relations team asked me for the date when I first got the assignment, I paused. I know I was there in Birmingham, England, in June 1991, when Salt Lake City saw the 1998 Winter Games go to Nagano, Japan.
And I know my first story when I took over the beat was about how the proposed budget for a 1998 Olympics had doubled. Was it 1991 when the leader of that bid, Tom Welch, tried to talk me out of writing about the escalating budget? Or was it even earlier? “Maybe we should say the early 1990s,” I ended up telling the PR team.
I wish I’d had time to dig out the copies of those stories clipped from the Deseret News that I’m sure are somewhere in my basement. Mostly what I remember from Birmingham all these years later is thinking then that I’d enjoyed covering the bid while it lasted and expected to move on to another assignment since clearly this one was finished.
Instead, I’ve ended up writing about Utah and the Olympics for more than three decades. It’s taken me around the world, to every continent but Antartica. In 1995, I had a better view in Budapest, Hungary, of the bid team leaping out of their seats when then-IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch announced the 2002 Winter Games were going to “the city of Salt Lake City.”
There are plenty of other stories I could tell, too, like watching the world’s press descend on the IOC’s Lausanne, Switzerland, headquarters amid the escalating bribery scandal involving Salt Lake City’s 2002 bid. Or about talking with Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, then the leader of the 2002 Winter Games, as he drove past a smoldering Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
But what’s really stuck with me over the years is something I first wrote about 22 years ago, how much the Olympics can mean to those welcoming the world to their hometowns. That was most evident to me the morning after a bomb tore through a downtown park filled with thousands of people during the 1996 Atlanta Games, killing one and injuring more than 100.
As I recall, I was wandering around the mostly deserted streets nearby when I ran into a young family who wanted to see for themselves what someone — it turned out to be a domestic terrorist who wouldn’t be caught until 2003 — had done to their city before heading to see an Olympic event.
Here’s how I described our conversation in that March 2002 news story:
I asked them if they were afraid to be downtown. Although Olympic officials had said hours earlier that the Games would go on, no one could guarantee that the bomber wouldn’t strike again.
The night before, the streets had been filled with civilian and military authorities while helicopters buzzed overhead. I later described it as being as close to a war zone as I’d ever expected to see in the United States. Even in the daylight, the scene was eerie. Downtown was deserted as investigators descended on the now-closed park.
But the family said it was important for them to be there. Not just to attend the event they’d purchased tickets for but also to show their support for the Olympics, which had brought the world to their home.
They started asking me questions about what I thought of the Games, which had already been criticized for transportation and technology troubles, as well as for the tacky street vendors throughout downtown.
They also wanted to know what competitions I’d seen. None, I told them. My assignment was to cover organizational issues of the Games. I recall that we talked for a few more minutes, and then the family headed off to their event. Then one of them — I believe it was the mother — returned.
She asked me to take one of their tickets and go to the event with them. She told me I needed to see what the Olympics were really about and, well, have some fun.
I didn’t accept her offer, but I’ll never forget it.
It showed me how much it means to residents of an Olympic city that visitors enjoy themselves and leave having some sense of what makes that city a special place to those who call it home.
What also stuck with me was the family’s determination to leave the safety of the suburbs that day. They didn’t want their empty seats to suggest that the bomber had succeeded in destroying the spirit of the Games.
And for the record, I still remember where I was when the bombing occurred around 1:20 a.m., sound asleep in my hotel room miles outside of Atlanta. I ended up catching a ride downtown with a member of a foreign TV crew that spoke no English and waited hours on the street for any news. Then we heard the media center was reopening for a news conference.
I was stuck in the middle of a huge mob of media from around the world waiting to get through a security checkpoint when the news conference was about to start. Somehow, I was spotted by a contact from the Atlanta organizing committee who whisked me into the media center.
So I was able to be there when Olympic officials announced the Games would continue, able to experience — and, hopefully, convey — the resilience it takes for a Games host to have invited the world to see not just sports competitions, but also a community and its values.
The Utahns who have worked so hard over the years to bring the Games to the state not just once, but now twice, have always believed this is the place that offers something special to the rest of the world. Their determination to showcase what they want others to love as much as they do about Utah is really what I’ve been covering all these years.
That’s also what I’ll be writing about as Utah gets ready for the 2034 Winter Games, collecting another decade of Olympic memories.
SANDY — Vibes were as high as the temperature in some cases as thousands gathered at Real Salt Lake’s home stadium to cheer on the United States’ 2-0 win over Australia in the second match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Fernando Sanchez took it all in, between belts of his drum standing in front of more than 4,000 people at the Sandy stadium.
“I was born and raised in Mexico City,” said Sanchez, who hosts a podcast called the “Fercho Show” from his current home in Utah. “But I’m from the U.S. now.”
Four years after scoring just two goals in three group games before a 3-1 exit to the Netherlands in the Round of 16, the United States is flying under Mauricio Pochettino, exciting fans across the country — from the sellout crowd at 69,000-seat Lumen Field in Seattle to watch parties around the world, including Friday in Sandy.
“The vibe is amazing,” Sanchez told KSL.com. “You can see all of the people who came out, everybody is happy because this World Cup means so much for Utah, for everybody. It’s the best of the best from each country fighting on the field. That’s what it feels like, and it’s so good to be part of this game.”
Less than 24 hours after some 9,200 fans showed up at America First Field for Mexico’s 1-0 win over South Korea, Real Salt Lake employees braced to host as many as 6,000 American fans who submitted an RSVP to spend a portion of the Juneteenth holiday in 94-degree weather.
In-game hydration breaks became as much of a necessity for fans as the players in Seattle, with hundreds flooding the open hydration stations, concessions area, and a few food trucks at each “quarter break” installed by FIFA for the first time at a men’s World Cup.
While final attendance dropped to around 4,500 fans in Sandy, the spirits remained high as Folarin Balogun, who scored two goals in a 4-1 win over Paraguay in the World Cup opener, forced the opening goal off Australia’s Cameron Burgess.
Alex Freeman, the son of former Super Bowl champion Antonio Freeman who at 21 is the youngest player on the roster, doubled the advantage in the 43rd minute off a set piece that was initially ruled offside.
But after a lengthy video review where fans refused to sit down, pandemonium ensued as the U.S. fans in Sandy recognized their national team was moments away from clinching passage out of the group in the first men’s World Cup on home soil since 1994.
It’s the first time the United States men’s national team has won consecutive games at a World Cup tournament since 1930.
Yet it’s not just the wins, but how the Yanks are winning that has Americans excited about a sport that has made significant strides domestically in three decades since the founding of Major League Soccer.
The U.S. is winning with an exciting brand of attacking soccer led by Balogun, who grew up in England but chose to represent the country of his birth over his parents’ native Nigeria in 2023, and Christian Pulisic, the AC Milan winger with 33 goals in 87 international appearances from Pennsylvania who did not play Friday due to a calf injury.
“There’s a lot of American pride,” said St. George youth soccer player Tate Hurst, who showed up to the watch party with a half-dozen club teammates at Fire SC during Western Presidents Cup regional this weekend. “The American dream.”
Sunburn, heat and hydration aside, the moment created a memory for thousands of soccer fans and casuals alike. That included RSL season ticket holders, waiting until the end of the month-long international break for the club’s MLS season to resume in July.
But for one afternoon — and perhaps another, as the club plans to host a similar watch party next Thursday when the United States hosts Türkiye in Los Angeles (8 p.m. MT, FS1) — each soccer fan was pulling for the same team.
Except, perhaps, for the dozen or so Australia fans in the corner of the east lawn who represented their own Socceroos for the entire 90 minutes.
“Soccer brings everybody together,” one RSL staff member said over the public-address system as fans headed for the parking lot while James Brown’s “Living in America” blasted over the sound system after the full-time whistle. “That’s what today was all about.”
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah athletics is making a notable change to the Huntsman Center gameday setup, but the move is about more than where the team sits.
The Runnin’ Utes are moving the team bench from the east side of the Jon M. Huntsman Center to the west side, returning the bench to the side it occupied during the Rick Majerus era. The change will also move the MUSS and band from the west side to the east side.
The shift is part of a larger effort by Utah Athletics to improve the student-section experience, create a more consistent setup inside the Huntsman Center and better connect the arena to the university’s growing College Town Magic initiative.
Enhancing The MUSS And Fan Experience
Nowlin said the primary motivation behind the change is improving the MUSS and the overall fan experience.
“The reason we’re doing this is we want to enhance the MUSS,” Utah’s Deputy Athletics Director & Chief Revenue Officer, Patrick Nowlin said. “As an ongoing effort, we’ve been working on for the past two years, how do we enhance the fan experience?”
One issue Utah identified was that the MUSS had been located in different areas for different events. Moving the student section and band to the east side gives the department a more consistent location to build around.
“We wanted to create a better fan experience,” Nowlin said. “We wanted to be able to have one spot that we can build on, which means we can brand. We can enhance everything about it.”
The move also ties directly into College Town Magic. Nowlin said the area around the Huntsman Center will include more than 2,900 total beds, including more than 1,400 new beds, giving students a direct path from nearby housing to the student-section entrance.
“There’s over 2,900 new beds that are right there, which will be right at the branded entrance, right where the student section is,” Nowlin said. “They don’t have to go far at all. So it’s just a walk straight down from the dorm, right in the door.”
And according to Utah’s Patrick Nowlin, the move is not limited to men’s basketball.
“It’s not just men’s basketball. It’s all Huntsman Center events,” Nowlin said.
A Nod To Utah Basketball History
While the move is primarily about fan experience, there is also a clear basketball-history component.
The west-side bench location is where Utah sat during the Majerus era, when the Runnin’ Utes were one of the top programs in the country and the Huntsman Center had a different level of edge. Alex Jensen was part of that era as a player, and now, as Utah’s head coach, the move reconnects the current program with one of its most successful periods.
Nowlin said the historical connection was part of the conversation, even if it was not solely Jensen’s decision.
“Yeah, it’s a nod to history,” Nowlin said. “I think Alex, him being here, he’s a steward of the program. There’s a lot of history to having it on that side.”
Still, Nowlin made clear the change was not simply pushed through by Jensen.
“It wasn’t a push from him,” Nowlin said. “It was a concerted effort from everybody to where, how do we create an area that the MUSS can have, but also how do we lean into our history, but still move forward in a way that we can honor that, but create an unbelievable environment.”
That is the heart of the move. Utah is trying to bring back a piece of its basketball identity while also reworking the building for the future.
How Fans Will Be Impacted
The change will affect some season-ticket holders, donors and fans seated near the current bench, MUSS and band areas, but Utah tried to limit the disruption.
Nowlin said the department spent months working through the seating impact and expects fewer than 200 accounts to be directly affected. Those accounts are in sections T, U and V.
“This wasn’t something that just came about,” Nowlin said. “We’ve been working on this for a few months now, and we wanted to find a way that we could minimize the accounts that were directly impacted, but still create the fan experience change we were after.”
Utah’s plan is to work individually with affected fans and mirror their seat location as closely as possible on the other end of the court.
“If you’re on one end and now you’re going on the other end, we will work with you to get you in the seat that is similar to where you were and allow you to have the same experience you’ve had, just on the other end of the court,” Nowlin said.
Utah will also hold a virtual seat-selection process from July 7-17, allowing fans who want to move to choose from available options.
“We’re going to take care of everybody, but we’re also going to allow people the choice and the freedom to be able to make the changes they want to make,” Nowlin said. “We want to create every opportunity we can to give our fans opportunities to choose their own experience.”
Not Part Of The Huntsman Renovation
The bench and MUSS move is not directly tied to the larger Huntsman Center renovation discussions. Nowlin said the change is instead connected to College Town Magic and Utah’s effort to improve the student and fan experience inside the building.
“It does not have to do with the renovation, but it does have to do with College Town Magic,” Nowlin said.
The move could create some new seating and premium opportunities, particularly around courtside and floor seating. Nowlin said Utah is still evaluating those possibilities.
“By doing this, this will create additional opportunities for us on courtside and floor,” Nowlin said. “We’re also looking to how do we enhance our premium experience across the board. So this is a step in a process that will continue.”
The Bottom Line
Utah’s bench move is not just a nostalgic callback to the Rick Majerus era, and it is not just a seating chart adjustment. It is part of a broader effort to reshape the Huntsman Center experience.
The team bench is moving back to the west side, where Utah sat during some of the program’s most successful years. The MUSS and band are moving to the east side, where Utah believes it can build a stronger, more consistent student-section identity tied to College Town Magic.
For Utah Athletics, it is another step toward rethinking how the Huntsman Center looks, sounds and feels on game day. For Jensen, the move reconnects the program to its winning past.
The symbolism will matter to longtime Utah basketball fans. The logistics will matter to students, band members and season-ticket holders. But the larger goal is simple: make the building feel more intentional, more connected and more like home again.
Steve Bartle is the Utah insider for KSL Sports. He hosts The Utah Blockcast (SUBSCRIBE) and appears on KSL Sports Zone to break down the Utes. You can follow him on X for the latest Utah updates and game analysis.
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SALT LAKE CITY – The San Juan County assessor has resigned partway through his second term, following a recommendation that he be removed from office.
Rick Meyer’s resignation became effective on Monday, according to San Juan County Commissioner Lori Maughan. A copy of Meyer’s resignation letter was not immediately available.
This comes after the Utah State Tax Commission determined that Meyer had failed to follow the law and was “unfit to perform his duties.” In a letter last week to San Juan County commissioners, the tax commission recommended “the immediate removal of the San Juan County assessor from office to protect the public interest and restore the integrity of the property tax system in San Juan County.”
Among other things, Meyer was accused of failing to tax agricultural buildings, misclassifying property, and giving property tax exemptions to certain parcels, including vacant land, when he shouldn’t have.
The recommendation to remove Meyer from office was the first under a recent state law giving the Utah State Tax Commission more power to take corrective action against county assessors who aren’t doing their jobs properly. Assessors play a major role in the property tax process by determining the value of property throughout their counties.
Yet, it was unclear whether the San Juan County Commission could have actually removed Meyer from office had he not stepped down.
With Meyer’s resignation, the San Juan County Assessor’s Office has just one employee left. Deputy assessor Nathan Pitts will run the office until the San Juan County Republican Party recommends a replacement and the County Commission appoints one.
“It’s me holding down the fort here,” Pitts told KSL on Thursday, noting that he has spoken with the Utah Association of Counties and the state tax commission about plans for this interim period. “Everybody’s on board to assist and try to make it the best as we can, (but) I’ve definitely got my work cut out for me.”
Pitts said he does not plan to run for county assessor to replace his old boss.
“That is not my intention at all,” he said. “I’m quite content as a deputy assessor.”
Meyer was first elected as San Juan County assessor in 2020 and won reelection in 2024. His current term was set to conclude in 2029.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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