St. Ben’s A.D.: I Don’t Know Michael Phelps, But I Know What He Likes

ST. JOSEPH - A St. Joseph woman is watching the Olympics on TV, just like the rest of us, after attending the last six Olympic games.

Glen Werner has been the Athletic Director at the College of St. Benedict for the past year now, but prior to that she spent 16 years as the Director of the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

It's a 35 acre complex where 250 athletes lived with us full time, and another 250 athletes, like Michael Phelps, would come in and train with us for two or three week training periods.

Werner says it was her job to make sure everything was taken care of for the athletes to train.

We would work with our coaches on the training schedule and make sure that they were booked exclusively, and that all their equipment was set-up and the trainers were there on time.  And then any other special requests, like boxed lunches if they were going camping.  Those types of things is what my team did.

She says she still as a lot of close ties to the support team.

You know when you're watching swimming and they show the ready room where all the coaches are all flipping out?  I know all those people. We were truly behind the scenes.

Werner says she can't pick up the phone and call Michael Phelps, but she does know his coach Bob Bowman well. She says she knows what Michael Phelps likes. She was in charge of the retired secret service man who was assigned to be his body guard while he was at the Training Center two or three times a year. Werner says I know a lot about him and I always knew to give him a lot of space to do what he needed to do while he was there.

Werner says she sees a lot of parallels between college and Olympic athletes. She says their goal is to be your best every time you compete.