UMW Alumni Win ‘Behind the Scenes’ Gold at Paris Olympics

As the 2024 Summer Olympics continue to play out in Paris, University of Mary Washington graduates are playing their own roles in the games.

"The Rings genuinely mean something to me, so for my life and career to intersect with this project, the experience has been very fulfilling," said Tad Dickman, a UMW alumnus who earned a degree in business administration in 2012 and leads communications for Olympic Golf. "After all the time and energy expended, to finally be here in Paris at the Olympics and see the hard work pay off, it has been special."

Evan Stiles, who earned a degree in geography in 1991, has spent more than a decade training multiple gold medal-winner Torri Huske as head coach of the Arlington Aquatic Club. And recent UMW grad Hadley Mantia '24, who majored in French and international business, is using her fluency - and all of her flair - to welcome spectators from across the globe to the Summer Games as a host for a major Olympics sponsor.

Here are their stories.

A Stroke of Gold - Evan Stiles '91

Evan Stiles' was a kid when his family moved to Washington, D.C., and a neighborhood with a pool. Problem was, Stiles didn't know how to swim. So he signed up for lessons at 6 and joined the swim team at 7. By 11, he was swimming year-round.

"I found success in it," said Stiles, who earned a degree in geography from Mary Washington in 1991. "You gravitate toward what you're good at."

And coaches help make other people good at things, too. Stiles, a swim coach for 30-plus years, proved that to be true when Torri Huske - an athlete he's worked with for more than a decade - took triple gold medals, as well as two silvers, at the Summer Olympics in Paris.

When Stiles came to Mary Washington in the late 1980s, he brought his competitive side, setting 11 team records in swimming alone, including one that still stands among the University's top 10. But he also played tennis, water polo - yes, there was a team for a short time - and baseball, pitching the school's first-ever winning game.

When he wasn't on the field, on the court or in the pool, he was playing jokes and having fun with his Madison Hall roommate, Declan Leonard '91. "I enjoyed every minute I had at Mary Washington," Stiles said.

He was headed toward a graduate degree in urban planning when then-Mary Washington swim coach Paul Richards mentioned a master's program in coaching. It would change Stiles' course. "I wanted to coach so I could impact other people's lives the way he'd impacted mine."

Soon after he finished the coaching program, he was hired by the Arlington Aquatic Club, climbing to the post of head coach in 2005. That's where he met and started training an 11-year-old Torri Huske. "Teeny-tiny Torri dove in and I was like, 'Oh, my God, this girl's pretty fast," Stiles said.

He'd train her alongside her male counterparts to crank up the challenge. And by the time the two set their sights on the Olympics, Huske was breaking world records and winning international titles. In the previous Summer Games in Tokyo, held in 2021 due to the worldwide pandemic, she and her teammates won silver in the 4×100-meter medley relay. But in the 100-meter butterfly, Huske missed a podium spot by one one-hundredth of one single second - an outcome she and Stiles define as "devastating."

This year, they shared their "redemption story," with Huske taking the gold in that event and two others and also winning two silver medals.

"It's one thing to say you've coached someone to go to the Olympics; it's a whole other thing to say they won gold," Stiles said. "It makes you think, 'I did a pretty good job with this kid.'"

Teed Up About Olympic Golf - Tad Dickman '12

Tad Dickman had a big idea to run by his new bosses at the PGA TOUR.

Now senior director of communications with the organization that coordinates professional golf tours in North America, he wanted to drum up some love for the game, featured in the Olympics only three times in more than a century. In April 2022, he went to bosses with the pitch to lead communications effort for the International Golf Federation, highlighted by golf's inclusion in the Olympics.

"Two years later, here I am writing from Paris," Dickman, also head of communications and media for the International Golf Federation, said in an email to his alma mater. "This has been the most fun - and the most challenging - project I've ever worked on in my career."

With a green light for his plan, Dickman set out building a team - more than 30 professionals across the industry - called the Olympic Golf Communications and Content Committee, with a mission to set the sport of golf up for success this summer in France. And it worked.

"I've definitely had a few 'pinch-me' moments … where you just have to pause and appreciate what's happening," he said. Like when American Scottie Scheffler brought home the gold.

Dickman, who grew up in Springfield, Virginia, majored in business administration at Mary Washington, where he played basketball and served as captain. An internship with Basketball Australia and the National Basketball League in Sydney the summer before graduation showed him what working in sports might be like.

"I came back motivated and focused on my [future] profession," said Dickman, who's also held communications roles in soccer and football, working for D.C. United, the New York Giants and the Jacksonville Jaguars.

He switched to golf in 2020, when he took the job with PGA TOUR, "where I knew I would be challenged and pushed every single day," said Dickman, whose team tells the stories of golf's coolest stars and hottest moments. Chairing the Olympic Golf Communications & Content Committee, he's built connections with Olympic Golf athletes and the media who cover them. See their work at @OlympicGolf and IGFgolf.org.

His wife, Spencer, and 15-month-old daughter, Brooklyn, spent the first 10 days with him in Paris, adding to the support he's felt from friends and colleagues for his big idea, he said in his email. The International Golf Federation hopes to add a mixed-team event - one man and one woman from top-qualifying countries - at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.

"As I sit and type all of this, I'm overcome with a little emotion," Dickman said. "Working at the Olympic Golf competitions has been a full-circle experience."

Bonjour, Welcome to Paris! - Hadley Mantia '24

If Hadley Mantia's fascination with France led her to Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, no wonder it also landed her a job in hospitality with a top sponsor of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

"I kind of just applied [for the job] not knowing what I was getting into," said Mantia, who came to UMW from Massachusetts. "A lot of times we're the first face of the Olympics these people see. It's about upholding the grand representation of what the games are."

A bus host for Olympics sponsor Allianz, a German financial services company, she's a guide for spectators arriving in Paris from all over the world. And her duties - doled out on the daily - are a constant surprise. One day she might escort Polish stakeholders to take in some rugby; the next she could accompany a group from China to watch judo. "It can be challenging," she said.

Hard work is nothing new for Mantia, who graduated from UMW in May with majors in international business and French after only three years. A resident assistant and technician at Dodd Auditorium, she joined the UMW Performing Arts Company and - surprendre! - helped rejuvenate the French club. Last summer she interned in marketing in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Enchanted by conversations between her grandmother and her great aunt, both Francophones, she caught the bug early on. "When the two of them would speak French, I just thought it was the coolest thing on the planet," said Mantia, who chose an Eiffel Tower backpack for school year after year.

So, when it came time for college, she was drawn to a unique opportunity at UMW - a business French course covering accounting and marketing, vocabulary and culture, all with a focus on France. "It's little things that are so different but so important."

Mock interviews practiced in class, Mantia said, helped her win her current role with the Olympics in Paris. She's staying with friend and former Mary Washington Visiting Language Coordinator Margaux Piasecki - with whom she instantly connected at UMW - and having the time of her life.

Watching Olympic fencing is the summer highlight so far, said Mantia, who hopes eventually to own an apartment in France. First, she'll need to finish her work at the 2024 Games.

"It's because of Mary Washington," she said, "that I somehow ended up on this path."