From competing and coaching to working behind the scenes, NIU has made a mark on one of the largest sporting spectacles in the world at the Olympics. In 1996, Connie Teaberry, director of women’s track and field and cross country, competed for the U.S. in Atlanta, Georgia at the Centennial Olympics. At the same time, Donna Turner, associate athletic director for communications, worked in the baseball media department.

“We worked every [baseball] game,” Turner said. “We helped the people who were doing the scores and the mix zone, which is where they do the interviews with the athletes afterwards.”

Until voted off of the Olympics in 2012, baseball had been a sport that competed every day over the two-week period of the Olympics. Turner’s schedule was packed and intense, sometimes working three games in a day and also alligning reporter interviews with the athletes.

Though Turner and Teaberry were both at the Olympics in 1996, they did not meet until they both started working at NIU. Then at 25 years old, Teaberry was competing in the women’s high-jump for the U.S.

She made it through the first four heights of 1.75 meters, 1.80 meters, 1.85 meters and 1.90 meters, according to Sports Reference’s website. However, she did not advance to the finals, missing on three attempts at 1.93 meters.

Competing at the Olympics and wearing “USA” across her chest came with a great honor and sense of responsibility to make sure she was putting the U.S. at the forefront, Teaberry said.

“It’s one of those things that you work for so hard,” Teaberry said. “And when you actually get there, you have that exclamation point with a sense of accomplishment in your heart.”

At this years Olympics in Rio de Janeiro,NIU alumna and Chicago native Aimee Boorman is the head coach of U.S. Women’s Gymnast Simone Biles. Biles won gold medals for women’s vault, women’s team all-around, women’s individual all-around and a bronze medal for women’s beam. Biles is highly touted as the best gymnast of all-time.

Biles has been with Boorman since Biles was seven years old and views Boorman as a second mom as they’ve endured this entire olympic journey together, according to a Los Angeles Times article.

People and alumni should be proud of NIU and the school’s accomplishments through the years, Teaberry said.

“A lot of people, and even some [NIU] students, count NIU out,” Teaberry said. “[Huskies nowadays are] not proud of the letters that [they] wear across [their] chest. We have some talented, intelligent, hard-working alumni that come from NIU that work very hard to get where they are… it’s something that being in athletics I know and see on a regular basis. Northern Illinois University has so much to offer.”

NIU has a strong commitment to diversity and its ties to the Olympics highlight it in a new way.

“It’s great to have a connection [to the Olympics],” Turner said. “Any connection with a sporting event like this, at any level, shows the diversity of NIU and the alumni and that you can go out and do anything from here.”