Alumnus adds dramatic score to excitement of Olympic Games

As the Winter Olympics close, we pay tribute to an alumnus who has received national attention for his involvement with the Olympics, but few people know his name. That's because award-winning Randy Edelman is not an athlete, but a composer.

Edelman, CCM ’69, HonDoc ’04, composed the rousing theme music featured in NBC’s coverage of the games. The network originally used his music to close the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, for which he won an Emmy. NBC has continued to use his on-air theme music for nearly 20 years, including coverage of the Sochi games.

The movie themes for which Edelman is best known, which include compositions for "The Last of the Mohicans," "Ghostbusters II," "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" and "While You Were Sleeping," have become the backbone of sports broadcasts. He has written NBC's NFL Football Theme, ESPN's Sports Century documentary series theme and an opening score for the Super Bowl.

LINK: Read more about Edelman

Other UC connections to Olympics

• Correspondent: Cris Collinsworth, Law '91, and former Cincinnati Bengal, was a correspondent in Sochi (particularly during the closing ceremonies) and had been a correspondent during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.
• Reporter: Lewis Johnson, Univ '86, served as a bobsled, luge and skeleton reporter at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, his eighth Olympics as an NBC correspondent. He has covered winter sports, diving, marathon running and track and field for NBC at the Olympic games of 2000, '02, '04, '06, '08, '10, '12 and '14.
  
• UC athletes: List of UC athletes who have competed in the Olympics.
  
• Sled design: Engineering professor Grant Schaffner led the design team for the ProtoStar V5 skeleton sled for for the U.S. Men’s Skeleton Sled Olympic Team, which gave the U.S. a bronze medalist.
  
• Special Olympics: UC student who medaled at the 2013 Special Olympics World Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. Alex Bender, who has Down syndrome and is participating in UC's Transition and Access Program, received silver and bronze medals in alpine skiing for Team USA.
  
• Opening, closing ceremonies: Alumnus Travis Hagenbuch, CCM ’07, won an Emmy for Outstanding Lighting Direction for the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

— updated Feb. 24, 2014