What day is it? What is the date?    Every morning, everywhere you are, this is the first and most important question at an Olympic Games. With people involved with the Olympic experience, from athletes to coaches to journalists to administrators, your life is determined by the day and date.    At the USOC press offices, on the front door, right from the start of each day, there is a sign. It says:    TODAY is Thursday, August 13.    Believe me. After you have been here a few days, they tend to merge into one. Everybody at the Olympics walks around with schedules. Coaches and athletes have training schedules. USOC staffers have flight schedules. Journalists have bus schedules.     Everybody has competition schedules. And before Opening Ceremonies, which are tomorrow (Friday, August 14) there are no competitions to cover.    The key to making the Olympics work are taking everybody's personal schedules and making them work together at the same time.    Say a journalist wants to talk to an athlete. A true example would be this morning's interview of Patricia Miranda with Brazilian television station BandSports.    Miranda is becoming an athletic story in her native land, where her parents were from. Although she was not born in Brazil, her link to the nation through her parents makes her a story, especially because she is a top medal hopeful. Even better for the Brazilian journalists, Miranda speaks Portuegese, the language in the nation. Their competitor Globo TV did an interview with Miranda ahead of them, and the editors there wanted them to get their version of the story right away.    The reporter got a hold of the list of press officers and called the wrestling contact, and asked to get to the next practice that Miranda was attending that day. This was not possible, as there is a 24-hour notification requirement for media to go on the complex at the American College of Greece. So, instead, the reporter and his cameraman sent in the necessary request information, and were approved to attend the 8:30 a.m. practice the next day.    Now, Miranda was notified that another Brazilian crew would be coming to practice and she was fine with that. In order for the crew to attend practice, a press officer had to be with them the entire time. Since nobody is living at the college, the press officer had to schedule transportation to get there before the TV crew arrived. The athletes also must get a ride from their hotel to the workout facility. The women's team leader runs a van three times back and forth from the hotel to front gate of the college to bring the athletes, coaches and training partners to the gym on time.     Since the film crew ran into traffic on the way to the college, then had a delay getting through the security  procedures, they were 40 minutes late to the beginning of practice. However, the women's team had a good long active practice, and Miranda tends to train extra after the end of the workout, so the crew received all the video it needed and more.    When she was finally finished, Miranda stood at edge of the mat and spoke into the camera for 10-15 minutes, answering each question in Portuegese and making the reporter laugh some. When they were done, BandSports returned to its van and went on to its next assignment.    Miranda needed to get showered, cleaned up and back to the hotel in an efficient manner. She was scheduled to go down to the set of the Today Show to film an interview with a number of other Olympic athletes to discuss the Olympic experience that afternoon. The Today Show had to select the athletes, notify the press officers, then set up the transportation arrangements to bring them to their special set, which is located in the middle of town near the Olympic stadium. Miranda was joined by her boyfriend and another press officer at a specific time, when a vehicle sent by NBC picked them up at the hotel. Miranda was able to shoot the segment and return to the hotel in the early afternoon, as scheduled.    There is a difference between "as scheduled" and what actually happens many times. Transportation can be late. Practices can run long. People can get lost with either bad directions or poor execution of the plan. Planes can arrive late, or at times, flights are even cancelled. Security screening lines can be long. And sometimes, in spite of the attention to schedules, people just sometimes forget things.    The lucky people who have only a few responsibilities and a manageable schedule often have a fun, relaxed life. However, nobody has that kind of life. Coaches must deal with media needs, athlete needs, medical needs, travel needs, diet needs and so many other things. Everybody wants a piece of the athletes, who want to experience the Olympics, but are so focused on preparation. Administrators must put out tons of fires, most often caused by changes in the schedules. It takes a lot of juggling to survive the Olympic schedules.    And first and foremost, you need to know what the day and date are.    And the Olympics have not officially begun yet...