The Early Believer’s Tribute in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park was designed as part of the 2020 Vision Plan—a comprehensive assessment of how the park is used today given the dramatic catalytic impact it’s had on the City, acknowledging how park usage has changed over the past twenty years, and resulting in a series of bold memorial design projects and landscape architecture projects by DTJ.

The memorial is a tribute to Billy Payne and the instrumental people who brought the Games to Atlanta. Central to the memorial is a custom iconic precast concrete column with an embedded bronze plaque—featuring a quote and listing the “Atlanta Nine” contributor names who helped secure the City’s bid—and the original “Five As” and Olympic Rings in a bronze sculptural form that adorns the column capital and bronze pedestal. A matched pair of curved granite-clad benches with the Early Believers’ names and a quotation incised with a gold metallic finish, along with etched design motifs from the original “Look of the Games” graphics, surround the column. Accent lighting and augmented landscape plantings behind the bench enhance the design, and specialty hardscape paving helps amend one side of the existing plaza.