We were lucky to catch up with Jill Jaracz recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jill, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I love podcasts, and I also love the Olympics—so much so that I wanted to listen to a podcast about them year-round. Unfortunately for me, that product didn’t exist. Around London 2012, the BBC put out a great podcast for a few weeks. NBC put one out around Rio 2016, but they both disappeared after the Games were over.

In 2017, my friend Alison was driving through town while she was on vacation, and I casually asked her if she wanted to do a podcast about the Olympics. We’d worked together for a previous employer and loved talking about the 2002 Winter Olympics when they were on. She said, “Sure.” Neither of us knew what we were getting into.

Our original plan was to produce a weekly half-hour show with long-form news magazine-type stories—like NPR or “Dateline NBC” or “60 Minutes.” We had no idea how difficult it was to write these types of stories, and we couldn’t keep our Olympics talk to a half-hour.

Soon after we started the show, we went to Lake Placid, home of the 1980 Winter Olympics, to go to a pin collectors’ show and try to get some interviews because the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee has a training center there. Well, they’d never heard of us, so they wouldn’t let us tour the training center; however, some of the winter sports national governing bodies were located there, and perhaps they would help.

USA Bobsled-Skeleton opened their doors to us and set up three interviews with Olympians and Olympic hopefuls. That’s where we figured out our strength was in interviewing people, so we pivoted and became mostly an interview-based show. Along the way we added coverage of the Paralympics based on listener feedback.

During the Games, we do daily recap episodes. The first couple of Games (2018 Winter Olympics and 2020 Summer Olympics) we did from our couches. We thought that the Beijing 2022 Winter Games would also be from the couch, but at the last minute I filled out the accreditation request. I completely forgot about it—and forgot to tell Alison what I did—until a few months later when we were granted one accreditation for the Olympics. Soon after that, we received two accreditations for the Paralympics.

I ended up spending about six weeks in China for those Games (unfortunately, due to COVID-19, we were restricted to Games hotels and sporting venues), and Alison joined me for the last half of that. Neither of us ever anticipated that our little podcast would give us this opportunity.

Since then, we’ve also been accredited for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, a huge accomplishment. The competition for media credentials is incredibly fierce, so we’re really honored that we are seen as an important media outlet covering the Olympic and Paralympic movements. I’m really proud of the fact that we built this show from nothing and are seen as equals to the likes of The New York Times, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal. And I’m looking forward to spending a couple of months in Paris–sure, I’ll have 16-hour workdays, but it will be worth it!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I had always wanted to be a writer, but I knew that I also had to pay the bills. After college, I decided to go into the library field, thinking that I’d work in a public library and get to be around the books I wanted to write. Jobs were hard to get though, and I eventually got a job as a researcher at a consulting firm.

That job kept me on my toes because on any given day, I didn’t know what type of work I’d be doing. In my 11 years there, the types of cases I worked on included confectionery, beauty products, the bridal market, mutual funds, medical devices, paint, dairy, insurance, cereal, windows, beverages, and more.

That made me really adept at quickly figuring out the language of any given industry and finding the information I needed to talk smartly about it. For my writing clients, that means I’m open and flexible to writing about a number of topics, and I can produce well-researched stories with fun facts that you won’t find in similar pieces about a topic.

With my podcast, that means I have a list of at least 100 topics I’m interested in exploring. People always say, “The Olympics are every two (or four) years. What do you talk about when they’re not on?” PLENTY. Let me tell you about field hockey and volleyball surfaces! You won’t believe the research and technology that goes into building the best!

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Support them financially! Most, if not all, of us have to take on work that we do in order to pay the bills, and we’d love to be doing our most creative work full-time. Do you love a podcast or a YouTuber or a social media influencer and consume their work for free on a regular basis? Kick them a couple of bucks or buy one of their products. It takes an enormous amount of time and effort to put together a podcast episode or record and edit a one-minute video, and most creators don’t make anywhere near a living wage for the work they put into entertaining other. Getting a random donation from a listener/viewer makes the effort worthwhile.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I believe in excellence and being the best you can be. That’s one reason I love the Olympics and Paralympics. It’s not just athletes who are at the pinnacle of sport, it’s all of the people behind the scenes who also provide the best possible experience for the Games. I like to infuse my work with that level of commitment.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://flamealivepod.com
• Instagram: @flamealivepod
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flamealivepod
• Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/company/flamealivepod
• Twitter: @flamealivepod
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@flamealivepod
• Other: On Facebook we also have a Group: Keep the Flame Alive Podcast Group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/flamealivepod

Image Credits

Nicholas Wolaver
Meghan Grammer
Ben Jackson