As athletes travel to Milan, Italy, to represent America in the Winter Games, there are interesting local memories around the Olympics, the athletes and their connections to Colorado Springs, now Olympic City USA.

Of course, there’s the history at the impressive U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum, plus the Olympic & Paralympic Committee is headquartered right downtown. But it started even earlier.

Along with world champion skaters at the Broadmoor Ice Palace, the focus on the Olympics for many athletes has included time at the U.S. Olympic Training Center at Boulder Street and Union Boulevard.

But years ago, that site was about the military. Specifically, it’s about the Air Force, the name on local credit unions and a wartime hero named Ent — the real name and not an acronym. Generations of local folks know all about it.

The name belonged to highly decorated war hero Maj. Gen. Uzal Girard Ent, born in 1900, who had major military assignments around the world, including 9th Bomber Command, 9th Air Force in World War II. He owned pages of Air Force honors and decorations. Then he was here, Commanding General, 2nd Air Force when his B-25 crashed as it was taking off in Texas. Serious injuries led Ent to retire as disabled, and he died at Fitzsimons Hospital in Denver in 1948.

As a middle-of-the-country 2nd Air Force base was under construction on Boulder Street, with first headquarters in the former National Methodist Sanitorium building built in 1929, it carried the name Ent AFB.

According to military records, during construction and the addition of buildings, whole areas were tent cities for soldiers until barracks and barracks-style buildings were built in the 1940s. Ent was headquarters for Air Force Air Defense Command in 1951 and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in 1957 before it moved to Cheyenne Mountain, with Ent as an annex. The original base was closed in 1976, sitting empty, decommissioned.

Meanwhile, according to media coverage, the city needed something big to fill those 45-plus acres not far from the important downtown area. But the 1970s were a time of gas shortages, and Colorado Springs had a controversial moratorium on development.

Enter sports as athletes, fans and leading figures nationwide weren’t impressed with the small number of medals won by the Americans, unlike the Russians, in the 1970s. Sports pages and letters to editors were packed with ridicule and complaints.

The Amateur Sports Act, signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, in cooperation with the U.S. Olympic Committee, called for better training and the first American Olympic training centers. The USOC had two top bids, with one of them from Colorado Springs.

The city made a lease offer for more than 35 of those empty acres: $1 a year for more than approximately 10 years and a land exchange for land adjacent to Peterson Air Field. The offer was accepted, and Olympic House left New York for Colorado in 1978.

Chosen to lead the training facility was an athlete with major experience and fame, Bob Mathias, who won his first gold medal in decathlon in 1948 at age 17, setting a record as the youngest gold medalist ever. Another gold came in 1952. After football at Stanford University and time serving in the Marines, the handsome celebrity later went into politics, became an actor and was president of American Kids Sports Association before leading the training facility through its infancy. He was recognized for his contributions to sports when he was selected for the Colorado Springs Sports Hall of Fame, his name on the wall at The Broadmoor World Arena.

The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center had residents the moment it opened in 1978 despite still being under construction. That led to a project headed by the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph for multiple early years. Because the center wasn’t accessible for the public, it opened the gates for the neighborhood, military and families from Ent era and townsfolk to experience the Gazette’s International Chili Society Colorado Championship Chili Cookoff … no beans allowed.

Visitors watched Olympic and upcoming boxers in the ring and met athletes in training and USOC officials. They sampled chili prepared by competitors, including one who qualified there to represent the state at the ICS world championship in California. Money raised helped with immediate training center needs such as paint for the walls and bedding as athlete rooms were quickly opening. One year the chili event proceeds went instantly for a new commercial freezer for the dining hall when the old one suddenly gave out.

As years went along, major sponsors and corporations began financial support of the center. Visitors can tour the complex, turning it into a top tourist attraction and regular place to take visiting family members. It has an official Olympic shop. There are also ongoing competitive events and exhibitions open to audiences.

More training centers have been added, including the other United States Olympic & Paralympic Training Center, this one for winter sports in Lake Placid, NY., and the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center in California. Other sports-specific team centers are offered by sports federations and governing bodies such as USA Gymnastics at Indiana’s Innovation Mile.

The flagship Olympic center here invites more than 15,000 athletes each year. Since the first days, there have been young athletes living there who are attending local high schools and colleges and working at jobs around the area. A number of sports governing bodies are headquartered in Colorado Springs.