The days of walking into Home Depot and having an Olympic gold medalist help you pick out paint could be coming to an end.
The big-box home store said Wednesday that it was ending its multimillion-dollar sponsorship deal with the U.S. Olympic Committee and discontinuing a program that offered jobs and benefits to American athletes.
The 86 athletes currently in the program will be offered traditional jobs at their current stores. But after March 2, they will no longer receive either full-time benefits or full-time pay for their part-time work, which they performed on flexible schedules depending on their Olympic regimens.
For athletes like Brock Kreitzburg, a 2006 Olympic bobsledder who is trying to overcome an injury and make the 2010 team, the prospect of looking for new work is a major hurdle.
“But I can’t be mad at Home Depot,” Kreitzburg said. “They’ve been amazing to me. If not for that job, I wouldn’t have made the 2006 Games.”
Home Depot had been a USOC sponsor and provider of the Olympic Job Opportunity Program since 1992. The sponsorship was worth between $15 million and $20 million in the four-year period ending in 2008.
Like so many big companies, Home Depot has been having trouble in the rough economy.
