By Steve Wilstein
AP Sports Columnist

There are Olympic dreams of all sorts for all sports. If you're one of the world's most marvelously blessed athletes, you get a free airline ticket, a uniform, a dorm room a little larger than a prison cell and, for the truly lucky and gifted, a medal.

If you're Joe or Jill Fan, you can spend your salary or your savings to fly to Athens next summer, scramble for a hotel room, negotiate with ticket brokers or scalpers, and try not to miss the games by getting trapped in traffic.

If you're of a certain class - the high-rollers with the right connections - there's another way to go.

Vic Garvey deals in Olympic fantasies. He schmoozes with kings and queens and titans of Hollywood, Wall Street, Madison Avenue and Congress. He doesn't just try to make them happy. He makes them want to hug him.

Garvey's people are the ones with the best seats at the hottest events - beach volleyball, swimming, diving, gymnastics - tidbits whispered in their ears by the likes of Mark Spitz, Greg Louganis and Michael Johnson. Current Olympic athletes, such as Marion Jones, stop by to say hello.

His clients will arrive in Athens via private Learjets or customized Boeing 777s. They will reside on gaudy yachts with suites of splendor, burled woods polished like a mirror, or at the stately Grande Bretagna, the longtime place of choice for dignitaries. They will have helicopters at their disposal as air taxis between events. Cocktails on the Acropolis, parties amid museum statuary - it's all part of the fantasy.

They are folks like the heads of NBC and its parent General Electric, along with other CEOs and a few hundred of their closest pals. There's $1 billion in advertising at stake in the Athens Olympics and the elite clients are taken care of right.

NBC brought 3,000 guests to Sydney, and Garvey, as the network's senior vice president for the Olympics, said he had "my own little airline" - 24 Boeing 747s leased from Qantas.

Among the guests were several U.S. senators and congressmen, owners of major movie studios, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and sales leaders. Garvey is now carving out a niche with his own company while still serving as a consultant to the network.

"I'm in the experience business," says the chairman of The Garvey Group, who has also entertained NBC guests at 20 Super Bowls and 15 Wimbledons. At the Salt Lake City Winter Games, he had Brian Boitano, Peggy Fleming and Katarina Witt sit with clients to talk about the psyche of the athletes and the thinking of the judges.

The best of everything in Athens can cost up to $20,000 per person for four or five days, visits with champions included.

Garvey is not the only purveyor of high-priced Olympic dreams but he is used to dealing with the rich and famous and knows how to please even the most finicky of them.

"I am not a star-struck guy," he says. "I have sat and had to deal with the Bill Gates of the world. I've had to pay his bills and set up golf games for him. I've dealt with some of the most important movie stars and celebrities. That doesn't drive me.

"I really think that my ability to give somebody an experience that they can't get anyplace else, that is a lifetime memory, is far more important than hanging out with somebody who is famous."

Garvey isn't worried that the arenas and stadiums in Athens may be somewhat less comfortable than in Sydney, or that traffic may set Olympic records. He's made plans to ensconce his people in comfort and get them around quickly, with an equal balance of sports and Greek culture.

Security worries, he says, are not keeping his clients away.

"I've interviewed major advertisers on Madison Avenue," he says, "and I've asked them, 'For your high-end guests, do you think they would not come because of the security issue?' All of them have said, 'No, we're going to come."'

Garvey, himself, will probably see little of the games.

"For me, it's about a month of no sleeping," he says. "I'm constantly double-checking. I am not there for me. My staff is not there for themselves. Our clients party, we don't.

"It's not easy. You have to be on your toes 24 hours a day. Anything can happen. You have to be ready to move. I was getting ready to go to sleep in Atlanta when the bomb went off. I made some phone calls and was prepared, if needed, to get everybody evacuated within six hours. Thank God we didn't need to do that and the games went on. But you have to be ready to do that."

The stubborn economy may be more likely to take a toll on tourism in Athens than the threat of terrorism. Companies that are still losing money are less inclined to be throwing around big bucks for Olympic parties.

CEOs, senators and congressman ought to be able to have an Olympic dream. Shareholders and voters just shouldn't have to pay for it.