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SALT LAKE CITY -- Stephen Colbert is officially an assistant to U.S. Speed Skating Team sports psychology consultant Nicole Detling Miller.
He donated $300,000 to the speed skating program which filled a major funding gap. Adding Colbert to the staff was its way of thanking him. But he's not going to actually counsel the athletes, is he?
Miller says, "As my assistant, the only thing he really needs to know is that I like white chocolate mocha lattes."
Miller says as far as she knows, Colbert will spend most of his time in Vancouver taping episodes of his show and reporting for NBC, although, if he did counsel skaters, Miller says Colbert would do surprisingly well.
"He would probably help them relieve a lot of anxiety because he would make them laugh," she says.
The real Stephen Colbert we see may not be the same guy we see on TV.
"Now that I've talked to him a couple of times personally, [I can say] his character is probably a polar opposite of what his actual personality is," Miller says. "He's a really nice, down to earth guy."
Miller thinks Colbert might say she's lying about him being nice, but she's a psychologist. She can read personalities.
When Colbert took his actual shot, the paper bounced off the rim.
"In Stephen Colbert fashion, he looked at me and yelled, ‘You failed!'" Miller says.
But Miller says they were not given enough time to go through a proper visualization exercise. They only had a few minutes to conduct their interview, do the exercise then have another brief interview with one of the skaters. She would like to make her new assistant go through the visualization process again, and this time, not rush through it.
"If he doesn't like it, then I'll fire him," Miller says.
E-mail: pnelson@ksl.com
