In 1995 UT hosted the global finals of the Odyssey of the Mind problem-solving, creative competitions for children. Odyssey of the Mind was founded in 1978 by Dr. C. Samuel Miklus and Dr. Theodore Gourley at Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) in New Jersey. The first competition, known as the Olympics of the Mind involved 28 New Jersey teams. The nonprofit OM Association was formed, but membership lists and ideas for problems for the contests came from the association’s for-profit parent company, Creative Competitions, which was headed by Miklus.
In 1998, with the OM Association and Creative Competitions (which received directly a portion of membership, sponsorship, and royalties on sales of souvenirs) unable to resolve their differences, the Odyssey of the Mind competitions continued under a court-appointed provisional OM director. In July 1999 the court ruled that if the differences could not be worked out, there would be no 1999–2000 competitions.
A group of some three hundred volunteers, led by Robin Vidimos and Tom Mauro, communicated by e-mail and fax to devise a new rulebook and establish a new problem-solving competition. By September 1 Destination ImagiNation was formed. In the meantime the OM Association and Creative Competitions had reached an agreement under which the entities became completely separate entities—one a nonprofit (OMAI) and the other a for-profit (Creative Competitions). Destination ImagiNation hired the nonprofit OM Association to work under a contract basis in 1999. OMAI legally absorbed Destination ImagiNation during the 2000–2001 season. UT began hosting the global finals of Destination ImagiNation in 2001.