Yeah, that isn’t how I’d normally write the date, but as of 12 minutes ago, that is today’s date. If you’ve had a television on in the last month or so, you are aware that today will be the opening ceremonies at the Olympics in Beijing. I’ll probably watch at least part of them although I don’t get the thrill out of that that I did back in the 1970s. I don’t remember the Olympics in Tokyo (my excuse is that was only 2) and my only memory of Mexico City is a little bit of the closing ceremonies. I wish I could say I remembered Bob Beamon’s incredible jump or the raised fists of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, but I don’t. I only vaguely remember athletes running all over the place on the field in the stadium during the closing ceremony. I also remember similar scenes from most of the Olympics since (with the exception of 1980 in Moscow which we boycotted and I believe didn’t get any television coverage in the US). I guess I have lots of memories and dreams tied up in the Olympics. As long as I live, I’ll never forget Jim McKay coming back on the air to say “they’re all gone” in 1972. The travesty of the gold medal game in basketball in those same Olympics. Mark Spitz. Being haunted a bit by the fact that the name of the guy who lit the torch in Montreal in ’76 was Stefan Prefontaine. Realizing sometime after those Montreal Olympics that I was never going to be tall enough (or talented enough) to play center for the US basketball team in the Olympics and starting to wonder about this team handball thing (a sport I believe I’ve only ever seen on TV twice and both were just brief glimpses during Olympic coverage). I bought my first color TV so that I could watch the LA Olympics in color in that big 19″ screen (it replaced the 9″ black & white that I had used throughout college) in 1984. It was probably inevitable, but I think the Olympics lost a little something when they let the pros in, but most of the athletes from “the other side of the Iron Curtain” were pros for years before that. Still, I did enjoy watching the original “Dream Team” of Magic and Michael and Bird in 1992. I have a new HD TV for this year’s Olympics and I’ll watch a fair amount of the competition, but I’ll probably be annoyed that all we see is the Americans. Oh, I’ll root for many of the Americans competing, but they aren’t always what I want to see. Sometime back in the 80s In 1976, I saw a series put together by Bud Greenspan called (I believe) the Olympians Olympiad. The ones that I still remember were about the runners. In particular, since that time, I’ve been fascinated by Emil Zatopek and Abebe Bikila. I never got to see either of them run, but they are fascinating stories. Yes, I’ll root for Michael Phelps to break the Spitz record, but I doubt he’ll set world records in all of his finals. I’ll watch the US basketball team in hopes of seeing them play as a team and not a bunch of selfish whiners. I’ll definitely root on the US softball team though they probably won’t need it, they should dominate the way Magic and Michael and Larry did hoops in ’92. But, I’m mostly hoping that I’ll see something that will stick with me, remind me that there is good in people, take me back to my youth. I hope never to see another day like that tragic one in Munich, but if there is, I’ll probably be watching just like I did when I came home from school for lunch that day. The Olympics are back.
Update: 2008-08-09 00:52 UTC – corrected the info on the Bud Greenspan series