Like father, like son when it comes to the Olympic Games
I had been puttering about the yard one day last week before heading into the house, where I found my son watching what must have been the final drive of a tied Super Bowl.
Me: Josh, what's going on?
Josh: Shhhhhhhh, we're up by two on the Italians.
Me: Basketball?
Josh: Water polo, and Italy is really good at water polo.
Turns out, at least in one way, the ol' boy is really a proverbial chip off the ol' block.
Josh - Noah, too, although to a lesser extent - is an Olympics fanatic. Night after night last week - afternoon after afternoon, for that matter - he has followed the games of the XXIX Olympiad with excitement and fervor, much as I did in my formative years.
In 1972, when I was 6, my dad was stationed on an Air Force base in West Germany, and while we departed Europe a month before the Olympics began, I still recall going to Munich to look at the Olympic stadium, the Village and the swimming pool where Mark Spitz would win seven gold medals.
In 1976, when I was 10, I was at my cousin's house during the Montreal Olympics, where the U.S. boxing team won five gold medals, Bruce Jenner earned a spot on a Wheaties' box and the Americans, college boys mind you, easily reclaimed the men's basketball gold medal they had been cheated out of in 1972.
In 1980, when I was 14, my home state of Minnesota virtually shut down on that memorable weekend when the Miracle on Ice hockey team beat the mighty U.S.S.R. before rallying to beat Finland and win a most improbable gold medal in Lake Placid, where a guy named Eric Heiden swept all five gold medals in speed skating.
I've watched every Olympics since, too, and although the professionals now rule and the Games are still way too nationalistic, I'm still a sucker for a good Olympiad sport.
And so, too, is Josh, who dropped everything anytime Michael Phelps appeared on television last week.
For those who slept through last week, Phelps is the Baltimore phenom who won an Olympic-record eight gold medals in the pool. Some were won with ridiculous ease, but the two races none of us will ever forget were the 400 freestyle relay, where Phelps' teammate Jason Lezac rallied the Americans to gold with a stunning final 50 meters, and the 100 butterfly, where Phelps won by 1/100th of a second.
Granted, I have quibbles with the Games.
Start with NBC, the network carrying the Games. As neat as the story was surrounding 41-year-old Dara Torres' returning to the Olympics and earning three silver medals, NBC had you believing that the American would bring peace to the Middle East after she asked an official to hold up the start of one race so that a Swedish swimmer could get her swimsuit fixed.
Don't get me wrong, it was an Olympic-like moment when it came to sportsmanship, but to say NBC's announcers went ga-ga would be an Olympic-sized understatement.
Still, I guess when you spend a gazillion dollars to air the Games, you've paid for the right to go ga-ga over your team at every single turn.
I'm also one of those traditionalists when it comes to Olympic sports. I understand there are going to be a lot of sports I see on television exactly once every four years, but I draw the line at anything with the word synchronized in them. Yes, I know the “athletes” work hard and train long hours, but synchronized diving is simply not going to play in the Fenske house.
Still, after a summer of mostly depressing news close to home, the Olympics being held half a world away couldn't have come soon enough. For a few days, at least, the Games have provided welcome relief.
What makes the Olympics grand, however, is a wonderful picture I saw on television Saturday night. There was Richard Thompson of Trinidad and Tobago celebrating on the track in Beijing. Thank you, NBC, for showing it, even though he wasn't an American. Thompson hadn't even won his race - a 100-meter dash in which a Jamaican with a name, Usain Bolt, made for the fastest man alive. But he didn't care. He had won a silver medal and to a worldwide audience, he proved that there is no shame in finishing second.
Josh saw it, too.
“He's a good loser,” he said. “If I ever get to the Olympics and finish second, I'd do that, too.”
Just as long as it's not in synchronized diving.
Bob Fenske is the editor of the Forest City Summit. He can be reached by phone at 585-2112 or by e-mail at editor@forestcitysummit.com.
Story created Aug 20, 2008 - 13:27:45 CDT.
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