Advertisement Yeah, it’s my biennial immersion into the world of warm-ups, cool-downs and buff abs. With age I dare to admit it — I’m an Olympic junkie, soaking up two years worth of sports in two weeks — in the summer during presidential election years, in the winter in the years Minnesota elects a governor.
It’s a rather abrupt adjustment for a guy who’s occasionally considered buying a bird cage just to find a use for the sports pages.
Somehow the spectacle of grown men playing kids games has never held my attention — especially when their salaries rival the gross national product of small sovereign nations.
But the Olympics are different somehow. Sure, the American basketball players are the same NBA stars I’ve studiously ignored for the last four seasons, and I’m not so much the fool as to believe the rest of the athletes are making their way to the games on those part-time jobs at Home Depot.
Even so, I have to give a degree of respect to anyone who can turn playing beach volleyball into a lucrative career. No matter how you cut it, it has to be tough making a living at luge.
That, I think, might come close to capturing a bit of the wonder of it. Thousands of really talented people dedicate years to the perfection of extraordinary esoteric skills that boast no practical application whatsoever — all that midair squirming between the diving board and the pool is clearly an end unto itself, although the hurdles and hundred-yard dash might well come in very handy in bear country or certain urban neighborhoods. It’s kids on the playground showing off, honed to the utmost level … daredevil youngsters challenging the whole world — Hey, look at me … betcha can’t do this.
And I’ve been looking at them since I first read about the 1960 Winter Games in My Weekly Reader. It was the first time I remember seeing ski jumping, and it just looked like it would be crazy fun. Luckily, I couldn’t manage the ladder to the roof of Schultz’s machine shed with peach crate boards tied to my overshoes … thus, I live to tell the tale.
Well, I was hooked … and every four years — every two since they split the summer and winter games in ’92 — I find myself caught up in the extraordinary quest of one improbable show-off or another to do what no one has managed to do before.
And really, it doesn’t much matter to me which sport is in the spotlight. I know next to nothing about water polo, but managed to kill a good chunk of a beautiful afternoon watching a pool full of goombas in Snoopy helmets bobbing around trying to throw a volleyball into a net. I’ve been up past my bedtime watching young women in jiggle-proof spandex bounce on trampolines and caught replays of eight guys in a little boat rowing like Moby Dick was chasing them — for all the world, never once thinking of just investing in an Evenrude. I’ve seen girls fighting with swords, guys fighting with their fists and Greco-Roman wrestling, which makes no sense to me at all but is a whole lot of fun to watch. There have been synchronized swimmers that leave Ester Williams dog paddling in their wake, and a long-legged Russian launched herself more than 16 feet straight up on the end of a pole and landed with a smile on her face.
Oh, there are a few names to be remembered — two weeks ago I couldn’t figure out the cell phone ad featuring the ditz carrying on about some guy named Michael Phelps — I figured it was just another rock star I hadn’t heard of. Well, I’ve heard of him now.
But I’m not much of a reader of record books and between one closing ceremony and the next lighting of the torch the only women’s beach volleyball I’m likely to see will be on a real beach when Gayle isn’t looking. In four years, this summer’s sprightly gymnasts will be the dowagers of their sport and an entirely new crop of competitors will bounce onto the world stage. There’ll be all new kids on the playground challenging the whole world n Hey, look at me … betcha can’t do this.
Betcha I can’t — but I’ll be watching. Even if they do keep me up past the 10 o’clock news.
Contact Jerome Christenson at (507) 453-3500 or jchristenson@winonadailynews.com. For Jerome’s comments on this, that and something else check out “Up on the wrong side of the bed” at www.rivervalleyblogs.com/jerome/ or go to www.winonadailynews.com.
