Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m one of those guys who, every two years, gathers myself onto the sofa, a Coke in hand, Cheetos by my side, and sits, mesmerized, by the Olympics.
Track? I love it. The most universal and basic of all sports. (Or sport, as Mitt Romney would put it.)
Swimming? Sensational, even though I, myself, would have trouble dog paddling 100 meters.
Gymnastics? How in God’s name to they do what they do? I never mastered anything more than a somersault.
How about ping pong? Sensational.
Rowing? A beautiful thing to watch.
Scrabble? That match between Uganda and Bolivia last night was…
Okay, okay, enough of the hyperbole and exaggeration and, well…lies. They don’t have Scrabble in the Olympics yet. But they do have trampoline. Seriously, they do. What’s next? Dodge ball?
Anyway, the point is, I love watching all this intense competition between athletes from all over the world. I love their stories about how they got to the Olympics and how they overcame hardship and tragedy by sheer determination. Sitting snugly on my sofa, I quietly celebrate their triumphs and commiserate with them in their defeats.
It’s the human condition played out for us on a 46 inch, stereo, high definition TV.
What I don’t love….No, what I don’t like…..No, what I don’t even care about is men’s basketball in the Olympics. The Dream Team! Woohoo! Seriously, who cares?
As Americans, we have to root for Goliath, but who wants to do that? Where’s the fun?
These guys–LeBron and Kobe and even some players with two names–just finished playing their seven-month-long NBA seasons, and now we’ve got to watch them again as they beat up on Tanzania and Lichtenstein and Southwestern Herzegovina. Okay, there I go exaggerating again, but you get the idea.
And then we have to listen to some of these NBA players who are already swimming in cash complain that they ought to be paid for their participation in the Olympics.
Please.
Go home.
Next time, let’s send over Ned and Billy and Ralph and the boys from Negaunee High School (tallest starter 6’3″ with a vertical leap of 14 inches) and have them take on Argentina and Spain and Croatia. Yeah, they’ll get crushed but at least they’ll be fun to watch and root for.
In the meantime, I’ll be rooting for Southwestern Herzegovina in their game against the Dream Team tonight. Please don’t report me to the Patriot Police.