Olympic memmories

The first Olympics I remember watching with interest were the 1972 Summer Games from Munich. Now there are several noteworthy events that happened there, the least of which not being the kidnapping/murder of the Israeli athletes. On the lighter side there was Mark Spitz--the Michael Phelps of his day, scoring 7 golds; Olga Korbut, the Russian gymnast who captured every one's heart and imagination; and there was the unthinkable loss of the US basketball team to the USSR.

It was kind of like mini lessons about life wrapped up in two weeks. I had no idea about terrorism and politics and the tragic consequences when extremists took out their frustrations on innocent parties, but I learned about real tragedy. There were real live young men and women who were killed. . . died when all they wanted to do was compete.

There was the nationalistic pride brought on when US Swimmer, Mark Spitz put on an heroic performance. he was actually sent home early because he was Jewish and there was fear of other terror attacks.



Prior to 1972, the USA had never lost an Olympic basketball game. It was as if it was deemed that just being American gave us a birthright to the gold in basketball every four years. I believed it in my heart of hearts. There was some injustice, it seems, in the way that the soviets dethroned our cagers, but in light of what happened to the Israelis, tragedy is just not a fitting word. A lot of pride was swallowed, but not one person died. In the bigger scheme of life, where disappointments are meted out to us all by the bucket load on a daily basis, this was a lesson in humility. It really did not matter how wronged or indignant, I felt about the results or how they were obtained, they weren't gonna be changed. There was not one thing I could do about it. Time spent begrudging the facts was time wasted, life goes on. We were going to lose sooner or later anyway--and did, more and more often as the years moved on. And it wasn't because we were bad, the rest rest of the world just caught up. More over the soviets were our arch enemies. I really believed we were the good guys back then, that we always did right. They were the evil empire, and always did bad. . .more history and politics I did not understand.

Even at 11 years old, I had the common sense to realize that the basketball teams of neither country were out there for world political or military domination. They were there to compete. And even despite this slight at the hands of our rivals, it seemed the whole country indeed put aside political differences when we all cheered for Olga Korbut with heartfelt enthusiasm. It did not matter that she was from the Soviet Union. She was a special athlete and through her performance she earned the respect and the cheers of everyone from what I could observe. Nationalism was put aside, and for few glorious days a little gymnast conquered the world.

Oh well enough for now. . .

Thanks for stoppin by, ya'll come back now, ya hear!