SYDNEY, Australia -- Once upon an Olympics, you came to the party broke and anonymous. You arrived as an amateur, without fanfare, a small suitcase in hand, a flag on your lapel.You gave the best performance your body could deliver, you burst across a tape, touched the wall in a swimming pool, netted a winning shot -- and suddenly, you were an Olympic champion. Your world was never the same.
What is a chair? What is its intent? To provide rest after a hard day? To give order to the dinner table? To pull up in front of the TV set? All of the above? Yet a chair is never more than an in-between stop. In time you rise and get on with your life.Unless it is a wheelchair.Unless you cannot rise.Unless, your life, like Mo Gerhardt's, is shadowed by a congenital disease like Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, an often fatal affliction that robs you of the protein you need to build muscle. In cases like his, a chair looms the way the horizon looms for a setting sun.
Rock 'n' roll never forgets. That's what Bob Seger said. At least I think it was Bob Seger. I forget.Anyhow, last week, I tested Bob's theory by attending my first rock concert in years. The band was Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, a hugely popular group back in the late '60s and early '70s.Now, Crosby, Stills and Nash are no longer young. Even Young is not young. They have not had a hit in years.
When it comes to a teenaged basketball player named LeBron James, everybody has an excuse.His Ohio high school, St. Vincent-St. Mary in Akron, which is showcasing James around the country this season, flying him everywhere from L.A. to Philadelphia, has its excuse: "We're giving him a chance to face top-flight competition," it says.And the school's athletic director, who sanctions a large appearance fee for James and the team to play in your gym -- reportedly between $10,000 and $15,000 a game -- has his excuse: "We're helping raise money for our school."
WIMBLEDON, England -- It was raining lightly. Todd Martin wanted to keep playing. Andre Agassi did not. So when chasing down a forehand, Agassi slipped, and let himself go down like a Shakespearean soldier. He lay on the grass as if he'd been shot.The crowd hooted. Agassi remained flat for several seconds. Finally, his point made, he slowly rose and wiped his leg.Sure enough, the official came out and suspended the match.
You can't buy a ticket to the Academy Awards. You must be invited. So I have been waiting. I check the mailbox every day. Nothing. And since the awards are tonight, I'm assuming once again, through no fault of my own, that I am not on the list.But this year, I am doing something about it. I am holding my own Oscars.That's right. I have decided that, with the exception of Jennifer Lopez's dress, whatda they got that I ain't got?
It was the saddest news photo of the week. A California mother fighting tears, her eyes squeezing shut, her lips quivering. She was displaying a picture of her 5-year-old daughter, who had been abducted hours earlier by a stranger in a green car. The news photo captured the tragic symbolism: a mother trying to hold her daughter up, even as she was falling apart.In the end, her world collapsed anyhow. The little girl, Samantha Runnion, was found the next day, naked and abused and dead on a hillside. Five years old. The killer left her like a gum wrapper.
Ialways laugh when politicians tell voters who is "fit to lead." It reminds me of a cat telling mice where they should hide.Last week, John Kerry told us John Edwards, his new vice presidential candidate, was fit to lead, even though earlier this year he criticized Edwards, saying the White House "was no place for on-the-job training."Edwards, for his part, told groups of cheering fans that his new boss was fit to lead, even though a few months ago, Edwards was doing his best to knock Kerry out of the race.
You leave work Friday afternoon, the Red Wings are talking contract with Sergei Fedorov. You come in Monday morning, and Fedorov is a Mighty Duck.Talk about a lost weekend.What happened? How did the Wings let their most talented player get away for nothing?Well, as Orange County real estate agents begin hunting for a new mansion, here's the bottom line:Sergei saw himself one way, the Wings saw him another.
The mark of a gentleman is that he behaves like one even when he doesn't feel like it, and Lloyd Carr didn't feel like it as he ran off at halftime of the Michigan-Ohio State game. For a moment, in ungentlemanly fashion, he let mood dictate behavior. An ABC reporter fired a question about why Michigan had just run out the clock when it had three time-outs left.Carr glared at him."Why would you ask a dumb question like that?" he said.When the reporter tried again, Carr ignored him and walked away, shaking his head as if the guy were an idiot.
"It is not the critic who counts. . . . The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly . . . and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." -- Teddy Roosevelt
Maybe they're trying to be nice.Maybe they need a bigger vocabulary.But have you noticed how the broadcasters for these NCAA tournament games seem hesitant to call things as they really are -- especially if they are the slightest bit ...negative?Example: A player dribbles the ball off his foot, then bounces it off his head, then runs the wrong way and shoots at the opposite basket.Announcer: "He's struggling today."Example: Team A falls behind by 30 points. Team A hasn't made a basket since last week. There are four minutes left.
