Life was hard enough when we were told that, even though there were those among us who wished to harm us in some way, there were certain people — teachers, coaches, pastors, doctors and police officers — we should always respect, and we should never question anything they told us. It was an article of faith.
It must be even more difficult when people are also instructed — as another article of faith — that there are places where one is always safe and that, even in those places that are not generally safe, there will be designated safe zones.
The more innocent we are, the more inclined we are to believe such things — and, consequently, the more vulnerable we are because there are always those who are eager to violate that trust.
Larry Nassar is such a person. The now–infamous gymnastics doctor violated more than the trust of more than 100 girls and young women.
And I have the deepest respect and admiration for those women who faced Nasser in court.
But it is important to remember that this is not done. It is not finished. It is not over. There is more that must be done.
For someone like Nassar to get away with so much over such a long period requires the cooperation of others. To be sure, there were enablers — at Michigan State, in USA Gymnastics, in the Olympics — who knew what was happening and looked the other way.
Their inaction, when the list of victims was still comparatively short, permitted countless others to be victimized by a pedophile who grew brazen enough to carry out his assaults in the presence of some of his victims' parents.
The judge was correct when she said she had signed Nassar's "death warrant" with her 40– to 175–year prison term.
He will never see the outside of a prison again, but this chapter won't be closed until everyone who allowed this to continue — like the folks who permitted the atrocities at Penn State to continue — are brought to justice.
Here in Texas there is widespread reverence (except in College Station, I suppose) for the 2006 national championship game between the Texas Longhorns and the Southern Cal Trojans.
Even now more than a decade later.
If you ask people around here what they remember about that game, they are almost sure to mention Vince Young's scamper into the end zone in the final seconds to win it.
It was a classic, all right, and I remember that moment, too, but what I remember most about that game was how familiar it all felt — with Keith Jackson calling it.
It was the last game in a remarkable career, a career that included coverage of pro football, the Olympics, boxing, racing. All sports, really, but especially college football.
His career spanned more than half a century so the odds are pretty good that you or someone you know — perhaps both — grew up listening to Jackson's play–by–plays.
Lots of people forget that Jackson was on the original Monday Night Football broadcasting crew doing the play–by–play. Frank Gifford was the original choice, but he had other commitments in that first season so Jackson handled the play–by–play. Gifford took over the next season.
People have been sharing their memories of Jackson on social media today, and they are all great memories.
I grew up listening to Jackson, and I can't say I have a special memory. But all those other moments sound familiar, whether I actually witnessed them or not.
One thing I can say is that Jackson and I were once at the same game — at least once.
My family attended the Sugar Bowl a couple of times when I was growing up, and I know that Jackson was on the broadcast team at one of them. Maybe both.
I didn't hear the broadcast, of course, because I was at the game, and it was long before people could watch TV from handheld devices. But I knew he was there.
Among other things, Jackson is remembered for his colorful descriptions of people and things. He was the one who called the Rose Bowl "the granddaddy of them all." He dubbed Michigan's football stadium "The Big House."
His signature line was "Whoa, Nellie!" when something big happened. If I happened to be in the kitchen getting something to eat and I heard Jackson exclaim, "Whoa, Nellie!" I knew I needed to get back into the living room pronto because there was sure to be a replay of whatever it was.
And it was not to be missed.
It's been awhile since Jackson participated in a broadcast, but he still will be missed. And whenever I hear anyone say "Whoa, Nellie!" I know I will think of him.
When I started writing this blog, I envisioned writing about sports all year, but it has focused primarily on football, boxing and horse racing with other sports tossed in from time to time. And most of my writing on this blog gets done during football season.
I enjoy watching other sports between football seasons, but I don't always feel compelled to write about them.
As always, I am looking forward to the start of football season, now only about four weeks away, but the Summer Olympics will begin tomorrow, and I am looking forward to that, too. It brings back memories of my childhood — when my family would gather in the living room every night for two weeks to share the Olympic experience via TV. We always got to see many exciting, dramatic moments; in between, we got to take tours of faraway places. All without ever having to leave our living room (and without having to pay so much as a dime for it, either, back in those pre–cable and pre–satellite days — but that's a topic for another time).
My mother has been deceased for more than 20 years, but my father is still living, and I look forward to sharing some of those experiences with him over the next two weeks.
The experience has never been the same for me without Mom, though. She loved watching the Olympics. She was totally absorbed in the drama.
She made a production of it when my brother and I were small. That wasn't unusual, though. She always liked to decorate the house with the appropriate holiday theme — you know, red, white and blue for the Fourth of July, pumpkins for Halloween, turkeys for Thanksgiving, all that stuff.
Mom was very creative, anyway. Speaking of Halloween, Mom used to make my Halloween costumes — and my brother's. She was good at it, too.
Something like the Olympics was perfect for her. In addition to the iconic Olympic rings, Mom could work in things that connected to wherever the Olympics were being held. I think she preferred it when they were held somewhere of which she knew little or nothing — it was like giving an artist a blank canvas — and that wasn't easy because my parents did a lot of traveling when they were young. My father did his Ph.D. work in Scotland, then my parents spent five years as missionaries in Africa. When they returned to the U.S., they kind of took the long way home, traveling through Europe before finally leaving for the United States.
I was with them when they returned to the U.S., having been born about a year earlier. When I was a teenager, my father got a kick out of telling me that I visited two dozen countries before I was 2 years old, then he would ask, "Do you remember that?"
Sure, Dad.
I've seen pictures of myself at different stops we made along the way, including a couple of places where the Summer Games had been held in the past. As an adult, I have visited some American cities where past Summer Games have been held. I have even visited Athens, the ancient cradle of the Olympics. But I've never been to a city that was hosting the Games when I was there.
That isn't an item for my "bucket list." As a matter of fact, I don't really have a bucket list.
If I did, I guess going to the Kentucky Derby would be on it. Or maybe the Super Bowl (when the Packers were playing in it).
I'm not precisely sure when my family got a television set for the first time.
But I'm pretty sure we had one 45 years ago this month.
I say that because I can remember my mother gathering my younger brother and me in front of the TV to watch Peggy Fleming skate in the 1968 Winter Olympics, which began in Grenoble, France, on Feb. 6. We were both very young at the time. I'm reasonably sure I had no idea who Peggy Fleming was — nor, for that matter, did I know what the Olympics were — and I am almost positive that my brother knew nothing about either as well.
But Mom definitely knew who Fleming was, and what I remember most of that occasion was Mom watching our tiny (by modern standards) black–and–white TV in rapt silence. Whenever I started to ask her anything, she would hold up one hand to quiet me, her eyes never leaving the screen.
I have fleeting memories of watching Fleming skate that night. I have since watched film of her performance, and each viewing serves to confirm what I remember. She was brilliant, and she, probably more than anyone, was responsible for the explosion in popularity of the Olympics in America.
Well, ABC's coverage of those Games — including extensive reports on Fleming and French skier Jean–Claude Killy — had a lot to do with it, too.
As far as American audiences were concerned, though, Fleming was the clear star. She was the only American to win a gold medal in the Grenoble Olympics.
Other American women achieved stardom as Olympic figure skaters in the years to come, but Fleming, while not the first, blazed the modern–day trail. It was Fleming who truly made it possible for Dorothy Hamill, Kristi Yamaguchi, Tara Lipinski and Sarah Hughes to claim Olympic gold.
She overcame the loss of her coach in an airplane crash in Belgium almost exactly seven years earlier. That plane crash decimated the American skating program, and it must have been devastating for Fleming, who was 12 at the time. Nevertheless, Fleming rose to Olympic prominence from the ashes of that crash, in large part because of her unusual style.
Even though Christine Brennan writes in USA Today that there is no dominant American woman in figure skating today, it seems to me that modern American observers, being as provincial as they are, long ago grew accustomed to the idea that an American woman will be among the favorites at the Winter Olympics. It's taken for granted by some.
But that is a relatively recent phenomenon.
By 1968, only five American women had ever won medals for figure skating since the Winter Olympics began six decades earlier — and only two won gold. Four U.S. women have won gold since, and none of them really carried the national burden that Fleming did.
(Perhaps the 1980 U.S. hockey team did, but no single individual has — at least not in the Winter Games.)
When she ascended the podium to receive her gold medal, Fleming was joined by silver medalist Gabriele Seyfert of East Germany and bronze medalist Hana Mašková of Czechoslovakia. It was, as I say, the United States' only gold medal of the Winter Olympics.
That made her the darling of the Olympics as far as Americans were concerned.
I didn't fully understand the significance of Fleming's triumph at the time. I was just too young.
But, as young as I was, I could see that it had a great impact on my mother. I always felt that Mom looked at Fleming as a role model, a symbol of what a woman could achieve.
Mom seldom spoke of it, but she always made a point of watching Fleming when she was on TV; sometimes I watched with her.
And sometimes she asked me if I remembered watching Fleming win her gold medal.
I always told her I did, but the truth was that my memory was spotty.
The truth also was that I clearly saw a lot of pride in Mom's eyes — and I heard a lot of pride in her voice — when she spoke of Fleming.
It made me realize how symbolic these triumphs were to young women in America.
Such symbolic victories, though, are accomplished through a lot of hard work and dedication. That was the thing I didn't appreciate at the time.
I don't know if most Americans have ever heard of Canadian skier Sarah Burke.
Until recently, I must admit, I knew little about her myself. But, apparently, she was well known among extreme sports enthusiasts. And Burke' death dramatically alters expectations for the next Winter Olympics.
Burke, who died yesterday at the age of 29, was a freestyler who successfully lobbied to have her sport included in the Winter Olympics and was widely expected to win a medal in the sport when it makes its debut in the 2014 Winter Games in Russia. She died from injuries suffered 10 days ago in a training accident in Utah.
The death of one so young is always a tragedy, and the circumstances of Burke's death make it even more tragic. She was practicing the sport to which she had committed everything. Her commitment to it appears to have been even more binding than the marriage vows she took less than two years ago.
As I have observed, she was the driving force behind the inclusion of freeskiing in the Winter Olympics — and the ironic (and, apparently, inevitable) outcome of her death may well be a renewed and reinvigorated debate over the risks of her sport.
That may or may not be an overreaction. Burke's death is a tragedy, but from what I know of her I think she would agree that the sport has gone to great lengths to minimize the risks.
And the accident that caused her death appears to be more of a fluke than anything else. Observers say the accident occurred not on a complicated maneuver but on a routine jump that Burke had performed hundreds, if not thousands, of times before without incident.
Perhaps, as some have suggested, she landed at just the right angle to cause her fatal accident, that the odds against such a thing happening again are astronomical.
Accidents and injuries are "part of the game," Burke said. "Everybody gets hurt."
Burke may not have been a mainstream household name, but my guess is that the Olympic debut of the sport to which she dedicated herself will be among the most emotional of the next Winter Games.
And I predict that, in death, Burke will inspire far more people than she ever did in life.
It would be a tragedy compounding another to turn the situation into something it isn't, whatever the motivation.
If it had happened a few years later, someone might have noticed something in time to make a difference. Lives might have been saved. Dozens of injuries might have been prevented.
But no one noticed. Well, one person apparently noticed — but I'll get back to that shortly.
Sometime in the earliest minutes of July 27, 1996, a 29–year–old man named Eric Rudolph placed a knapsack containing three pipe bombs beneath a bench in Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park, which was designed to serve as a kind of town square, a friendly gathering place, for the Summer Games.
Then the bomb went off around 1:20 a.m. It killed a Georgia woman. A cameraman from Turkey suffered a fatal heart attack while running to cover the event. Hundreds were injured.
Meanwhile, Rudolph had disappeared into the Georgia night.
Rudolph spent many years on the FBI's notorious Most Wanted list, in part for the Centennial Olympic Park bombing but also for bombings he carried out at abortion clinics and a gay bar in the years after Olympic Park.
But it was more than two years after the Olympic Park bombing before the Department of Justice connected Rudolph, by that time a suspect in the other incidents, to that crime.
Initially, the focus of Olympic officials was on heightening security, and precautions were taken that were regarded by some as intrusive at the time — but would hardly raise an eyebrow today. Metal detectors were put in place at every entrance, and bags were searched. At a time when airport scans have been criticized for being too revealing, it all seems tame in hindsight.
But it wasn't enough. Investigators were eager to blame someone — anyone — and put to rest public fears. They settled on a scapegoat — with the help of the media.
The scapegoat was a fellow named Richard Jewell, a security guard. He discovered Rudolph's bomb before it went off, alerted authorities and helped evacuate the area. Because of his actions, many people undoubtedly avoided injury or death, and he was hailed as a hero.
But that quickly changed to what has been called a "trial by media." The Atlanta Journal–Constitution reported that the FBI was treating Jewell as a suspect. That was based primarily on the FBI's "lone bomber" profile of the probable culprit.
Whether that was largely correct or not is open to interpretation, but this much is certain — it focused the glare of the media spotlight on the wrong man.
It was suggested that Jewell was a failed law enforcement officer who planned the bombing precisely so he could find the bomb and be proclaimed a hero. He would be in demand as a security provider, the kind of on–the–ball guy that any company would like to have on its security detail.
He was never formally accused of anything, but his home was searched, his friends and co–workers were interrogated, and lawsuits were filed against him by victims of the Olympic Park bombing.
Personally, I was quite surprised by all that. I would have thought that people had learned their lesson about jumping to conclusions in the spring of 1995, when authorities initially suspected a Muslim man of blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City — only to discover that the evidence pointed to a more likely suspect, a homegrown Christian boy named Timothy McVeigh.
But some people have never needed much encouragement to jump to conclusions. Sometimes all it takes is a clever summation from a crafty prosecutor. At other times, even less credible means have been sufficient to persuade the gullible.
Ironically, the only way Jewell was able to ease the pressure was to take — and pass with flying colors — a polygraph, which would not be admissible in a court of law because of its unreliability.
Nevertheless, the public bought it.
After he had been cleared, Jewell filed a series of lawsuits against those who had perpetuated the negative stories about him — especially NBC and the Journal–Constitution.
Among other things, he demanded apologies. That was for him. There was little, if any, financial gain; most of the money would be used to pay attorneys and the IRS. Jewell simply wanted his good name restored.
It was a costly lesson for the media outlets. NBC agreed to pay Jewell $500,000. CNN settled for an undisclosed amount.
The Journal–Constitution wound up not paying Jewell anything. The case against the paper lingered in the courts over the issue of whether newspapers can be compelled to reveal their sources. Ultimately, the case was dismissed in December 2007, four months after Jewell died at the age of 44.
Well, as I say, anti–terrorism security was still rather primitive in the mid–1990s. In spite of a lot of talk, I suspect that most Americans still believed what they had believed half a century earlier — before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — that the vast Atlantic and Pacific Oceans protected them from anyone who might wish to do them harm.
The Oklahoma City bombing clearly received a lot of attention. So, too, did the first (but not nearly as dramatic) attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.
But, for whatever reason, Americans continued to believe that such events were isolated, that they didn't indicate an ongoing, even escalating, effort by extremists to harm Americans and disrupt American life.
And it would be more than five years — until September 11 — before Americans began to get serious about national security in a non–military sense.
If they had been as serious about security on this night 15 years ago as they became after September 11, a lot of things that happened might not have happened — the terrorist attacks in Africa, the attack on the USS Cole, not to mention the September 11 hijackings themselves.
The United States has hosted only two Summer Olympic Games since World War II.
The Olympic Games often produce great moments for the host country, and the Summer Games in America were no exceptions to that rule. Both were noteworthy in several sports — but they were especially so for America's female gymnasts.
In 1984, the Games came to Los Angeles, where Mary Lou Retton became the first American gymnast to earn a perfect score in Olympic competition. The fact that the gymnasts from Russia and the Eastern European nations, who had dominated the sport for many years, were not there did not seem to dampen American spirits at all.
And, in fact, Retton's perfect score was a significant individual achievement — even though it is lampooned a bit in a recent Dairy Queen commercial.
But I'm inclined to think that what happened 15 years ago today in Atlanta was even more significant.
And I believe I would think that even if the United States had not won the team all–around competition for the first time.
On this day, the United States was on the brink of that achievement. Going into the final rotation, either the Russians or the Americans (also known as the "Magnificent Seven") could win. The Americans were on the vault and held the lead, but if they stumbled, the Russians were positioned to capture the gold.
And stumble certainly seemed to sum up what was happening to the Americans that evening.
Most of the other Americans landed their vaults but did not do so cleanly. One of Strug's teammates didn't even land one of her two attempts cleanly — and was awarded a poor score by Olympic standards.
Then it was Strug's turn — and the misfortune continued. She fell on her landing and was clearly in pain as she limped back to the start of the runway.
I've heard that Strug asked her coach, Bela Karolyi, if it was necessary for her to make a second attempt, and he told her that they needed her to do so — although, in fact, they really didn't. The Russians were competing in the floor exercise, and their last competitor turned in a poor performance.
It was so poor that, even with the scores that were awarded to Strug's teammate who failed to land both of her vaults and to Strug following her first attempt, the Americans would have won the competition.
But they couldn't have known that at the time because the final Russian gymnast had not started her floor exercise when Strug made her vaults.
So Strug, who had damaged her ankle on the first vault, persevered despite the pain.
It wasn't so obvious that she was hurt when she ran down the runway, but when she landed — practically on one foot although she did hold a two–footed landing just long enough to receive credit for it from the judges — it was clear to all who could see.
She collapsed on the mat as announcer John Tesh exclaimed, "Kerri Strug is hurt! She's hurt badly!"
But Strug had accomplished her goal. Her score mathematically secured the team gold medal.
However, her unselfishness cost her. Because of her injury, she was unable to compete in the individual all–around, for which she had qualified.
But, on this evening 15 years ago, a night that will always be remembered for the drama and true grit of one Olympian, that didn't matter.
There are several enduring images of that evening. One remembers, of course, the sight of Strug standing on one foot after her second vault, then taking a step or two and collapsing on the mat.
And then there was the sight of Karolyi carrying Strug, her left ankle wrapped in tape, to the podium to receive her medal with her teammates.
After the medals presentation, Strug was taken to a hospital, where it was determined that she had suffered a third–degree lateral sprain and tendon damage.
And, as I say, Strug was unable to compete in the individual all–around because of her injury — so she was replaced by Shannon Miller.
There is a certain irony to this. Miller, a five–time medalist in the 1992 Games, was considered the leader of the '96 team, and Dominique Moceanu, the girl who stumbled twice in the team vault, was regarded as one of the team's stars.
But Strug, who was probably seen more as a utility player before the Atlanta Games, is the one who is remembered. If she had not been hurt, she would have qualified over both Miller and Moceanu for the all–around competition because of their performances in the vault.
Miller is often said to be the United States' greatest gymnast, and that may well be true. She won more medals than anyone else, which is a convincing argument for the title of greatest individual gymnast.
But I'm not entirely sure that Miller was a team player.
Make no mistake about it. Miller did make her contribution to the team's all–around triumph. She was second in individual scoring when the team competition ended, but she struggled at times with a pulled hamstring and tendinitis in her left wrist when the individual competition got under way. She finished eighth.
Strug, on the other hand, was a team player who sacrificed her shot at individual Olympic glory and clinched Miller's final Olympic gold medal with her iconic vault.
Strug isn't in the news much anymore. She got married in 2010. For the most part, I think she has remained out of the public eye.
I don't know if Strug would have fared better than Miller if she had been able to compete in the individual all–around competition.
And, thanks to hindsight, I do know that it wasn't necessary for Strug to make that second vault.
But she demonstrated — in a way nothing else could — what the true Olympic spirit has always been about.
On this day in 1976, something happened that had never before happened in Olympic gymnastic competition.
A perfect score — 10.00 — was recorded.
Thirty–five years ago, these were uncharted waters. The scoreboards in Montreal (where the Summer Games were being played) weren't set up to display a four–digit score so they showed 1.00 instead.
Who achieved this milestone? Nadia Comaneci of Romania, a 14–year–old dynamo of a pixie who instantly replaced Olga Korbut, the star of the 1972 Games, as the world's favorite gymnast.
Korbut was back in 1976, but she was almost an afterthought. She wasn't even the best Russian gymnast, let alone the best in the world. For that matter, she wasn't even the second–best Russian gymnast.
In Montreal, Korbut was treated more like a celebrity who was recognized for past achievements than a serious competitor. There was a vacuum in women's gymnastics, at least as far as ordinary viewers of the Olympics (such as myself) were concerned. There was no clear star.
And then Comaneci shot across the gymnastics firmament.
Maybe the folks who followed gymnastics closely in those days had heard about Comaneci before the Olympics, but my memory is that almost no one knew who she was. Certainly, I had never heard of her before.
In all, Comaneci recorded seven perfect scores in the Montreal Games. Mind you, that did not mean seven gold medals.
Some of those perfect scores were recorded in competition for the team all–around medals — as a team, the Romanians finished second — and the others propelled Comaneci to three individual gold medals.
No doubt about it. She was a sensation that summer, the new center of the international gymnastics universe. Whenever the female gymnasts were competing, TV ratings went through the roof. People were tuning in to see if Comaneci would record another perfect score — and, most of the time, they got what they wanted.
In a decade that saw three Triple Crown winners in horse racing, Jack Nicklaus flirt with golf's Grand Slam a couple of times, Hank Aaron replace Babe Ruth as baseball's home run king and swimmer Mark Spitz win seven gold medals at the '72 Olympics, individual accomplishments were practically expected — even in team sports.
Perfect scores are somewhat commonplace in gymnastics today — at least when compared to 1976 and all that had come before. In fact, only eight years later, in 1984, 16–year–old Mary Lou Retton became the first American to do it.
That was pretty remarkable in many ways — but especially for Americans, who had been longing for a gymnastics champion of their own for many years. The sport had been the domain of Russian and Eastern European women for decades.
The fact that the Russians and Eastern Europeans did not participate in the '84 Games didn't seem to matter much to Americans — but it might have cheapened the achievement in the eyes of the rest of the world.
(Anyway, to show how far things had come technologically since Comaneci's day in Montreal, the scoreboards in Los Angeles were equipped to handle four–digit scores when Retton recorded her 10.)
Perfect scores were sort of regarded as impossible dreams when Nadia Comaneci burst onto the scene in 1976 — and her name was hardly a household word. Before the Olympics, most Americans probably had never heard of her.
The anchors of the Olympic TV coverage didn't know how to pronounce her last name when the Games began. They mispronounced it throughout the competition and only began pronouncing it correctly when the closing ceremonies were about to begin on August 1.
Initially, it was pronounced in an almost Italian sort of way, with the "i" spoken. But, in fact, it rhymes with "peach" — with a "ch" sound, not a "y" sound, at the end.
Someone from the Romanian Olympic team brought it to the announcers' attention. My memory is that they corrected themselves with little, if any, fanfare.
I'm told they were pronouncing it correctly four years later, when Comaneci participated in the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow. But I didn't see those Games. Because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Carter ordered a boycott by American athletes and athletes representing countries that sympathized with the United States.
In that atmosphere, Comaneci won two more gold medals — but she had retired from competition when Retton scored her perfect 10 in Los Angeles. (And, because the Romanians didn't come to Los Angeles in 1984, it hardly mattered.)
Perhaps it would have been more emotional if Canada's Joannie Rochette, carrying the burden of her grief over the sudden death of her mother less than a week ago, could somehow have leaped past her two main rivals, Korea's Kim Yu–Na and Japan's Mao Asado.
But their performances were simply too great, and the top three after Tuesday's short program remained the top three after the long program. When last night's competition came to an end, Kim Yu–Na received the gold medal, Mao Asado took the silver and Rochette captured the bronze.
I suppose Rochette would have broken down if she had been awarded the gold — and someone almost surely would have said that her mother's spirit had intervened on her behalf. As it was, she earned a medal, which had been her and her mother's goal, but she didn't win the competition against two superior foes, which would have implied supernatural influence.
Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about talk of deceased relatives interceding in earthly activities. It seems to me that, if such a thing were true, it would not have been possible for the global economy to turn as sour as it did, leaving millions without jobs. There would have been too many dead parents stepping in to prevent their children from being terminated.
But that, I suppose, is a different discussion.
Certainly, Rochette's performance was courageous. As I watched, I couldn't help but think of my own experience when my mother died and I had professional obligations to meet before I could allow myself to grieve. Before and after her performance on Tuesday, Rochette appeared to be an emotional wreck, but she put everything on the shelf while she was on the ice and skated brilliantly. I wasn't competing in the Olympics so there weren't millions of people watching me, but I didn't have to have that in common with Rochette. I know how personal loss can weigh on someone.
By last night, I guess Rochette had had a little more time to adjust to her loss. There were moments when she had to dab her eyes, especially when the medals were being awarded, but she did not seem as emotional as she had two nights earlier. She completed a complex program and received a score that represented a personal best. We'll never know if any of the judges gave her a little leeway in light of her personal pain, but her performance merited a medal.
I've been wondering how she would have done if she had been competing using the scoring system that was in use in the days when many of the legends of figure skating competed in the Olympics.
In the old days, figure skating was different. Competitors still had to do well in the short and long programs, but they also had to do well in the "compulsory figures" (also known as the "school figures").
If you're under 30, you probably have no memory of that part of the competition — which is probably just as well. When modern figure skating enthusiasts think of competition, they probably think of thrilling leaps and spins on the ice. The compulsory figures were the direct opposite. They were the slow, tedious carving of patterns in the ice with one's skates — the "basics" of figure skating.
The judges stood to the side and watched as the skaters went through the procedures, then made precise measurements of the figures before arriving at their scores.
In my mind, I always equated it with having a deep sea fisherman demonstrate his worthiness to be hired for a fishing crew on the basis of his ability to tie basic knots.
For TV viewers, it was marginally more exciting than watching paint dry.
It was possible, I guess, for a figure skater to not do well in the compulsories and still do well in the competition, but, until 1968, the compulsories were worth 60% of a contestant't final score. Thus, it was necessary to at least do well in the compulsories to have a chance at a medal.
The influence of the compulsories began to decrease as television became more prominent. By the time Dorothy Hamill won the gold medal in 1976, the compulsories were worth less than half of her final score. And when Kristi Yamaguchi won the gold in 1992, the compulsories were no longer part of the Olympic competition.
But, if you look at the attached video, you will see that the compulsories required a great deal of concentration. And, since the compulsories typically were the first segment of the competition, it is reasonable to assume that, if they were still part of the competition in 2010, Rochette and the other skaters would have been scheduled to do them on Sunday, which was the day Rochette's mother died.
Instead, though, Rochette had time to prepare for the short and long programs. She didn't have to focus on school figures when more pressing matters were on her mind.
And she — and her homeland — were rewarded with an Olympic memory for the ages.
Women's figure skating has been one of the marquee events in the Winter Olympics for a long time, but it has seldom had the emotional impact that it has this year.
That was clear last night during the short program competition. But, if you missed it, it should be even more evident — as well as more emotional — tomorrow night, when the women perform their long programs and medals are awarded.
Surely, on that night, viewers will once again hear the story of how Canadian skater Joannie Rochette's mother died of a heart attack shortly after arriving in Vancouver for the Olympic Games. And they will see video of Rochette's astonishing, virtually flawless performance in the short program that vaulted her into third place.
Her strength in these competitions, though, is the long program, and it is for that reason that many observers, especially her fellow Canadians, are hopeful that she will overtake the leader, South Korea's Kim Yu–Na, and/or Mao Asada of Japan, who is currently in second place.
Whether she will remains to be seen. But, barring an unexpected collapse by Rochette or one of the other two, those three are likely to be the ones who receive the medals in women's figure skating. No doubt Rochette would like to win the gold in her mother's memory. But any medal will suffice, I'm sure. The sight of it will always be a reminder of what she lost, but it will also be a reminder of what she accomplished in spite of heart–breaking tragedy.
Four years ago, in Italy, the top Olympians from America probably were speed skater Apolo Ohno and figure skater Sasha Cohen.
Ohno captured gold, but Cohen took silver — disappointing, perhaps, to Americans who were conditioned to believe that America's female figure skaters always would prevail.
In some ways, it is hard to understand why that belief persisted into the 21st century. Perhaps it was a hangover from 1968, when Peggy Fleming won the gold medal. She wasn't the first American to do that, but she was the first after television had become a fixture in most American homes. So Americans like Tenley Albright (1956 gold medalist) and Carol Heiss (1960 gold medalist) were forgotten in the euphoria that was brought on by Fleming's victory.
In due course, Fleming herself took a backseat to the woman who became "America's Sweetheart" eight years later — Dorothy Hamill. With her dazzling smile and distinctive hairstyle, Hamill captured hearts as well as the gold medal ...
... perhaps setting the stage for impossibly high expectations that went unfulfilled for more than 15 years — until Kristi Yamaguchi took the gold medal in 1992.
Two years later, the Winter Olympics were held again after the decision had been made to hold the Summer and Winter Olympics in diferent years. Once again, Americans expected one of their own to win the gold medal, and attention was focused on the battle between Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. But Kerrigan won the silver and Harding, who was implicated in the plot to attack Kerrigan at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, finished eighth.
I must admit that I always felt the Harding–Kerrigan competition, which led to the infamous assault on Kerrigan the month before the Games, was an indication of the folly of America's provincialism. Kerrigan was attacked by a friend of Harding's ex–husband, but their logic reflected the attitude of most Americans. The winner at the Olympics would be one of the Americans. It was that sense of entitlement.
Perhaps, if she had not been attacked, Kerrigan would have won the gold. But we'll never know if her performance was affected. Anyway, she was said, at the time, to have recovered quickly from her injuries.
It was also said at the time that Kerrigan's performance at the 1994 Games was the best of her career. Yet she finished second to Oksana Baiul of the Ukraine.
Tara Lipinski was the next American to win a gold medal in figure skating, earning a narrow victory over Michelle Kwan at the 1998 Olympics in Japan. She was succeeded by American Sarah Hughes in 2002. So, in spite of Cohen's silver medal in 2006, Lipinski and Hughes restored the aura of American dominance of the sport.
It will be interesting to see what happens this year. But it seems clear to me that, barring a truly unforeseen development, "The Star–Spangled Banner" will not be played for the women's figure skating medalists in 2010.
Sometimes it's obvious. You know when they happen that you will always remember where you were and what you were doing when those moments occurred.
Most of the time, they seem to be moments you wouldn't want to repeat — like September 11 or the JFK assassination. But, from time to time, a moment comes along that is so inspirational, so uplifting that you wish you could experience it again and again.
Today is the 30th anniversary of such a moment. It was on this day in 1980 that the U.S. Olympic hockey team upset the powerful Soviets in Lake Placid, N.Y., and went on to win the gold medal a few days later.
I really thought somebody would show the movie "Miracle" today, but, if it is being shown, I haven't been able to find it in the listings. At the very least, I thought ESPN Classic would show a replay of the game, but that doesn't seem to be the case, either.
Apparently, though, some people are trying to recapture the feeling. Craig Custance of The Sporting News wrote the following about yesterday's victory over Canada in the Olympics: "If the Americans can play the role of favorite as well as they have the underdog, they're a serious threat to win [the gold medal]."
Fortunately, some people kept their perspective. "USA Hockey's win over Canada was hardly 'Miracle 2.0,' " writes Dan Shanoff.
With all due respect to the 2010 U.S. Olympic team and what it has accomplished so far, this is not 1980 and the Canadians are not the fearsome foes that the Soviets were — although, in some ways, the times are similar.
It's kind of hard to explain — if you aren't old enough to remember it — what a shot in the arm that victory was for the entire country. It was more than a game. It was about a beaten and bloodied America bouncing back in spite of the hostages in Iran, in spite of a recession and high unemployment.
Seems like a lot for a bunch of college kids to carry on their shoulders, but that was what those hockey players represented to millions of Americans who wanted to feel good about their country again. That became their mission, at least as far as the American public was concerned. They were standing in for the millions of Americans who had had it up to here, who were mad as hell and weren't going to take it anymore.
I don't believe that anyone who watched that game could ever forget it — or how they felt as sportscaster Al Michaels counted down the final seconds and uttered his legendary call as time ran out: "Do you believe in miracles? YES!" Just watching the clip at the top of this post brings the memories rushing back, and I feel the same chill run down my spine that I felt on that Friday 30 years ago.
I've never been a hockey fan. Most Americans probably wouldn't call themselves hockey fans. But the members of that U.S. team — Jim Craig, Mark Johnson, Mike Eruzione, coach Herb Brooks and all the rest of the squad — became latter–day American heroes. And, after that game, everyone in America was a hockey fan.
Until the end of the Olympic Games, anyway.
Two days after the Americans beat the Russians, I recall watching Jim McKay talking on ABC as the network prepared to televise the gold medal game. He told the audience about a conversation he had had with his wife earlier that morning. "This will be a first for you," he said he told his wife, "watching sports on TV on a Sunday morning."
He smiled as he recalled her reply: "I know — and to watch hockey!"
A year later, a made–for–TV film about the U.S. hockey team was shown on the small screen. It was OK, although even casual hockey observers could tell that Karl Malden was more than two decades older than Brooks. If it had anything going for it, it was the way it incorporated actual game footage, giving viewers an opportunity to relive a moment when they not only felt free to dream again but also to hope again.
It wasn't until nearly 25 years later that the story of the U.S. hockey team finally made it to the big screen with a cast that was plausible. I thought the movie was great. But I couldn't help wondering why it took a quarter of a century for someone to make a genuine dramatization of that accomplishment. Surely there were times in the intervening years when America needed the inspiration that hockey team provided the Americans of 1980.
Well, a recession has hammered America in the last couple of years, leaving more people filled with self–doubt than I have seen in my lifetime. Perhaps now, 30 years after that truly amazing achievement, this generation's hockey team will step forward and do the unthinkable — and inspire us to rise above our circumstances.
Beating Canada yesterday was big, but it wasn't really comparable to the win over the Soviets 30 years ago — even if the Canadians were wearing red uniforms.
At the end of "Miracle," some text appears on the screen dedicating the film to Brooks' memory. The film had been completed just before Brooks was killed in a single–vehicle crash at the age of 66.
Brooks never saw "Miracle," the dedication read. "He lived it."
A "tomato can" is a fighter who is believed to be past his prime and an "easy" or "guaranteed" win for an up-and-coming fighter who wants to pad his record.
Sometimes, though, the "tomato can" doesn't cooperate. For example, in 1990, undefeated heavyweight champion Mike Tyson lost the title to a 42-to-1 underdog named Buster Douglas.
Another heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, almost lost his title to lightly regarded Chuck Wepner in 1975. Wepner nearly went the distance against Ali and inspired the original "Rocky" movie.
I got my bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, and I got my master's degree in journalism from the University of North Texas. Most of my adult life has been dedicated to writing and editing in one form or another. Most recently I have taught writing (news and developmental) as an adjunct journalism professor at Richland College, where I advise the student newspaper staff. Go, Thunderducks!
