The Bombing in Olympic Park

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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.

Fifteen years ago tonight, several hundred people were in Centennial Olympic Park for a late–night concert. The atmosphere, as far as I can tell, was light and jovial — as it should have been. The '96 Games were already being hailed as a rousing success. American gymnast Kerri Strug had demonstrated the true spirit of Olympic competition only a few days earlier with her gutsy vault in the team all–around.

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.

He was a fugitive from justice for several years — until he was finally taken into custody in 2003 and, per the conditions of a plea agreement, sentenced to four consecutive life terms in prison.

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.

And the bombing in Olympic Park.

True Grit

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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.

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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.

A Rivalry Like No Other

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This year's Super Bowl is a little more than a week away.

The Super Bowl has been played every year for nearly 50 years, usually in southerly, sun–splashed climes. It's been played often in California, New Orleans, Miami, and it is not a complete stranger to Texas. It was played in Houston twice.

This year, however, it will be played in Dallas — for the first time.

Lately, the folks in Irving and Dallas have been unrolling all their new facilities and vehicles and gadgets that are intended to accommodate the needs and desires of visitors in town for the big game — and earn local entrepreneurs a neat profit in the process.

Back in the summer and into the early fall, North Texans harbored hopes that the Dallas Cowboys might host their own Super Bowl, but those hopes were dashed rather rapidly.

I figure that, in the long run, that will be good news for local merchants, who are counting on the revenue from visitors from two cities. If the local team had made it to the Super Bowl, logic tells me that approximately half of the out–of–town visitors would have been eliminated.

So it's a good thing for all those folks who want to make money from this — especially the ones who run the hotels and the motels, who would have lost the income from all those out–of–towners who will need rooms for several days.

People are always going to have to eat, even if they're from a nearby community and only in town on the day of the game, so restaurateurs wouldn't have been affected quite as severely, but they, too, would have had to lower their expectations.

But the Cowboys went into a tailspin early. Between the Cowboys' and the Longhorns' declines, football dropped from sports fans' radars around here, and, remarkably, the sports talk in this area in October did not focus on football but on baseball, as the Rangers advanced to their first–ever World Series.

I grew up in Arkansas. I have lived in this area for most of the last 25 years. Until a few months ago, I never thought I would see a time during football season when baseball was the leading topic of conversation, but that is exactly what happened here.

It was gratifying for baseball fans, but it often felt, to me, as if the natural order of things had been disrupted.

There have been times when it's felt like one of those alternate reality episodes from the Twilight Zone. It was astonishing to witness the vacuum that was created when the Cowboys and the Longhorns crashed to earth. Talk about tumbling into a black hole.

Only recently, it seems, have people around here remembered that they were going to have a Super Bowl here in early February. It is almost as if the plan to host a Super Bowl locally depended upon whether the Cowboys would be in it — and, when it became clear that the Cowboys would not be in the playoffs, the right to host the Super Bowl defaulted to some other city.

It's probably going to be a good thing for the economy that Cowboys Stadium (known locally as Jerry World for Cowboys owner Jerry Jones) will host two cities, but I can't help thinking of what might have been.

Assuming that everything else would have been unchanged — if the Cowboys had been the NFC's representative in the Super Bowl, who would have been waiting for them from the AFC? None other than the Pittsburgh Steelers — and, if you've been following football as long as I have (or longer), you know what magic that matchup conjures up in one's mind.

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There are all sorts of rivalries in football, but the Dallas–Pittsburgh rivalry in the Super Bowl is unique. I guess you could say it's been a rivalry of milestones.

It began 35 years ago, on Jan. 18, 1976, when the teams met in Super Bowl X. The Cowboys, as I mentioned earlier this week, became the first wild–card team to play in a Super Bowl on that day, but the Steelers won the game, 21–17.

Even if you aren't old enough to remember that day, if you've watched any Super Bowl highlights shows in the last 35 years, you're all but sure to have seen Lynn Swann's amazing acrobatic catch from that game.

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Some folks will tell you it was the greatest catch ever made in pro football.

Then, three years later, on Jan. 21, 1979, the teams met in the first–ever Super Bowl rematch.

Superstitious people tend to be wary of the number 13, but Super Bowl XIII was far from unlucky for football fans. Not only was it the first rematch of a Super Bowl, but it would also mark the first time that a team won its third Super Bowl title, no matter who won the game.

Once again, the Steelers were victorious. The final score was 35–31, and, as one weekly newsmagazine declared in its headline on its game story, "This one really was Super."

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Part of what made it super was a fantastic fourth–quarter comeback by Dallas that was brilliantly captured in NFL Films' wrapup, which can be seen above.

In hindsight, that game featured many of the greatest football players of my youth — Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Franco Harris, etc., etc. But the play that will always stand out in my memory is of Jackie Smith, a tight end who played much of his career for woeful St. Louis Cardinals teams, dropping a pass in the end zone that could have altered the outcome.

I think everyone watching the game, whether they were pulling for the Steelers or the Cowboys, felt bad for Smith, writhing in agony in the Orange Bowl end zone after dropping that pass.

"Bless his heart," I remember an announcer saying, "he's got to be the sickest man in America."

It took nearly 20 years, but the Cowboys finally got their revenge in Super Bowl XXX, which was played 15 years ago today. It really wasn't a surprise. Dallas went into that game favored by nearly two touchdowns.

With that victory, the Cowboys pulled even with the San Francisco 49ers in total Super Bowl victories with five. At that time, the Steelers had won only the Super Bowls in which they played in the 1970s — their two wins over Dallas along with wins over Minnesota and Los Angeles. Pittsburgh has won two Super Bowls since that time and now leads all other teams in that category with six Super Bowl titles.

It was also the first time that a football team won its third Super Bowl in four years. That's an accomplishment that has been matched only by the New England Patriots.

Steeler fans probably don't like to think about that game too much. Pittsburgh has been to seven Super Bowls, more than any other team, and the one they played in 15 years ago today was their only loss — so far.

As a Packer fan, I hope that will not still be the case a week from Sunday.