Each year, I take a fishing trip with some family members to a fairly remote part of Canada (remote and Canada, redundant, I know). Radio stations of every type are pretty much knocked out halfway thru the trip, so we’ve been somewhat fortunate to keep some modicum of entertainment the past couple of years, through the magic of satellite radio. I include “somewhat” in that sentence, because when you spend the better part of 7 hours in mid-July listening to national radio outlets, the repetition is almost enough to make you want to roll along in silence. Almost.
If I’d had to hear one more opinion on the appropriate punishment for Penn State, or whether the Knicks would match the Rockets offer for Jeremy Lin, it might’ve been time to tuck n’ roll out of the vehicle at 70 MPH. Last year the drumbeat was endless Tebow conversation, the sound of Colin Cowherd saying his name haunts me in my dreams. The problem is, you can’t really blame these guys, because what exactly are you supposed to talk about? (Well, maybe you can blame them a little, come up with a trivia contest, argue about Top 10 lists, do something other than repeat what the show before you just got done beating into the ground.)
This week marks the beginning of the end of the uninteresting part of the sports calendar, and I have to say this year has been tougher than most. The Twins were in a hopeless spot by Memorial Day, so July has pretty much consisted of a little golf and a lot of waiting. Finally, a little light at the tunnel has appeared in the form of NFL training camps opening. Sure, there won’t be anything truly interesting happening there for a week or so, but camp opening leads to Hard Knocks, which leads to preseason, which leads to fantasy drafts, which leads to football, glorious football.
Unfortunately, there’s the pile of crap know as the Olympics that must be suffered through first. The opening ceremony is on Friday, and will no doubt showcase a lot of androgynous British dancers whirling around with streamers. I’m not sure exactly when this thing became a Cirque du Soleil production, but whenever it was, a worldwide spike in seizures was likely the immediate result. At least people who watch halftime shows have an excuse, the team is taking a break to rest and they physically can’t leave the premises. Not to mention, most of them have the sense to use the dancing/music time to do something important, like head to the restroom or grab another beer. Which makes sense when you consider the alternative is to miss some of the actual competition. The thing that matters. The thing you supposedly came to see.
But these Olympic types actually consider this “event” something to see, in fact some even think it’s a bigger deal than the actual athletic competitions. They want to see the “spectacle”, and couldn’t care less about the guy from New Zealand who worked his ass off to qualify for archery. I must admit that I don’t care about that event either, the correct answer here is that none of it is a big deal. But at least I don’t dismiss the events themselves in favor of some “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” style dance-off that wouldn’t even exist without them. And don’t give me that weak nonsense about “I watch the events”. You watch gymnastics if you’re female, basketball if you’re male, some swimming or whatever else an American might be favored in, and that’s it.
Occasionally you learn a sweet name like Usain Bolt (Top 10 occuponomous name, even I have to admit), so you follow that guy in his event. And then, only if it’s something cool like the 100-meter dash, so you can say “fastest man in the world”, like you know actually know something about running. Quick, who won the 400-meter gold in the last Olympics? You have no idea, do you? And you shouldn’t have any idea, because nobody cares about running as anything more than a personal hobby. (Incidentally, I’d rather be the best sharpshooter in the world than its fastest man, particularly if 100 meters separated us. But even the Olympics can’t get people to care about sharpshooting.) This isn’t a beef with the athletes, but with all the fans of this, and other, slickly-packaged, well-marketed nonsense the world over. Once again, things that don’t matter for 3 years and 50 weeks at a time will come out of the woodwork to blanket the airwaves for a fortnight.
With apologies to all the competitors who’ve actually been bobbing along on some government crumbs to chase their dreams, the whole “amateur competition” thing went out the window pretty early in my life. Now we’ve got NBA players involved, swimmers and runners doing commercials, the lines have been blurred beyond recognition. Not that I’d begrudge any of them the bucks they made, but viewing all the strategically-placed marketing tie-ins leads me to wonder what we’re even watching here. The International Olympic Committee operates in the same rarified, BS-choked air occupied by NCAA football. Welfare of the athletes, sanctity of competition…and you know, the few billion dollars that we reap out of it.
Because what is the Olympics? At one point, it was an amateur athletic competition. Now that’s fallen by the wayside, so I suppose you could characterize it as an event where the best athletes in the world come to compete in their sports. Which is fine, but we’re not watching the highest level of competition the world has to offer in every sport. Only the ones that aren’t popular enough to have a viable professional league in some part of the world truly can claim they’ve garnered the most talented participants. Basketball is played more competitively by better players elsewhere, as is soccer.
So, the full definition would have to read something along the lines of: A mixed professional and amateur competition, featuring mostly top amateur athletes in less popular sports, and top professionals wherever their marquee value could make us a buck. If they want to show me something, go back to having college kids on the basketball teams and the best guys from around the world who’ve never been paid a dime to play soccer. Better yet, let those two go the way of baseball; realize someone does it better elsewhere and drop them. It’s fine if Michael Phelps keeps swimming through that cornfield on the way to Subway, but let’s get rid of at least one glaring bit of nonsense.
Not to mention, you’re not only watching swimming, you’re watching it on tape delay. Shudder.
The Olympics are ubiquitous and excessive and permeate all that they touch. I already know the names of two swimmers, and the damn opening ceremonies haven’t even happened yet. Lord knows how many random snippets I’ll pick up in the coming weeks. No doubt these unwanted factoids will force useful pieces of trivia out of my brain, occupying the spots that used to house the name of the North Stars career goals leader (Brian Bellows) or Kirby Puckett’s highest single-season batting average (.356). It’s like secondhand informational smoke. I don’t want it, gain no benefit from inhaling it, but the only way to avoid it is to go two weeks without flipping on a radio, picking up a sports page, etc.
Fortunately, the only power stronger than the Olympics, the NFL, may just be my salvation. Normally I take a pretty halfhearted approach to the first weeks of training camp, but stuck between this Olympic rock and a lousy baseball team, it’s time to dive in headlong. Battle for left guard? Check! How the new kicker is looking? Interested! Rookies in the mix for starting spots? Sold! Anything and everything to escape the five-ringed menace, and it’s cavalcade of irrelevance.
Don’t believe the hype, don’t absorb the nonsense, and we can get through this. A trip through the stormy seas of badminton and synchronized swimming will find you spying the sunny shore of football season.
Godspeed.
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