Yesterday, after the professional Russian hockey players beat the professional Czech hockey players (and before the professional U.S. hockey players beat the professional Canadian hockey players), NBC aired a terrific segment about the 1980 U.S. amateur hockey team that, against all odds, defeated the unbeatable Russian national team and went on to win the gold medal. It was such a moving moment in sports history that I wish I'd been old enough to have any level of understanding, reasoning or memory. Alas, I was probably napping when it happened, but I did eventually see Miracle.
Seeing the nation rally behind a team of virtually unknown but amazingly talented athletes led me to the conclusion that by continuing to allow professional athletes to compete in the Olympic games, we are ensuring that there will never again be any Miracle on Ice moments. And aren't those moments that the Olympics should be about?
The Olympic games should be a chance for the little guys to show off the athleticism and skill that they practice tirelessly day-in and day-out. Those athletes shouldn't be relegated to sitting at home eating pizza and wishing for their chance. The Olympic Games are their stage. What message are we sending when we tell our up-and-coming athletes to ride the pine while we send in the professionals to take care of business and appease the greedy political machines.
A fan of professional sports (the NBA excluded), I understand the ferocity of the American competitive spirit. I love sports and wouldn't trade our freedom of professional sporting for anything, but would it be unimaginably painful to gate check our egos and put the popularity contest on hold for a couple of weeks every few years to give anonymous talent its chance to shine?
Selecting the best of our professional athletes to make up the "national teams" does nothing to ignite the national spirit that is the basis of the Games. It doesn't demonstrate our unity through diversity nor does it showcase our faith in the future of this country. All it does is prove that we're good at keeping statistics, that we can create a roster of professional athletes who have the best ones, and that we're too arrogant, lazy, disinterested, [insert your own adjective here] to look any further. We are missing the forest.
Have you ever attended a high school basketball game? College hockey? Heck, intramural volleyball? You'd be hard pressed to find more heart in someone who earns millions of dollars a year for lacing up his shoes and waving to the crowd than in a teenager who's standing at the plate hearing his hometown cheering in the stands.
Call me crazy, but when it comes to the team I want to see representing my country and me in a world-wide competition, I want to see real people who are like me (but without all of the insecurity and ADD and with more dedication). I don't want to see paid celebrities that I can see every night on ESPN or Dancing with the Stars. I'm talking the Jerry Rice's and Emmitt Smith's here, not the Shawn Johnson's and Apolo Ohno's, whose Olympian status was the reason they were on the show.
I may be on my own, but I would much rather watch a team with a heart full of pride and promise lose than a humdrum "team that can't lose" take the gold Olympiad after Olympiad after Olympiad. That sounds dull and opposite to the Olympic Creed:
"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."
If not during the Olympics, when will the passionately hopeful have their moment?
In the meantime: Go USA!
You know what? While I'm at it: Go Moldova!
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